Unique global alternative legal and compliance services provider, Konexo, a division of Eversheds Sutherland, has forged an innovative and strategic collaboration with leading business and financial adviser Grant Thornton UK LLP and DXC Technology to provide an integrated solution to the Interbank Offered Rates (IBOR) transition. 

The evolving IBOR transition is amongst the most critical business, risk, legal and market driven change programs financial services companies will face over the next two years.

This carefully crafted, and mutually reinforcing collaboration will ensure that each team brings core capabilities to help clients meet the FCA’s 2022 deadline, and transition to a replacement rate before the IBOR rate discontinues.

IBOR, most prominently LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate), was the globally accepted key benchmark of interest rates that indicate borrowing costs between banks for major currencies and tenors. The benchmark has increasingly lost validity due to the rigging scandal that disrupted the city and because the market effectively shut-down through the financial crisis.

Brett Aubin, Head of Regulatory Response at Konexo, commented:

“As Financial Services organisations continue to deal with the consequences of the 2008 crisis, amongst unprecedented levels of commercial, regulatory and customer pressure, it is paramount that we service our clients differently. We recognise that for ‘wide problems’ like the IBOR transition, no single organisation can responsibly deliver an integrated solution out of their core strengths alone.

“This new, dynamic and innovative collaboration lets go of corporate ego to ensure clients receive effective, pragmatic, risk managed and cost optimized solutions. The teams combine specialist lawyers with the latest legal technologies and each participant delivers only to its greatest strengths.”

John Da Gama-Rose, Partner and Head of Capital Markets and Financial Services Business Consulting at Grant Thornton UK LLP, added:

“The challenges facing the financial services market in transitioning away from the long-established IBOR benchmark are paramount, and each organisation’s needs and response to this will vary. The forward-looking expertise in strategy, advisory and delivery within our financial services team helps ensure our clients are not only prepared for change, but best placed to capitalise and compete. 

“Our Expert Led model actively engages in building alliances within the ecosystem amongst legal firms, technology providers and Fintech innovators to deliver holistic solutions which add the right value to our clients.“

Rich Evans, Industry General Manager, Banking and Capital Markets at DXC Technology, said:

“The sheer multiplicity of IBOR-referencing products, stretching from OTC derivatives through syndicated loan portfolios to retail mortgages and automotive loans, means that most financial services organisations will be faced with complex and far-reaching technology change requirements over an extended period of IBOR Transition. DXC is enabling an important transformation in the legal services industry with the latest machine learning, AI and robotic automation technologies to deliver the complex system enhancements needed to carry out the changes demanded for IBOR transitioning.” 

Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF)-accredited Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) issuer, Ubisecure, today announced a new LEI-based Pilot via its RapidLEI service to bring banks easy access to, and management of, LEIs for Know Your Customer (KYC) and onboarding workflows.

The new LEI-based Pilot includes live lookups to the global LEI database, with on-demand LEI issuance and SaaS-based lifecycle management of issued LEIs – enabling banks to scale to customer quantities. The Pilot is a tri-party engagement with Ubisecure, the GLEIF as an independent and agnostic party, and the bank – which will be equally invested in realising the benefits of LEI usage.

The banking sector relies on counterparty identification and verification for Client Lifecycle Management in many use cases. The subscription fees for the KYC data and the connection and management of various data points lead to high costs, with the global banking sector spending around $40 billion* on client onboarding annually.

The use of LEIs in KYC and onboarding has the potential to be a significant cost saving tool, as well as having a measurable impact to people and staff productivity, streamlining processes, and improving transparency into available entity data.

The GLEIF commented: “Research conducted by McKinsey on behalf of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) has concluded that broader use of Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) across the global banking sector could save the industry U.S.$2-4 billion* annually in client onboarding costs alone. The widespread usage of the LEI can generate topline benefits across all stages of the Client Lifecycle Management process for banks, including Know-Your-Customer requirements. We are excited that wider use of the LEI brings such significant potential benefits to the banking sector, and our priority at this stage is to support voluntary adoption of the LEI in banking use cases beyond regulatory reporting so that these benefits can be fully realised.”

Simon Wood, CEO, Ubisecure commented: “The Global LEI System database of organisation identities represent a significant opportunity to streamline KYC and onboarding workflows. Banks in particular have much to gain from utilising and issuing LEIs within their current processes. With our new scalable, LEI-based Pilot, we are focused on helping banks not only use LEIs to notably reduce onboarding costs, but also, importantly, to ensure that LEIs are managed efficiently and securely.”

The Pilot provides a SaaS portal, API and process automation for banks to manage customer LEIs at scale. This includes:

• Automated LEI issuance process – no administrative burden as platform automates or minimises requests for validation data, e-signing, and payment processing.
• API – same-session registration and issuance, reporting, and lifecycle management.
• Bulk registration – register LEIs for clients in bulk.
• Discovery – service will identify issued, lapsed, missing LEIs.
• Automated renewal – avoids lapse risk.
• Full LEI support – issue LEIs to organisations, trusts, and funds.
• Customisable expiry – assistance with customising/aligning the expiration date.
• 24/7 customer support.
• Reduced LEI costs.

Cyber security provider F-Secure’s hardware security professionals at F-Secure Foundry have created a new version of the USB armory – a computer on a USB stick built from the ground up to be secure. The USB armory Mk II entrenches security in its lowest levels and is suitable for a wide range of applications – such as custom hardware security modules, cryptocurrency wallets, secure authentication and licensing tokens, and more –  that need the efficiency and flexibility of an embedded computer without sacrificing security.

The team at F-Secure Foundry designed the device in response to security problems encountered when hardware begins to overlap with firmware. As a result, the device represents state-of-the-art orchestration between software, firmware and hardware, while offering a wide variety of security features and high computational power in the smallest of form factors.

“We routinely provide our customers with security reviews and security engineering services, which makes us both breakers and makers of technology. This gives us the ability to provide state-of-the-art security in our consulting practice. The USB armory’s hardware and software implementation clearly demonstrates this,” says F-Secure Head of Hardware Security Andrea Barisani. “Our continuous research into systems and methods to advance the state of embedded computing security has driven the development of the USB armory, which in turn allows us to build all kinds of secure systems for our customers.”

The USB armory Mk II’s security features include internal and external cryptographic coprocessors, a true random number generator, secure boot capabilities, and more. These features harden the device against a variety of attacks, including physical tampering techniques that can compromise low-level processes like boot protocols. It’s the extra attention paid to these security issues that make the USB armory uniquely suitable for processing information critical to the integrity of a system.

“The USB armory’s emphasis on using hardware and software to protect data critical to a system’s foundation, such as authentication keys for boot processes, is why it’s ideal for use as a cryptocurrency wallet, data storage unit, hardware security module, or other application where security and system integrity are the most important considerations,” says Barisani. “We’re seeing more embedded computers with unpatchable, exploitable hardware issues. I feel very strongly that the capabilities the USB armory gives companies address a very real, and potentially very serious, security problem.”

Furthermore, Barisani says the USB armory’s open source ecosystem ensures that the platform can evolve and grow to support an ever-expanding range of uses, and cites his recently announced TamaGo project as an example of how the platform is evolving.

“Our new TamaGo project enables the USB armory, and in the future more platforms, to run bare metal applications written entirely in Go, therefore without the burden of an underlying OS. We’re hoping this supports the creation of pure Go firmware for all kinds of system-on-chips, dramatically reducing the attack surface and eliminating the need for any C code,” Barisani explains.

The USB armory Mk II is now available for order. More information can be found here.

F-Secure Foundry is a part of F-Secure Consulting, which provides cyber security services tailored to fit the needs of banking, financial services, aviation, shipping, retail, insurance, and other organizations working in highly targeted sectors. 

NatWest has today appointed Julie Ashmore as CEO of its digital overdraft alternative Rapid Cash, as it bids to accelerate growth of its working capital venture throughout 2020.

Ashmore joins NatWest from Growth Street, where she was Commerical Director for the peer to peer fintech lender. Prior to this, Ms Ashmore was Head of SME Lending at HSBC, has over 30 years’ experience working within the SME banking and finance market, and has also run her own consultancy and coaching business.

NatWest launched Rapid Cash to the SME market in 2019, as an overdraft alternative to help growing businesses manage cash flow. It provides businesses with an instant limit of up to £500,000 based on real time integration with accounting software.

In recent months, Rapid Cash has announced integrations with third parties such as accounting platform Xero, and expenses management fintech Soldo. The bank aims to grow partnerships like these across the SME market, in an aim to reach a broader customer base alongside NatWest’s own 1 million business banking customers.

Ms Ashmore said: “I have watched with interest over recent years as the banking and Fintech worlds have come together to transform the SME lending market, by developing innovative alternatives through accessible and intuitive digital channels. I’m thrilled to be joining NatWest to lead the team at such an exciting time, and I am looking forward to working with our people and customers to make Rapid Cash the leading proposition of its kind for UK businesses.”

Outside the corporate world, Ms Ashmore is also a keen adventurer, who has skied to both North and South Poles, and sailed across the Atlantic in the Clipper Round the World yacht race, saying: “I’ve found that many of the lessons I’ve learned tackling challenges in the great outdoors can be applied in the corporate world too, so I’m hoping to bring some of that experience to Rapid Cash!”

Commenting on Ms Ashmore’s appointment, Andy Ellis, Head of NatWest Ventures said: “Following a year where we were delighted to see Rapid Cash launched to the SME market, in 2020 we aim to accelerate our progress, in turn helping more SMEs grow. To that end, we’re really pleased to have appointed Julie to lead Rapid Cash and are looking forward to watching the business flourish under her leadership.”

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced the launch of its Application Programming Interface (API) Marketplace (‘Marketplace’) to provide its clients, partners and internal developers with a single, central location for APIs developed by DTCC, streamlining access to services and improving the user experience.

“APIs will continue to play an important role in the future of financial services across the retail, institutional and post-trade areas,” said Lynn Bishop, CIO at DTCC. “In the on-demand, personalized service age of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, expectations have evolved, with clients now wanting to access services in different ways that are unique to their individual business needs.  We are pleased to launch our new Marketplace and provide clients with API access that delivers the flexibility they need to conduct business the way they want to.”

DTCC’s Marketplace is an online DTCC API “App Store”, allowing direct programmatic access to DTCC processing functionality.  The Marketplace includes comprehensive documentation and training materials to help developers use the APIs.

“The role of technology in advancing the financial services industry is more critical than ever, enabling firms to better meet the evolving needs of clients,”  Bishop added. “APIs are the building blocks of this digital transformation, and in today’s interconnected world, they have risen in prominence and become important to every facet of the enterprise. We look forward to taking advantage of this new technology for the benefit of DTCC and our clients.”

DTCC recently launched its first API for its Risk Management as a Service (RMaaS), which allows firms to gain greater insight into their current and historical unsettled positions to more efficiently analyze and manage risk and liquidity across functions and activities, including monitoring and surveillance and regulatory compliance. Companies or developers interested in using the API can sign up and test it in a sandbox environment.

Additional APIs for other DTCC products and services are in development, including one that will help clients to submit, update, and query new and existing claims against Corporate Action events. Future APIs will be launched later this year and beyond.

London-headquartered global currency specialist Mercury FX has invested in cutting-edge platform from RegTech firm TruNarrative, to enhance its customer onboarding processes, regulatory compliance and financial crime prevention strategy.

As a regulated firm, Mercury FX is required to perform a multitude of Know Your Customer (KYC) checks on companies and individuals they work with. Being a global business, Mercury must be able to onboard and monitor customers from all over the world.

Needing to automate and organise these checks whilst maintaining compliance and delivering a low friction on boarding experience, Mercury went to market for a technology solution.

Using TruNarrative’s single Application Programming Interface (API) and portal, Mercury FX can adapt its onboarding processes without the need for further integrations or resources. This allows the firm to easily tweak its strategy inhouse to reduce false positives, while simultaneously improving risk decisioning, reporting and case management visibility.

The global currency organisation is also be able to maintain a central audit trail of all activity related to a client’s individual account – allowing Mercury FX to operate with maximum transparency.

Commenting on the partnership, Mike Harriss, Head of Commercial Channels at TruNarrative, said: “Mercury FX is a prime example of why we built TruNarrative – a truly global business with a broad requirement for bespoke customer-verification strategies.

“We are pleased to deliver a solution that allows them to reduce the volume of manual compliance tasks, while also maintaining a low-friction customer experience.”

Alastair Constance, Founder, Director at Mercury FX: “We’re passionate about challenging the dated and costly currency exchange services mainstream banks offer.

“We provide an efficient and transparent alternative to both businesses and consumers, and in the TruNarrative platform, we’ve found a solution that aligns with and further strengthens this ethos.

“Having all compliance, verification and financial crime detection in one place helps us to streamline our processes, and the no-code interface means that we can edit our financial crime strategy at any time, without a reliance on development resources.”

Payments infrastructure platform Finix, has raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by Silicon Valley VC Sequoia.

AcadiaSoft Inc., the leading industry provider of risk and collateral management services for the non-cleared derivatives community, today announced it will launch a joint initial margin analytics service with Clarus Financial Technology (FT).