Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialised by industry, today announced that Lycamobile, the world’s largest international mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), has invested in Infor SunSystems. Set to be rolled out to 24 countries, SunSystems enables consistent visibility of financial figures and inventory stocks for every Lycamobile franchise and subsidiary around the world.  This will help save costs by improving control of expenditure, and also help enable faster, more meaningful reporting.

Infor SunSystems will replace the various financial management systems currently in use across all Lycamobile territories with a unified solution.  Following a thorough review of the market, Infor SunSystems was chosen as it offered not only the flexibility of accurate localised tax reporting and language capabilities but also a consistent, single system of record for head office reporting, in real-time.

The first phase of the roll out will include the UK, France, Portugal and Spain and will be implemented by Lawrence Campbell, an approved Infor service partner. Following the initial phase and a comprehensive knowledge transfer programme, Infor SunSystems will be rolled out to the remaining 20 countries by a project team within Lycamobile.

“We have an incredibly broad and geographically diverse portfolio spanning 5 continents that generates a lot of complexity,” said Michael Landau, Group CFO, Lycamobile. “Each of our companies has unique needs in a range of languages but still necessitate meaningful and consistent data reporting for head office. Infor SunSystems offers the flexibility and standardisation required to deliver the complex international, multi-disciplinary reporting we need.”

“Global reporting for large, diverse companies such as Lycamobile presents a real challenge,” said Tim Truesdale, director of product management, SunSystems, Infor. “Firstly, the information must be operationally relevant and compliant at the local level. Secondly it also needs to be consistent and meaningful enough for head office to turn information into intelligence on which to base decisions. This is a lot to ask and demands technology that can span issues of language, workflow and user interfaces. This is where Infor SunSystems delivers huge value for many companies throughout the globe.” 

Cryptocurrency exchange bitFlyer has announced the launch of its Affiliates program across Europe, allowing users to generate additional revenue by promoting the bitFlyer platform across owned blogs, websites and social channels. 

To become a bitFlyer Affiliate, users are given a dedicated affiliate link to promote on their own channels. Once another user registers an account via this link and reaches specific activity thresholds, the affiliate will receive commission. By doing this, users can earn up to €130 per single user referred, making this program one of the most appealing in the industry.

Andy Bryant, Co-head and COO, bitFlyer Europe, said, “At bitFlyer, we believe the best way for someone to discover cryptocurrency trading is via the mentoring of another user who can support them in navigating how it works. We want to eliminate the barriers to entry when it comes to trading and make it as simple as possible for those with an interest to get involved. We understand trust is incredibly important, so for new users to be referred and supported by someone they know will help eliminate these barriers. The commision structure will also give an added incentive to loyal bitFlyer users and appeal to new ones too”.

By becoming a bitFlyer Affiliate, the maximum amount a user can earn is €130 per referred user. To do this, new referrals need to reach the following milestones:

bitFlyer is passionate about the future of the cryptocurrency industry and aims to support that future by setting the global standard for exchanges. bitFlyer believes that industry standards and regulation are fundamental to the future of the industry and is often involved in conversations at the highest level, including having taken part in the recent G20 discussions. It was also involved in the amendment to the Payments Act in Japan which famously recognised Bitcoin as legal tender.

Banking Circle, which has made a name for itself over the last 4 years as a financial utility, has received its Banking Licence from the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg. 

Banking Circle is now a financial infrastructure for payments and banking, giving financial institutions access to real-time payments regardless of borders and regardless of size. Payments and Banking businesses will be able to seize market opportunities in the new economy without having to commit to significant investment in their own internal infrastructure. Banking Circle bank branches are already open in the UK, Germany and Denmark and marking this significant step, Banking Circle officially opened its headquarters in Luxembourg today, attended by Mr Pierre Gramegna, Luxembourg Minister of Finance with Anders la Cour, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Banking Circle.

Commenting on Banking Circle’s choice of Luxembourg for its headquarters, Mr Gramenga said: “Given Luxembourg’s role as a leading financial centre in Europe and a hub for payment services, it made complete sense for Banking Circle, a provider of banking and payments infrastructure for businesses transacting globally, to choose Luxembourg as its headquarters. Being able to operate on a pan-European basis with a Luxembourg banking licence enables businesses like Banking Circle to give their clients additional confidence when it comes to security and compliance rigour.”

Already processing EUR 130 billion run-rate annual payment volumes, Banking Circle has seen high growth every year since its launch to the market in late 2015. Anders la Cour believes securing the Banking Licence will significantly elevate Banking Circle’s role in the digital financial economy. “In the last four years we have built a financial infrastructure that numerous Payments businesses have adopted to process their cross border payments. We have also tackled the limited access to funds for SMEs with our lending solutions.

“Securing our Banking Licence gives us the ability to deliver bank accounts on a global scale so that we can extend our propositions, enabling Payments businesses, such as PSPs and acquirers, to offer banking services to their clients without having to invest in their own costly infrastructure. We’re also providing Banks with the ability to extend the services they can offer to their business clients without facing hefty infrastructure investment and regulatory burden.

“Securing a Banking Licence in Europe was always an inevitable goal in the development of Banking Circle. It’s also another vital step in tackling the financial exclusion that exists globally, by opening access to banking services regardless of borders. We can now extend the range of services for financial services providers, as well as extend the geographies in which we can operate.”

Launched at the end of 2015, Banking Circle has created a new category in financial services – that of a financial infrastructure for payments and banking - delivering mission-critical infrastructure for a range of financial services including online cross border payments and loans.

Acquired by the EQT VIII fund (“EQT VIII”) and EQT Ventures fund (“EQT Ventures”) (jointly “EQT”), together with company founders and other co-investors in September 2018, Banking Circle has been able to accelerate its growth in current and new geographies, with access to both operational and financial resources to drive innovation and investments in technology development and talent acquisition. Banking Circle has also leveraged the entire EQT platform, including deep TMT sector expertise, local presence and EQT’s global network of Industrial Advisors.

Leading local payments platform PPRO is pleased to announce it has become a direct acquirer for UnionPay International, the world’s largest card scheme in terms of card issuance.

The relationship will provide PPRO’s payment service providers and their merchants in Europe the ability to accept e-commerce payment from the hundreds of millions of shoppers who use UnionPay as their preferred payment method. Opening up access to cross-border trade with the Chinese B2C e-commerce market, valued at $1,030 trillion, is a move that again signals the strategic importance of the APAC region to PPRO.

With the addition of UnionPay, PPRO’s offering is now one of the most comprehensive offerings for PSPs and other merchant acquirers in the market; it covers acquiring, processing and funds collection all under one contract, one integration and one settlement. PPRO supports processing and settlement for UnionPay in 11 currencies. Customers benefit from faster on-boarding, transaction settlements and funds collection, refunds and improved conversion rates. PPRO will now be able to take full end-to-end management of UnionPay to market, offering better support and higher security.

Jack Ehlers, Director of Product, Payment Networks, and Business Development at PPRO, commented: “The Chinese e-commerce market is growing at a rate of 19% a year on average, representing a huge opportunity for international merchants. With an average spend of $1,934.72 a year per consumer, merchants can’t afford to ignore the Chinese e-commerce market any longer. Through PPRO’s new partnership with UnionPay International, it is now easier than ever for EU merchants who sell internationally to take their first step selling to Chinese consumers.”

 Wei Zhihong, Market Director from UnionPay International and Head of UnionPay International Europe, added: “We’re excited to open up a world of opportunity and choice of products to Chinese consumers as well as many consumers from other parts of the world. Through the partnership with PPRO, our customers can now shop securely and confidently with international merchants, and with a payment method they are accustomed to. We believe this will also bring more opportunities to merchants.”

London fintech B-Social has completed a Seed 2 funding round of £7.8 million as it continues its push to become a fully-licensed bank.

Nazim Valimahomed, CEO said:

" I’m delighted to let you know that we’ve completed our Seed 2 funding round of £7.8 million, bringing our total funding to £13.25 million.

Our Seed 2 funding round is another key milestone towards building the greatest social bank on the planet and changing the relationship people have with money for good.

The success of our latest fundraising round has been made possible thanks to our enthusiastic and supportive network of investors. A big thank you to our existing investors who are following-on and to our new investors joining us on our journey. All of our funding to date, has been achieved without the support of institutional investors.

As far as moving closer to becoming a bank, we are at the last stage of the pre-application phase for a UK banking licence with the aim of finalising our application in the very near future.

Today, over 9,000 users have signed up to B-Social. Over the next few weeks, we will roll out the ability to fund your account via bank transfer and launch under an exciting new brand that fully embodies who we are — intuitive, talented, empowering, social and collaborative. For more details on the new brand, look out for our next blog post!

We also plan to DOUBLE the team in our Holborn HQ over the next year. This includes hiring Developers, Product Managers and Product Designers. If this excites you, please do apply to join our brilliant and passionate team! Check out our careers page to see our current vacancies and get in touch.

Want to know more? Download the app or sign-up for regular updates by visiting our website.

Finally, a big thank you to our customers and the team for their terrific support and hard work! I look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months about our exciting journey of building the greatest social bank on the planet".

IDEX Biometrics ASA, a leading provider of advanced fingerprint identification and authentication solutions, has appointed Vince Graziani as new CEO effective 27 February 2020. For the past two years, current CEO Stan Swearingen has led the company through a period of new product and market ecosystem development. As IDEX is poised to transition to full commercial operations, Stan recommended that a new CEO be appointed to strengthen the management team, drive sales growth, and allow Stan to focus on strategy and advanced technology.  

Vince joins IDEX from Infineon Technologies where he was most recently Vice President of Strategy Development and Implementation where he was responsible for leading new business development and strategic partnerships. Vince has also led technology companies from the pre-revenue stage to significant revenues and scale while serving as CEO of Sand 9 Inc., Vbrick Systems, and Sandburst Inc. These were all early-stage technology companies when he joined them. Earlier in his career, he held positions of increasing responsibility in engineering as well as sales and marketing at Intel, Broadcom, and Siemens Semiconductor.

Stan will focus on strategy and advanced technology consistent with his past roles with some of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley. “I want to thank Stan for his significant contributions to IDEX as CEO and look forward to him continuing to provide his leadership in this new role,” said Morten Opstad, Chairman of IDEX’s board. “During Stan’s two years as CEO, he has transformed IDEX from an IP organization into a technology leading product company well positioned for success in the biometric smart card market. I am also very pleased that Vince has chosen to join IDEX and we expect to benefit from his considerable experience driving sales, strategic partnerships, and growth in technology companies.”

“I have joined IDEX because of the strength of the team, the unique technology, and the significant opportunity I see for IDEX in the market, and, I look forward to leading IDEX into its next phase of sales growth,” said Vince Graziani, the new CEO of IDEX.

As a consequence of the need to reduce costs, 400 positions are discontinued. As it has not been possible to find other positions in the bank for all affected employees, app. 230 are laid off across the Group.

Danske Bank discontinues 400 positions across the Group, primarily within staff and back-office functions. As it has not been possible to find new positions for all affected employees, app. 230 employees are laid off, of which app. 120 are laid off in Denmark, app. 60 in Finland and app. 44 in Lithuania. In Sweden and Norway, the figure is less than ten in each country. As previously announced, 60 employees in Denmark will also leave their positions under voluntary redundancy agreements in the coming months.

Karsten Breum, Head of HR at Danske Bank, comments: “Today, we are discontinuing 400 positions across the Group, and we are taking a number of initiatives to adjust and simplify parts of our organisation. It has not been possible to find new jobs for all affected employees, which means we are laying off approximately 230. It is not easy to say goodbye to skilled and dedicated employees, but, regrettably, it is a necessary part of our efforts to reduce costs in order to ensure that we remain competitive.”

The discontinuation of positions is part of Danske Bank’s 2023 plan, which in addition to significant cost reductions among other things also entails considerable investments in increased digitisation.

“We are looking at all costs across the organisation. As part of our efforts, we also have to look at the number of employees. This is why we introduced a hiring freeze last year and offered voluntary redundancy agreements in certain parts of our organisation in Denmark in January,” says Karsten Breum.

Customer-facing units are not affected by the discontinuation of positions, except for Finland where retail banking is being reorganised. Further, Danske Bank’s compliance functions are not affected.

BBVA has agreed to deploy new set of Cisco collaboration solutions to solve some of its digital communications and sustainability challenges. The bank is implementing Cisco Webex technologies globally to upgrade its videoconferencing capabilities whilst also significantly reducing greenhouse emissions resulting from work-related travel, improving work-life balance, and maintaining the highest level of security. Cisco Webex allows BBVA employees to schedule video conferences and share documents as seamlessly as they would during a face-to-face meeting.

“Cisco Webex has become central to our communications needs. Optimizing our digital collaboration strategy is not only helping BBVA transform how our teams get work done to meet the ever-changing needs of our customer base, but also to reinforce our solid commitment to sustainability and work-life balance”, said Iñaki Bernal, Chief Technology Officer, BBVA.

According to Chuck Robbins, Cisco Chairman and CEO, “Cisco is proud to partner with BBVA along their digital journey. With the many opportunities and challenges that come from digitization, we remain committed to working closely together to help employees, stakeholders and make a lasting impact on society.”

Global workplace transformation

BBVA employees already use Cisco Webex Meetings to hold around 800,000 meetings annually (about 70,000 monthly), thus avoiding business travel and reducing their global GHG emissions. This approach supports BBVA’s principles for responsible banking and its commitment to become carbon neutral in 2020.

As a next step, BBVA has chosen Cisco Webex Teams for its workplace transformation, to be used by more than 126,000 employees working across 30 different countries. From one interface, employees will be able to call, chat, and meet with video, as well as share and edit documents securely.  Cisco Webex Teams also works seamlessly with BBVA’s existing Webex Room systems and other video devices, unifying workflows across both physical and virtual workspaces. Meeting the requirements for ease of use, security, and integration is achieved with data loss prevention strategies and Cisco CloudLock.

Digital capabilities for the multi-cloud era

As BBVA continues to leverage data and technology as key accelerators of its strategy, a hybrid multi-cloud approach is crucial. Cisco and BBVA work together in the evolution strategy towards a hybrid cloud, both private and public, delivering apps and processes at the speed of a public cloud, but with the security and compliance required for a financial institution.

Multi-year digital partnership

Since 2016, BBVA and Cisco have been working together to build the Bank of the Future, using technologies including collaboration, networking, data center and security. Additionally, Cisco has appointed a dedicated team that collaborates with BBVA in defining new architectures.