Avaloq, a global fintech leader, has launched a unique data analytics solution for banks and wealth managers to quickly gain transparency on the impact of bespoke pricing for individual clients, thus supporting financial institutions to improve the overall client experience. At the same time, it allows financial institutions to better design and control revenues. The new Cost & Fee Analytics solution complements and extends Avaloq’s established Cost & Fee suite. It was presented at Avaloq’s recent Community Conferences in Zurich and Singapore and is now available for Avaloq clients.

Cost & Fee Analytics has been designed to support front office staff that interact with clients such as Relationship Managers when it comes to the discount negotiation and renewal process. It has been launched at a time when prices are increasingly under review by clients and price negotiation, particularly for high-net worth and ultra-high-net worth clients, has become commonplace. The solution helps to rapidly recognize pricing opportunities and at the same time helps to manage regulations such as MiFID II or FIDLEG which demand better oversight and comprehensive audit trails with regards to client fees.

Using powerful data analytics, the new solution allows institutions to deliver a precise, transparent evaluation of the impact of potential discounts and to report decisions back to clients in a far quicker time as a means to strengthen client relationships and loyalty. It simulates new discounts or product offerings using historic client data with the real price model, all seamlessly integrated into the Avaloq platform.

The foundation of the suite, Avaloq Cost & Fee Management, is a core application supporting the calculation and booking of complex transaction costs and periodic fees. The add-on Cost Profile solution improves the efficiency of the front office by allowing the bank’s operations team to set and change tariffs using a graphical user interface. By further adding the simple to use Fee Designer which enables to model both simple and complex periodic fee runs, the fee implementation efforts can be reduced by as much as 80% which enables Avaloq clients to adopt, test and implement fee adjustments in an agile way.

Martin Greweldinger, Chief Product Officer at Avaloq, said: “Cost & Fee Analytics supports financial institutions to increase transparency within their organization as well as towards end clients. It helps front-line staff to deliver better and faster service to their clients, particularly sophisticated high net worth ones that want bespoke solutions. Underpinning the new solution, as well as our wider Cost & Fee offering components, are granular levels of data and powerful data analytics, which enable banks and wealth managers to rapidly recognize and leverage pricing opportunities.”

Financial crime and compliance software firm TruNarrative has strengthened its executive-level management team with the appointment of a new chief operating officer, to support the organisation’s growth.

Having previously spent 11 years at major UK online retailer N Brown Group, as the company’s director of financial services, Stuart Daniels brings with him high-level expertise in risk, operations and analytics.

He has been hired to head up the customer success and product development side of the business. He will work closely with the UK and US operations departments to refine TruNarrative’s technology and ensure all users continue to receive the service levels and onboarding experience they expect of a brand of this stature.

TruNarrative’s CEO and founder John Lord commented on the new addition to the team: “Stuart truly understands our industry and will add further strength to TruNarrative’s C-suite. His background in risk, operations and compliance – plus his immense experience and evidenced capabilities – will undoubtably aid the continued high growth of our business.”

Stuart and his team will be responsible for delivering a product that leverages the power of multiple different data sources, as well as the latest in machine learning and analytics, to make safe commerce simple.

Commenting on his new role, Stuart added: “I am delighted to be joining the talented TruNarrative team at such an exciting time in its expansion journey – on both sides of the Atlantic.

“The business’s approach to the whole customer lifecycle process is unique and I am extremely pleased to be involved.”

TruNarrative’s unified platform solution uses real-time processing to enable its customers to create an efficient onboarding journey, which can be adapted to future compliance and industry requirements.

Stuart’s appointment signifies the second major hire for TruNarrative in the last three months alone, as the firm continues to add to the growing team to support its business expansion. 

Fnality International (Fnality), the company building the means of payments on-chain for tomorrow’s financial markets utilising the Utility Settlement Coin (USC), is pleased to announce that Mizuho Bank, the core group company of Mizuho Financial Group, one of the largest financial services group in Japan, has joined the original group of 14 founding shareholders working to deliver the collective goal to transform clearing and settlement processes, and support global exchange of value transactions; setting the standards for tomorrow’s tokenised infrastructure.

Since the close of the Series A funding round in June, Fnality has been working hard to build out corporate capabilities; including adding to the management team, engaging with the various central banks in order to establish local entities and with shareholders to ensure they will be ready to use the Fnality platform.

Significant progress has also been made building the technology stack and preparing the initial use cases that will use USC as a settlement asset.

Fumio Tajima, Executive Officer at Mizuho Bank commented, “We are delighted to join this strong group of founding shareholders. Mizuho is fully committed to being a driving force in change in financial services.” Adding, “We see that Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) offers huge potential and the use of USC as a settlement asset will be pivotal in enabling this change.

Rhomaios Ram, CEO of Fnality says “We are very pleased Mizuho have joined our shareholders so soon after the formation of the company.” Adding, “Having all three of Japan’s major banks involved in Fnality’s initial work to build out our foundations will help us ensure we make the best possible choices to help build tomorrow’s financial market infrastructure both in Japan and globally.”

Fnality was set up by a consortium of financial institutions. The founding shareholders comprise: Banco Santander, BNY Mellon, Barclays, CIBC, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, ING, KBC Group, Lloyds Banking Group, MUFG Bank, Nasdaq, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, State Street Corporation, and UBS.

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 Clareti Integration Studio (CIS) is available with new features designed to accelerate digital transformation projects.

Clareti Integration Studio simplifies the implementation, testing and maintenance of integrations using a model-driven architecture, a rich set of graphical tools and pre-built standards libraries for on-premise or cloud deployment. Clareti Integration Studio provides access to a library or over 40 industry messaging standards including SWIFT, SEPA, FpML, FIX as well as the ability to develop, and manage the deployment of, custom integrations across an enterprise.

The technology has been deployed by many of the world largest financial institutions, market infrastructures and solution providers due to its rich functionality and trusted processing performance. Organisations can benefit from reduced time to market and lower maintenance costs of building new financial products, messaging data services and application integrations.

The latest release provides:

•          Full support for SWIFT Standards MT Release 2019 changes
•          Certification to run within Spring Cloud Data Flow – the de-facto open source integration engine to provide a full service integration engine for the Clareti platform
•          Certification by Mulesoft against Mule 4, the latest release of the most extensive commercially available integration platform.
•          New graphical capabilities for managing message schema evolution

Ian Manocha, Gresham CEO, commented:

“Gresham understand the challenges faced by customers who need trusted integration capabilities to support their digital programmes, new product or regulatory initiatives, and business connectivity needs. Initiatives such as PSD2 are driving new payments and digital services and for organisations to be competitive they need to be able to move fast without creating a technical debt and maintenance burden. Clareti Integration Studio enables organisations to accelerate their integration projects, from the simplest to the most complex, and to be in control.”

Neil Vernon, Gresham CTO, commented:

“The ability to capture, manipulate and push data in multiple formats, in real-time when needed, can be a real headache for project leaders. Clareti provides access to reusable, trusted messaging that is fully maintained and readily available for fast, efficient and reliable data modelling and integration requirements. As an example, it was recently licensed by one of the world’s largest clearing houses for the transformation of FpML and FIXML messages. Clareti Integration Studio enables organisations to put the power of the platform to work for virtually any type of custom integration with complete confidence.”

 AfricaCom is synonymous with the coming together of great minds, the generation of new ideas and the showcasing of innovation.  This year, AfricaCom goes one step further to ensuring the progression of the African continent towards a digital democracy with the support of a number of causes that will focus on providing the space, skills and access to the Internet to make it all possible.

AfricaCom’s chosen sustainability partners include Code for Cape Town, Mellon Educate, and Africa50, via the Africa50 Innovation Challenge.

Tom Cuthell, Event Director at Informa, organisers of AfricaCom, expressed his pleasure at being able to provide a platform for these three deserving initiatives: “AfricaCom is delighted to be able to partner with these initiatives, a first for us as an event. Each organisation addresses a particular technological and communication need and by bringing them together in one place, we are hoping that delegates and visitors, will visibly connect just how important it is that we all work together to ensure digital inclusivity becomes a reality for everyone on the continent.”

Code for Cape Town (Code4CT) - will have a prime position at AfricaTech, which is co-located with AfricaCom - is a community of young female tech leaders who are advocates for encouraging more women to enter the technology industry, and who place coding at the heart of their skills development outreaches.  Diversity is needed in the technology space, with currently, only one in five women represented as global IT executives. 

Of the opportunity to participate at AfricaCom 2019, Emma Dicks, Founder of Codespace the social enterprise that powers the multi-award winning  Code4CT, said: "Code for Cape Town addresses the lack of diversity in the tech industry by creating a space for high school girls to learn to code and explore potential career paths in the tech industry.  Ultimately, our goal is for young women to choose to include coding as part of their tertiary education. 

“An event such as AfricaCom, is a fantastic opportunity for our community of young coders to see the scope of opportunity offered in the tech industry and connect with future employers.  At the same time, our young coders can pass on their love of coding to delegates at the event. We are hoping to be able to engage with companies who share our mission to create a more diverse and inclusive tech industry."  

Don’t book your seat home just yet…stay and help build a school

Skills development is one thing but, what about the practical spaces to come together for education? Niall Mellon and his organisations are no strangers to Africa, having built many homes for people over the years, but through Mellon Educate UK, corporate teams are encouraged to get involved in a seven day school Building Blitz.  Team building at its best - a sign-up for the next November Building Blitz challenge, which will take place immediately after AfricaCom this year, will be open at AfricaCom for all delegates/enterprises and their colleagues, to participate in, learning new skills, developing radical insights into the living and schooling conditions of ordinary Africans and even making new friends, in the process.

Niall Mellon – Founder of Mellon Educate explains why they are involved this year: “On behalf of Mellon Educate, we welcome our valued partnership with AfricaCom and look forward to each and every one of you helping change the lives of many less fortunate than us. I’ve always wondered why somebody didn’t do something and then I realised I am somebody and with the power of the collective we can achieve anything.

“As Nelson Mandela once said – “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world,” and with the support of AfricaCom you have that opportunity to do just that by joining our Building Blitz ! Thank you AfricaCom for getting behind Mellon Educate !   

Two schools in the Mfuleni Township, Cape Town, will benefit this year, thanks to the generosity of all involved.

Have what it takes to get Africa connected?

Skills development and education hubs need access to the Internet to make the dream of an inclusive and economically thriving Africa a reality, and this is where the third initiative that AfricaCom will profile in 2019, comes in - The Africa50 innovation Challenge.

This is pan-Africa investment platform Africa50’s exciting crowdsourced initiative seeking ICT experts, engineers and innovators to help them find a sustainable solution to Africa’s most pressing infrastructure needs.  Over 75% of Africans still do not have access to the Internet and Africa50 is hoping that AfricaCom can provide it with access to the brains trust required to help them ensure that affordable and reliable last mile connectivity can be rolled out to all under-served communities across the continent. 

Individuals and organisations with a strong passion for developing innovative solutions are encouraged to apply. Submitted solutions to the Challenge will be reviewed by a group of experts in ICT, investment, and international development. Finalists will be invited to present their solutions at AfricaCom in November 2019 in Cape Town.

The winning solutions will receive cash prizes and/or will be considered for project development funding. Projects will be rolled-out in Rwanda as the pilot country, with the objective to scale them up to other countries in Africa.

With the recent signing of Africa’s intra-continental free trade agreement, the time is ripe for more than just conversations around inclusivity, it’s a time for action, and with the showcasing of the above three initiatives, AfricaCom hopes to be the catalyst for true and sustainable system change.  All delegates and visitors are therefore encouraged to visit each of the above and make it their business to know more, and even, sign-up to be a changemaker.

Mambu, the leading SaaS banking engine, today announced that it is powering bob Finance, helping the Swiss online lender achieve its long-term strategic objectives. bob Finance, a subsidiary of Valora Schweiz AG, chose Mambu’s cloud-native engine for its high scalability and quick time to market, aspects pivotal to the lender’s growth plans.

Since launching in 2015 bob Finance has quickly established itself as one of the largest Swiss online lenders. The company’s user-centric products, such as bob credit and bob pay, are geared towards meeting its customers’ dynamic needs. Focused on the implementation of processes that lead to long-term scalability, bob Finance selected Mambu to enhance business agility and allow for faster innovation cycles.

Commenting on the partnership, Hilmar Scheel, CEO of bob Finance, said: “bob Finance aims to offer its customers best-in-class financial services on fair terms. To do this, we must be able to respond to accelerating market opportunities in a secure and flexible way. Mambu’s cloud-native engine stood out because of its interoperability with current systems, as well as ease of scaling. The engine's flexibility and efficiency allows us to test new functionalities, introduce change and tap into greater cloud capacity faster.“  

Alongside its existing offering, bob Finance plans to further grow its consumer finance and payment products. “Strengthening our internal technology and development competencies has been a high priority and we found Mambu’s composable architecture to be the right fit to meet these objectives. Our collaboration will have a profound impact on quality and implementation speed. Ultimately, the partnership is geared towards setting up a resilient, scalable system that will adapt to changes swiftly and effectively,” Scheel added.

According to Eelco-Jan Boonstra, Managing Director of Mambu EMEA, the online lending space is a fast growing market. “To have an impact on their market share, online lenders must find new ways to react to customers needs and implement without delay. This is especially true for Switzerland which has been at the forefront of the digital revolution. Long-term scalability and overall process and system improvements allow financial institutions to remain relevant and future-ready in a crowded market.”

In addition to future-proofing, a composable architecture reduces costs and opens up opportunities for innovation. Such agility creates a more rewarding and customer-centric lending experience. “Dynamic online lenders, such as bob Finance, recognise the value of cloud-native API-driven architecture to expand its offering and continue scaling,” Boonstra added.

Today Mastercard announces the introduction of a new initiative to increase the nation’s access to cash. By leveraging our technology, local shops and businesses who choose to offer cashback in conjunction with a purchase, will from April 2020 earn a fee every time they dispense cash to a shopper paying with a Mastercard debit card.

Although cashback at shops has been a cash withdrawal option for bank account holders for some time, by providing retailers with this newly introduced fee, it will offer a new income stream to the high street and provide further incentive for local shops to offer the service.

Without action today, access to cash could become more challenging in future as cash usage is rapidly declining in the UK. UK Finance’s own figures show a drop of 16% between 2017 and 2018. Mastercard and our banking partners understand the need to find new and sustainable ways to offer cash access to those customers who continue to prefer it as a payment option.

Purchase with cash back is typically associated with debit cards and Mastercard is growing its debit card presence in the UK with new and challenger banks. All our debit card issuing partners will take part in this new cash back initiative, including the following banks: Clydesdale Bank, Metro Bank, Monzo, N26, Starling Bank, Virgin Money, Yorkshire Bank and starting later this year Santander.

Mark Barnett, President of Mastercard in the UK, Ireland, Nordics and Baltics commented: “As an industry we have committed to finding sustainable ways to maintain people’s access to cash. By leading this new cash back initiative we aim to encourage more shops to offer their customers the option of cash back at the point of sale.”

Mark Barnett continued: “This enhancement to retailer cash back isn’t a replacement for ATMs, but if we can add to the number of outlets where people can access cash, especially in areas without an ATM, it will be a valuable addition to the community for both consumers and local businesses.”

Natalie Ceeney, Chair of the Access to Cash review said: “This is a very positive and welcome initiative from Mastercard. Supporting local shops to offer cash back will help maintain access to cash, and benefit retailers and consumers alike. I’m delighted that Mastercard have taken this step.”

Cash back at shops provides an important additional means to withdraw cash, consumers often make use if it for top ups to their personal cash holding and the typical withdraw reflects this. According to UK Finance, the average cash back with a purchase size is £25, where as a typical ATM withdraw is now £72.

For shops and businesses who already offer purchase with cash back, they don’t need to do anything, Mastercard will work with their payment acquirer to collect the new fee on their behalf. For those businesses that currently don’t offer cash back, but would now like to, they should contact their payment acceptance provider.

Although this initiative is for Debit Mastercard cardholders in the UK and Ireland, over time it is expected to be made available in other markets also.

New Mastercard retailer purchase with cash back FAQs:

1. What is the value of the new fee for shops and businesses?

A fee of 12p will flow to the payment acquirer of the shop dispensing cash for each purchase with cash back transaction. In Ireland the fee will be €0.13.

2. Can card holders access cash back without making a purchase?

This enhanced cashback proposition for shops is designed to mirror the existing service so a purchase will need to be made in conjunction with the cashback. This will continue to encourage shops to adopt the service and offer them revenue beyond just the cashback fee. It is not designed as a replacement to ATM withdrawals.

3. Is there a cost to the cardholder to receive purchase with cash back?

As with the existing cash back facility at shops, there is no charge to cardholders.

4. Does this change apply to debit cards on other payment networks?

Today’s announcement only applies to Debit Mastercard purchase with cash back transactions in the UK and Ireland.

Lunar Way is a Danish fintech company founded in 2015 with the ambition of rethinking the banking experience. It offers basic banking services through an app that has been downloaded by more than 130,000 users.

Thomas Jul, Head of Financial and Network Services, Nets, comments: “We are very excited to be chosen as a partner by Lunar Way. It is not every day that you enter into collaboration with a brand-new bank - and especially the kind of bank that Lunar Way is developing. New and different solutions are needed, while ensuring stability and security to ensure a great user experience for all Lunar Way customers. This is an exciting task that we look forward to working on.”

The bank plans to take its recently acquired banking license to Sweden and Norway to deliver a better banking experience and its innovative products and services to Swedish and Norwegian users too.

The partnership will ensure improved payment experiences for all Lunar Way private and business users in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. In addition, Nets will provide electronic signature services and assist with card fraud management.

Peter Smith, CEO, Lunar Way, adds: “Nets is a leader in the payments space, both in Denmark and abroad. Together, we will look at the development of new, innovative payment solutions that fit our users’ lifestyles and needs. We look forward to offering users the stability that Nets is known for and utilising Nets’ expertise in fraud monitoring and prevention as we build our new bank.”

Cyber criminals upped the intensity of IoT and SMB-related attacks in the first half of 2019, according to a new F-Secure report, “Attack Landscape H1 2019”. The report underscores the threats IoT devices face if not properly secured when online, as well as the continued popularity of EternalBlue and related exploits two years after WannaCry.

F-Secure's honeypots – decoy servers that are set up to lure in attackers for the purpose of collecting information – measured a twelvefold increase in such events compared to the same period a year ago. The increase was driven by traffic targeting the Telnet and UPnP protocols, which are used by IoT devices, as well as the SMB protocol, which is used by the Eternal family of exploits to propagate ransomware and banking Trojans.

Telnet traffic accounted for the largest share of traffic for the period, with over 760 million attack events logged, or around 26 percent of traffic. UPnP was the next most frequent, with 611 million attacks. SSH, which is also used to target IoT devices, had 456 million attacks. Likely sources of this traffic are IoT devices infected with malware such as Mirai, which was also the most common malware family seen by the honeypots. Mirai infects routers, security cameras, and other IoT devices that use factory default credentials.

Traffic to SMB port 445 accounted for 556 million attacks. The high level of SMB traffic is an indication that the Eternal family of exploits, the first of which was used in the devastating WannaCry ransomware outbreak of 2017, is still alive and well, trying to ravage millions of still-unpatched machines.

“Three years after Mirai first appeared, and two years after WannaCry, it shows that we still haven’t solved the problems leveraged in those outbreaks,” said F-Secure Principal Researcher Jarno Niemela. “The insecurity of the IoT, for one, is only getting more profound, with more and more devices cropping up all the time and then being co-opted into botnets. And the activity on SMB indicates there are still too many machines out there that remain unpatched.”

Leading mortgage technology expert, Mortgage Brain, has appointed Neil Wyatt as Sales and Marketing Director.

Neil Wyatt has over 20 years of experience in the mortgage industry and most recently held the position of Head of Distribution at Platform (The Co-operative Bank) for six years. Previous roles include Sales Director at Connect Mortgage Group and Head of Corporate Accounts at Mortgages Plc, where he was responsible for creating strategic relationships.

Neil brings a deep knowledge of the UK mortgage landscape and holds strong relationships with the intermediary and lender community. In his new role, he will be responsible for the sales and marketing proposition for Mortgage Brain and developing the growth strategy for the business.  

Mark Lofthouse, CEO of Mortgage Brain comments: “Neil’s appointment from October is in line with our vision and strategy to lead the way through innovation and delivery for the benefits of lenders, intermediaries and their customers. Neil brings a wealth of experience, and understands first-hand the needs and expectations of the market.

“Our focus at Mortgage Brain is to deliver our vision and ensure that our technology enables our customers to realise their goals. We have an ambitious and exciting long-term plan and Neil will be instrumental in delivering our new technologies and enhanced proposition to the market.”

Neil Wyatt adds: “Mortgage Brain’s ability to develop innovative technology that enhances the industry is enviable; it remains the only company to offer a full suite of technology services to the adviser community and its future plans for both lenders and intermediaries have the potential to transform how business is conducted today. 

“I’m joining at pivotal time for the mortgage industry as a whole; with high expectations for technology providers to deliver. Mortgage Brain’s passion for providing access to the best technology is obvious and I look forward to rising to the challenge - supporting and providing for the market. ”

Neil’s appointment reflects Mortgage Brain’s commitment to investing in talented committed individuals and follows the appointment of Ken Deegan as Chief Technical Officer earlier this year as well as further hires in the development and delivery team.