CIMB Bank Berhad, Singapore branch ("CIMB") today announced its collaboration with SESAMi Holding and Capital Match, to finance the SESAMi trading community's invoices digitally under an automated workflow.  

SESAMi Holding, an e-procurement platform in Singapore serving the supply chain needs for customers like Singtel, SATS, SIA, SRC and more, acquired Capital Match, an invoice financing marketplace with operations in Singapore and Hong Kong.  Mr Ong Teck Soon, Chairman and Group CEO of SESAMi Holding said, "SESAMi's integrated procure-to-pay and supply chain financing allows the suppliers to access lower cost of funds by leveraging on large corporate buyers' good credit rating." Suppliers on SESAMi will be paid immediately on their outstanding invoices on the platform within two business days as soon as they are on-boarded on to the supply-chain financing program.

Said Mr Victor Lee, Deputy CEO of CIMB Singapore and CEO of CIMB Group Commercial Banking, "Customer experience is one of our primary focus and the collaboration with SESAMi-Capital Match presents another scalable avenue for us as we are constantly striving to digitize our services and offerings to better service our banking clients. This is aligned with the government's framework for e-invoices and call for companies to keep up with innovation. CIMB is very proud to be part of this."

Capital Match, the e-financing arm leading this initiative will be reaching out to the supplier community to initiate this program. "The funding process will be extremely sped up through leveraging on our Early Payment System (EPS) which was launched earlier this year for the SESAMi supplier community. With the supply-chain financing, suppliers only need to submit minimal documents to be on-boarded under the program and this will facilitate a smooth and simple process for the suppliers," added Mr Sharath Singh, Commercial Director of Capital Match.

The process of onboarding onto this supply chain financing program is simplified, with no need to submit invoices as the e-invoices can be selected for financing via the SESAMi platform.

Added Ms Lai Ven Li, Head of Corporate Banking of CIMB Singapore, "Once the account is set up under the e-supply chain financing program, technology enables working capital funding to be promptly transferred to our customers. We want our financing package to be attractive to provide our customers a positive experience and access to new financing options. Our objective is to ensure a cost-efficient solution and non-recourse working capital funding option that supports our customers' growth."

Small players within the wealth management sector can now compete with and challenge big firms, thanks to the launch of Wealthinity.

Created to empower financial advisors, wealth managers and private banks, Wealthinity enables small to medium firms to offer customized investment solutions, service their clients faster and drive business growth, without any additional costs.

A dedicated service that also offers a web-based portfolio portal, Wealthinity enables advisors to complete the full client service cycle in just 15 minutes, from fact find and risk assessment to creation and execution of customized client portfolios.

Wealthinity offers advisors access to a range of pre-built, high performing investment portfolios catered for a wide range of clients - from portfolios made of passive ETFs for Retail investors to portfolios built out of structured products for HNW clients.  Advisors can also customise client portfolios or construct their own, maintaining full control and ownership of the clients and the investment process.

To enhance service delivery, advisors have the opportunity to generate bespoke client portfolio reports under their own brand, enabling them to compete with larger and more established rivals.

Taras Rybak, Co-founder of Wealthinity and Head of Investment Solutions of Fusion Asset Management, explained:

“In recent years, an increasing number of smaller wealth management and financial advisory firms have struggled with growth, due to failing to compete with larger financial institutions and absence of active coverage by large banks. This is because they lack  resources, ranging from in house  investment expertise, research and technology through to  access to a wide range of trading counterparties.”

“By launching Wealthinity, we aim to help smaller wealth management firms in overcoming this challenge, by empowering advisors with the  capabilities of larger organisations enabling them to easily complete  complex matters, such as portfolio construction significantly enhance client service and  grow their business.”

Wealthinity portal is operated by Wealthinity Limited, a spinoff of Fusion Asset Management, an institutional asset manager that combines extensive market experience with a quantitative approach to portfolio construction and risk management.

Established in May 2004 and headquartered in Westminster, London, Fusion has an extensive track record of managing investment products and providing advisory services, with particular emphasis on protective strategies to preserve clients’ money in market downturns.

To be unveiled from mid-November 2019, Wealthinity has the potential to transform the growth of the wealth management sector.

Standard Chartered has partnered with Quantexa, the contextual decision intelligence software company, to amplify its anti-financial crime efforts globally.

Working as part of a wider ecosystem, Quantexa will support Standard Chartered’s Financial Crime team through use of dynamic entity resolution, network analytics and contextual data to tackle major real-world challenges, including money laundering, fraud and terrorist financing. Quantexa’s decision intelligence platform utilises AI to provide Standard Chartered with a connected 360-degree customer view, empowering the bank’s investigators to make faster, more accurate decisions.

Developed in partnership, the platform enables Standard Chartered to conduct complex financial thematic investigations more efficiently and effectively, demonstrating the bank’s ongoing commitment to uphold the highest global standards in compliance and risk management. The enhanced capabilities provided by Quantexa allows the bank to see a holistic view of investigations, providing a deeper understanding of the trends and risks across billions of data points from more than 40 countries.

By automating labor intensive, manual intelligence gathering, the bank’s investigators now have more time to focus on finding true risk, as well as have improved consistency in their investigations. The platform will become a key support tool for Standard Chartered and presents rich detail about customers and transactions in one place, visualizing the relevant relationships and behaviours to provide context for faster decisions. It also allows Standard Chartered to leverage its existing investments in monitoring and case management for more efficient and effective financial crime compliance.

Praveen Jain, Head FCC Controls Strategy and Innovation at Standard Chartered, says: “Quantexa’s solution consolidates information from multiple sources, leverages advanced analytics, visualisation and contextual output. This not only simplifies tasks for the analyst, but also helps them understand the flow of funds, see the relationships between entities and identify otherwise hidden linkages that may have been difficult to establish previously”.

Vishal Marria, CEO and Founder at Quantexa, says: “Working with Standard Chartered to support this initiative is a true testament to their desire to tackle and disrupt financial crime globally. Standard Chartered and Quantexa are at the forefront of using Contextual Decision Intelligence and I am very much looking forward to growing this partnership with the bank across the enterprise”.

Workday, Inc., a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, today announced continued momentum across EMEA with large and medium enterprises choosing Workday Financial Management. 

Today’s chief financial officers (CFOs) and finance leaders are currently navigating a changing world of finance—a dynamic environment driven by technological advancements, shifting business models, and new competitors. To overcome these challenges, they require solutions that enable faster innovation, more accurate forecasting, and insights that will help the business quickly respond and adapt to market changes. 

With Workday Financial Management, businesses have a single system to plan, execute, analyse, and extend—powered by machine learning, and backed by an unwavering commitment to customer service. Using advanced analytics to surface trends and insights, and machine learning to automate manual processes and save time, Workday continuously innovates to help organisations increase their business agility.

Organisations that have recently selected or gone live on Workday Financial Management include:

• Career Partner Group, headquartered in Munich, is the fastest-growing private university group in Germany with more than 23,000 students enrolled across four types of program: online degree courses, dual studies, part-time studies, and corporate training.

• NetEnt, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, is a leading provider of premium gaming solutions to the world’s most successful online casino operators.

• Polestar, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, is the electric performance car brand jointly owned by Volvo Car Group and Zhejiang Geely Holding. Founded in 2017, it designs, develops, and produces separately-branded, electric performance cars.

• Syncron, based in Stockholm, Sweden, is a cloud-based after-sales service software provider. Founded in 1990, it now has major offices in the United States, Britain, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, India, and Poland.

• Tamedia, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, is the largest media group in the country with a portfolio of daily and weekly newspapers, magazines and digital platforms, as well as its own printing facilities.

These companies join the Workday customer community alongside Workday Financial Management customers including Airbnb, Aon, Conde Nast, Netflix, Southampton Football Club, Sky Betting and Gaming, TripAdvisor, and Unum.  

With Workday, these organisations will be able to:

• Automate Labor-Intensive Processes With Machine Learning. Workday leverages data science capabilities, which span state-of-the-art neural networks and classic machine learning techniques, to intelligently automate traditionally labor-intensive finance processes.

• Make Faster, More Informed Decisions. Users can be empowered to make smarter, data-driven decisions with operational insights the business needs.

Comments on the News

“Enterprises across Europe are continuing to choose Workday Financial Management to more effectively manage their business finances and operations,” said Carolyn Horne, president, EMEA, Workday. “With Workday Financial Management, our customers can quickly and easily configure structures and processes to simplify entry into new markets, release new products, or integrate new entities. They can easily adapt to whatever the future holds, no matter how fast their company grows and changes.”

“We are expanding rapidly,” said Nils Mösko, deputy CFO, Polestar. “We want to make it easy to enter new markets and introduce people to electromobility. Flexibility and agility are key. We’re a very lean organisation and we want to maintain this, so we needed Workday, a unified system that we can own and manage ourselves. We’re closer to a tech company than a traditional car manufacturer, so we recognised alignment with Workday, technologically but also culturally in the way the company operates.”  

“Our partnership with Workday allows us to increase our business efficiency,” said Dag Sjöqvist, CFO, Syncron. “The solution will scale with us as our needs change and mature over time, and as a fast growing company, the real-time business insights that Workday provides are invaluable. As Syncron continues to expand its footprint, we are thrilled to have a SaaS pioneer like Workday as a partner.”

 Juvo, a pioneer of financial identities for the underbanked, has today announced a strategic partnership with DOCOMO Digital, the preeminent mobile commerce enabler. The partnership will focus on combining Juvo’s financial identity and credit lending capabilities with DOCOMO Digital’s class-leading payments platform for mobile carriers, OTTs and digital merchants. This partnership would enable increased financial flexibility for prepaid mobile users, especially in the emerging markets, as consumption of digital services and OTT content continues to rise. 

DOCOMO Digital partners with over 200 mobile operators and over 300 digital merchants and as many payment providers to make mobile commerce a frictionless experience. Consumers can choose to pay for digital services as part of their post-paid phone bills or use their pre-paid balances to do so. However, consumers in emerging markets often abandon their purchases either due to insufficient pre-paid balances or ready access to conventional payment methods such as credit cards. This partnership between Juvo and DOCOMO Digital would now allow for such transactions to be completed with micro-credits extended instantaneously, and without the need for consumers to top-up immediately.

Juvo’s technology leverages previously untapped data sources, including network, application and repayment data, to build financial identities and establish credit worthiness for unknown and underbanked consumers. Based on these financial identities, Juvo helps service providers (operators, financial institutions, and merchants) better understand creditworthiness and offer credit so that more transactions can be approved. Juvo’s partnership also allows providers to offer rich content and financial services that weren’t previously available to customers without credit.

 “Our partnership with Juvo aligns perfectly with our endeavour to make the mobile commerce experience seamless for consumers, while unlocking more value for mobile operators and digital merchants. While access to mobile and data services is growing rapidly in the emerging markets, the access to conventional financial services has not kept up. Together with Juvo, we can provide more financial flexibility to mobile subscribers in these markets,” said Jonathan Kriegel, DOCOMO Digital’s CEO, while commenting on this development.

 “Juvo’s mission is to create the YES Economy, creating financial identities for the 68% of adults worldwide who are locked out of the formal economy due to lack of credit history,” said Steve Polsky, founder and CEO of Juvo. “By creating financial identities, Juvo empowers our partners with the data to say YES to more of their customers, opening up new revenue streams. Our partnership with DOCOMO Digital is an important step in this, and we look forward to collaborating on products that have the potential to change and evolve the mobile payment and commerce industry.”

Three quarters of people with a below-average income for their country report feeling prosperous; Six in ten people across high-growth markets say access to financial services has helped improve their prosperity; Three quarters think their government has a responsibility to improve access to financial services.

A landmark study into the relationship between financial services and prosperity across high-growth markets around the world has revealed that people’s definition of prosperity is more linked to financial security and peace of mind than to current income and wealth.

The research by PayU, the fintech and e-payments division of Prosus - spun out from global technology investment giant Naspers - found that three quarters of people in high-growth markets do not identify wealth and income as a driving factor of prosperity. In fact, three quarters of people with a below-average income for their country report feeling prosperous. Instead, the top drivers for prosperity are being happy with your life, good health for your friends and family, having a good and stable job, and having enough savings for the future.

Only a quarter of people in high-growth markets view wealth as a top factor for prosperity, with this rising to 36% in the Middle East and Africa and dropping down to 9% in South America. Health united all high-growth regions, however, ranking as the top factor driving prosperity across Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe.

PayU’s Financial Prosperity Barometer: Perceptions of prosperity in high-growth markets found that access to financial services is key to people’s prosperity. The study of over 10,000 consumers revealed that six in ten people believe financial services have helped them become more prosperous. Nine in ten people were able to directly recognise the benefits of financial services, ranging from depositing money and transferring money to saving and growing their money.

According to the study, people find it easier to identify the emotional benefits of financial services than the practical benefits. For example, 99.5% of people were able to recognise an emotional benefit of saving money, such as peace of mind, compared to 97.9% who could see a practical benefit, such as being able to plan for the future.

Despite nine in ten people stating that they have access to at least one financial service, three quarters of people think that their government should be doing more to improve access. In regions self-reporting the highest access to one or more financial services, namely Asia and Middle East / Africa, people in fact showed a higher preference for their government to do more. 

Laurent le Moal, CEO of PayU, commented on the findings: “Understanding how access to financial services impacts prosperity takes us to the heart of human behaviour and brings us one step closer to building a world without financial borders where everyone can prosper. Global fintech leaders and governments have a huge responsibility to build the right services to ensure each individual can access and utilise financial services to improve their own feelings of prosperity. Technology is at the very core of this mission and must be used at every stage of the journey to best deliver financial services to citizens globally.”

Wolters Kluwer’s Compliance Solutions business has named Woodforest National Bank, headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, and Washington Financial Bank, based in Washington County, Penn., as winners of its 2019 Community Impact Award. The award honors financial institutions for the breadth and innovative application of community development programs to benefit low- and moderate-income communities in which they do business. 

The announcement was made at the company’s 23^rd annual CRA & Fair Lending Colloquium at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes, Orlando, Fla.

Woodforest National Bank (Woodforest) was recognized for its Woodforest Foundry^SM initiative, founded in 2017. The program is facilitated by entrepreneurs to support other entrepreneurs, acting as mentors to activate local entrepreneurial ecosystems, which revitalizes underserved communities and helps grow businesses. With the Woodforest Foundry, entrepreneurs find trusted guidance from peers, Woodforest bankers and community partners. The first Foundry prototype initiative in San Antonio is now complemented by sites in Aurora, Ill., Louisville, Ken., and a newly launched program in Austin, Texas. Additionally, Woodforest also offers ENTREPRENEURSHIP 4 ALL^SM, part of the Woodforest Foundry, through its in-store branches located inside the nation’s largest retailer.

“The Woodforest Foundry’s initiative is gaining momentum across Woodforest’s 17-state footprint, and Woodforest appreciates Wolters Kluwer giving us time on the mainstage at last year’s CRA & Fair Lending Colloquium to educate others on this initiative,” says Doug Schaeffer, EVP, CRA Executive Director, Woodforest National Bank. He continued, “Thanks to Wolters Kluwer for recognizing the impact this initiative has on our local communities to support entrepreneurship. We encourage others to join us.”

Washington Financial Bank was recognized for three community development initiatives. “The Education Partnership” provides school supplies to schoolchildren in need. For the past several years, Washington Financial Bank has “adopted” a local school, using funding  provided through The Washington Financial Charitable Foundation and employee volunteers to create 450 "Power Tools Homework Kits" that bank employees personally distribute to Washington Park Elementary schoolchildren. The bank’s lead sponsorship and employee volunteer efforts for “Rebuilding Together Pittsburgh” provided low-income homeowners with critical home repairs, accessibility modifications, and energy-efficient upgrades. Among the multiple financial literacy initiative the bank supports, its own “Making Money Make Sense” program provided both monetary and volunteer support to area organizations to educate youth about topics like saving, banking, credit scores, taxes and investing.

“Our financial literacy efforts alone provided 1,472 hours of education to 890 children this past year,” noted Brooke Gawlas, CRA Officer, at Washington Financial Bank. “These  efforts reflect our commitment to serving others; there is no better way than to offer a helping hand to those most in need.”

“These two institutions illustrate how banks can positively impact the communities where they operate in very meaningful ways,” said Timothy R. Burniston, Senior Advisor and Principal Regulatory Strategist at Wolters Kluwer. “We are honored to recognize their commitment and caring toward those they serve.”

Compliance Solutions, part of Wolters Kluwer’s Governance, Risk & Compliance division, is a market leader and trusted provider of risk management and regulatory compliance solutions and services to U.S. banks and credit unions, insurers and securities firms. The business helps these financial institutions efficiently manage compliance obligations tied to loan and deposit origination transactions and workflows, manage risk and other regulatory compliance obligations, and gain the insights needed to focus on better serving their customers and growing their business.

MYPINPAD, the global leader in secure personal authentication for payment solutions, has developed a software-only based contactless payment solution, designed to remove the need for additional mPOS hardware. A variation of its MPP SoftPOS solution suite, the technology has been built ahead of but aligned to PCI’s Contactless Payments on COTS (CPoC) standard, which is due to be released at the end of 2019.

As with all MYPINPAD solutions, its CPoC solution utilises the MPP Authentication Platform to ensure the smart mobile device is secure prior to transaction commencement. This exact same platform is used for all MYPINPAD’s PIN on Mobile solutions, including its SPoC offering, MPP mPOS. Unlike MPP mPOS, which under SPoC requires a PCI certified Secure Card Reader, MPP SoftPOS transforms an everyday Android smartphone or tablet into a secure payment acceptance point for contactless transactions without a Secure Card Reader.

The consumer experience is simple and familiar: the merchant enters the amount on their smartphone or tablet (running the MPP CPoC App), and the customer initiates payment by simply tapping their contactless debit or credit card onto the smart device. Transaction processing is routed through the MPP Authentication Platform to connect with the payments network for delivery of an authorisation message to the PSP.

MYPINPAD has contracts for deployment of its CPoC solution with key international customers. The solution represents a significant step towards the ultimate payment acceptance proposition; CPoC with PIN. This yet to be published standard will allow an everyday smartphone or tablet to not only securely read cards, but also allows the secure entry of PIN as already implemented in MPP mPOS.

This industry leading technology can be readily integrated into customers Apps utilising MYPINPAD’s MPP API (Application Programming Interface) and Sandbox testing environment. The API offers a simple instruction set and requires minimal knowledge of payments. The net result is rapid time to market, combined with white labelling capabilities. 

Phil King, Chairman and CEO of MYPINPAD, said: “The development by PCI of a CPoC standard represents a transformational step for payment acceptance and in conjunction with a contactless standard should lead to a massive expansion in the number of mobile payment acceptance devices. Point-of-Sale terminals and PIN entry mPOS dongles will in time be replaced by everyday smartphones and tablets running a downloadable App. The net result will be reduced operating costs, reduced complexity and increased adoption by retailers of all sizes, be they micro-merchants or Tier one retailers.  Of course, once PIN entry is added to the standard, we will be uniquely positioned. Our API and white label offering allows any provider of mobile payments to benefit from CPoC.”

Nuapay, a pioneer of open banking, announces its partnership with mobile technology platform, Thyngs, to help charities tackle the decline in donations due to reductions in consumer cash use.

The two companies have joined forces to support fundraising for the BBC’s Children in Need campaign. They have created a giant Pudsey Bear with an NFC chip on its ear, enabling passers-by to tap their phones to make a donation to the Children in Need campaign.  The Pudsey Bear collection points will be available at a number of offices, bars and restaurants across London.  

The move follows a report by the British Retail Consortium in March this year, showing that, at the current rate of decline, cash use will end by 2026. Research published by the Institute of Fundraising last year highlighted that 70% of charities had seen a reduction in cash payments and that over 74% had not yet implemented contactless payments systems. In tandem, the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) has reported a steady drop in the number of people saying they have donated to charity in the past year, with a reduction of 4% from 2018-2019.

Nuapay and Thyngs will launch their partnership at this year’s Open Banking Expo, which opens tomorrow. Visitors to the Nuapay stand (Stand 18) will be greeted by Pudsey and will receive a demonstration. 

For consumers, the Open Banking based payment solution makes it faster, more convenient, and more secure to make donations without the need for cash.  Transactions can be made in as little as 20 seconds on a mobile device. All consumers need is to have their mobile banking App already installed on their mobile phone. There is no need to for consumers to share sensitive data or card details, reducing the potential risks of fraud. 

For charities, donations via the Thyngs and Nuapay solution have the benefit of not requiring expensive card terminals and hardware, making it fast and easy to accept cashless donations from a large number of collection points.  It can also significantly reduce a charity’s cost of processing donations when compared to cards.  

“The charity sector is heading for a crisis. Cash remains the most common method for people making donations (53%), so as we become an increasingly cashless society, donations have taken a hit. If charities don’t act, they will soon find themselves divorced from a vital revenue stream,” said Neil Garner, CEO of Thyngs. “Thyngs have created a range of cashless solutions to help charities address this challenge by simply upgrading their existing physical fundraising materials, allowing huge creativity and engagement. Our partnership with Nuapay provides another string to our bow, providing our charity partners with access to cost effective Open Banking payment options.”

“For many years, cards have been the only real option available if merchants wanted to accept cashless payments or donations, and this required expensive card terminals and technology.  But with the new European regulations, Open Banking based payments have now become a viable, fast growing payment option” said Nick Raper, Head of Nuapay UK.  “Nuapay offers an Open Banking solution that is affordable and, critically, quick and easy to implement.  Through our partnership with the innovative technology company Thyngs, we are making Open Banking more widely available, while helping the BBC and other charities to increase their non-cash donations.” 

NOTE: Any Android phone and iPhone XS/XR and after supports ‘NFC’ so people just need to tap and hold their phone against the tap-point. For people with older phones they will be able to scan the QR code on the name badge using their Camera or download an App such as Tap & Scan (iTunes store) which allows older iPhones to tap using the App.