The Board of Directors of SIA, meeting today under the chairmanship of Federico Lovadina, approved the start-up of the process to list the company's ordinary shares on the Mercato Telematico Azionario (MTA) market, organized and managed by Borsa Italiana, expected to take place by summer 2020.

Over the course of the same meeting, SIA’s Board of Directors also approved the 2020-2022 Strategic Plan, which, with the support and full confidence of the shareholders, aims to consolidate the company's positioning internationally so that it becomes the leading player in the digital payments sector.

Lightspeed, the global point-of-sale and ecommerce platform, is partnering with Stripe to power in-store and online payments for retailers and restaurants in the US and Canada.

WorldRemit has announced a partnership with Alipay, enabling consumers to use the WorldRemit app or website for cross-border remittances to the Alipay app, bringing more convenient and inclusive transfer services to users around the world.

 Standard Chartered, a leading international banking group, and Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialised by industry, today announced a strategic agreement to introduce the Infor Nexus network to the Bank’s clients. By digitizing the financial supply chain, businesses can minimize supply chain delays and friction, while suppliers can benefit from improved access to capital.

The Infor Nexus network transforms the traditionally manual process of data matching across multiple commercial documents including purchase orders, invoices and transport documents. This helps to speed up trade financing cycles, allowing suppliers to access capital faster and at more critical points in the transaction cycle, and as a result ensure on-time delivery of goods.

“Invoice approvals in a traditional non-automated environment often take weeks to complete, putting a squeeze on suppliers and bringing contention to the buyer-supplier relationship,” said Rod Johnson, General Manager and Head of Americas at Infor. “Slow invoice matching delays the trade financing cycle, preventing suppliers from obtaining capital they need to deliver quality and compliant goods on time.”

“While large corporates have achieved some level of automation through sophisticated enterprise resource planning systems, around 80 percent of data used in matching are sourced from documents residing with external parties,” said Michael Sugirin, Global Head of Open Account Trade Product Management, Standard Chartered. “This manual matching process is time-consuming, often resulting in a delay of the trade financing cycle which impacts the supplier’s ability to meet their working capital needs, most of whom tend to be small and medium-sized businesses. This strategic partnership addresses this gap and reduces capital related costs and risk from the supply chain.”

Through the strategic agreement, Standard Chartered will refer clients to Infor and its Infor Nexus network, based on specific needs, enabling them to benefit from automated matching and digitized documentation and processes delivered on Infor’s network of 65,000 businesses around the world. In addition to delivering broader financial services to clients, the Infor Nexus network provides global on-boarding and ongoing service and support to suppliers without requiring the involvement of the anchor buyer. The agreement also enables Standard Chartered to expand client relationships through digital transformation solutions that address sourcing and payables inefficiencies while enabling innovation and growth. 

Michael Sugirin added: “As our client’s trusted banking partner, our goal is to support them in their digitalisation journey through expediting their payables acceptance and facilitating export proceeds, and as a result improve their working capital cycles. We are excited to have this introduction agreement in place with Infor, whose platform offering not only fits well with our emerging markets footprint which generates significant trade documents flows, but also shares a similar commitment in supporting the development of sustainable, intelligent supply chains.”

 Kneip, the global leader in fund data management, is today announcing that it has appointed Calum Muskett as the company’s Chief Commercial Officer.

Muskett joins from ICIS, a RELX PLC Company, where he achieved worldwide success in delivering considerable revenue and profit growth, building valuable commercial partnerships and creating new channel strategies. Prior to this, Muskett worked with various leading financial business intelligence and information providers, including Morningstar, FactSet and Reuters.

Based in Kneip’s London office, Calum will lead the company’s commercial engagement – focusing on sales, commercial and marketing activities on a global scale.

Commenting on his appointment, Calum Muskett, Chief Commercial Officer of Kneip, says “I’m very excited to be joining the Kneip team. The company has a fantastic reputation as the leader in fund data management working with some of the world’s largest financial institutions. I’m looking forward to helping our clients in their digital journey and using my previous experience to take our proposition even further outside of the European market.”

Fund and asset managers use the Kneip platform to deliver the most accurate data possible, more quickly than ever before, to their investors. Kneip efficiently collects, cleans and disseminates enormous quantities of data every second of every day, ensuring investors stay in the know, and fund managers stay compliant.

Neil Ward, Chief Executive Officer of Kneip, says, “We are delighted to be welcoming Calum to our Executive Leadership Team as Chief Commercial Officer. He brings with him a wealth of incredible industry and global experience that we know will be invaluable as we look to realise our ambitions across EMEA and APAC. I’m looking forward to working with Calum in this new chapter of Kneip’s growth.”

 Abacus Group, a leading provider of hosted IT solutions and services for alternative investment firms, today announced record accomplishments in 2019, as the company reached new heights in its number of clients and revenues, which were each up nearly 50%. Abacus’s acquisition of Proactive Technologies in February represented a significant expansion of the firm’s technology and service offerings and contributed to the record growth of the business.

Highlights from the year include:

Acquisition of Proactive Technologies

• In February, Abacus acquired Proactive Technologies, a competing provider of IT managed services technology to small-to-midsized hedge funds and other alternative investment firms.

Record Number of New Clients and Employees

• Abacus added numerous industry-leading firms to its client roster in 2019, bringing its client count to over 600. This growth came both organically and through the acquisition of Proactive. Abacus now has more than 180 employees servicing this growing community of firms.

New Service Offerings

• Abacus improved the scalability, security and mobility of its AbacusFlex IT-as-a-Service, a “your cloud, your way” offering that includes private, public and hybrid hosting options.
• Abacus unveiled new and innovative client portal features, including automated distribution list editing and a dashboard of cybersecurity training and phishing test results. The portal also includes enhanced compliance reporting and upgrades to the documents and user service sections.
• Abacus launched AbacusID™, a new Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) feature that provides clients with single sign-on to third-party applications and a new third-party patch management feature that adds a layer of workstation security.

Successful SOC1 Type 2 Audit

• Abacus successfully completed the Service Organization Controls (SOC1) Type 2 audit for its application hosting and managed cloud services. The successful completion of the SSAE18 examination in July marked Abacus’ ninth consecutive year of completing a SAS70/SSAE16/SSAE18 audit, ensuring the highest level of security and internal controls.

Industry Recognition

• Abacus was the winner of the 2019 HFM US Hedge Fund Technology Award as “best IT service for small and start-up firms”.
• Abacus was named to CRN’s 2019 Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Pioneer 250 category, recognizing North American solution providers with innovative approaches to managed services.
• The firm was named as one of the world’s premier managed service providers on the prestigious 12th annual Channel Futures MSP 501 rankings.
• Abacus was named to the 2019 Inc. 5000 list, a ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies.
• Multiple Abacus employees were recognized for excellence including: Chris Grandi, CEO – named “Game Changer” by Finance Monthly; Meena Jeenarain, Director of Project Management, was named winner of the WatersTechnology 2019 Women in Technology and Data Awards as “Support Person of the Year (vendor)” and received the “Excellence in FinTech” award from Markets Media Group in the 5th Annual Markets Choice Awards.

New Dallas Office

 Abacus’s Dallas team moved into a new 7,000-square-foot office in November.

“With new teammates, new clients and the launch of several new and exciting offerings, 2019 was a truly remarkable year for Abacus,” said CEO Chris Grandi. “In 2019, we continued to invest in our technology and our people and were recognized for our efforts by our clients and the industry alike. We’ve kicked-off 2020 with the launch of our new corporate website that does a great job of articulating our unique value proposition, and we’re looking forward to another great year of success.”

Customers of App Postepay, among the preferred payment Apps in Italy, can now access Western Union’s cross-border and cross-currency platform to send money globally, following an agreement between Postepay, one of the largest Electronic Money Institution (EMI) in Italy, bringing together Poste Italiane’s assets and expertise in payments and telecommunications and Western Union (NYSE: WU), a leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments.

More than seven million Postepay Evolution customers can now send money globally using Western Union via the Postepay App. They have the choice to fund their payments within the App using card or account and payout via Western Union’s Global Retail Network in over 200 countries and territories.

The integration of Western Union’s global cross-border, cross-currency money movement platform – including global settlement capabilities, network, compliance, and technology systems — enables international real-time cross-border transfers for financial institutions and service providers like Postepay, while globalizing services for their customers.

“It’s exciting to see two leading financial institutions working together to advance digital services for their customers by offering a seamless global cross-border payments experience,” said Hikmet Ersek, President and CEO, Western Union.

“Western Union’s open platform strategy allows us to innovatively connect the digital and physical worlds of money while helping leading organizations scale their services globally. We are delighted to welcome Postepay into the Western Union family,” he said.

Postepay SpA, a young company in the digital payments market, can count on a strong customer base of nearly 20 million of prepaid cards, more than 7 million of Postepay Evolution cards and more than 4,8 million of digital wallets. Postepay SpA is a center of excellence within the Poste Italiane Group.

“Postepay leads the country’s development and innovation by offering solutions that enable our customers to benefit from quality services and easy-to-use products,” said Marco Siracusano, Chief Executive Officer of Postepay.

“In line with our company’s strategy, Postepay’s first goal is to inform and guide changes in consumer habits while strongly investing and promoting our App based strategy. Therefore, the Postepay App offers our customer, not only highly performing dedicated services, but an ecosystem of integrated products and services which simplify transactions and exchanges at any level. Thanks to the collaboration with a leading brand such as Western Union our customers can now send money around the world in total comfort. In this context, a global leader such as Western Union, is the right partner to increase our growth,” he said.

“Summarizing the Postepay slogan, payments must be comfortable, simple and safe, and I believe that through this valuable partnership, we will be able to serve our respective customers even better,” concluded Marco Siracusano.

Remittances from Italy to the rest of the world in 2018 was USD 18.5 billion and into Italy USD 9.5 billion, according to the world bank.

Sage (FTSE: SGE), the leader in cloud business management solutions, today announced a new Sage Marketplace where a curated selection of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can showcase popular Apps that link to Sage Business Cloud solutions. This means that customers can enhance their Sage Business Cloud solutions with bespoke industry and vertical applications.

Delivered on the AppDirect platform, the Sage Marketplace gives more than two million Sage customers access to hundreds of trusted apps, all tested and verified by Sage. All Marketplace apps can be reviewed and rated by users, enabling customers to compare solutions, and make the right choice for their business.

"In our survey studies, SMBs consistently cite application selection and integration as their top technology challenges. Most lack the time, expertise and money to solve this problem on their own. Sage validates and certifies application partner integrations, making it easier and more efficient for their customers to connect multiple solutions to run their business. As a result, the new Sage Marketplace makes it simpler for customers to discover, buy and use the right application,” said Laurie McCabe, co-founder at SMB Group.

As part of Sage’s SaaS strategy, the Marketplace continues to drive value to Sage customers through new and innovative solutions. It further broadens the scope of Sage Business Cloud with connected apps that provide bespoke cloud-based solutions across people, payments and payroll. 

Sabby Gill, MD, UKI at Sage said, “As a great SaaS company, we are there to help our customers succeed as they grow and evolve.  The Sage Business Cloud Marketplace helps our customers to access to the whole Sage ecosystem, giving them easy access to additional tools and functionality, ultimately helping to improve productivity and efficiency."

The Sage Marketplace is a strategic toolkit for Sage accountants and VAR partners looking to advise customers on how to increase their business performance. The new platform will provide easy online ordering, customer and user management and access to sales information, all in one place.

Partners will experience the value of the Sage Marketplace as they see an increase in retention and revenue opportunities with trusted and integrated apps. 

Sinead McHale, CEO of Satago, Sage ISV said, “We are delighted to partner with Sage for the launch of the ISV marketplace as our end-to-end cashflow management solution truly compliments Sage’s offering. In one simple integration we give SMEs the ability to understand their customers, automate credit control, manage cashflow within their business and access to financing should they need it. Partnering with Sage adds to our credibility and opens up access to an ecosystem that will help grow our business.”

The selection of apps available on the Marketplace is highly curated. Once on the portal, Sage’s App developers can promote their solutions and drive higher sales volumes through improved market visibility. They are also able to make the most of the self-serve capabilities on an easy-to-use platform to create and keep their app profiles up to date. From that, they can enjoy accurate, real-time reporting to see how their solution is performing – building real value for Sage, it’s partners and customers.

Dewey Forrester, EVP, Partners, Accountants and Alliances at Sage, says, “The launch of our new Sage Marketplace offers a fully featured app platform, enabling a seamless end-to-end journey  for Sage’s App developers from onboarding, to discovery, to purchase. They  can create an account, add their application and promote it to over two million Sage customers around the world, creating value-add by simplifying their businesses as they grow. Through strong partnerships, we are proud to provide our customers the tools they need to thrive.” 

Last night, leading payments provider Klarna held its first “Smoooth Sessions” event of the year, with a panel of retail experts coming together to consider the future of retail. 

Ticketed as an ‘out of world immersive experience’ the event was held at the beautiful Freemason’s Hall in London’s Covent Garden. More than 45 retailers were in attendance including ASOS, Arcadia Group,  Boohoo, New look, Burberry, Charlotte Tilbury, Thomas Sabo, Selfridges, Apple, Samsung and Decathlon. Alongside discussions of the challenges and opportunities ahead for retail in 2020 the future-gazing continued with astrological readings from Carolyne Faulkner.

The panel was moderated by Dylan Jones, Editor-in-Chief of British GQ and explored topics from the current retail landscape to what the future of retail holds and was followed by a Q&A. Panelists ranged from Ewan Venters, CEO of Fortnum & Mason; Tanya Weller, Director of Samsung Showcase KX; Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics and Jonathan Sheard, Senior Commercial Manager at Klarna.

Discussing the importance of experience in retail, Tanya Weller, Director of Samsung Showcase, KX, said: “Where competition is fierce and the battle between online and offline rages, the theatre of physical shopping is still at the heart of engaging shoppers. At Samsung KX, we look to bring to life the true benefits of our products through experience. For example, people can come and enjoy a yoga class at KX, improved through the use of Samsung technology such as the Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch, or can come for a supper club or a cooking course in our connected kitchen — we showcase exactly how our technology can enhance everyday life. Shoppers want to see and feel how technology can uniquely benefit them. A showroom doesn’t offer that, but understanding what your consumers want and fitting into that ideal? That does.”

Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics added: “With the pace of change at its current rate, it’s no surprise that retailers are feeling the pressure. Incumbents are tackling a tough environment, often with too many stores, too much space and inflexible lease agreements. It all makes pivoting difficult and ultimately puts them in a more challenging position to embrace changing consumer expectations. It’s not impossible, by any means, but it is hard — and takes effort and ambition.”

Jonathan Sheard, Senior Commercial Manager at Klarna: “At Klarna, we work with both the traditional brands and pure-play online retailers, and that gives us a unique perspective on the challenges and expectations they're both facing. My key observation from this angle? These decisions need to come from the top. Embracing experience, creating a strong brand and offering consumers something that can’t be gleaned from competitors is hard, but support for this has to run all the way through a business, so many businesses are doing this already and it’s great to see.”

Ewan Venters, CEO of Fortnum & Mason: “The current retail environment is more complicated than ever and the way that businesses engage with customers has evolved significantly. For me, business success currently revolves around a few key things: product, service, innovation, experience and sustainability. Retailers that ensure to address these things in their business model are the ones that will excel and secure consumer loyalty. It’s going to be exciting to see!”

The event concluded with Dylan Jones, Editor-in-Chief of British GQ’s thoughts on the future of retail marketing. When asked his thoughts on the role of influencers, Dylan commented: "Social Media is increasingly important, but what we’re seeing more of is an appreciation of expertise. Consumers don’t want to be sold anything by anyone, they want to know that the person promoting a brand or item is trustworthy. Trust, in a world of sponsored posts and ads, is more important than ever.”