According to Jalal Orujov, a Member of the Executive Board and Chief Operating Officer at PASHA Bank, the new EFTPOS network management system opens up additional opportunities for the bank. "In addition to automating payments and optimizing the EFTPOS deployment, the new system provides comprehensive online workflow monitoring, as well as receiving additional information about each payment made in the terminal network. The software meets the requirements of international payment systems and international security standards, which guarantees reliable protection of PASHA Bank customers' personal data," says Jalal Orujov.

According to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Taxes, in August 2019, the number of EFTPOS terminals amounted to almost 65,000. By the number of payment terminals transactions, PASHA Bank occupies about 36 percent of the market. The bank has its own processing center in Azerbaijan, which works with all local and international payment systems operating in the country. To manage such a large transaction flow required a reliable, but at the same time flexible solution.

"TransLink.iQ is a very flexible product with many advantages: multi-vendor, security, the ability to manage the big fleet of terminals in one system. We have been improving it for many years. TransLink.iQ architecture allows customizing it according to specific client's needs and the existing infrastructure," says Žoržas Šarafanovičius, Executive Director of ASHBURN International.

According to him, the bank was interested in automating the transaction process, as well as in expanding the functionality of payment terminals. Additional features such as automation of payment for customs services through integration with customs servers, dynamic currency conversion and payment by installments contribute to increasing customer loyalty. "TransLink.iQ extends the standard EFTPOS functionality and increases business profitability by providing additional services. Our solution transforms the relationship between the acquiring bank and its customer-merchant to a new level," says Ž. Šarafanovičius.

He emphasized that thanks to experience in the banking sector, ASHBURN International can offer the client a solution that best suits the needs, then supports it, becoming not a software provider, but a partner of the company.

Open banking platform Tink has strengthened its commitment to the UK and Irish markets by appointing Stripe’s former head of EMEA banking, Rafael Plantier, as its new Country Manager for the UK and Ireland. 

Since launching in Sweden 2012, Tink has been dedicated to enabling banks, fintechs and startups to develop data-driven financial services. Through one API, Tink allows customers to access aggregated financial data, initiate payments, enrich transactions and build personal finance management tools. Today, Tink has more than 250 employees globally and is Europe’s leading open banking platform, enabling customers to connect to more than 2,500 banks in 14 markets including the UK, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Brazil-native Rafael recently made the move from US online payment processing platform Stripe, where he was the Head of Banking for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In his new role at Tink, Rafael will bring his extensive experience in the sector to lead and grow Tink’s UK and Irish arm – building on the success of Tink’s existing partnerships with companies such as NatWest, PayPal and Klarna.
 

Rafael’s appointment is part of Tink’s ambition to equip banks and third-party providers with best-in-class technology solutions that will allow the UK and Ireland to continue to lead the way as pioneers of open banking. Tink has received growing demand for its technology from UK and Irish banks, who want to be able to tap into Tink’s technology to develop smart, customer centric products and create competitive advantage in a post PSD2 world.    

Rafael Plantier, Country Manager, UK and Ireland, Tink, said: “The UK and Ireland is charging ahead of the rest of Europe in its open banking journey. It’s a brilliant launchpad for challenger banks and fintechs, and a thriving hub of investment and innovation. I’m excited to be right at the heart of the open banking revolution and look forward to this new leadership challenge to turbo charge Tink’s growth in the UK and Irish market.”

Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO, Tink, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Rafael to our team and look forward to working side by side to cement our market leading position in the UK and Ireland. Over the next 12 months, we want to prove our value within these markets as a strategic partner for banks, helping them embrace the exciting open banking opportunities ahead.” 

Singapore's DB Bank is teaming up with commodities trading house Trafigura to develop an open-sourced blockchain trade platform.

JPMorgan Chase has moved to bolster its valuable wholesale payments business by building an e-wallet that lets e-commerce and gig economy firms such as Amazon and Airbnb offer their customers virtual bank accounts.

Southeast Asia's leading FinTech platform for digital businesses, Xfers, has launched its first blockchain-enabled initiative to further the goal of building an open financial ecosystem to enable financial inclusion in the region. With the launch of StraitsX, its pilot stablecoin initiative powered by Zilliqa, Xfers aims to create a frictionless and transparent payments ecosystem for Southeast Asia.

In January 2019, Xfers obtained the approval for Widely Accepted Stored Value Facility (WA SVF) from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)--the first digital wallet to do so. As the company continues on its vision of providing last-mile financial services to the region, it boasts an extensive portfolio of clients including digital asset firms Binance Singapore, Coinhako and WoWoo Exchange, as well as merchants serving the underbanked in Indonesia - PayFazz, Porter Indonesia and Tunai Kita. Today, Xfers partners merchants to process over US$150 million every month, as they service a total of over 10 million unique active users every month across Singapore and Indonesia.

Creating an Open Future of Money

Open banking has unlocked greater value in the banking and financial services industry, enabling merchants to provide consumer services such as online savings and payments without having to navigate through traditional banking touchpoints. As a result, consumers have easier access to financial products, and are able to participate in a greater range of activities, such as starting their own business--bringing about financial inclusion in a more cost- and time-efficient manner.

This is especially so in Southeast Asia, where access to traditional banking services may sometimes be difficult outside of urban areas. With over 630 million people calling Southeast Asia home, and a mobile user penetration rate of over 140 percent, the region's digital population makes a promising customer base for digital payments, especially in communities currently underserved by banks.

With the Asian Development Bank predicting digital financial solutions to have significant impact on financial inclusion in Southeast Asia, Xfers is leading the way with the launch of their StraitsX pilot initiative. Starting with XSGD, a token pegged 1:1 to the Singapore Dollar, these stablecoins will increase the level of transparency for transactions, while also reducing friction to accessing financial products. This initiative will be supported by a number of early members, including Binance Singapore, Coinhako, Coinut, Sparrow, Tokenize Xchange and WoWoo Exchange.

"Southeast Asia has a heterogeneous landscape, and Xfers wants to empower individuals and businesses to access financial opportunities regardless of their circumstances," said Tianwei Liu, Co-Founder and CEO, Xfers. "StraitsX demonstrates our willingness to adopt technology to propel our vision of building an open banking infrastructure for the region. With the transparency that blockchain provides, as well as the stablecoins being price-pegged to local fiat currencies, StraitsX aims to be the common ledger for digital assets, payments, fund transfers and eCommerce."

Building Financial Trust via a Distributed Ledger

Creating an open financial ecosystem that fosters financial inclusion requires reliable and trusted innovation. To remove friction and provide greater transparency, Xfers will be leveraging Zilliqa's safe-by-design scripting language Scilla to provide smart contract functionalities.

Built for enterprise use, Zilliqa is a high-performance, high-security blockchain platform renowned for its use of sharding as on-chain solution to preserve trust and enable greater scalability. To date, its blockchain is able to process 2,828 transactions per second. Through this partnership, Zilliqa's proprietary smart contract language, Scilla, will be critical to ensuring the security of the underlying smart contracts of the Xfers stablecoins. Scilla is amenable to formal verification, thus providing enhanced security for assets and transactions on the Zilliqa blockchain.

"We are excited for Xfers as they continue to make inroads into Southeast Asia. Harnessing the features of our enterprise blockchain, Xfers will be able to process a significant increase in user transactions more securely at a scale than other present-day industry blockchain platforms," said Amrit Kumar, President, Zilliqa. "Spurred on by the promise of greater financial inclusion, efficiencies and mobility, Zilliqa is proud to build on our existing partnership with Xfers to deliver on the shared promise of progress."

"Industry players recognise our value, and with us serving over 10 million users every month, we are excited to deliver even more, especially for the underbanked across Southeast Asia," continued Liu.

Drawbridge Partners, a premier cybersecurity software and services firm specializing in the needs of hedge fund and private equity managers, today announced the launch of DrawbridgeConnect-R™, a Vulnerability Management as a Service (VMaaS) platform.  DrawbridgeConnect-R continuously analyzes a firm’s vulnerabilities - rather than providing a mere point in time vulnerability assessment – and helps firms identify, prioritize and remediate organizational cybersecurity weaknesses that leave data at risk. Complementing Drawbridge Partners’ existing services offering, DrawbridgeConnect-R enables firms with limited in-house cybersecurity resources to manage both external and internal vulnerabilities associated with client networks.

With DrawbridgeConnect-R, companies are equipped with:

• Vulnerability Scanning: Ongoing scanning on the user’s internal and external network aggregates data highlighting critical components including but not limited to missing patches, configuration mistakes, OS and software vulnerabilities and weak password and/or default credentials.
• Remediation:  Comprehensive data and reporting that showcases all vulnerabilities on the external and internal network, along with remediation guidance. Drawbridge works directly with the internal IT team or the Managed Service Provider to ensure reporting, advisory, and action items are clear and actionable.
• Reporting: A comprehensive user interface for cybersecurity program and vulnerability management that allows users to view and manage data, and track and access reporting. Formal monthly reports can be shared internally and externally as required to drive the vulnerability management program.

"A single vulnerability exploited by an attacker can prove disastrous for any company. Yet today’s widening skills gap and growing threat of cyber attacks means keeping pace with ongoing vulnerabilities can be a serious challenge for internal security teams. Our expert team is committed to helping firms defend against and address today’s dynamic cyber threats and so we’re proud to introduce DrawbridgeConnect-R to give what are already strained internal security teams the platform they need to keep their networks vulnerability-free and secure” said Viktor Tadijanovic, Chief Technology Officer at Drawbridge.

Semafone^®, the leading provider of data security and multi-channel compliance solutions for call and contact centres, today announced Intelligence+, a real-time data analytics offering, integrated into its award-winning and patented telephone payments solution – Cardprotect Voice+.

Intelligence+ ensures that Cardprotect Voice+ customers have access to meaningful real-time data from calls and payment transactions as they occur across the contact centre. With advanced analytical capabilities beyond those of standard business intelligence tools, Intelligence+ provides customers with valuable and deeper insights into their payments platform performance. Customers can elect to receive all their raw data from the Cardprotect Voice+ platform to define and run data reports over specific durations, from 24 hours, to 90 days and beyond, or any time period in between. This functionality enables customers to add the data to their own database management system (DBMS) and completely customise reports, with full flexibility to change the appearance and reporting periods.

“Today, data is the fuel that organisations need to be successful, and that is particularly true for the contact centre,” said Gary E. Barnett, chief executive officer, Semafone. “With Intelligence+, customers can see their contact centre call activity on our Cardprotect Voice+ platform, and quickly turn that data into meaningful, actionable insights that improve call centre performance, all while ensuring secure, compliant and seamless payment transactions.”

Intelligence+ is compliant with industry regulations such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), HITRUST standards, and the upcoming California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Strict compliance with these industry regulations and standards ensures better protection of consumers’ personally identifiable information (PII), significantly reducing an organisation’s risk of a brand-damaging data breach, while providing a frictionless agent and customer experience.

With Intelligence+, customers gain the following key benefits:

·        The ability to query data, develop and generate a standard set of reports to help inform contact centre management on business strategy and where to maximise resources.

·        Better call management insights – including the ability to view the percentage of successful payment transaction calls at particular times of the day, empowering sales and marketing campaign managers with accurate information on the optimal times for running marketing and/or debt collection campaigns with a payment call-to-action.

·        The ability to import raw data into the customer’s business analytics system of choice, for integrated reporting with any existing data.

·        Fully customisable appearance of dashboards to fit a customer’s brand specifications.

·        Insights into average handling times (AHTs) to improve call duration and efficiency.

·        Insights into first call resolution to aid in reducing call transfers.

With actionable, real-time data, Intelligence+ enables contact centre managers, as well as sales and marketing campaign managers, to improve business success, provide a better working environment for agents, reduce agent turnover and increase customer satisfaction with a positive brand experience.

Managed Cloud and Security Enterprise Performance Partner, CSI Group, has today acquired Tectrade, a leading provider of data protection and risk management solutions. The acquisition will further strengthen CSI’s cloud services offering, enabling it to offer its clients advanced data protection capabilities, and allow the Group to expand into the USA.

Tectrade protects, recovers, manages, stores and secures petabytes of data for organisations around the world. With decades of experience, certifications in enterprise-class technologies, and a proven track record across industries and continents, Tectrade ensures that data is always available. Tectrade will enable CSI to further enhance the growth of its clients and respond to their changing data security and cloud needs. 

Simon Payne, CEO of CSI Group, says, “Tectrade is a strong and strategic acquisition for us, providing additional depth of expertise in data protection which will deliver significant benefit to our clients. It also offers us the exciting prospect of expanding our services into the USA, which I’m delighted to announce Alex Fagioli, CEO of Tectrade will head up.

“CSI is committed to helping companies move their critical business applications and data to the cloud, and the investment we are making in Tectrade will extend our ability in this arena. The company has a strong cultural fit with us and its portfolio complements ours, which means together we will bring an even stronger offering to the market,” adds Payne.

“I’m excited to be joining the CSI Group and for everyone in Tectrade to be part of a larger organisation with a clear and ambitious growth strategy,” comments Alex Fagioli, CEO, Tectrade.

CSI and Tectrade share a common objective to help clients manage and secure mission-critical workloads and data within on-premise, hybrid and multi-cloud environments. 

CSI was advised on this successful acquisition by EY and Pinsent Masons. 

Path Solutions, the global Islamic banking software company, today announced a new partnership with Nityo Infotech, the fastest growing next-generation global IT services company. By virtue of this agreement, Nityo Infotech will act as Path Solutions’ Business Alliance Partner for sales and services related to iMAL enterprise Islamic banking & investment platform for all countries in South East Asia. Nityo Infotech will also provide post-sales implementation and support for iMAL clients in this region.

This partnership will enable Path Solutions to seamlessly offer innovative banking products to address this region-specific Islamic banking requirements. iMAL is the first and only 100% Sharia-compliant core banking platform according to industry standard-setting bodies. Built on cutting-edge open technologies, iMAL brings the richest packaged Islamic banking functionality combined with digital banking offering, empowering Islamic financial institutions with modern, scalable, and sustainable technologies for a sustainable future.

Mohammed Kateeb, Group Chairman & CEO, Path Solutions said, “Sharia-compliant financial assets are forecasted to reach $3.2 trillion by 2020 according to ICD Thomson Reuters Islamic Finance Development Indicator, with ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Thailand leading the Top 20 Countries in Islamic Finance Asset. Given the rapid and outstanding boom the Islamic finance sector is witnessing in this region, we have partnered with Nityo Infotech to help expand our client base in South East Asia”.

Kateeb added, “Taking advantage of the opportunities digital disruptions offer as we are entering the new, digital-driven era of globalization 4.0, we built iMAL on modern and advanced architecture to fulfill the ever-evolving needs of the Islamic finance industry. The platform also reduces market pressures and regulatory burdens, and supports Islamic financial institutions in their digital transformation journeys in a cost-effective way”.

Naveen Kumar, Founder and CEO, Nityo Infotech said, “This partnership is an expression of our confidence in Path Solutions’ top-notch Islamic banking technology, industry business practices, track record of fail-proof implementations, and world-class business model. We hope that together we will create the perfect partnership to offer a unique value proposition that helps Islamic financial institutions in South East Asia gain a distinct competitive advantage in an increasingly complex and dynamic market. We view this partnership as a win-win proposition, and we look forward to a successful business relationship with Path Solutions”.