Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that the acquisition of Kony Inc, the fast growing US #1 digital banking SaaS company has now closed.  The acquisition will accelerate Temenos’ US presence and strengthen Temenos Infinity, the breakthrough digital banking product. Thomas E. Hogan, Chairman and CEO of Kony, is appointed President of Temenos North America and joins Temenos’ Executive Committee, with immediate effect. The acquisition was originally announced on 28 August 2019.

Deutsche Bank Securities Services has successfully piloted a solution using distributed ledger technology (DLT) to enable further automation of custodial services.

The solution addresses the transparency requirements within many custodial services, such as around the tax processing of asset holdings at an ultimate beneficial owner level, and streamlines complex data and reconciliation processes for both the bank and its clients.

Currently, this level of information is not generally disclosed to, or captured by, subcustodians, with data provided in spreadsheets as and when needed and across multiple levels of disclosure. This leads to the manual collation of data and reconciliation challenges for the counterparts in the value chain.

Deutsche Bank’s solution allows for sharing of the same information to authorised counterparts, removing duplication and, at the same time, permitting access to the beneficiary details to the relevant party only. Importantly, the solution will function without disrupting the effective omnibus settlement account structure currently in place – which hugely benefits global custodians and/or counterparts up the value chain – minimising the impact on current infrastructure and operations.

The first implementation of the solution will help reform the shareholder information disclosure in Europe for global and sub-custodians, as set out in the Shareholder Rights Directive II, followed by tax processing automation and further product build-out. After initial implementation in Europe, the solution will subsequently be rolled out to other regions in which Deutsche Bank Securities Services operates.

Going forward, it could also be used by broker dealers to provide desk-level transparency, especially important as the industry becomes more focused on disciplining inefficient trade settlement performance through measures such as settlement failure penalties, as stipulated in the Central Securities Depository Regulation.

“We are very excited about the opportunities that this solution, and the underlying technology, can bring for our future service model. We continue to remain focused on delivering products that increase efficiencies in the value chain, providing relevant and tangible benefits for our clients,” said Jeslyn Tan, Global Head of Product Management, Securities Services. London, Frankfurt 24 September 2019 Release 2 | 2 “At Deutsche Bank, we continue to demonstrate that innovation is at its best when aimed at solving our clients’ real-world problems and helping drive operational cost efficiencies,” commented Michaela Ludbrook, Global Head of Securities Services. 

ShieldIOT, a leading Internet of Things (IoT) cybersecurity software company, today announced that it had raised $3.6M in a Series Seed funding round.

The round was led by innogy Innovation Hub, the accelerator and venture capital arm of innogy SE, a leading German energy company. The round was joined by additional new and existing investors including Janvest Capital Partners, Danmar Capital, Minvest and private investors.

Founded in 2017 by cybersecurity and big data analytics industry experts, Udi Solomon and Ohad Levin, the Israeli-based company leverages innovative Coreset-AI technology to help service providers protect large-scale complex IoT networks.

 “The IoT is going to shape the future of many industries, with the energy system chief amongst them,” said Dr. Christof Kortz, Director of Strategic Cyber Security Venturing at the innogy Innovation Hub. “The IoT enabled energy system will face new multi-layered and complex security challenges. In ShieldIOT, we have found a company with exciting technology that is designed to secure any IoT device in any topology at scale. We are impressed by the ShieldIOT team’s vision and the strong business traction they’ve generated with customers and partners across different IoT domains such as smart cities, connected buildings, connected transportation, and smart grid security.”

ShieldIOT’s end-to-end AI-based software security platform enables service providers and utilities to secure and manage the security of any IoT device, application, or network, across different verticals while generating new revenue streams.

“The Internet of Things is a new chaotic sphere, characterized by countless different devices and applications, across various IoT networks and protocols. Many of these devices were not designed with security in mind, are cost-sensitive and lack the minimum resources required for performing security functions,” said Udi Solomon, CEO, and Co-founder of ShieldIOT.

“Ultimately, all IoT devices connect to the network center either directly, for example over cellular networks, or indirectly via a dedicated gateway. ShieldIOT’s secures both channels while delivering up to 20 times reduction in false alarms, and without the need for any network changes or costly hard-to-find security expertise,” he added.

“With the exponential growth of IoT devices and use cases, they become a constant target for malicious actors and damaging cyber attacks. This makes comprehensive security controls more critical than ever,” said Avner Goren, VP SOC Architecture IoT at Intel. “ShieldIOT delivers innovative solutions to secure IoT gateways and edge devices, and solves critical issues for large scale deployments such as Smart Cities, Smart Manufacturing, and others.”

RBR’s industry-leading Branch Transformation 2019 conference and expo returns to London on 19^th and 20^th November for its tenth edition, offering an opportunity to learn from some of the world’s most innovative banks

Santander, Citibank, ING, Lloyds Banking Group, BNP Paribas and Sberbank will be among the institutions sharing their insights and expertise with delegates at the Branch Transformation 2019 conference in London this autumn.

How can the branch continue to serve customers – and banks?

The role, and purpose, of branch banking are evolving in near-real time, influenced by changing customer behaviour and economic imperatives. The familiar high street fortresses of old are rapidly disappearing in favour of new formats that would hardly be recognisable to bank customers of the past. In a world where digital channels are displacing the manual transactions that used to dominate branch activity, how can the branch secure its place in the banking ecosystem of the future?

The answer lies in the fact that the branch is still the key channel for acquiring new customers, and generating sales – as some branches are closed, the ones that remain will take on greater importance. The bank that can use its branches to build positive customer relationships will gain a competitive advantage over its rivals.

Branch transformation is not just cosmetic – it has to be underpinned by firm business objectives. A redesigned branch is no use if it doesn’t enhance the customer experience, leading to increased satisfaction, sales and revenue, and improve the bank’s reputation in an ever more competitive marketplace. The speaker agenda at Branch Transformation 2019 looks in detail at each link in this chain, from the physical design and layout of the branch, the role of its employees, the technology it uses, and the relationships it fosters with customers, to the image it projects to the wider world.

London conference sets the agenda for retail banks worldwide

Branch Transformation 2019, which takes place in London’s Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel on 19^th and 20^th November 2019, is one of the global banking industry’s most important annual events. It offers banks, technology companies and service providers alike a forum to meet, network, share best practice and discuss how to maintain and enhance the relevance of the bank branch. The packed two-day speaker programme combines high-level thought leadership addresses from top industry executives with practical case studies from some of the world’s most forward-thinking banks. The event features a major technology expo alongside the conference, with extended networking breaks to allow delegates to explore all the latest technology on offer in this competitive market.*

Commenting on the value of RBR’s Branch Transformation event, Managing Director Dominic Hirsch said: “Branch transformation is only becoming more important with time. It is a multi‑part process that will mean something different to each bank – which is why it is essential for banks to gain a panoramic view of branch transformation, and understand what their own next steps should be”.

Event continues to grow to serve the needs of the banking industry

Branch Transformation has grown each year since its inception, and 2019 is set to be the largest instalment to date. With nearly 40 confirmed speakers across 35 sessions, more than 550 delegates representing 180 companies from 50 countries, this is the critical industry event dedicated to branch banking strategy. For information on how to join the speaker agenda, exhibit, sponsor, or attend as a delegate, visit www.rbrlondon.com/bt.

Visma Connect, the leading Dutch critical payments services provider and FICO have launched a partnership to jointly deliver FICO’s best-in-class Anti-Financial Crime solutions for Know Your Customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML) and real-time sanctions screening to banks, FinTechs, payment institutions, PSD2 third-party providers and corporations. 

In the new partnership, Visma Connect will offer the FICO® Siron™ Anti-Financial Crime software to its customers as a SaaS solution and provide the IT and platform integration. FICO’s Anti-Financial Crime solutions will be offered as an integral part of Visma Connects Critical Payments SaaS portfolio. 

Both companies will cooperate throughout Europe, with an initial focus on The Netherlands and the Nordics. 

“Financial services providers face greater regulatory requirements and typically spend over 4% of their total revenue on compliance,” said Juergen Krieg, senior director for sales at FICO. “Regulators are urging financial services companies to increase their efforts to fight financial crime and terrorist financing, and FinTechs and new PSD2 third-party providers are increasingly required to continuously monitor their processes. In addition, with the advent of SEPA Instant Payments, the current batch-based sanctions screening no longer suffices and needs to be upgraded to 24/7 and real-time screening. Our partnership with Visma Connect is aimed at helping all kinds of payment providers meet these demands with less effort and expense.”

Marnix Harbers, Tribe Lead Payments at Visma Connect: “The industry is facing ever stronger regulatory demands. Our payment services and the FICO Anti Financial Crime services are always compliant, but don’t require large upfront investments. We’ll take care of integrating, running and maintaining the latest software technology and infrastructure. Our clients can focus on their business.”

FICO®  Siron™ Anti-Financial Crime Solutions is the most widely used KYC, AML and Embargo software in the world, evidenced by more than 1,200 installations in over 90 countries.

Feedzai has announced the availability of AI-powered Case Manager, a major upgrade that revolutionizes the way analysts and investigators review cases and alerts. By bringing the power of AI into Case Manager, Feedzai boosts the efficiency of financial crime prevention, while simultaneously improving the accuracy of detection.

With the rapid evolution of regulatory requirements, the introduction of new, real-time payment methods and digital transformation changing how businesses and consumers interact, an overhaul of the Case Manager -- the industry’s standard tool that analysts and investigators use to manage transaction alert queues -- has been long overdue. Feedzai’s AI-powered Case Manager eliminates manual piecing of information and data matching processes that inhibit prevention of increasingly sophisticated financial crime, and drastically improves detection by making relevant contextual data easily accessible, enabling analysts and investigators to make well-informed decisions while fulfilling all SLAs.

Feedzai’s Next Generation of Whitebox Explanations™ Unlocks the Power of AI Explainability for Analysts and Investigators

Feedzai further expanded its innovative Whitebox Explanations™ to provide transparency and insight into the risk model’s decision regardless of whether it was built inside the Feedzai platform or imported. This will enable financial institutions and
merchants to understand and leverage the most suitable algorithms for their business, while still providing context essential to ensure compliant decision-making.

Advanced Data Visualization and Automation with Feedzai Genome in Case Manager

● Feedzai Genome, a powerful AI-based link analysis tool, which was first introduced in 2018 on a stand-alone basis is now integrated into Feedzai Case Manager. With Feedzai Genome, analysts and investigators gain deeper insights by seeing hidden linkages between various entities in a transaction, such as IP, Card Token, and Device ID. Now, when analysts and investigators review transactions in their queue, Genome empowers them to reach the right decision faster.
● Feedzai Genome also automatically recognizes suspicious visual patterns using Genometries TM and flags them as mule accounts, triangle schemes, structuring or other financial crime typologies, which drastically improves analysts’ detection capabilities.
● Additionally, with Feedzai’s research in new techniques such as Active Learning, AI in Case Manager can intelligently distribute the workload automatically among analysts according to their skills and expertise speeding up the review process and ensuring
accuracy. The predictive capabilities of Active Learning also help analysts with training models for new and unseen attacks

Putting All the Necessary Data at Analysts’ Fingertips with Omnichannel Case Manager

● To bring the full power of AI to Case Manager, Feedzai broke down the data silos within Case Managers, giving analysts simpler access to data through a unified interface that incorporates transactions from all payment channels, use-cases and product lines. This omnichannel structure of Feedzai Case Manager empowers analysts to work smarter and make better-informed decisions when detecting financial crime.
● Data from multiple channels now also fuels Feedzai Genome, enabling the visualization and detection of new and richer Genometries TM which in turn helps analysts to better assess risk and uncover financial crime that would have been obfuscated by channel
and uses-case silos.

Feedzai clients can contact their designated account managers to learn how to take advantage of the newly launched AI in Case Manager capabilities.

Gresham Technologies plc, the leading software and services company that specialises in providing real-time solutions for data integrity and control, banking integration, payments and cash management, today announced a partnership with AccessPay, significantly enhancing its market-leading Clareti Multi-Bank cloud-based solution with connectivity to AccessPay’s enterprise-to-bank integration platform.

A global provider of real-time solutions for cash management and payments control, Gresham required a partner that could help accelerate the adoption of those solutions within its corporate and financial institution client base for both UK and international payments.

As part of the agreement, Gresham’s Clareti Multi Bank customer will be able to seamlessly connect with certain banks through the AccessPay platform via the international payment rail, SWIFT. Gresham customers will also be able to access the breadth of AccessPay’s platform for connectors into UK payment schemes such as Bacs.

AccessPay, Chief Executive Officer, Anish Kapoor said:

“We are delighted to be partnering with Gresham to help them meet their growth objectives in this evolving enterprise market-place. More and more businesses have the opportunity to develop service lines and overcome restrictions of existing systems and further software development.

“Gresham needed a partner that could work with their Clareti platform, to open up access to a full payment and connectivity suite. The AccessPay enterprise-to-bank integration platform provided that solution.

“The manual processes and bespoke, often costly, technology integrations of the past are being replaced at an expanding rate. At its heart is the emergence of connector platforms that deliver real-world enterprise-to-bank integration. This is enabling greater collaboration between financial organisations, and our partnership with Gresham is evidence of this.”

Gresham Chief Executive Officer, Ian Manocha commented:

“As change in the payments landscape continues apace, our institutional cash management clients are asking for ever more efficient banking connectivity and easy access to multiple payment schemes, via secure and robust channels. Integrating AccessPay’s platform capabilities into the Clareti Multi-Bank service enables our customers to have extensive reach into the world-wide banking community.

Alongside technical fit, functionality and resilience, security was also high on our list of selection criteria when assessing potential partners. AccessPay’s platform, certified as it is with accreditations such as the SWIFT Customer Security Programme, fulfilled that essential security need.

This partnership is an excellent example of collaboration between two respected FinTech’s and will bring rapid and tangible benefits to our clients.”

Juvo, a pioneer of financial identities for the underbanked, today unveils Financial Identity as a Service (FiDaaS). FiDaaS is a technology suite that builds financial identities by utilizing alternative data sources, along with incremental data generated from direct-to-consumer lending. These financial identities allow the 3.9 billion people around the world without a credit history to qualify for financial services from financial institutions and merchants, often for the first time. Juvo’s FiDaaS platform currently updates 5.6 billion data points every single day for 200m consumers on four continents.

For billions of people around the globe, one of the biggest barriers to financial inclusion is credit. One-in-five adults who are excluded from the financial system blame this on their inability to provide the necessary personal information. Not only are underbanked consumers unable to demonstrate a credit history, they are unable to account for their financial behavior at all. In turn, financial service providers cannot accurately calculate the risks attached to these new customers because of a lack of information about their past financial behavior. Their default answer is “no”.

While many adults have no formal credit history, 9 in 10 adults worldwide use mobile telecom services. Although subscribers pay with cash, purchases of mobile services create a history of financial transactions that are recorded digitally and associated with a single person. Working with mobile operators, financial institutions and merchants, Juvo is able to access a wealth of alternative data in the form of everyday mobile transactions and interactions and use machine learning technology to establish financial identities. Over time, credit is extended and a potentially wider range of financial services are provided, creating a richer and more rounded financial profile.

FiDaaS helps:

• Consumers establish a credit history and access financial services, often for the first time
• Mobile operators maximize existing cash flows and open new revenue streams from data monetization and financial services
• Financial institutions expand the addressable market for financial services while minimizing risk
• Merchants serve more consumers as well as decrease abandoned and declined transactions

“There is huge inefficiency in the global economy because underbanked consumers lack a financial profile. Not only are individuals locked out of essential financial services, preventing families and businesses from dealing with unexpected emergencies and planning for long term goals, financial service providers are unable to serve credit worthy customers,” said Steve Polsky, Founder and CEO, Juvo. “FiDaaS is designed to underpin a new global credit infrastructure to include those that have been financially excluded but use a mobile phone. In tandem with our operator, bank and retail partners, we are determined to solve the credit conundrum and set a path to financial health.”

“Getting started is one of the biggest challenges for consumers seeking to join the formal financial economy. FiDaaS allows financial services providers to be able to trust emerging customers they know little to nothing about,” said Ron Suber, President Emeritus at Prosper and Juvo advisory board member. “The promise of fintech is to better connect consumers and financial institutions to make transactions more efficient and ubiquitous. Juvo is moving these ambitions a major step forward with FiDaaS.”

Juvo utilizes global cloud infrastructure and technologies such as Lambda architecture that enable FiDaaS to ingest and structure both real-time and batch data at scale. These data points help to close the information gap that prevents institutions from trusting creditworthy consumers, purely due to insufficient data. 

Swedish open banking platform Tink today announces a new partnership with Portugal’s leading bank, Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD).

CGD has integrated Tink’s products, with Aggregation, Payment Initiation, Data Enrichment and Personal Finance Management (PFM), in its newly-launched app — DABOX. DABOX is being launched to CGD’s 4 million strong customer base, and Tink’s platform will underpin the app to enable the bank’s customers to make smarter financial decisions.

In the run-up to this announcement, Tink has been working with SIBS, the leader in payments processing and financial technological services in Portugal, helping the country’s APIs to meet the standard required under PSD2 regulations. The implementation period took 6 months in total, including integrating the PSD2 APIs, applying machine learning to all categories and launching PFM in DABOX.

Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO, Tink, said: “The open banking movement is fundamentally changing the financial services industry — transforming how millions of customers engage with banking services. We're honored to be working with a partner as forward-thinking as CGD, to combine our expertise and revolutionise their customers’ experience. Together, we will give CGD’s customers a complete overview of their financial lives, helping them manage their money more effectively and make smarter financial choices.”

Maria João Carioca, executive board member of CGD, said: “CGD is undergoing a major digital transformation process that will reinforce the current leadership of the Portuguese market. We are moving into the Open Banking world with a firm belief that it will allow us new ways of answering people’s financial needs. We remain true to our values and believe that innovative and challenging partners, such as Tink, will allow us to combine innovation and a “fresh look” on the financial business with the universal service and trustworthiness that have been CGD’s trademark since 1876.”

DABOX is launching on the 24^th of September to all CGD’s customers. Customers will be able to see their current accounts from all Portuguese banks and make payments and transfers between these accounts.  

As the global race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) leadership intensifies, India has begun to catch up with countries like United Arab Emirates, South Korea, the United States, Germany, Singapore and Japan in the mainstream adoption of AI-based technologies. The Indian BFSI & NBFC sectors are undergoing a dramatic change with the growing realization of AI’s importance among business leaders and have put them at the forefront of exploring the full enterprise potential of AI use-cases for their businesses.

The applications of emerging technologies in the banking and non-banking sectors has become a critical topic of discussion today. Given that India is serious about digitization, Trescon hosted its 11^th global edition of World AI Show which was a dedicated spin-off of the global AI series that focused on business applications of AI in BFSI and NBFC. The conference was held in Mumbai - ‘Financial Capital of India’ to hear what industry leaders had to say about the progress in AI adoption across India’s BFSI & NBFC sectors. On Friday, Mumbai saw top C-level executives such as Inderjit Sehrawat, Managing Director for Kryon; Vivek Zakarde, Head - Analytics, BI & DWH at Reliance General Insurance Company Limited; Dr. Puneet Kaur Kohli, CTO of Manappuram Finance Limited and Sunit Vakharia, CIO for Bank of Baroda Financial Services Limited among other top speakers who came together to break down real-world industry use-cases, workshops and discussions on adoption challenges of AI & RPA for enterprises.

The theme for the conference revolved around “Enabling the Use of AI for the Future of Finance", especially AI’s significant application in areas such as customer experience, automation, fraud and risk management and enterprise digitization growth in the Indian BFSI and NBFC industry.

Few key high-level takeaways from the conference:

• A Tech Talk from Amod Kabade, Head SSG (Specialist Solutions Group) at Boston Limited on how the challenge of digital transformation is leading to an explosion in technology opportunities.
• Inderjit Sehrawat, Managing Director for Kryon gave a tech talk on automation at scale and the right way for organizations to accelerate its digital journey.
• A comprehensive workshop was conducted by Rajkumar Devulapalli, Head of Professional Services and Support APAC at Spirent Communications on proactive Cybersecurity training which covered the Cyber Range as an important tool to effectively evaluate network elements and train cybersecurity professionals across enterprises and organizations.
• Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, Product Manager - AI & Machine Learning for ManageEngine which is a division of Zoho Corp, delivered a tech talk on how to build an AI-powered IT infrastructure.
• Maneesh Jhawar, Founder & CEO of QualityKiosk Technologies; Prateek Kapoor, Director Transformation & Automation COE for Aon and Ankit Goenka, Head of Customer Experience at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd, were part of a panel discussion that highlighted how AI is radically changing customer experience by creating human-centric digital services in the BFSI Sector.
• Discussions at the conference also centred on how NBFCs can adopt AI into their current digital infrastructure to reduce time-to-decision and boost pro-active risk management.
• AI’s ability to detect patterns in data to help identify fraudulent claims in the insurance industry.

World AI Show (BFSI & NBFC) also featured the Big BFSI & NBFC Awards that honoured the top thought-leaders who are bringing about a significant change in their organisations and industries through technology implementation and strategies in applying future technologies.

For more information about the show, visit https://bfsi-india.worldaishow.com.

Conference Partners of World AI Show (BFSI & NBFC) included: Platinum Partner, Kanerika Software; Gold Partners, Boston Limited, Kryon and Spirent Communications; Silver Partner, ManageEngine; Badge Partner, QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.; Premier Bronze Partner, ADVANCE.AI; Bronze Partner, Team Computers Pvt. Ltd; Exhibitors, Finesse Global, NeoSOFT Technologies, Parablu, Inc., Divami Design Labs, Data Semantics; Acxiom Technologies and Bizmetric