Refinitiv today announced the appointment of Joseph Mrak as global head of wealth management. In this role Mr. Mrak will lead the global wealth management business with a focus on doubling down on driving technology innovation, developing key regional and global partnerships, expanding global reach and growing value for clients and prospects. 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. 

The latest Refinitiv report on “Digitalization of Wealth Management” reveals that key factors defining today’s wealth management industry include keeping up with new technology, staying relevant to the next generation of investors and finding ways to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into investment decision making and client-servicing, as well as ensuring scalability and robustness in core transaction platforms such as BETA. Refinitiv remains committed to providing customers with leading edge solutions, data, insights, and the advanced technology and expertise needed to succeed.  

“As the wealth management industry continues to transform, the challenge and opportunity, is helping ensure that wealth firms and their advisors are better equipped with the AI, advanced analytics, insight, technology and tools to meet their clients rapidly evolving investment and service needs,” said David Craig, CEO of Refinitiv. “We welcome Joseph Mrak to Refinitiv. His insight and industry experience are key factors for us to deliver next-generation, bold and meaningful technology solutions that fuel the businesses of our global wealth customers and the wider markets.”

Most recently Mr. Mrak was the Chairman and CEO at FolioDynamix. He then became a Group President at Envestnet post acquisition in 2018. FolioDynamix/Envestnet provides intelligent digital systems for wealth management and financial wellness in the United States and internationally. Prior to FolioDynamix Mr. Mrak held key executive division leadership roles at CheckFree (now FiServ) and Citigroup.

Mr. Mrak and his team will engage global customers, industry groups, key partners and industry leaders to drive the next level of innovation in the wealth management space across Refinitiv’s Thomson One, Eikon, and Beta platforms, and the next wave of digital solutions, with a key focus on driving advisor efficiency.  Joe will also evaluate partnerships that create value for current clients providing tighter integration across the wealth management segment. From a global perspective Mr. Mrak and his team will work closely with customers and prospects to evaluate the emerging underserved global markets in Asia Pac and South America.

“I have great passion for the wealth management industry and I am very excited to join Refinitiv to make a significant global impact on clients and the industry,” said Joseph Mrak. “As a long-time partner to the business in my previous role as CEO of FolioDynamix I know first-hand that at Refinitiv we have some tremendous assets with a proven history of success that we will look to advance and augment to provide enhanced value for our clients and prospects. It is an exciting time in the industry and across the global markets for the evolution of wealth management and I am looking forward to making a tremendous impact.”

After four years and a strong contribution, David Akellian, the current Managing Director and global head of wealth management, had decided to leave Refinitiv at the end of the year. He will work with Joe over the next seven months to ensure a smooth transition.

Refinitiv Wealth Management solutions provide seamless integration across front, middle, and back office workflows that enable better informed decisions, timely communication, and relevant insights. Refinitiv’s best of breed solutions (the new Refinitiv Wealth Advisor powered by the Eikon platform, and Thomson ONE in the US) deliver the tools and solutions to give advisors the power to be more informed, more efficient, and more engaged with their investor clients. Refinitiv Digital Solutions, industry-leading data, and APIs help transform how advisors and investors digitally engage with their investments and practice in a modern, digital experience, critically removing the enterprise data challenge customers face today.

Refinitiv Transactions and Operations Services, BETA, is a complete suite of brokerage capabilities that seamlessly integrates with a client’s current operations to meet their personalized business needs. BETA enables clients to manage the daily tasks of their brokerage business, plus it provides forward-thinking features to keep clients positioned for the future. To learn more about Refinitiv Wealth Management, visit here or link:https://www.refinitiv.com/en/wealth-management.

Fusion Foundation, the non-profit open source organization building the next generation infrastructure for decentralized global finance, and BANKEX, a fintech company developing a tokenization ecosystem, have entered into an agreement to bring a new set of collateralized digital assets to market, initially targeting small to medium-sized enterprises (SME) and commercial lenders.  

New York-based BANKEX operates a blockchain platform that supports the digitization of assets, their tokenization, securitization and custody.  BANKEX selected Fusion to ease the creation and control of digital assets between public and private blockchains and off-chain financial systems. Furthermore, Fusion’s groundbreaking Distributed Control Rights Management (DCRM) system enables users to create, configure and control assets across blockchains without surrendering private keys, making multi-token digital asset management simple and secure.

“We are excited about combining forces with BANKEX as they are a like-minded technology leader and have already begun digitizing and tokenizing assets using their innovative platform,” said Dejun Qian, CEO and Founder of Fusion Foundation. “Combining their platform with our powerful interoperability capabilities moves us both closer to our goals of ushering in a new era of global finance and banking.”

Fusion and BANKEX will work together to tokenize a variety of collateralized digital assets, starting with commercial loans for small-medium enterprises (SMEs) where there is a $1.2 trillion funding gap[1], and innovative real estate investments, such as mezzanine loans. With newfound transparency and efficiency available through blockchain platforms, both borrowers and lenders will be able to participate in exclusive financing opportunities. In particular, Fusion and BANKEX are collaborating with underserved asset originators to monetize their portfolio of loans, transforming them into a newly investable and accessible digital asset class.  

“Combining BANKEX’s asset digitization and securitization platform with Fusion’s unique interoperability protocol enables us to jump-start the deal flow of millions of transactions in SME commercial loans and real estate mezzanine loans as early as this year, providing a much needed new financing option and potential source of capital to thousands of small business owners,” said Igor Kmel, BANKEX founder and CEO.

BANKEX and Fusion are in active discussions with several business owners interested in digitizing their assets, including mezzanine real estate and merchant loans.

Deloitte and ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), a leading enterprise cloud-based provider of digital workflows, signed a new strategic agreement to accelerate organisations’ enterprise digital transformation. Announced today at ServiceNow’s Knowledge 2019 conference in Las Vegas, Deloitte and ServiceNow plan to jointly develop, coordinate and bring to market new products, assets and solutions built on the Now Platform^® to help clients deliver seamless digital experiences across the enterprise, improve workflows and enhance productivity.

"We’re excited to take our relationship with ServiceNow to a whole new level," said Janet Foutty, Chair and CEO, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "This collaboration will pair Deloitte’s business process transformation, organisational change management and technology implementation expertise with ServiceNow’s platform to create new enterprise solutions that help drive every part of our clients’ digital transformation efforts."

"Embracing cloud-based solutions to deliver great experiences and unlock productivity is a business imperative for every organisation today,” said John Donahoe, ServiceNow president and CEO. “Together, Deloitte and ServiceNow will help organisations accelerate their digital transformation journey and create business value at scale with innovative enterprise products, assets and solutions.”

In addition to new technology offerings, clients will have greater access to Deloitte’s IP and accelerators — best practices to deliver projects more efficiently — in an effort to improve processes, revenue, retention and productivity. The initial priority industry sectors include but are not limited to government and public services, telecommunications, media and high tech, life sciences, banking, energy, healthcare and manufacturing.

The products, assets and solutions produced from this joint engagement will also harness the power of business ecosystems by collaborating with other technology and service providers to accelerate innovation and growth in strategic, creative, agile and adaptive new ways. DeloitteASSIST, a voice-enabled technology transforming patient communication for hospitals, is one example of the type of asset stemming from Deloitte’s ecosystem collaboration with ServiceNow and one of the world’s most popular virtual assistant providers.

As part of this agreement, Deloitte will serve as the Lead Launch Partner for ServiceNow’s Finance Operations Management product. Over time, Finance Operations Management will include a variety of applications supporting digital workflows across the finance organisation. The first application, Finance Close Automation, will be previewed at Knowledge 2019 and is a natural extension of ServiceNow’s workflows and platform capabilities. Finance Close Automation will help finance and accounting teams digitise their workflows to reduce finance close risk, improve team satisfaction and accelerate the finance close process.

PayPal, a global technology platform and digital payments leader, is an early adopter of the Finance Close Automation application and has already seen positive results. “The ServiceNow Finance Close Automation app is an innovative new solution that brings together all aspects of the finance close process, enabling simplification, transparency, better controls and greater efficiency,” said Aaron Anderson, PayPal’s chief accounting officer and vice president. “With its entry into the finance arena, we believe ServiceNow will make a meaningful impact on finance departments across industries.”

“This joint agreement builds upon a great foundation of success with ServiceNow and is poised to deliver innovative, new solutions that help our clients reimagine the flow of work throughout the enterprise,” said Dejan Slokar, partner, Deloitte Inc. and global ServiceNow alliance leader. “Whether you’re an employee, a customer or supplier we’re creating an easier, more enjoyable, more connected human experience to enhance the flow of work.”

Visit our website for more information on Deloitte’s relationship with ServiceNow.

 Kofax^®, a leading supplier of Intelligent Automation software to digitally transform end-to-end business operations, today announced customer ABN AMRO Bank NV has scaled its digital workforce with an increased investment in Kofax Robotic Process Automation (RPA). After realising savings of thousands of employee-hours per week with Kofax RPA and improving the customer experience, ABN AMRO is doubling-down on its success and investing further in Kofax Intelligent Automation.

ABN AMRO had long relied on its human workforce to perform time-intensive information gathering tasks. The workforce was doing everything it could to maintain high service levels of accuracy and speed but required additional capacity to handle the heavy workload and strict regulatory requirements. To add capacity without increasing headcount, ABN AMRO leveraged Kofax RPA in 2016, streamlining the bank’s onboarding process and automating Customer Due Diligence (CDD), Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) investigations. This effort has saved the bank thousands of person-hours each week and streamlined processes to improve the customer experience. The successful relationship, combined with the bank’s confidence in Kofax to solve business process related issues, led ABN AMRO to scale its Kofax-powered digital workforce enterprise wide.

“By simplifying and streamlining our operational efforts with Kofax RPA, we’ve seen tremendous gains in efficiency. This success has caused a positive effect in the further widespread use of the technology,” said Pascal Smissaert, IT Engineering Lead Robotics and RADD at ABN AMRO. “By taking a more comprehensive approach to automation, we can increase productivity and further enhance the customer experience.”

“Large enterprises, such as ABN AMRO, typically execute complex transactions that require an automation solution beyond what RPA alone can handle. Kofax Intelligent Automation provides a platform that bundles smart automation solutions such as RPA, process orchestration, intelligent optical character recognition, machine learning, eSignature and advanced analytics into a seamless platform capability,” said Chris Huff, Chief Strategy Officer at Kofax. “With Kofax Intelligent Automation, ABN AMRO has been able to help employees achieve a better work experience by shifting them from low-value transactional work to higher-value judgment-based work. Through our successful ABN AMRO deployment and extended engagement, we’re demonstrating to the larger marketplace that, when leveraged as an integral piece of a comprehensive Intelligent Automation solution, RPA can effectively scale to meet the growing needs of global enterprises.”

Business processes built around manual work are often “alleviated” by adding human labor. Unfortunately process bottlenecks, data entry errors and higher costs are often results that can significantly impact processing times, compliance, customer responsiveness, return on investment (ROI) and ultimately, the ability to innovate. By automating manual data entry with Kofax RPA and blending it with Kofax business process automation, organisations can deploy an intelligent digital workforce that eliminates data entry errors, delivers 100 percent data accuracy and reduces processing times – at a fraction of the cost of a human workforce. Benefits include swift implementation via one vendor and speedy ROI, as well as the ability to free employees from data entry to deliver better employee satisfaction and a stellar customer experience.

Insurance startup, Urban Jungle today announced a £2.5 million seed funding round with participation from a range of new and existing high profile Angel investors, including Rob Devey, ex CEO of Prudential UK, and Simon Rogerson, CEO of Octopus Group.

With the InsurTech space hotting up, Urban Jungle is challenging the status-quo of traditional insurance providers to cater for the growing number of UK renters who have historically been underserved by the industry. Innovations such as a pay-as-you-go policy, a commitment to transparent pricing and modern policy terms have helped make Urban Jungle one of the top-rated UK home insurers, currently rated 9.6/10 on Trustpilot.

Since its inception in 2016 and with the support of pre-seed funding from its Angels, Urban Jungle has rapidly scaled and established itself as a leading brand in the rental insurance market. The startup has created a suite of products and grown its customer base to more than 15,000.

The Urban Jungle platform has been designed from scratch specifically with renters in mind. In its quest to make insurance easier to navigate, Urban Jungle have been working closely with underwriters to remove many of the legacy home-owner questions renters are asked when taking out a policy, making it easier to understand and better suited to today’s ‘Generation Rent’.

The platform has also been built with ease of integration in mind, making Urban Jungle well placed to easily partner with the wave of new agile FinTech services, and keeping them ahead of the competition who are struggling to keep up with the pace and scale needed in the industry.

Hot off the launch of its new contents policy which offers flexible and affordable cover from just £5 per month, Urban Jungle has grand plans for its £2.5m funding. As specialists in renters, the startup intends to stay with its customers as they grow and experience new life-stages - many of which will happen while they’re still renting - this means expanding their insurance product offering further.

CEO, Jimmy Williams commented: “I’m immensely proud of what the team has achieved since our last funding round. We’ve ticked off everything we set out to do, and more, as well as bringing in some amazing people to lead us into the next stage. There’s still so much about the insurance industry that we want to fix, and this funding will allow us to accelerate the pace at which we do that.”

Lead investor, Rob Devey, said “I’m very pleased to continue supporting Urban Jungle. Greg and Jimmy have done a great job at growing the business by collecting the best talent around them, building some outstanding partnerships and consistently executing on their strategy. It is very exciting to be involved in the next phase of the company’s growth."

Alongside the funding round, Urban Jungle also announced a number of new senior hires, including new Director of Strategy & Operations, Helen Hodges, a former Director at BBC Studios, and Lauren McAloon as Head of Marketing, who formerly headed up global customer acquisition at Clearscore.

JCB International, Co., Ltd. (JCBI), the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., and global acquirer Viva Wallet, the global cloud based digital payments factory, today announced the signing of a joint licencing agreement, enabling JCB cards to be used at all POS systems and online touch points across Europe. This covers 108 K merchants in 12 countries.

Launching in 2020, the partnership with Viva Wallet will enable JCB cardmembers to use a JCB card at different locations including homepages and key account merchants across Greece as well as the UK, Romania, Belgium, Cyprus, France and shortly Italy, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. The deal enables JCB card acceptance face to face and online as well as JCB Contactless and 3D Secure transactions in these European countries.

This partnership strengthens JCB’s coverage in Europe as part of the payment brand’s goal to provide a unique and seamless shopping experience to its cardmembers who require access to electronic payment systems when travelling the globe. Apart from JCB´s global cardmembers, in particular about a million Russian tourists per year will enjoycomprehensive JCB acceptance in Greece.

Mr. Tsuyoshi Notani, Managing Director, JCB International (Europe) Ltd., said “Greece received around 30 million visitors in 2017 making it one of the most visited countries in the world, so it’s imperative for JCB to have a presence here as we extend our wider reach into Europe to ensure our cardmembers enjoy a seamless payments journey when visiting European countries. Thanks to our partnership with Viva Wallet we’re able to help increase the acceptance of alternative payment methods following growing consumer and government demand in Greece.”

Mr. Costas Mantratzis, Chief Product & Innovation Architect at Viva Wallet (UK), said: “We always strive to combine our cloud-based processing infrastructure, our multiple principal memberships for acquiring and issuing services and our participation in various payment systems across Europe, to benefit our merchant base making their payments’ journey as seamless as possible. We are very excited about our partnership with JCB and we welcome their cardmembers not only to make easier and faster online and offline payments, but also accommodate an increasing demand for alternative payments methods in Europe, that not many other payment providers can support.”

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that the Arab Tunisian Bank (ATB) has become the latest bank in the country to select Temenos for its digital transformation program. ATB will transform its bank with Temenos Infinity, the breakthrough digital front office product, and Temenos T24 Transact, the next generation core banking software. These two banking software products combined with Temenos Payments Hub, Advanced Analytics and Financial Crime Mitigation (FCM) will enable ATB to benefit from an end-to-end digital banking platform, which will bring business agility and innovation.

ATB selected Temenos for its packaged model bank functionality and advanced cloud technology to meet its objectives, which are to increase revenues by 40% in 2020, and double the total number of deposits with new product launches. The bank was looking for an open, API-first and robust digital banking platform to help achieve its plans for future growth. ATB also selected Information Technologies Solutions & Services (ITSS) as its implementation partner. The bank will leverage ITSS global experience and local expertise in Tunisia for a fast and predictable implementation.

With more than 130 branches and 1,300 employees, ATB has grown to be one of Tunisia's top five banks since its establishment in 1982. In 2017, the bank was also awarded the "Best Commercial Bank in Tunisia" by Global Banking & Finance.

Temenos' pre-integrated, packaged banking software will provide ATB with faster time-to-market and dramatically reduce operational complexity and costs. With Temenos Infinity and Temenos T24 Transact, ATB will have the agility to create innovative products and services tailored to its customer needs. Temenos Infinity will also enable self-service onboarding capabilities and targeted marketing campaigns, empowering ATB to reach a wider prospective audience. As digital banking gains a stronger hold in Tunisia and the rest of the world, Temenos Analytics will enable ATB to better understand consumers' behaviors and habits, and respond to changing needs.

Mohamed Ferid Ben Tanfous, CEO, ATB, commented:

"Tunisia is quickly embracing the new digital world, and banking is no exception. With state-of-the-art banking software and 25 years of expertise, Temenos was the clear strategic technology partner of choice for us at Arab Tunisian Bank, combined with ITSS' experience, which was awarded as Temenos Regional Partner of the Year 2019. Temenos' end-to-end digital banking platform will enable us to offer enhanced, personalized digital experiences for our customers and become a global business partner for customers by developing new lines of business – a key priority at ATB. This digital transformation will help us achieve our ambitious growth objectives and fulfill our mission to contribute to the economic and financial development of Tunisia."

Laurent Bramy, Regional Director – French Speaking Territories, Temenos, said:

"We are thrilled that the Arab Tunisian Bank has chosen to partner with Temenos to power its growth journey. ATB will leverage Temenos' global experience and local knowledge in providing scalable, packaged software to lower the cost of deployment and gain business agility. ATB will be able to offer outstanding customer experiences and innovative products in response to market changes. With eight clients in the country, Temenos already has a dominant presence in Tunisia, and this ninth signing further underlines our status as a trusted market leader in the region."

Wirecard, the global innovation leader for digital financial technology, is expanding its collaboration with Orange in the field of digital payment and banking. Together with Orange Money in Romania, Wirecard is now offering an innovative financial commerce solution that allows contactless payments with physical and virtual Orange Money debit cards, smartphones, as well as Fitbit and Garmin smartwatches.

Since 2014, Wirecard has helped Orange take a pioneering role in mobile payment. Wirecard is responsible for implementing and developing all technical and financial processes according to Orange’s design and other requirements. Within the first two years of the partnership, the joint solution already gained more than 500,000 users.

Using the Orange Money app, Romanian users can now make P2P (Peer-to-peer) instant transfers via mobile phone numbers, transfer money using their individually assigned IBAN code, pay utility bills or recharge their Orange Prepay accounts. Customers can also perform internet purchases using their virtual card in the app, manage card limits, reset the card PIN as well as lock and unlock the card instantly.

“The partnership with Wirecard is an integral part of the digital solution Orange Money offers on the Romanian market and an additional guarantee of the quality of service that our customers are accustomed to and expect from us,” said Haris Hanif, CEO of Orange Money Romania.

Utku Ogrendil, Managing Director Romania at Wirecard, said, “Wirecard's mission is focused on providing cutting-edge digital financial solutions, and the partnership with Orange is a significant part of our vision to create a cashless future. We are delighted to further partner on the innovative Orange Money service – a solution that offers many benefits to Romanian customers and also a new perspective on the payment market in Romania.” Philippe Laranjeiro, Head of Sales Digital & Telecom at Wirecard, added, “We are delighted to further support Orange with their agenda to offer digital financial services for everyday life. After the successful development of Orange Cash and then Orange Bank in France to offer fully digital payment and banking services, the launch of Orange Money Romania is for us a further step to digitize payments globally.”

Wirecard provides a vast range of services within the partnership. These include transaction processing and settlement, card issuing and personalization, authorization – including 3Dsecure, card management, tokenization as a VISA certified NFC solution as well as all call center services.

Befitting all types of users, the digital payments are based on Orange Money Visa debit cards that are available either through the:

• Orange Money app, available for iOS & Android smartphones
• Orange Pay app, available on Android smartphones for NFC mobile payments
• Fitbit and Garmin apps, available on iOS & Android for NFC payments with smartwatches.

Fiduciary Trust Company, a wealth advisor and investment management firm for high-net-worth individuals and nonprofits, continues to expand its client service team with the hiring of Patricia M. Schneider, CFA, as Vice President and Investment Officer.

Patricia joins Fiduciary Trust from Middleton & Company in Boston, where she was a Senior Portfolio Manager. Previously, she was a Senior Portfolio Manager for BNY Mellon Wealth Management, also in Boston.

“We are delighted to have Patricia join our team of experienced professionals,” said John P. Morey, Head of Client Service and Business Development. “Her more than 20 years of experience helping clients customize their investments and address their broader needs fits well with Fiduciary Trust’s offering of personalized wealth planning and investment advice.”

Patricia is a CFA® charterholder and is as a member of the CFA Society Boston, CFA Institute, the Boston Economic Club and the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations. She earned her B.S. in Accounting and Organizational Behavior from Boston College.

NICE Actimize, business and the industry leader in Autonomous Financial Crime Management, was named the category winner for "Best Trade Surveillance Solution for MAD/MAR Technology" in A-Team Group's 2019 RegTech Insight Awards for the second consecutive year. Following its shortlisting, derived from reader/online nominations from within the RegTech Insight community which were verified by A-Team Group editors and the RegTech advisory board, NICE Actimize was the recipient of the most online votes in its category.

With this year's competition, the 2019 RegTech Insight Awards continued to acknowledge leading technologies and third-party vendors in the areas of their expertise. The RegTech Awards evaluation considered depth of involvement in capital markets, relevance of a solution or service to a selected award category, and the potential interest of a solution or service to the publications' RegTech community.

Chris Wooten, Executive Vice President, NICE, said, "For the second year in a row, our customers and partners showed their continuing confidence in our ability to support their requirements for meeting the demands for MiFID II and MAR compliance with our markets surveillance portfolio. We thank the readers of A-Team Group publications for their support on behalf of our category. As we continue to transform our solutions in financial markets compliance, with innovations in artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud, we will work closely with our customers to optimize operations and lower costs while meeting the demands of the regulatory environment.”

“We are delighted that our cross-platform readership of over 20,000 senior technology officers and data specialists clearly rated NICE Actimize Markets Surveillance for MAD/MAR as the Best Trade Surveillance Solution for MAD/MAR in a very competitive field. We congratulate them on their prestigious RegTech Insight Award win," said Angela Wilbraham, CEO of A-Team Group, which hosts the RegTech Insight Awards.

For additional information on NICE Holistic Trade Surveillance Solutions for MAR/MiFID:

• NICE Actimize Markets Surveillance helps firms comply with the MiFID II microsecond requirement, while improving firms’ ability to detect and mitigate market abuse. Advanced detection models cover every regulation and asset class out-of-the-box, including over-the-counter and exchange-traded instruments, as well as cross-product and cross-market manipulation.
• NICE Communications Surveillance uses next generation machine learning and Natural Language Understanding capabilities to accurately detect risky communications across all channels from eComms to voice.

• NICE Trading Recording (NTR) and NICE COMPASS Compliance Assurance: With MiFID II and MiFIR, firms must ensure recording of all regulated employees, communication channels and devices, easily prove they are being successfully recorded and retained, and quickly retrieve and share all recorded communications related to a trade.
• NICE Actimize Sales Practices & Suitability uncovers when investment advice is not suitable for clients, detects prohibited sales practices and establishes a risk-based process for reviewing transactions.
• NICE Actimize ActOne Investigation & Case Manager is built right in so compliance analysts can reduce their investigation time by up to 70 percent, reconstruct complete trade timelines in minutes and rapidly respond to regulatory requests.