SiGMA Group is pleased to announce Veronica Andrino as a Strategic Partner for SiGMA Manila 2020 and AIBC Manila 2020.

“I am very much delighted to work with the highly-experienced team from the Malta A.I. and Blockchain Summit. Being appointed as a strategic partner is so exciting – it’s such an honour for me to work with the top calibre team in the industry,” says Veronica Andrino.

The first editions of SiGMA Manila and the  Manila A.I. and Blockchain Summit will take place between the 8th and 9th of June, 2020, at the SMX Convention Centre, Manila. The location sits on 21 thousand sqm and is one of the company’s largest venues to date. The expos will model themselves on the success of sister events SiGMA Malta and Malta A.I. and Blockchain Summit, annual events which have set high standards as the definitive showcase for iGaming and emerging technology.

Attendees can expect a two-day agenda focusing on a series of high-quality conferences and workshops, a buzzing expo floor and premier networking events – including a smashing Closing Night. All signs point to this becoming yet another staple in the global events calendar.

“I’m delighted to welcome Veronica on board; she brings a strong background in blockchain and fintech to the table and I’m confident she’ll be an excellent addition to our growing network across Asia,” says Founder and CEO of SiGMA Group, Eman Pulis.

Veronica is currently the founder of Adsolve.Co, a company based in the Philippines that offers business solutions , legal advice, marketing and advertising , and event management solutions to SME’s and Blockchain Projects. She is also the founder of Vibe.PH, Vip Blockchain Events for Corporate and Fintech events Director for Asia Media Relations APAC for FinancialIT.net, a US company business and the publication Fintech News and Magazine.

Adding to the diversity of her roles is her position as advisor for EarthDollar.org, Cryptomillions.io Muan.io and Blockchain Gaming Projects. Veronica is also well known in her sphere as an OTC Trader, Crypto Advocate and Crypto Influencer. As a leader in the blockchain sector she aims to empower students and professionals through the application of real use cases of blockchain technology in their respective traditional industries in the Philippines. She hopes to achieve this by integrating blockchain into their ecosystem and helping them enhance their knowledge, taking their services to the next level.

Zegami, the augmented intelligence company helping businesses unlock their data potential through visual data exploration, has raised £1.25M in equity funding. Its latest round of fund raising was led by RT Capital Management and the Oxford Technology and Innovations EIS Fund, with existing investors Oxford Sciences Innovation plc and Oxford University Innovation also contributing.  The funding will enable Zegami to continue developing its next generation data visualisation platform and raise its profile through marketing and commercial partnerships – in particular with LiveTiles and Microsoft.

Together with previous equity rounds and funding, Zegami is investing £4.0 M into democratising data analysis using machine learning to enable organisations to bring structure to their data, making it immediately comprehensible to the human eye through dynamic interactive visualisation.  At the touch of a button, clients can augment and explore their data – documents, PDF, images, audio, maps and video – and see the results displayed visually on a single screen.

Developed at Oxford University, the Zegami platform takes complicated datasets, often only decipherable with complex models and expensive data scientists, and enables a whole organisation’s workforce to be able to engage with data through visual data exploration. The platform allows users to easily filter, tag and sort data by presenting it in an intuitive, engaging way. Zegami’s analysis of organisations that have used its platform reveals that on average they save two hours per worker, per day when using effective visual search and analysis.   

Spun out from Oxford University in 2016, Zegami spent its early years developing its proposition.  It now has thirty-five clients and has developed several case studies illustrating how its proposition works across all sectors.  These case studies include:

• Helping to predict heart disease using images derived from echo cardiogram data 
• Visualise a collection of wall art, associated market values and dummy stock values
• The effectiveness of social media.  Zegami’s powerful graphing and filtering tools can see what factors affects the reach of social media posts
• To provide a dashboard-based software tool that allows HR professionals to conduct people analytics.

Samuel Conway, Co-Founder and CEO at Zegami, said:

“Over the last few years Zegami has been developing a cutting edge Visual Data Exploration platform to democratise data analytics, enabling people to make sense of the tsunami of data available today.  Our focus is now on the commercialisation of the software, working with commercial partners like LiveTiles and Microsoft to take the product to the world. By democratising data, Zegami will enable people to realise the potential of data for their organisation – whether it be commercial, academic or government”.

The global big data and business analytics market was valued at $169bn in 2018, and it is expected to grow to $274bn by 2022.

Adam Workman, Head of Oxford University Innovation Investments and New Ventures, said:

"Zegami has made excellent progress in developing its visual data exploration platform - a technology which has numerous applications across a wide variety of sectors. As the technology matures, we're incredibly excited to see the next stage of evolution at the company."

The World Digital Economic Expo, which was supposed to be held at the SMX Convention Center in SM Mall of Asia on the month of August, was formally moved to June 8-9 2020 and will be renamed as Manila AI and Blockchain Summit to be co-organized by SIGMA and Vibe PH. It was meant for individuals and companies from various industries such as e-commerce, AI and IOT, fintech and blockchain to come together in this extraordinary event.

In Addition to that The World Digital Economic Expo will also be held in Bahrain co-hosted By our Key Note Speaker Mohammed Ebrahim Al Fardan founder of the Global Digital Economic Expo Forum and Co founder of the 27Avenue marketplace - The First Blockchain-based marketplace platform. The date will be formally announced soon.

The move was made because of Vibe PH’s recent collaboration agreement with Sigma in co-organizing the event.

The collaboration came when SIGMA CEO Eman Pulis from Malta announced double summits for the Manila AI and Blockchain Summit. The summits are iGaming at the SMX Expo Centre and Blockchain and AI at the Conrad Hotel.

With this event, it was meant to showcase AI and blockchain technologies about the iGaming scene’s maturity. Eman Pulis was also present at PHIL-Asian Gaming Expo at SMX Convention Centre last July 12-14 2019. The event was an expo full of gaming companies showcasing their products to the visitors. Not only that, some of them are allowing visitors to take a test play in their platforms and some little entertainment in various booths.

Eman Pulis also announced that Veronica Andrino is their newly-appointed strategic partner. Veronica Andrino is currently the founder and CEO of Adsolve Enterprises and a co-founder of Vibe PH VIP blockchain and corporate events.

She has travelled recently in Europe and Asian countries to attend and speak in various blockchain summits and conferences. Not only that, but she is also doing the Crypto Massive Adoption Roadshow educational events that were being held in various universities in Makati, Cebu and Bacolod with her team.

With the upcoming Manila AI and blockchain summit on June 8-9 2020 to be organized by SIGMA and Vibe PH, except that it would be one of the biggest events to be held in the Philippines that focuses on artificial intelligence and the disruptive blockchain technology.

British contemporary fashion brand Superdry and leading payments provider Klarna have today announced a perfect-fit partnership, enabled by Adyen. Superdry customers are now able to Pay later or Pay in 3 in the UK, and later this month will be able to Pay in 4 in the US, making everything from jackets to jeans more accessible to Superdry customers globally.

The introduction of new payment methods is the first wave of a global partnership, which will be further enhanced later on this year, when Klarna’s flagship Pay later product is rolled out internationally across markets.

The partnership comes as Superdry continues to focus on offering a superior customer experience for its new and returning shoppers, with Klarna identified as the best payment partner for its customer base. 

Michael Rouse, Chief Commercial Officer at Klarna commented: “Partnering with Superdry and helping them bring a first class shopping and payments experience to their millions of consumers, has been a fantastic process bolstering their existing reputation as an innovative brand. It’s an exciting new partnership and another global retail superbrand added to our portfolio” 

Charlotte Wilson, Head of Ecommerce at Superdry added: “When we looked to update how we let our customers pay, Klarna was an obvious choice for us. Renowned as the ‘payments people’, we wanted to deal with experts who could offer simple onboarding, allowing our customers to receive maximum flexibility with minimum disruption to  site. Adyen and Klarna delivered on all of that, and once live, we can’t wait to see the reaction to flexible and alternative payments, as we strive to provide the best experience for our customers.”

Cyber security provider F-Secure has released a free new online tool that helps expose the true cost of using some of the web’s most popular free services—the abundance of data that has been collected about them by Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon Alexa, Twitter and Snapchat. F-Secure Data Discovery Portal sends users directly to the often hard-to-locate resources provided by each of these tech giants that allow users to review their data, securely and privately.

“What you do with the data collection is entirely between you and the service,” says F-Secure Chief Information Security Officer Erka Koivunen. “We don't see – and don't want to see – your settings or your data. Our only goal is to help you find out how much of your information is out there.”

More than half of adult Facebook users, 54%, adjusted how they use the site in the wake of the scandal that revealed Cambridge Analytica had collected data without users’ permission.* But the biggest social network in the world continues to grow, reporting 2.3 billion monthly users at the end of 2018.**

“You often hear, ‘if you’re not paying, you’re the product.’ But your data is an asset to any company, whether you’re paying for a product or not,” Koivunen says. “Data enables tech companies to sell billions in ads and products, building some of the biggest businesses in the history of money.”

F-Secure is offering the tool as part of the company’s growing focus on identity protection that secures consumers before, during, and after data breaches. By spreading awareness of the potential costs of these “free” services, the Data Discovery Portal aims to make users aware that securing their data and identity is more important than ever.

A recent F-Secure survey found that 54% of internet users over 25 worry about someone hacking into their social media accounts.*** Data is only as secure as the networks of the companies that collect it, and the passwords and tactics used to protect our accounts. While the settings these sites offer are useful, they cannot eliminate the collection of data.

“While consumers effectively volunteer this information, they should know the privacy and security implications of building accounts that hold more potential insight about our identities than we could possibly share with our family,” Koivunen says. “All of that information could be available to a hacker through a breach or an account takeover.”

However, there is no silver bullet for users when it comes to permanently locking down security or hiding it from the services they choose to use.

“Default privacy settings are typically quite loose, whether you’re using a social network, apps, browsers or any service,” Koivunen says. “Review your settings now, if you haven’t already, and periodically afterwards. And no matter what you can do, nothing stops these companies from knowing what you’re doing when you’re logged into their services.”

Refinitiv today announced a strategic partnership agreement with Appway, provider of leading client onboarding solutions, to fully integrate their suite of onboarding capabilities on the Refinitiv BETA Platform, a complete suite of brokerage capabilities used by many leading US wealth management and brokerage firms.

Refinitiv’s wealth management business supports a significant number of established and emerging wealth customers providing global, regional and emerging market wealth platforms across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Appway brings more than 15 years of global market knowledge and technical expertise, experience which has maximized the client-customizable configuration functionalities of its solutions. The seamless integration with Appway will enable financial intermediaries and wealth advisors utilizing the BETA Platform to connect their end-clients with a fully digital onboarding solution that reduces time and costs, while improving workflow efficiencies across the board.    

“As the global wealth management industry continues to adapt in search of next-generation digital onboarding solutions to meet evolving client needs, Refinitiv remains committed to being that comprehensive single source,” said Tim Rutka Head of BETA Platform at Refinitiv. “We continually look to find new ways to create or provide additional value for our clients. Having full integration with Appway’s state of the art user experience underscores our commitment and aligns to our strategy of expanding our BETA Platform ecosystem with best-of-breed partner solutions.”  

Andrew Besheer, Director for Financial Services Solutions at Appway, said: “At Appway, we are thrilled to work closely with Refinitiv to provide a pioneering client onboarding solution designed specifically to meet the growing needs of their BETA Platform clients. Our orchestration and collaboration capabilities paired with Refinitiv’s BETA Platform will dramatically transform their client onboarding processes and lead to enhanced experiences for all stakeholders.”

According to Will Trout, global head of Wealth Management Research at Celent, “Digital onboarding solutions for Wealth Managers are no longer a nice-to-have option. As technology evolves so do client expectations, making next-generation digital onboarding solutions the new industry standard for inspiring confidence and winning over new clients. Effective digital client onboarding solutions can help financial service institutions improve customer experience, reduce costs, increase revenue, enhance process efficiency, while managing compliance across operating jurisdictions.”

Appway solutions cover end-to-end account opening as well as the entire client lifecycle - including updating, closing of business relationships and regulatory reviews - all while ensuring compliance with regulations and risk-standards across multiple jurisdictions. Internal departments are comprehensively connected to offer a real-time, 360-degree customer view across and throughout the workflow. This not only empowers advisors to achieve maximum effectiveness and productivity but in doing so improves the client experience.

Refinitiv has extensive experience supporting Wealth Management firms through its Wealth Management solutions which provide seamless integration across front, middle, and back office workflows. To learn more about Refinitiv Wealth Management, visit here or link:https://info.appway.com/e/393452/en-wealth-management/88sq7d/484610105?h=we2ngTM2kHpf5sd4l7EXF79-pKVlLBSU60r--T_Gw_k.

AutoRek are thrilled to announce we will present the new version of VanguARd, our automated cash allocation tool, at the Cforia European User Group on 18 July. The event takes place at the Brewery on Chiswell Street, Central London and all interested AutoRek users are invited to attend.

The user group will welcome attendees from all over Europe, as well as expert speakers from The Hackett Group, Atradius and AutoRek. Delegates can also look forward to the announcement of new Cforia product enhancements including cash application and credit modules, as well as business best practices.

Cforia and AutoRek signed a partnership agreement earlier this year, which saw the integration of Cforia’s Autonomy software with VanguARd. These platforms come together to offer a complete solution for cash collections and allocation, with the combined functionality already generating high levels of interest in the financial services.

Chris Caparon, Cforia CEO said “Since opening our London office in 2017 our international customer base has risen to include clients in 117 countries, alongside a growing number of Fortune 2000 companies. Our ongoing success comes from our ability to provide a set of financial tools which implement quickly and improve order-to-cash operational performance.”

Chris added “With AutoReks’ VanguARd cash allocation tool we have added new artificial intelligence, algorithms and optical character recognition, plus a more intelligent workflow and electronically signed documents. This will further expand our platform and ensure Cforia continues to succeed in delivering greater value to our clients, who benefit from performance improvements such as automated client touches, a reduction in Days Beyond terms, elimination of unearned discounts and a reduction in dispute resolution cycle times. These all come alongside an increased command and control of global working capital.”

Open Banking Expo has launched its first European event in Amsterdam, in collaboration with Token, which will address the opportunities and risks that Open Banking presents as the financial services sector prepares to roll out the PSD2 directive.

With PSD2 due to go live on 14 September, this event will take place on 4 October 2019, and will bring together a C-level audience from the financial services sector, providing them with an unrivalled forum for ideas, connections and deals in Open Banking.

The conference agenda features more than 20 speakers from 10 European countries, including representation from banks, fintechs, SME lenders and regulators.

The legendary transformation specialist Alexander Zwart – who has propelled FMCG, energy & banking organisations for two decades – will keynote the event, giving delegates a rare insight into how to innovate the customer proposition via Open Banking

Open Banking Expo Europe will be the first event to bring together a pan-European regulatory panel to discuss if there can be one industry standard for Open Banking cross-border. It also features a C-level debate with speakers from Danske Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Dutch Payments Association and Klarna Bank who will discuss where the opportunities lie and how their organisations plan to enhance consumer adoption.

Real-world case studies will be revealed to the audience; including exclusives from Fortuna Bank, Yolt and the pioneering IATA proposition. Challenger bank trailblazer Ali Nikra,, founder and CEO of bunq, will take the hotseat for a Q&A with the conference Chair where his vision for the future of Open Banking will be uncovered.

ING’s global head of transaction services, Mark Buitenhek and BBVA’s global head of banking, Carlos Lopez-Moctezuma are also on the expert speaking faculty.  

Open Banking Expo launched in London in November 2018, welcoming more than 300 delegates across the globe from retail and digital banks and fintech businesses. As the first market to implement Open Banking, the agenda focussed on the customer experience and how to enhance consumer adoption across the UK. It also publishes a bi-monthly global publication, Open Banking Expo Magazine.

With Open Banking continuing to be a disruptive force of change globally, the need for increased innovation and to fully understand its opportunities and pitfalls will be critical for success and first-mover advantage. Open Banking Expo’s European event will provide delegates with unique access to banking pioneers throughout Europe, and an opportunity to question a market that has already implemented Open Banking in its region.

C-level delegates from the leading retail banks, digital banks, fintechs, cards & payments providers and API platform providers are expected to join us on the day. Tickets start from just €599 and can be booked via https://www.openbankingexpo.com/amsterdam/amsterdam-booking-form/.

Managing director of Open Banking Expo, Adam Cox, comments: “‘We’re excited to bring the Open Banking Expo to Amsterdam with our friends from Token. The UK might be leading the way in creating an Open Banking ecosystem, however, the complexities from a compliance and regulation perspective cross-boarder with continued growth within product innovation meant Amsterdam was the perfect conduit to the rest of Europe. We look forward to welcoming a pan-European audience to the Novotel Convention Center on 4 October.”

Token's chief operating officer, Todd Clyde said: “Token has partnered with Open Banking Expo as it explores all sides of the ecosystem, with honest discussions about the challenges as well as the opportunities. PSD2 was just the start of the API revolution - Open Banking is already delivering better payment services, but API fragmentation is creating barriers to innovation. That’s why we’ve developed one API to access any bank and are working to accelerate the adoption of standards; empowering banks to develop new revenue generating solutions”

The Datacenter Group (TDCG) from the Netherlands has acquired the data center infrastructure of NovoServe in Doetinchem and Enschede, in the eastern part of the Netherlands. By selling its two data centers, NovoServe is able to apply focus to their international IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) hosting activities, whilst TDCG expands its regional coverage. This acquisition therefore benefits the growth strategy of both companies. Through focus on core activities both businesses are able to realize their ambitions for growth.
 
The acquisition was preceded by almost a year of research in which both companies investigated the different collaboration options. Edwin Kennedy, Chief Commercial Officer at TDCG, says: “Providing IaaS hosting is really a different type of specialization as opposed to managing a data center infrastructure and hosting data and applications in a private cloud, which is a growing market for us. The latter really requires much more consultancy and customer guidance.”
 
Herke Plantenga, CEO and co-founder of NovoServe, is pleased to be taking a step back from operating the data centers. “Although we have a lot of experience in the field, it’s not our core business. With TDCG on board as specialist in the area of data center services, we can focus on our core activity: providing IaaS hosting services to a global customer base. In addition, this collaboration guarantees the scalability of our data center infrastructure.”
 
Data center ‘around the corner’
 
TDCG wants to grow to a network with national coverage consisting of ten data centers, one in each region of the Netherlands. Their locations in Amsterdam, Delft, Utrecht and Rotterdam already provide great coverage in the greater Amsterdam area. After this expansion to the eastern part of the Netherlands, TDCG is taking concrete steps to expand to the north and south of the country as well.
 
Kennedy: “For private cloud services it goes that customers want to do business with the business around the corner from them. Although they can monitor and manage their entire environment remotely, we want customers to be able to reach the data center quickly in case of maintenance activities. This doesn’t just save them time, but it’s also important from a trust perspective that their data is literally ‘around the corner’. After all, they are very deliberately housing their business-critical and confidential data in a private cloud.”
 
It is a different story for the IaaS hosting market. “Customers use our custom-built server configurations and quality network for things such as virtualization, cloud, and providing dedicated server hosting,” says Plantenga. “The majority of the sales market for our IaaS solutions is international due to the significant appeal of the Netherlands as internet hub.”
 
International orientation
 
Many of the customers TDCG and NovoServe will be serving together are located in Germany and Eastern Europe. This fits perfectly with the international growth ambitions of TDCG. Kennedy: “The Enschede region has traditionally been seen as a gateway from the Netherlands to the rest of Europe. This has caused the region to be very internationally oriented. In addition, the Twente University attracts many high-end technology businesses. The area also boasts a lively start-up landscape. This rouses the demand for data center services in the east of the Netherlands, particularly the demand for private cloud.”
 
Growing demand for hybrid cloud
 
The steps taken by both companies match the strongly increasing demand for hybrid cloud. Kennedy: “Gartner research from last year shows that businesses on average have only housed 10 to 20 percent of their IT in the cloud. This will grow to 80 to 90 percent within a few years. We are currently at the tipping point. The demand for both public as well as private cloud is growing quickly. Together, TDCG and NovoServe are able to fulfil all needs – on premise as well as in the public and private cloud – and provide customers with advice about their best route to the cloud.”
 

Travellers now choose to pay for digital travel with alternative methods more often than cards and cash combined, accounting for 51% of global travel e-Commerce spend. The way people shop and pay for travel is changing according to ‘The Travel Payments Guide’, a new report from ppro and Amadeus, charting the rise of alternative payment methods. The two companies have partnered to enable travel companies to accept high-growth alternative, local payments.

The report shows alternative payment methods are most popular in Asia, accounting for 59% of the region’s spend closely followed by EMEA at 52%. In North America cards remain the most popular way to pay, representing 58% of all e-Commerce spend but that share is down from 62% just 12 months earlier. E-wallets and bank transfers have both edged up by 2 percentage points during the same period.

Growth in alternative payments is fastest in LATAM, with alternative methods capturing an additional 22% share of the market in both Argentina and Chile. This growth was driven primarily by e-Wallets with Argentinians choosing to make 16% of all e-Commerce purchases with an e-wallet in 2017, compared to less than 1% in 2016.

To report also marks a new partnership between ppro and Amadeus. The integration of ppro with Amadeus’ payment platform means travel companies can now easily accept the widest range of alternative, local payment methods such as real-time bank transfers, e-wallets and direct debit methods. Importantly, travel firms can now rapidly add and experiment with a new payment method, testing its impact in response to rapidly changing consumer payment preferences.

“Travel has always been at the forefront of e-Commerce and our data shows it commands a significant share of the pie. Our collaboration with Amadeus forms part of our mission to help companies get paid in any way their customer chooses to make that payment.

“Some of the largest markets in the world are seeing alternative, local payments take more than 7% market share in a single year so travel merchants really do need to move quickly now,” adds James Booth, Head of New Business at ppro.

“This data highlights how quickly the payments landscape is changing and the increasing complexity facing travel merchants. That’s why we’ve teamed up with ppro to provide travel companies the ability to quickly add and test the widest range of alternative methods balancing revenue, cost and customer experience considerations to continually meet the evolving needs of travellers.

“It should be noted that despite fewer travellers paying with cards directly, many e-wallets do rely on the card networks in the background. So cards will continue to be essential payments infrastructure for our industry,” comments Bart Tompkins, Managing Director, Payments, Amadeus.

The Travel Payments Guide provides a comprehensive view of the most popular payment methods in 40 of the world’s largest markets helping travel companies to optimise their payments strategy. The full report is available for download here: https://campaigns.amadeus.com/travel-payments-guide-2019