PPRO, the leading global e-payments specialist, has partnered with HighRadius, a fintech enterprise software-as-a-service company, specialising in automating the order-to-cash and treasury management processes, to offer merchant clients a faster and easier way, and more options, to accept payments from their buyers. The integrated offering from HighRadius and PPRO allows for the discovery and support of local payments in key markets.

By combining the HighRadius® Integrated Receivables platform with PPRO's wide array of local payment methods (LPMs), clients receive a completely seamless experience that matches the growing diversity in payment preferences globally.

“We are excited to partner with such an innovative company. HighRadius has developed a great range of B2B solutions and we are proud to be able to provide their merchants with local payment connections from around the world,” said Steve Villegas,vice president of partner management at PPRO. “Together we will offer a unique value proposition to a market that continues to grow and is looking for innovation from its business partners.” 

The integrated solution simplifies B2B payments, while also making the process faster and more accurate. Launched throughout the European region, this partnership will broaden the number of payment options available to HighRadius clients, giving businesses access to various LPMs, including Entercash (AT, DE, FI, SE), Giropay, iDEAL, P24, Sofort, Trustly, SEPA, and Bancontact. These non-traditional local payment methods help facilitate the changing, global payment environment. HighRadius customers can now experience the simplicity, convenience, and choice of LPMs.

"As a part of our global expansion and offering of our Integrated receivables platform, we are embracing newer payment methods as they are becoming more relevant to the B2B world," said Sayid Shabeer, chief product officer, at HighRadius. "We believe with PPRO we will be able to provide a variety of Local Payment Methods to our clients and keep bringing new efficiencies to transactions”

AMB. Susan Rice, united states national security advisor (2013-2017) under President Obama, and U.S. ambassador to the united nations (2009-2013), will be interviewed by Feedzai CEO Nuno Sebastiao on the main stage at money20/20 Europe, June 3.

The summit will feature stage content, breakout workshops with speakers from Citi, Biocatch, and others, followed by an exclusive reception with ambassador rice.

Amsterdam – Feedzai, the market leader in using AI to fight financial crime, is launching the Financial Crime and Technology Summit in partnership with Money20/20 Europe, which will take place at the RAI convention center in Amsterdam on June 3rd. Industry leaders from prominent companies, including Citi, BioCatch, Feedzai, and more will present hands-on material to Summit attendees to help spread best practices around defending companies from security issues and financial crime attacks.

Ambassador Susan Rice, who was responsible for much of the global security policies during the President Obama administration, will be interviewed on Money20/20’s main stage by Feedzai CEO Nuno Sebastiao. The session, titled “Banking on security: Global affairs, and the age of reputation crisis” will feature Ambassador Rice’s insights on international security and policy, while Sebastiao relates those insights to the need for the financial institutions in attendance to invest in their fight against financial crime.

“As National Security Advisor and Ambassador, I’ve spent my career working to advance global security and prosperity – two inextricably linked goals,” said Ambassador Rice. “I know how imperative it is that we engage the private sector in solving some of the most intractable problems of our time.”

“Financial crime is now one of the most important concerns for CEOs and regulators after so many highly public breaches and bad practices in the last few years,” said Nuno Sebastiao, Feedzai CEO and co-founder. “We also know this kind of crime leads to serious human rights campaigns and international security issues like human trafficking and terrorist financing, so we are proud to have Ambassador Rice join us at the Summit as we work to solve these serious issues.”

Following the main stage presentation, Summit attendees will have access to an exclusive area for the remainder of the Summit and take part in stage content, breakout workshops run by leaders at Citi, BioCatch, DataRobot, PaySafe, and other companies, and then end with an exclusive reception with Ambassador Rice. The workshops will include topics around technology like machine learning, trends within fraud and AML, and tangible tools to fight financial crime.

The Financial Crime and Technology Summit is part of Feedzai Frontiers, a global speaker series that brings thought leaders and industry titans, including Professor Stephen Hawking and Richard Branson, together at events around the world to address the most important technological issues and opportunities facing humankind, such as AI and ethics, the reinvention of retail, and managing risk in a digital world.

See more about the Summit at: https://feedzai.com/frontiers/financial-crime-summit/

Canadian leaders to share strategies on increasing customer satisfaction through innovative product development, Wednesday, May 11^th 10:00 AM EDT

As Canadian insurance carriers continue to place greater primacy on the needs of customers, all aspects of the insurance business are increasingly being viewed through the prism of customer-centricity. In contrast to the more traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, insurance carriers now agree that innovative product development represents a potent vehicle for delivering greater customer satisfaction, with modern insurance products becoming increasingly bespoke and tailored to fit the diverse needs, preferences and lifestyles of today’s consumers.

Join Insurance Nexus for the live webinar, “Achieve Greater Customer Engagement, Retention and Satisfaction with New Product Development”, Wednesday, May 11th 10:00 AM EDT

Insurance Nexus will be joined by Anna Foat, Director Digital Transformation Officer, Sun Life Financial and Fernando Moreira, SVP Global Insurance, Scotiabank to share perspective on increasing customer engagement, satisfaction and retention through innovative product development.

The webinar will explore strategies across the product development process, including:

• Reframing to Prevent Risk: Uncover how the rise of IoT, sensors and real-time data exchange can shift the insurance conversation to engaging customers around risk prevention
• Customer-Driven Product Development: How to flip your product development process on its head, underwriting from customer lifestyles first and risk second
• Delivering a Better Product Experience: Identify how your product experience, from research to purchase and claim to renewal can be streamlined and transformed to meet customer expectations

Register for the webinar here and you will be sent the recordings once the webinar has run

This webinar is being run in association with Insurance Nexus’ upcoming Connected Insurance Canada Summit. The conference, which will welcome over 350 senior insurance executives from analytics, business and product teams, will take place on September 10^th and 11^th, 2019, at the Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre Hotel, Toronto, Canada. For more information about this, and other Insurance Nexus events, please visit the website: https://events.insurancenexus.com/canada/ or contact Ira Sopic directly.

Contact:

Ira Sopic

Project Director

Insurance Nexus

T: + 44 (0) 207 422 4363

T: +1 800 814 3459 ext 4363

E: ira.sopic@insurancenexus.com

Syncordis S.A., a wholly owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI), today announced a strategic global partnership with Temenos, the banking software company. This partnership will enable Syncordis to seamlessly offer an array of Temenos certified services to banks across the globe.

Equipped with an exclusive focus and comprehensive expertise, Syncordis has established itself as a specialist in implementation of Temenos T24 Transact, the next generation platform for core banking and Temenos WealthSuite. Through the global partnership, Syncordis will attain enhanced capabilities to offer a wide range of services across Temenos product portfolio and manage migration, training, testing and upgrade requirements of Temenos clients worldwide.

Guillaume Desjonqueres, CEO, Syncordis said, “We are excited to partner with Temenos, the market leader in cloud-native, cloud-agnostic banking software, and confident that we will be able to deliver outstanding services and experiences to our customers through this strategic alliance.”

Nachiket Deshpande, COO, LTI said, “As the Financial Services industry undergoes transformation, organizations must co-innovate to solve tough problems for their customers. Syncordis and LTI will partner with Temenos to address this demand, deliver innovation and improve business performance for our global clients in the Banking and Wealth Management space.”

Neal McLoughlin, Head of Partners & Operations, Temenos, said, “At Temenos, we understand the power of partnerships and we have built the most dynamic community in the banking industry. We are delighted to expand our partnership with Syncordis to global strategic alliances and value their commitment. Together, we will leverage the power of our cloud-native, cloud-agnostic banking software to transform the banking industry.”

Syncordis has developed industry-leading accelerators that help with faster and consistent Temenos implementations and capture the fast-growing market opportunities for banking modernization services. This partnership will establish Syncordis as a trusted Temenos partner for end-to-end implementation, platform upgrades and enhancements for performance tuning.

Alipay, the world’s leading payment and lifestyle platform operated by Ant Financial, has connected more than 300,000 Japanese merchants as of early 2019 with tourists from Chinese mainland paying through the Alipay app.

This was an increase of about 500 percent compared with the beginning of 2018, when 50,000 merchants in Japan accepted Alipay, amid a push by the Japanese government to drive greater adoption of mobile payments.

Japan is one of the most popular destinations for holiday by Chinese tourists, according to statistics compiled by Alipay, which is also working with its e-wallet strategic partners in other Asian markets to bring more consumers to Japan in the near future. Alipay’s e-wallet partners include TrueMoney in Thailand, GCash in the Philippines, kakaopay in the Republic of Korea, and Paytm in India.

Over China’s the four-day long Labour Day holidays in early May, Japan was ranked fourth highest among all the overseas destinations in terms of total Alipay transaction volume. The country also posted one of the biggest increases in tourist spending, with average spending on Alipay per person rising 25% year-on-year. During the period, the most popular merchants for shoppers were convenience stores, airport shops, and department stores, according to Alipay statistics.

More tourists are expected to visit Japan in the coming years and Alipay is working to help local merchants cope with the influx through digital payments, while providing tourists with the mobile payment experience that they are familiar with back home. 

For example, users of AlipayHK - the e-wallet for Hong Kong citizens jointly developed by Alipay and CKHH - can now use the e-wallets in the Daimaru Tenjin store in Fukuoka, with the service expected to expand to the whole of Japan in the near future.

“Alipay has been providing technology support to our nine e-wallet partners to enhance their cross-border payment capabilities, and hopefully to bring more Asian customers to Japan and contribute to revitalizing the local economy,” said Eric Jing, Chairman and CEO of Ant Financial.

“We are dedicated to supporting small and micro businesses around the world through our technology. Digital wallets like Alipay are not only convenient payment tools, but also smart marketing platforms to connect merchants and their potential customers before, during and after their visits to Japan,” Eric added.

Nearly 60 per cent of overseas bricks-and-mortar merchants that adopted Alipay saw a subsequent growth in both foot traffic and revenue, according to the report 2018 Trends for Mobile Payment in Chinese Outbound Tourism by Nielsen. A separate report, Outbound Chinese Tourism andConsumption Trend: 2017 Survey, found that over 90% of Chinese tourists would use mobile payment while traveling overseas if they were given the option.

China is the largest tourism market for Japan, accounting for 27% percent of the 31 million tourists who visited the country in 2018. Tourists from Asia as a whole reached 26 million last year, accounting for more than 86% of Japan’s total visitor number.

Tech Nation, the leading scaleup-network for UK entrepreneurs, has today announced the release of its annual Tech Nation Report with data from partners includingCompanies House, PitchBook, GitHub, the OECD and Streetbees, and in association with the World Economic Forum.

The report provides a comprehensive look into the evolution of the UK’s tech ecosystem, exploring the drivers that underpin and power economic growth within the sector.

For the first time, the report explores the wider international landscape, looking specifically at international and national tech investment, areas of potential growth and related specialisms, talent hubs and more.

Investment 

The UK tech sector performed particularly well in investment last year. In 2018, the UK managed to attract 5% of global high-tech scaleup investment, placing it fourth in the world - ahead of Germany, France and Sweden (see Figure 1). 

Investment for UK high-growth digital tech firms also grew 61% between 2017 and 2018 – driven in large part by ambitious UK tech scaleups (tech scaleups delivered the majority of all tech investments in the UK in 2018 - £5bn of £6.3bn).

The UK’s strongest tech sub-sector, and where it currently ranks as number one in the world, is fintech, with investment in UK high-growth fintech firms achieving £4.5bn between 2015 and 2018.

London continues to remain the UK’s leader in attracting high-growth tech investment, receiving £9bn from 2015 to 2018. Cambridge is second, at £583m, with other UK cities continuing to make considerable ground.

Figure 1.

(Source: Tech Nation/ Pitchbook, 2019)

Looking beyond high-growth tech companies, the last 12 years have seen a much greater distribution of investment across the UK.

Notably, the East of England has seen the greatest increase in capital invested across all tech companies, at 206%, followed by the West Midlands (54%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (51%).

On an international scale, UK cities continue to attract investment on the global stage. The table below shows international hubs with shared scale-up investment patterns. (see Figure 2):

Figure 2.

(Source: Tech Nation/Pitchbook, 2019)

Employment

In 2018 the UK continued to remain a hotbed for tech talent, employing 5% of all high-growth tech workers globally. This places the UK ahead of Japan, France and Indonesia (see Figure 3).

In the UK, Insurtech and Fintech were the biggest employers among high-growth digital tech firms in 2018, employing 24% and 18% of the high-growth workforce respectively.

Cyber, AI, and Cleantech all feature in the top ten sectors for employment in high-growth tech firms. Investment data shows that AI, Cyber and Big Data are growing in importance for UK tech scaleups. This means that the UK may be about to see more jobs generated in these sectors.

Figure 3.

(Source: Tech Nation/Pitchbook, 2019)

Growth 
From December 2018 to February 2019, high growth firms in London grew by over 56%, more than anywhere else in the world (see Figure 4).

Figure 4.

(Source: Tech Nation/Pitchbook, 2019)

Innovation

R&D expenditure in the UK in 2016 represented 1.67% of gross domestic product (GDP).

Businesses and government have put significant financial resources towards the development of a knowledge-based economy. Based on the most recent data from 2016, the UK was ranked 7^th globally for R&D expenditure, with spending up £1.4bn to £33.1bn, an increase of 4.3%. This is above the long-term annual average increase of 4.1% since 1990.

Quotes

UK Prime Minister, Rt Hon Theresa May MP, commented: ‘‘The UK is a global tech powerhouse. I am immensely proud of our country’s ambitious tech scaleups. These companies are delivering significant economic value to the nation through the investment they raise, the jobs they create and the innovative products and services they deliver’’.

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP, commented: “The UK tech sector continues to grow strongly with UK firms attracting the most venture capital funding in Europe and investment in  digital scaleups growing by almost two-thirds in a year. We are supporting British innovation so we can drive growth, jobs and higher living standards, including through £2.5 billion for the British Business Bank. This funding will help high-growth firms to access the finance they need to succeed.”

UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Rt Hon Jeremy Wright MP, commented: “This report confirms the UK is one of the world’s leading digital economies, with some of the best minds globally working here and strong investment in the tech sector right across the country. We are working hard to continue this success and remain committed to making Britain the best place to start and grow a digital business.”

Eileen Burbidge, Partner, Passion Capital & Chair of Tech Nation commented: “The UK has an incredibly pivotal role in the global tech scene. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Fintech sector where the UK is ranked number one in the world; an enviable position that has been established with decades of hard work, entrepreneurial talent, innovation and supportive policymakers. I'm confident that we have all the ingredients needed for continued success and even greater acceleration of the tech sector here in the UK.”

Gerard Grech, CEO, Tech Nation commented: “The UK continues to exceed all predictions when it comes to tech growth. This report shows how the UK is a critical hub when it comes to global technology developments, with scale-up tech investment being the highest in Europe, and only surpassed by the US, China and India. This is a testament to the innovation, ambition and tenacity of tech entrepreneurs across the UK. These valuable findings will help inform how the UK as a nation can continue to foster competition and collaboration in an increasingly interconnected world.”

Tugce Bulut, CEO & founder, Streetbees commented: "As a scaling company that embodies many of the trends within this report, I’m delighted that our research in it illustrates the UK tech sector’s diverse strengths - from the supportive ecosystem and culture, to the deep expertise in AI, fintech, e-commerce, and elsewhere – so categorically. The UK is an incredible place not only for founding a start-up, but also for growing it into a company capable of taking on the world.”

Hayden Wood, CEO & Co-founder, Bulb commented: "The UK is a great place to build a technology company. We wouldn't have been able to use tech to reinvent energy without the access we get in the UK to talent, investment and community. We're also proud to be part of a growing number of companies developing tech for good. We're excited to see how investment at this scale can accelerate the growth of these companies."

Finastra has signed three global banks on its Fusion LenderComm platform as part of a coordinated campaign, including BNP Paribas, Natixis and Societe Generale. With NatWest, which joined recently, the ramp up signals a move towards a new era of efficiency in this complex space.   

Grant Jones, VP, Fusion LenderComm, Finastra said, “All of these banks were part of our Fusion LenderComm pilot and the momentum that the platform has seen since then is nothing short of extraordinary. This is an historic step that brings leading global banks together on the platform in the live Fusion LenderComm environment, for seamless and secure information exchange. But more than that, this is an important inflection point, paving the way for the whole industry to come on board, achieving even further critical mass.”

Fusion LenderComm is based on Corda Enterprise, R3’s commercial version of its open source blockchain platform, Corda. It is enabling banks to expose real-time credit agreement, accrual balances and position information data to lenders, directly from agent bank loan servicing platforms, such as Finastra’s Fusion Loan IQ. 

Philippe Boulas, Global Head of Corporate Banking Operations at BNP Paribas said, “We have been fully supportive of the Fusion LenderComm initiative since the beginning as it prompts the major players of this industry to work together and improve the service we offer to our borrower-clients in terms of quality, reducing delay and costs. With the creation of this community and a collaborative mindset we have a unique opportunity to tackle the operational pain points we have all been experiencing for years and that constrain syndicated loan market expansion.”

Fusion LenderComm integrates directly into the overall technology stack at the banks. The first-mover community is demonstrating the robust, secure and interoperable qualities of the platform.

Frédéric Dalibard, Head of Digital for Corporate & Investment Banking at Natixis said, “Given Natixis’ high involvement in the lending space we have been very supportive of the Fusion LenderComm initiative since day One. R3’s Corda is the perfect technology to enable the sharing of information between agents and lenders on a need-to-know basis while being fully compliant with our stringent IT security policies. We praise Finastra for having committed to take this path and we are delighted to work with our peers and partners to make this initiative a success.” 

Cécile Bartenieff, Chief Operating Officer of Global Banking & Investor Solutions at Societe Generale said, “The Fusion LenderComm initiative will help provide greater transparency and operational efficiency to the syndicated loan market for the benefit of all participants, including the pool of banking lenders and our borrower clients. This is an illustration of how blockchain can help banks optimize the entire flow of financial operations in a standardized and secured framework.”

David E. Rutter, CEO of R3, said, “Fusion LenderComm is quickly becoming recognized as one of the most advanced and forward-looking solutions for the syndicated loan market. There are exciting times ahead for the platform as more banks join at an accelerating pace. R3 is proud to facilitate the use of blockchain technology to provide lenders with access to many aspects of their positions in real-time. This brings a significant increase in transparency and convenience during the entire portfolio lifecycle. Having been involved since day one, I am certain Fusion LenderComm will lead to dramatic improvements in the syndicated lending market.”

BASF has optimised one of the world’s largest supply chain networks using FICO^® Xpress Optimisation. BASF’s advanced business analytics team used the mathematical optimisation software to map all of the company’s supply chains at once to weigh the economic value of an investment, a massive computational challenge. For its achievement, BASF was awarded a 2018 FICO Decisions Award for AI, Machine Learning & Optimisation.

“The chemical value chain is highly complex. When making strategic investment decisions, you have to take into account multiple global production sites, interdependent plants, manifold products and various businesses,” said Franz Joachim Schwenke, head of the Advanced Business Analytics team at BASF. “Our team of data scientists is constantly searching for new opportunities, to make available data more transparent and create solutions which support strategic and tactical decisions. We created a solution that can accurately evaluate the impact of strategic and tactical decisions like investments into new production plants for an entire chemical supply chain.

“To make it easier for BASF employees to use, we integrated the solution in a FICO Xpress Insight web application,” Schwenke said. “With this interface, it is possible to generate scenarios intuitively and easily share them with other users. Our colleagues especially appreciate that input data and the optimisation results are shown via interactive dashboards and network graphs, making it easy to compare several scenarios at a glance.”

FICO^® Xpress Solver can consider an entire value chain at once with all its relevant constraints. Through the detailed modelling of the interdependencies between the different business units participating in the value chain, the total economic value of an investment can be evaluated faster and more accurately. The project combined strong mathematical optimisation models with a business-friendly user interface.

While the data preparation, as well as scenario calculation, took several months in the past, the new application allows BASF to generate a scenario within a couple of minutes. In addition, the usage of mathematical programming has led to a major improvement in the quality of value estimation.

“BASF showed an innovative use of technology in a project with very large-scale and very complex problems,” said Sid Dash, research director at Chartis Research. “They solved challenging data representation and computational problems that just could not be addressed using spreadsheets. The judging panel was impressed by the scope and scale of their achievement.”

“BASF is solving computational problems at an absolutely massive scale and putting it directly in the hands of business users,” said Steve Hadaway, general manager for FICO in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “Our Xpress solution is ideal for businesses like BASF that need flexibility, ease of use and tremendous computational power to find answers to big problems. Congratulations to the team for this well-deserved award.”

FICO^® Xpress Optimisation is composed of four core components: FICO^® Xpress Insight, FICO^® Xpress Executor, FICO^® Xpress Solver and FICO^® Xpress Workbench. Solving large complex optimisation problems can be the difference between success and failure in today's marketplace. FICO Xpress Optimisation allows businesses to solve their toughest problems, faster, and with unprecedented accessibility by business users. FICO’s deep portfolio of optimisation options enables users to easily build, deploy and use optimisation solutions that meet their needs. Standard capabilities include scalable high-performance solvers and algorithms, flexible modelling environments, rapid application development, comparative scenario analysis and reporting capabilities, for on-premises and cloud installations.

The Artesian Solutions Risk and Compliance Hub (ARCH), a SaaS solution enabling commercial teams and underwriters to carry out automated risk screening on prospective clients has been accepted onto PwC’s Scale | InsurTech Programme. The 11 week programme aims to support the world’s most exciting InsurTech scale-ups to expand and grow, bringing advanced innovation and disruption to a market that has been traditionally slow to keep ahead of emerging technological trends.

The Scale | InsurTech Programme involves 8 scale-up companies from around the world, selected by a PwC panel for the vast practical potential each can add to automating and innovating aspects of insurance delivery. Through the programme’s three core components, Artesian will be provided with the tools to effectively and efficiently scale its ARCH solution. Curated events will provide the Artesian team with opportunities to meet and pitch to PwC’s extended network of industry decision-makers to expand its commercial opportunities. Likewise, group masterclasses will provide valuable insights through a combination of PwC and industry experts, as well as the chance to learn from shared peer experiences and a bespoke counsel including coaching and business support experts.

Matt Elsom, Vice President of Risk Solutions at Artesian commented on the participation opportunity: “We’re delighted to have been selected for PwC’s Scale | InsurTech Programme after a competitive pitch process. ARCH promises to be a real game-changer for the insurance market enabling commercial teams and underwriters to make decisions faster, improve their ability to segment risks effectively and enhance both their clients’ and distributors’ customer experience. The launch of ARCH signals a very important period of growth for Artesian, and being selected from many by PwC for the programme means the valuable knowledge and expertise we can leverage will only serve to boost that growth.”

Glynn Austen-Brown, InsurTech Partner at PwC commented: “With InsurTech evolving at pace, the insurance market is experiencing vast amounts of potential innovation and enablement. InsurTech companies are small, agile and highly innovative, so offer a real opportunity to collaborate with insurers, to bring the best to the market. We are excited to welcome Artesian Solutions to the programme, and believe in their potential as an InsurTech scale-up business.”