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).

Today, authentication platform Veridium launches its proprietary facial recognition technology, vFace.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Azimo, the European money transfer service, today announced a EUR 20 million debt agreement.

Bankable, the global architect of “Banking as a Service” solutions, today announced a strategic collaboration with Visa in the United States. Bankable aims to provide Visa’s U.S. clients, including corporate and financial institutions, access to its real-time and modular banking solutions, enabling them to deploy digital banking and faster payment services. To accommodate ongoing work in the U.S., Bankable is opening an office in New York, which is Bankable’s fourth office after London, Brussels and Dubai.

The new premises will become Bankable’s U.S. hub, allowing the company to accelerate strategic initiatives across corporations, banks and fintechs headquartered in the country. The company is planning to make strategic hires in the next few months as the NY team will shoulder London and Dubai operations.

“Our strategic partnership with Visa represents a great opportunity to further accelerate digital payments innovation in the region. Our commercial team will initially focus on B2B payments,” said Eric Mouilleron, CEO and founder of Bankable. “As we already serve American clients, we see huge opportunities to digitally transform corporates headquartered in the U.S. as well as leading regional, community and selected global banks organized to support fintechs. We anticipate more than 50% of our revenues to come from the U.S. by 2024.”

“The financial ecosystem is evolving at rapid pace, and Bankable’s model helps financial institutions, corporates and fintechs be increasingly nimble to remain competitive,” said Terry Angelos, SVP and Global Head of Fintech, Visa. “Building on what we’ve done with Bankable in other regions, including CEMEA and Europe, we’re excited to now extend the partnership into the US.”

 CQG, a leading global provider of high-performance technology solutions for traders, brokers, commercial hedgers, and exchanges, today announced the establishment of a partnership with DVeX, a new cryptocurrency exchange built by and for institutional traders.  The firms have collaborated to offer CQG front-end platforms to DVeX clients for cutting-edge trading tools and analytics, effective immediately.

Created by the founders of DV Trading, DVeX was designed to deliver a world-class institutional cryptocurrency trading platform to meet the demands of professional traders by leveraging decades of experience as market makers and liquidity providers on traditional exchanges. 

Dino Verbrugge, Founder, DV Group, said: “The DV team is excited to announce our partnership with CQG, which will enable DV to advance our vision of creating a true institutional trading environment for crypto assets. DVeX is now integrated with CQG’s platform, streaming live, reliable and actionable cryptocurrency prices directly to CQG’s clients, who will now be able to add DVeX as an additional venue to transact cryptocurrencies just as they would any other exchange.”

Alli Brennan, CQG Chief of Staff, said: “CQG’s suite of trading products, along with our connectivity to futures exchanges listing cryptocurrencies, gives DVeX customers consolidated access to more trade opportunities and the tools they need to make smart decisions.  We’re excited to partner with DVeX to reach new institutional crypto traders and offer an exciting opportunity to our existing network of customers who will have access to this important new marketplace.”

 Forter, the leader in e-commerce fraud prevention, today announced availability of the Forter Loyalty Program Protection solution to protect high value rewards programs from fraud and abuse, enabling merchants to offer enhanced programs with the best possible customer experience.

Loyalty program fraud rose 89% year on year, predominantly driven by the amount of personally identifiable information (PII) available from increasing numbers of data breaches. With direct and indirect losses from loyalty and reward points fraud estimated at $1 billion every year, enterprises are struggling to limit damage as fraud attacks shift from the point of transaction to different elements of the buyer’s journey, including new account signup, login, and promotion and coupon use. 

“Our loyalty program allows us to thank our customers by rewarding them with better benefits and a better experience while also enabling us to stay ahead of the competition. Features like ‘Tell-a-friend,’ rewarding customers for referrals, are extremely popular, but are also a target for fraudsters and bad actors,” said Doug Ferreira, Director, Financial Operations, delivery.com. “Forter has helped us reduce loyalty program fraud by more than 60 percent while we build stronger relationships with our customers.”

Loyalty programs have grown steadily in the last decade, with memberships increasing nearly 10% year on year. Consumers have accumulated $48 trillion of unspent loyalty points globally. Nearly half (45%) of loyalty program accounts are inactive, with consumers not tracking or redeeming points.

Merchants are unprepared to protect their loyalty programs, according to research conducted by Forter:

●       42% state that they do not have the skills required to prevent fraud and abuse.

●       Nearly 50% report insufficient resources, and that loyalty program account fraud prevention is considered a low organisational priority.

“The combination of consumers not paying attention to their accounts and merchant lack of preparation is a big reason fraudsters find loyalty and rewards programs so alluring. It is clear that loyalty program accounts are low hanging fruit for fraudsters,” said Michael Reitblat, CEO and Co-Founder of Forter. “Loyalty program points are a currency as valuable and untraceable as cash, and fraudulent activity in these accounts causes damage to brand reputation and monetary losses to merchants and consumers alike.” 

Cyber criminals take advantage of loyalty programs in several ways. The most significant attacks include:

●       Account takeover: Fraudsters hack into member accounts, exploiting accumulated points and payment instruments saved in the account.

●       New account fraud: Fraudsters create fake accounts, often using stolen identities, and use them to accumulate, store, sell, and redeem stolen points.

●       Policy abuse: Consumers overshare coupons or promotional codes, violating merchant policies and illegitimately gaining program rewards. 

Forter’s Loyalty Program Protection solution is the only integrated fraud prevention platform that protects loyalty programs from all types of fraud and abuse, including transactional fraud, account-based fraud, and policy abuse.

“Merchants need to fight fraud together. Forter’s Loyalty Program protection solution gives merchants the only fully integrated fraud protection platform that protects 100% of the customer journey, not only at the point of transaction,” said Reitblat. “Powered by a coalition of the biggest enterprises and designed by the world's foremost experts, only Forter can provide the intelligence needed to stop fraudsters in real time and enable the best consumer experience.”

For more information, visit the Forter website.

Berenberg announces the launch of its customer-centric digital Wealth Management portal. This follows a successful pilot after working with Backbase to update its digital offering. This portal is a direct response to the growing demand from Berenberg’s clients for a partner in Wealth Management capable of catering to clients across all channels.

Tobias Bodem, Senior Project Manager, Berenberg, said: “It’s no secret that our current client base and even more, the next generation client base are expecting a mature digital offering, meaning their expectations of everything – ranging from investment choices to how we engage with them – is evolving. Through our partnership with Backbase, we had all the tools and skills required to develop a portal that puts the customer right at the center of the user experience. Users are able to access all the information regarding their portfolio wherever they are, from any device.

“But this doesn’t replace personal interaction. It enhances it. With our portal, customers can get in touch with relationship managers and obtain the required information effortlessly via the client’s fingertips” continued Bodem.

Berenberg will continue to move forward with its agile, user-centered methodology, utilizing the Backbase banking platform to further process client feedback in order to perfect its digital services.

Jouk Pleiter, CEO of Backbase, added: “Wealth management firms cannot ignore the benefits of digital services – those that are built with the client always front of mind. We are committed to bringing these innovations to life with our customers. Through our work with Berenberg, we’ve been able to develop a service that will enhance the unique relationship between its clients and advisers – via an omni-channel interactions which wasn’t available before.”

A new global survey commissioned by ING shows consumer attitudes have reached a tipping point, leading them to avoid brands that don’t prioritize sustainability and environmental issues. Despite demanding change, customers will still engage in the linear ‘convenience economy’ model of ‘take, make and waste’ unless companies offer a more seamless transition towards the ‘circular economy’. Faced with potential damage to profitability, businesses must offer more convenient sustainable options to consumers in order to create meaningful engagement with the circular principles of ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’.no its

According to the new report, titled ‘Learning from consumers: How shifting demands are shaping companies’ circular economy transition’, the majority of respondents believe their behavior and choices can have a positive impact on addressing global environmental challenges (83 percent). Furthermore, 61 percent say they would be less willing to buy a company’s product if they discovered it was performing poorly on environmental practices.

The findings, which provide a detailed analysis of consumer interactions with fashion, food and electronics brands, highlight where consumers are already engaging in circular activities and their appetite for new product and service models. The report notes the potentially vast gains for businesses that embrace the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle' principles of the circular economy by aligning with consumers’ changing demands.

To better capture the opportunity of the circular economy and engage with these customers, companies must first understand the barriers to widespread consumer adoption. The barriers include:

• Awareness and education: In the electronics industry, only 21 percent think companies provide detailed information on the overall environmental impact of products; 41 percent don’t know where to access repair services; 71 percent aren’t aware of device-sharing platforms; and 39 percent can’t distinguish between recyclable and non-recyclable plastics.
• Empowerment and reassurance: The top reason for not repairing clothes is consumers’ belief that, to do so, they need skills they don’t have, with 48 percent having this sentiment. Meanwhile, concern about data security (42 percent) is the second-most cited concern around leasing electronic devices.
• Circular infrastructure and convenience: Engagement with more novel circular practices is being held back by the perceived effort required: 41 percent think renting clothes would require a lot more effort, and 36 percent say time is a barrier to repairing devices.
• Cost: Price is still a decisive factor for many consumers when buying clothes, food or electronic devices. More than half (54 percent) of consumers still choose low-cost, fast-fashion items over more expensive, more durable ones.

For companies to address these barriers for all of their customers they need a deeper understanding of consumer motivation. ING’s analysis identifies three broad groups: ‘Circular Champions’, ‘Circular Sympathizers’, and ‘Non-engagers’. The report identifies within each industry sector the different buying decisions, behaviors, and motivations of each group in embracing – or not – circular economy practices. Through understanding the differences in motivations from each consumer segment, brands can gain insight into how to transition to circular business models while also engaging those whose buying decisions are not based on environmental factors.

In a related report issued last year, ‘Opportunity and Disruption: How Circular Thinking Could Change U.S. Business Models’, nearly four in five U.S. firms had a strategic intent to implement a circular economy framework (62 percent) or had already put one in place (16 percent). ING’s two circular economy reports recognize businesses' and consumers’ progress in transitioning and engaging with the circular economic model.

Methodology

●          Longitude, a division of the Financial Times Group, surveyed 15,001 consumers in 11 countries across Europe, APAC and North America during Q3 and Q4 of 2019.

●          A nationally representative sample based upon age, gender and income was targeted within each market.

●          Consumers were asked about their attitudes and current interactions with fashion, food and electronics brands, as well as their appetite for emerging product and service models.

View the report here https://www.ingwb.com/media/3076131/ing-circular-economy-survey-2020-learning-from-consumers.pdf