Revolut, the global financial platform with over ten million customers in the UK and Europe, has today entered the UK savings market, in partnership with Flagstone, offering an easy-access savings account with a limited market-leading interest rate of 1.35% AER. 

The new Savings Vault, which is FSCS protected up to £85,000 through Paragon Bank, is an addition to Revolut’s popular Vaults feature. 

Savings Vaults allow Revolut customers to round-up their card payments to the nearest whole number and instantly save their spare change. Funds can also be deposited by regular and one-off payments. Revolut customers can quickly convert their existing Vault into a Savings Vault in order to start benefiting from the competitive interest rate. 

As well as offering a limited best-in-class interest rate, Revolut’s Savings Vaults offer consumers true flexibility, unlike other similar products currently available in the market. There is no minimum deposit amount, withdrawals can be made at any time, and interest is paid daily. 

With this account, Revolut aims to tackle the consumer loyalty trap which has existed for so long in the cash savings market. In fact, the FCA² estimates a third (33%) of UK consumer cash is sitting in easy access savings accounts opened over five years ago which receive interest rates 0.82% lower than accounts opened more recently.

The introduction of Savings Vaults is the latest development in Revolut’s successful Vaults feature, launched in April 2018. Since then, over 2.5 million Vaults have been opened – with an average of 6,000 new Vaults created every day. To date, Revolut customers have put aside over £1 billion into their Vaults. 

Nik Storonsky, Founder & CEO of Revolut said: “Interest rates have been minuscule in recent years, and this has directly impacted the options that people have when it comes to saving money. With the introduction of Savings Vaults, we can now offer our UK customers one of the most competitive rates in the country, with complete flexibility and protection.

“For us, this is another step towards our goal of democratising the financial services industry, and providing much greater value than traditional banks. As we push into 2020, we have a host of new products and services on the way that will help our customers to spend, save and manage their money more effectively.”

Savings Vaults are currently only available in GBP to Revolut Metal customers whose sole tax residency is in the UK. Revolut Premium and Standard customers in the UK will be able to access Savings Vaults at a lower rate in the coming months. Revolut will be rolling out Savings Vaults to other European markets in the near future.

Only limited deposits will be accepted at the market-leading 1.35% AER interest rate. After the limit is reached, any new deposits will receive a lesser rate. 

Metal accounts are Revolut’s leading service offered via monthly subscription (£12.99 per month). As well as the free UK account available to all Revolut users, Metal customers benefit from a range of extra perks including unlimited commission free stock trading, unlimited foreign exchange, worldwide travel and medical insurance, no fee ATM withdrawals up to £600 per month, disposable virtual cards to further protect against online card fraud, airport lounge access, concierge services and a wide range of shopping discounts. 

Revolut launched in 2015 with a vision of building the world’s first truly global bank and has since grown to over 10 million retail customers, and signed up over 300,000 business customers, worldwide. With Revolut, customers can spend and transfer money globally at the real exchange rate, exchange currencies in the app, manage their money with instant analytics and budgeting controls, buy and sell cryptocurrencies, buy and sell stocks commission-free, and now have the tools to save better and achieve their goals faster.

RS2 Group, a global payments processing and technology provider, announced the closing of its acquisition of KALICOM Liebers Zahlungssysteme KG, one of the most successful commercial network operators for electronic, card-based payment systems in Germany. 

The acquisition follows the groups announcement to enter the merchant direct acquiring business and represents along with the earlier announced foundation of RS2 Financial Services GmbH.

KALICOM provides RS2 with an attractive entry portfolio of more than 4.000 terminals and an existing merchant book combined with capabilities of selling, installing, servicing terminals and processing card transactions in the German market for small and mid-size accounts.

“We applied for Financial Institution License in order to start our own direct acquiring business starting in Europe” said Jens Mahlke, Group COO/CFO, who will also be heading the European Merchant Business activities. “In this respect, the business of KALICOM is complementing our service offerings to the merchants and it is a great continuation of our strategy to be one of the leaders in global acquiring and issuing worldwide”.

The acquisition of KALICOM is a further step for RS2 to eliminate any dependencies on third parties to ensure first class services. At the same time, this gives RS2 a quick start into the German acquiring market.

Ralf Liebers, Founder and former Owner/General Manager of KALICOM said: ”I am convinced that RS2, with its technology and global reach, is the best possible partner for the future of KALICOM and its employees”

Wirecard, the global innovation leader for digital financial technology and UZE Mobility, open innovation platform for e-mobility services, have entered into a strategic partnership. The companies will join forces, combining their payment and geolocation technology to launch innovative services in e-mobility and further driving the megatrend New Mobility and Commerce on the Move.

In 2019, UZE Mobility started to provide cities with a fleet of multi-purpose carsharing vehicles and will scale in 2020 with so-called Digital Kits. These are digital advertising displays that are placed on each vehicle type and managed via the UZE Mobility platform. When in use, the vehicles safely capture geolocation data, which can be used by public and private entities in the creation of electronic maps, geotagging, and other uses in the field of mobility. This service is free for users, who contribute to the UZE Mobility marketplace with data collected only from the vehicle’s location and surroundings.

Simultaneously, the vehicles offer a one of a kind advertising space. This form of digital advertising gives businesses the opportunity to promote their products and services in precise demographic areas to reach a desired target market. For example, a retailer can advertise the opening of a new store branch on a vehicle travelling in the respective neighborhood. According to a 2019 report by Zenith Media, out-of-home advertising (OOH) expenditure is steadily increasing on a yearly basis, globally: in 2018, the global spend topped USD 38.5 billion, with that figure expected to hit USD 42.2 billion by 2021. As part of the cooperation, Wirecard will be the preferred payment partner for transactions carried out on the UZE marketplace.

“We are delighted to partner with Wirecard as we forge the path towards the future of mobility,” commented Sebastian Thelen, Co-Founder and CIO at UZE Mobility.

Alexander Jablovski, CEO and Co-Founder at UZE Mobility, said, “In Wirecard, we have found the technology partner with whom we are leveraging the enormous potential of mobility data that is still largely untapped today in order to open up new markets. I am very glad to partner with one of the most innovative companies in its field.”

“In 2020, we expect the Commerce on the Move trend to gain momentum and bring even more innovative, ground-breaking ideas to the mobility market,” added Stephan Ritzenhoff, Principal Manager Strategic Alliances at Wirecard. “For this reason, we are proud to cooperate with UZE Mobility, true innovators in the field of e-mobility. We look forward to working with UZE Mobility and making the future of mobility happen today.” 

The UZE Ads Kits have received their road approval and successfully passed the proof of concept stage. By 2020, UZE Mobility aims to bring between 500 and 1,000 of these systems onto the roads in the DACH region. In addition, UZE Mobility is currently adding further display providers to its Mobility Digital out-of-home platform. UZE Mobility plans to scale accordingly in Europe and internationally in 2020. In addition, metropolitan areas such as Mexico City and San Francisco have expressed interest in the data platform and advertising systems of the company.

Allevo, with the support of a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme “SMEs Growth Romania”, kicked-off Thursday, 23 January 2020, the Whizzer project, as per the 2018/115906 contract.

The project is implemented in Bucharest, has an end date of 30 November 2021 and a total value of EUR 738.375, out of which EUR 420.000 non-refundable grant. The Whizzer project is aimed to create an open source software solution that offers financial operations as a service to SMEs, to help them automate and centralize common financial flows, at a very low cost: balance sheet, salary payments, invoicing, money flow automation, accounts payable and receivable, cash reporting. Target group includes banks, financial service providers and SMEs across Europe, with focus on SMEs, in terms of technical harmonization and communication on top of a well-built open banking layer.

The project includes an artificial intelligence component that ensures a detailed analysis of processed data. This component is designed and developed by Bakken & Bæck AS, a digital product development studio, with long experience and expertise in applied AI and machine learning. This partnership is possible through the bilateral relationships between Norway and Romania, promoted by the financing program. The partnership allows Allevo to benefit from the complementary skill set of the partner’s team, to build a relevant solution for the financial industry.

The outcomes are:

1. An open source software solution license (GPL v3) developed by the promoter that offers financial operations as a service to SMEs, to help them automate and centralize common financial flows, at a very low cost: balance sheet, salary payments, invoicing, money flow automation, accounts payable and receivable, cash reporting;
2. Permanent full-time jobs created: 5 positions covering: 1 researcher (for the R&D component), 1 analyst/solution manager, 1 developer, 1 tester, 1 deployment engineer;
3. An estimated growth in turnover of 28% by 2023 compared to 2018;
4. An estimated growth in profit of 66% by 2023 compared to 2018

The project aims to increase the rate of financial inclusion, by addressing the ecosystem (banks, financial service providers and SMEs across Europe), with focus on SMEs, in terms of technical harmonization and communication on top of a well-built open banking layer.

Supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme “SMEs Growth Romania”.

Geneva-based Banque Cramer & Cie SA has selected Avaloq’s Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) solution for a further 10-year term to support the institution’s future growth ambitions. Avaloq, a long-term technology partner for the institution since 2011, was awarded the contract after a competitive tender process. The win underscores Avaloq’s commitment to serving, and growing its market share among, the Geneva-based private banking community.

The roots of Banque Cramer go back as far as the eighteenth century. The highly respected institution caters to a selected private and professional clientele through personalised portfolio management, advisory and wealth management services. Its clients are wealthy individuals and families, independent financial advisers and professional institutional investors.

The new 10-year contract sees Avaloq’s partnership with Banque Cramer expanded with additional tools and functionalities, such as Front Workplace, to enable the bank to enhance its market proposition and competitive positioning even further. Over the prior eight years, Avaloq has helped Banque Cramer to simplify and upgrade its IT systems, allowing the bank to focus on customer service and growing the business both organically and through acquisitions, including the acquisitions of Banque de Dépôts et de Gestion in 2013 and Valartis Bank (Schweiz) AG in 2014, both of which were brought onto Banque Cramer’s Avaloq platform in less than three months.

The delivery of BPaaS and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to the wealth management and private banking sectors has become a primary strength and driver of growth to Avaloq as institutions across the world look to capitalise on best-of-breed digital infrastructures to remain competitive, agile and customer focused while remaining cost efficient.

In November this year, Avaloq was recognized as a Leader in the 2019 NelsonHall NEAT vendor evaluation for Wealth & Asset Management Services, one of the most comprehensive such assessments globally. In September it was named Overall Winner in the 2019 XCelent European Wealth Management Technology Vendors report - Europe’s most influential market accolade and further testament to the market-leading capabilities of the Avaloq Banking Suite.

Marc-Henri Balma, Chief Operating Officer of Banque Cramer, said: “Outsourcing our IT and back-office functions to Avaloq’s BPaaS has enabled us to export operational and development risks and to become more competitive. Avaloq has put a tremendous amount of resources and effort to develop a much more flexible, efficient solution, supported by a state-of-the-art platform that, through its large and growing ecosystem, should continue to respond to our needs and develop solutions that offer new services and opportunities.”

Mathias Schütz, Avaloq’s Country Head for Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein, said: “We are, of course, delighted that we have won what was a very competitive tender to continue to work with Banque Cramer. The institution is a long-term partner and has seen first-hand the benefits that Avaloq’s BPaaS suite can deliver and the wider benefits in an increasingly competitive banking market in Switzerland. We thank the team at Banque Cramer for their continued support and look forward to growing our relationship even further.”

World Economic Forum in Davos held the first session associated with the Cyber Polygon project — an annual international online exercise for tackling global cyberthreats. The exercise is an official initiative of the Forum and BI.ZONE, as well as the first collaborative initiative between WEF and a Russian company under the umbrella of the Centre for Cybersecurity.

The session was opened by the Forum’s Managing director and Head of the Centre for Cybersecurity Alois Zwinggi, then the discussion continued with the participation of Sberbank Deputy Chairman Stanislav Kuznetsov, BI.ZONE CEO Dmitry Samartsev and Zurich Insurance Group CEO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Bank Distribution Alison Martin. The speakers discussed the current situation with cybercrime in the world, examined various approaches and strategies for ensuring cybersecurity in organisations, and also talked about how companies should communicate with the media and maintain their reputation in the event of a major cyberattack. Finally, in the centre of the discussion was the question of cooperation between private companies and the public sector, which the participants called an essential condition for defeating cybercrime.

The exchange of best practices and the development of collaboration – these are the main goals of Cyber Polygon, which this year will be held on July 8, on the eve of the III International Cybersecurity Congress (ICC). The first exercise took place in June 2019, and was attended by Sberbank, New Development Bank (China), Transtelecom (one of the largest telecommunication companies in Kazakhstan), MTS (one of the largest telecommunication companies in Russia), as well as the Department of Information and Communications Technology of the Philippine Government. Spectators from 24 countries joined the online broadcast of Cyber Polygon. The results obtained during the exercise unambiguously prove the effectiveness of cooperation – during the training the participants exchanged data about the detected cyberthreats through the BI.ZONE ThreatVision platform, and this increased the speed of incident response by 7 times. More details are published in the report available on Cyber Polygon’s official website.

“Capacity building is a key priority for the Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity. With technical and managerial capabilities lacking globally, it is essential to strengthen these capabilities to secure our digital future” said Alois Zwinggi, Managing Director and Head, Centre for Cybersecurity at the World Economic Forum. ”The Cyber Polygon exercise developed by BI.ZONE is a fine example of the kind of training we seek to introduce and we look forward to further collaboration on capacity building with Sberbank, a Founding Partner of the Centre.”  

“Today, more than 4 billion people are connected to the Internet, and the number of IoT devices has already exceeded the Earth’s population and will increase many times over in the foreseeable future. All this opens up new unprecedented opportunities for cybercriminals” said Dmitry Samartsev, CEO of BI.ZONE. ”Cyber attacks now can result in more than just stolen money: when it comes to critical infrastructure, our environment and human lives may be at risk. The probability of a global cyber crisis is growing every day, but we see that over 80% of organisations worldwide are not ready for that. In order to prevent a catastrophe, it is necessary to invest in the protection of each individual company, increase the level of cyber literacy of the population and establish international cooperation. But, most importantly, to continue learning and developing our skills. That is the reasoning behind the Cyber Polygon exercise, which has already proven its effectiveness, and which is taking place on a truly global level thanks to the support from the World Economic Forum and INTERPOL. We see a great interest stirring up towards this initiative in Davos, and I hope that subsequent exercises will bring even more value to the international community.”

buguroo, the online fraud prevention specialist for the financial sector, today unveiled further capabilities that make it easier for banks to more accurately identify if fraudsters – rather than legitimate customers – are attempting to open new accounts. These enhanced New Account Fraud prevention capabilities, which are included in the latest version of buguroo’s award-winning anti-fraud solution, bugFraud, employ advanced deep learning techniques to seamlessly analyse new customer onboarding sessions in real-time, alerting the bank if a user’s behaviour or environment is suspicious.

New account fraud is a major challenge for banks. RSA Security estimates that fraud is 15 times more likely to originate from new accounts than from ones that are more than 30 days old. In addition, while new account fraud makes up just 0.3 percent of fraudulent transactions, it accounts for 48 percent of fraud value. This type of fraud is lucrative because it is hard to detect. Fraudsters use Personally Identifiable Information (PII) obtained via identify theft – sometimes in combination with faked data to create synthetic identities – to open multiple bank or credit card accounts, borrowing as much money as they can before disappearing. Newly opened accounts can also be used in money laundering operations.

This new software release adds to buguroo’s existing New Account Fraud detection capabilities, making it even easier for banks to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent applications during the onboarding process, without adding friction to the user journey. bugFraud can be used as a standalone solution or to complement traditional anti-fraud checks, such as ID documentation checks or physical biometrics, offering a holistic defence against fraudulent account applications.

New features include:

• Analysis of user environment; the solution analyses all geolocation, device and network data to help establish that the user is who they claim to be. This includes alerting on the use of unexpected or known fraudster devices, network and device reputation, software anomalies, presence of malware, as well as detection of automatic systems or bots trying to impersonate legitimate customers.
• Behavioural biometrics checks; these analyse the entire onboarding process in real-time, proactively assessing each customer application in granular detail to identify any suspicious action or behaviour. At the same time, these checks compare the applicant’s behaviour against that of known fraudsters patterns. Checks include how fluently the applicant navigates the onboarding process, their level of knowledge and whether their brain response times suggest they are using their short- or long-term memory. For example, a fraudster might complete sections of an application quicker than a legitimate customer, because they have completed the process many times before, or because they are using fake information. Conversely, for some fields – names, addresses, and other familiar information – legitimate customers will have a quicker brain response time than fraudsters.  
• Contextualised detection techniques; these allow banks to compare each individual customer onboarding session with the typical behaviour patterns of other legitimate users, as well as against the modus operandi of their fraudsters; checking for both similarities and disparities. Leveraging deep learning technology, these contextual checks are continuously fine-tuned to take into account the different – and evolving – user and fraudster communities of each bank. 

“New Account Fraud is growing in popularity with cybercriminals because they know banks find it difficult to spot and stop; some banks even turn a blind eye to it, because they’re worried that anti-fraud checks will slow down the new customer onboarding process to the point when customers will give up,” said Pablo de la Riva, founder and CEO, buguroo. “However, the rising cost of new account fraud means banks can no longer ignore the problem. Our new capabilities have been designed to accurately identify fraudsters in real-time, helping banks avoid these losses without impacting the experience of their valued customers.”

buguroo’s advanced New Account Fraud features are available as part of the latest version of the company’s flagship anti-fraud solution, bugFraud, which is designed to identify fraud during the entire customer journey in digital banking channels, from login to logout, including the onboarding phase. bugFraud combines device assessment, advanced malware detection, and behavioural biometrics, to continuously ensure that the bank customer is who they claim to be and is not being manipulated by a fraudster. 

Ingenico Enterprise Retail, part of Ingenico Group, the global leader in seamless payments, today announces it will launch OP2GO, its Open Payment solution, in North America in 2020. This puts Ingenico at the forefront of the smart city and transport revolution, having introduced the solution across Rio de Janeiro, Taiwan, Madrid and Rome in 2019.

A year ago, Ingenico Enterprise Retail launched its solution for ticketing platforms, including validation equipment and payment environments. Since then, OP2GO has improved the speed and reliability of public transport services, reducing fare collection costs in some cases by over 30%. Building on these previous successes, OP2GO will soon be implemented by a large transport authority in North America.

Comprised of secure contactless readers supporting both closed- and open-loop cards, inspection devices, a payment gateway and acquiring services, OP2GO integrates with all ticketing platforms. With a scalable suite of solutions, from hardware terminals only (OP2GO Acceptance) to combined hardware and dedicated payment gateway (OP2GO Gateway), Ingenico is able to address a multitude of scenarios of payment project deployment.

OP2GO offers a unique set of card readers that allow the convergence of ticketing and payments for a seamless journey. Embedding Ingenico’s new Open Readers into validators and/or gates provides a future-proof solution able to withstand the rigors of transit and payment environments.

Ingenico has collaborated with companies like Visa to help bring contactless tap to pay to transit companies around the world.  For those cities that have already harnessed OP2GO, brand awareness perceived by occasional users is improved, and costs are reduced by avoiding issuing proprietary cards. It decreases the waiting-time when entering buses and allows them to travel more easily and efficiently.

Venceslas Cartier, Global Head of Transportation and Smart Mobility at Ingenico Enterprise Retail, commented: “Since 2015, Ingenico’s Open Payment solutions have been offering next-level flexibility to the transport industry, delivering payment component gateway capabilities to speed up deployment for transport integrators and operators.

"In Kiev, Milan, Taiwan, Bratislava, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Rome, Ingenico has demonstrated its ability to deliver security, speed and flexibility to operators, and we look forward to expanding our solution globally in the coming months.”

Nick Mackie, Vice President of Global Urban Mobility Solutions, Visa Inc, said: “Moving people quickly and efficiently in our increasingly crowded cities is one of the biggest challenges of our time. At Visa, our ongoing collaboration with Ingenico is helping the world's leading cities make it easier than ever for people to use public transportation and adopt an open, connected, greener way to travel.  We look forward to expanding our work into new countries in 2020.”