Klarna, the global payments and shopping provider, officially launches in Australia by introducing the Klarna Shopping app. The app which, starting today, will be available to download on iOS and Android, enables consumers to shop and pay with Klarna at any online retailer, bringing a unique consumer centric shopping experience to the Australian market.

The Klarna app, which has been downloaded over 12 million times, offers Australian consumers an elevated one-stop shopping experience and allows them to Pay in 4 equal instalments at any online retailer with no interest or fees, when they pay in time. Consumers will also have the ability to browse top brands, create universal and curated wishlists, receive price drop notifications, and have access to shopping inspiration, exclusive deals and discounts from local Australian retailers, all from the comfort of their smartphone.

“Australian consumers’ expectations are evolving, they demand seamless, intuitive and transparent online shopping services that better meet their daily needs. Klarna streamlines this experience from browsing to payment at checkout to post-purchase which allows consumers to take control and shop on their terms all from a single app. This partnership with CBA is rooted in a shared obsession on how good digital experiences can truly serve consumers today. We believe the future of retail is high tech powering high touch experiences, so regardless of how and when consumers want to shop and pay, we need to be there for them.” Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Klarna partnered with The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), which invested in the global fintech company last year to launch services in Australia and New Zealand. CBA app users now will be able to easily connect their CBA account to a Klarna account, enabling smoooth shopping in a few easy steps.

“We are excited to be partnering with Klarna to bring their innovative payments technology and integrated shopping experience to the Australian market. Together with our market leading digital technology, merchant relationships and strong customer network, we will deliver a range of innovative new services to benefit Australian consumers and merchants.” Matt Comyn, CEO of CBA says.

Founded in 2005 in Stockholm, Klarna offers a wide range of products within payments, shopping and personal finances to make it easier for people to shop on and offline, including buy now pay later services, in-store payment solutions and a new direct-to-consumer shopping app. Today more than 85m consumers use Klarna, and the company partners with over 205,000 merchants in North America, the UK and Europe including H&M, Michael Kors, Wayfair, Adidas, IKEA, Expedia Group, Samsung, Microsoft, ASOS, Peloton, Boohoo, Sonos, RayBan, Levi’s, Ticketmaster, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Nike. As part of the company’s recent $460M equity raise, Klarna was confirmed as the largest private fintech in Europe and as one of the largest private fintechs globally.

How Klarna’s in-app shopping works:

• Users will need to be 18 years of age or over
• Once verified and approved, Klarna will determine each customer’s ability to repay at each time of purchase, including by carrying out a credit check
• Thanks to Klarna’s ghost card – a single-use, prepaid card – all purchases and payments can be managed directly in the app, giving consumers flexibility and control over their spending.
• When creating a Ghost card in the app, users will be able to enter the dollar amount they plan to spend
• Once ready for checkout, the single-use card details are added in to complete the purchase

Colt Technology Services has today announced it is furthering its Voice footprint bringing the offering to new countries including Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary, taking its global Voice footprint to 29 countries.

As part of this global Voice expansion, Singapore, Slovakia, Canada and the US, will now also benefit from enhanced Voice capabilities.

Colt is committed to powering the way the world works through connectivity and a primary driver of this centres around removing the barriers faced by enterprises as they look to grow their global presence.

With Colt’s global Voice services, businesses can provision freephone or other local numbers and automate complex routing for calls via a single online portal. This means virtual call centres can be set up with ease and services like inbound and outbound calls, call queuing, IVR (Interactive Voice Response), call forwarding, monitoring and reporting can all be taken care of quickly and efficiently, leaving the business to focus on its customers and its growth.

Through the use of Colt’s Voice On Demand Portal, customers can easily access an inventory of their telephone numbers, a centralised view of all countries, self-service ordering and a full record of orders placed. This creates a fully automated digital process, from order to cease.

Rajiv Datta, Chief Operating Officer at Colt, said: “Colt’s product portfolio has been continually evolving to enable enterprises’ digital transformations, allowing more customer control and supporting their growth. The continued expansion of our global Voice proposition provides customers with one supplier globally, which has 100% regulatory compliance and allows them to control their services easily through an online portal.”

Building on its commitment to connect and empower the global financial community by harnessing proprietary data and analytics designed to add greater client value, Refinitiv today announced the findings of its ‘Transformation of Wealth Management – Five Trends for 2020 and Beyond’ report in collaboration with Aite Group.  According to the report, key trends shaping today’s wealth management industry include: data and analytics, digitalization, customization, operational efficiency and client relationships.  

In order to better understand how wealth managers are managing the trends and developments that are set to impact them over the next few years, Refinitiv and Aite Group conducted interviews with business leaders across a range of wealth management firms in The Americas, Europe and Asia.

Key findings of the survey include:

• 100% of wealth management firms consider wealth transfer one of their top 3 concerns
• 86% consider servicing clients as a highly important digital capability to acquire
• 46% only partly satisfied or not at all satisfied with their current digital offerings
• 90% have recently or are currently reviewing and revising their segmentation models
• 61% rate data and analytics for clients as very important over the next 12-18 months
• 65% view operational scale as very important - future profitability depends on fewer

financial advisors serving more clients more efficiently

• 80% reported an increase in spending to ’change the bank’

Christopher Sparke, Global Head of Front Office and Digital, Wealth Management at Refinitiv, said: “Wealth managers are digitally transforming all aspects of their business and require scalable, open and flexible solutions in a digital-first environment. Our research shows that 86% consider servicing clients as a highly important digital capability to acquire, while 61% rate data and analytics for clients as very important over the next 12-18 months. As the wealth management industry continues its digital transformation, firms need solutions that provide the data, technology and insights to empower better decisions and user engagement.”

Christopher Sparke introduces the report here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MgYBVSoLnI&feature=youtu.be

The report further notes that the role of the financial advisor is expected to change dramatically in the next few years. In pursuit of operational efficiency, over 60% of the firms surveyed are willing to leverage outsourcing propositions to enhance lacking capabilities, scale, or in-house resources. The degree of willingness ranges from 58% in Europe to 70% in Asia and the Americas.

Alois Parker, Research Director, Aite Group, said: “Wealth management is in transition. Client-service models, product offerings, and advisor compensation are being reviewed and redefined. Firms across the globe are aiming for increased business growth and operational scale in order to remain viable.”

The report concludes that it is not surprising that nearly 80% of respondents reported an increase in spending related to ‘change the bank’ over the past few years. Going forward, firms have indicated that they are becoming more careful with this spending, as management teams analyse the impact and ROI of past and existing digital projects. Nevertheless, client needs are constantly evolving, meaning that only those firms that have the ability to invest in ‘change the bank’ initiatives will be able to remain relevant players in the future.

Download and read the full report, The Transformation of Wealth Management – Five Trends for 2020 and Beyond, here:  https://www.refinitiv.com/wealth-trends

Refinitiv Wealth Management solutions provide seamless integration across front, middle, and back office workflows. To learn more about Refinitiv Wealth Management, visit https://www.refinitiv.com/wealth-management.

Today, on National Data Privacy Day, Integris Software introduces its Data Privacy Dictionary, a new tool to help data privacy, data governance and data protection professionals have a common lexicon to improve their communication and privacy management programs.

Organizations face a variety of new challenges with shifting regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as one example. With the expanding definition of personal information (PI) and the increase of data combinations that can become toxic in a data breach, businesses need a tool to understand the terminology of privacy regulations and help them find more information on these laws. The Integris Data Privacy Dictionary was built as a resource for these challenges and to create a better understanding of global data privacy regulations and terms.

“The global data privacy landscape has become increasingly complex and requires a new resource to aid understanding for data practitioners and consumers alike,” said Kristina Bergman, CEO and founder of Integris Software. “By releasing the Integris Data Privacy Dictionary, we will help businesses better understand data privacy terms and regulations to improve operations and compliance. The tool will also help consumers learn about their data rights.”

Finastra announced that Guotai Junan International (GTJAI) has gone live with Finastra’s end-to-end equities derivatives trading and cross-asset risk solution, Fusion Sophis. The move has enabled GTJAI to launch trading operations in Hong Kong following a short implementation, helping to fuel the firm’s growth and maximize market share.

“We are committed to building a totally new platform in Hong Kong to cater for the needs of our clients for tailor-made OTC structured products and exchange-traded derivatives products, such as Warrants and Callable Bull/Bear Contracts,” said Henry Yu, Head of Financial Products, Wealth Management at GTJAI. “To make this venture a success, we wanted to find a versatile, stable and scalable trading solution that would enable us to price and manage, on a real-time basis, the market risk of a wide range of financial instruments. We chose to partner with Finastra as their platform gives our traders the tools they need to effectively manage daily operations and associated trade life-cycles. It has also helped us overcome the complex risk and compliance challenges associated with setting up operations in a new market, which has enabled us to get our business up and running in Hong Kong within seven months.”

With a single solution to address the many challenges of derivatives trading, risk management, and trade processing, Fusion Sophis has enabled GTJAI to fast-track its expansion and offer a wide variety of sell-side derivatives. At the same time, it has been able to develop the systems it needs to manage a dynamic and complex risk portfolio from one stable, intuitive and highly flexible platform. Unrivalled portfolio management allows traders to stay one step ahead of the market, confident in the knowledge that they also have the most advanced risk and collateral management tools.

“GTJAI had already built a highly successful securities brokerage business in Hong Kong, so expanding operations to become a full-service financial institution was a natural next step,” said Wissam Khoury, GM and SVP for APAC and MEA at Finastra. “We knew that getting to market quickly was important, and the Finastra Global Services team managed to achieve this by implementing our Fusion Adopt methodology. We also worked side by side with the GTJAI team to provide the right training, meaning that traders got to grips with the solution faster. We are pleased to have helped GTJAI get to market so quickly and we look forward to continuing to work together in the future.”

Adyen (AMS: ADYEN), the global payments platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, announced today that it has been selected by Subway® as its payments partner for North America. Adyen will support Subway, the world’s largest quick service restaurant by restaurant count, and its Franchise Owners in creating a simpler and more customer-centric payments experience in-restaurant, online and through the Subway App.

“Our goal remains the same – to provide guests with a world-class and seamless Subway experience,” says Mike Macrie, Chief Information Officer of Subway. “As we continue our digital push to offer our guests greater convenience and more options, Adyen’s payment platform will further allow Subway to bring the latest digital payment technologies to market, while removing operational complexities for our Franchise Owners.”

Adyen’s single platform brings simplicity and scalability through one integration, so food and beverage brands can deliver a consistent customer experience everywhere they operate.

In addition to making it easier to add new restaurants, markets or regions, Adyen offers:

• Automated Franchisee on-boarding;
• A Franchisee dashboard that includes easy reconciliation of all payment methods, refunds and terminal fleet management;
• Support for preferred payment methods, including in-app, terminals, mobile wallets, local payment methods, gift cards, loyalty systems and auto detection of foreign language preferences, and;
• Single data view and shopper insights across all channels and franchisees everywhere they do business, which includes revenue by channel, Franchisee, or the restaurant-level.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Subway. Together we are streamlining operations, increasing efficiencies and creating new pathways to building customer relationships in this digital age,” says Kamran Zaki, Chief Operations Officer of Adyen. “We are excited to offer a solution that not only simplifies business for QSRs, but also makes the experience better for their Franchise Owners and consumers alike. Adyen’s platform provides the flexibility to meet shoppers needs today and tomorrow.”