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.

Allied Wallet, a leading provider of online payment processing offering various payment solutions in 196 countries all over the world, is poised to release new features to support new shifts in the world’s e-commerce culture and global technological advancement.

As new innovations become available to consumers, it is important that digital payments and their features adapt. Methods of operation and capabilities must change.

Allied Wallet is innovating their NextGen Payment Gateway to support new capabilities such as artificial intelligence, global connectivity, and the increasing number of connected consumer devices.

Machine learning is very common now, and our devices are becoming smarter and more knowledgeable about us as consumers. They can predict our habits, or even shop for us – restocking our most commonly used products on a schedule they see fit.

People are shopping across borders and sharing new products and services.

More “smart” devices are now connected to the internet such as kitchen appliances, televisions, and cars with abilities to make direct purchases related to the device.

All of these require a payment method that can support their ever-evolving needs and requirements.

“As new technological advancements are made, it’s not only important that payment service providers can service new customers, devices, and features, but also that payments are secured. There is no room for error here and customers deserve high-level encryption and the most stringent security protocols. This is a top priority at Allied Wallet,” says CEO Andy Khawaja.

Dr. Andy Khawaja added, “Allied Wallet is excited to support new technology with the most powerful features and provide a more robust payment solution for business owners and consumers alike.”

Thanks to a large development team and innovation led by payment industry veterans, Allied Wallet ensures that as technology advances, their payment methods will uphold the most functionality and the securest methods for digital payments available globally.

A new survey from Discover suggests that paying an annual fee on a credit card does not always guarantee satisfaction with it. The collected data showed that 70 percent of consumers are very satisfied with their credit cards with no annual fee, while in contrast, only 35 percent of respondents said they are equally satisfied with their credit cards that require an annual fee.

The survey found that 66 percent of consumers said a credit card’s annual fee factors into their selection of it, and similarly, 60 percent said having no annual fee is a very important factor when they choose a card. Most people who pay an annual fee reported paying between $51-100.

Among consumers actively considering switching credit cards, the number one reason – 54 percent – is to avoid paying the annual fee. Older consumers are more likely to consider switching to a new credit card because they do not want to pay the annual fee – 78 percent of pre-boomers, 67 percent of baby boomers and 58 percent of Gen X, compared to 46 percent of millennials and 41 percent of post-millennials.

“Our survey found that the most popular benefits for paying an annual fee are to receive cash-back rewards (52 percent) and travel benefits/rewards (48 percent),” said Andrew Hopkins, senior vice president of marketing at Discover. “We don’t think our cardmembers should have to pay a fee to get great perks, which is why we provide a full suite of credit cards with a variety of benefits, all without annual fees.”

When it comes to paying annual fees, younger generations are more likely to participate, as 59 percent of post-millennials and 52 percent of millennials have a credit card with an annual fee, compared to 47 percent of Gen X, 43 percent of pre-boomers and 41 percent of baby boomers.

Thirty-seven percent of overall respondents said they have closed a credit card due to the annual fee, and about one-third, 32 percent, said their one-year anniversary with the card is typically when they regret paying the annual fee.

“The twelve month mark seems to be a crucial moment in time for the relationship between many of the surveyed cardmembers and their credit cards,” said Hopkins. “One year usually gives cardmembers a good ‘test drive’ period with their card, when they can get a sense of their card’s benefits and features. For new Discover card members, it’s also a time when they see their Cashback Match; when we automatically match all the cash back they have earned at the end of their first year.”

ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of bank real-time electronic payment solutions, today announced that it is aiding fast bank adoption of real-time payments in Saudi Arabia with its UP Real-Time Payments solution.

ACI’s solution offers participating Saudi banks faster and lower-risk onboarding to the new real-time services through its global partnership with Vocalink, a Mastercard company and a leading technology provider, which announced last week that it has partnered with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) to launch real-time payments in the Kingdom.

The partnership between ACI Worldwide and Vocalink combines Vocalink’s IPS solution for central payment infrastructures and ACI’s UP Real-Time Payments solution for financial institutions. Leveraging success from the US market, the combined offering will accelerate the availability of real-time payments in Saudi Arabia by re-using existing, proven product level integration, thus helping banks to quickly join the SAMA scheme using ACI’s solution.

“ACI’s Real-Time Payments will provide Saudi Arabia’s financial services sector with the industry’s most complete platform to launch innovative new services based around real-time payments, while minimizing delivery risk,” said Craig Saks, Chief Operating Officer, ACI Worldwide. “ACI already powers real-time payments in the US, across Europe, Asia and Australia – a reflection of the growing ubiquity of real-time payments globally. Our partnership with Vocalink is part of what ACI already does, and the extension of our partnership to Saudi Arabia further solidifies ACI’s ability to help banks leverage speed-to-market for access to real-time payments.”

“As the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pushes forward with the modernization of its financial services sector, it joins a growing list of countries that are making real-time payments a cornerstone of their digital payments transformation efforts,” said Paul Stoddart, President, New Payment Platforms, Mastercard. “Our offering is a powerful proposition to Saudi Arabia’s financial services sector to activate a real-time processing environment in an expedited manner, improve efficiency in payments systems and ready the Kingdom for a digital payments future.”

ACI Worldwide currently supports real-time payments around the world, including live customers in Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Europe and throughout North America. ACI has a long history working with financial institutions in Saudi Arabia and won the award for ‘Best Use of Emerging or Innovative Technology’ at the 2019 MEFTECH Innovation awards. Click here to visit our Saudi landing page.

Centiro, a leading innovator in cloud-based delivery management and supply chain networking solutions, has appointed Kevin Crough to SVP North America, to help retailers, brands, manufacturers, and logistics providers connect their supply chain and distribution networks in the cloud to drive innovation, improve visibility and business performance in the field of e-commerce, omnichannel, and final-mile.

“It’s a very exciting time to turn up intensity and focus in North America, and a pleasure to welcome Kevin onboard to lead that effort, building on our North America success. He carries a well-respected name in industry and a firm understanding of how Centiro technology and innovation capability can help our customers speed up and address key market needs,” says Niklas Hedin, CEO.

Kevin Crough brings more than 30 years of international supply chain expertise to Centiro. He spent the last three years at Infor as Vice President Supply Chain. Prior to Infor, Kevin spent eleven years at GT Nexus (TradeCard) in various sales executive roles across the US.

“I’m honored to be a part of the next generation Centiro family. The company culture, innovative solutions and customer centric values have been key to the company success and will continue to be the cornerstone of our operations in North America. Our seamless sales and service delivery model is refreshingly unique and a real competitive advantage for us and our customers. Satisfying customer requirements to deliver for their customers should never go out of style,” says Kevin Crough, SVP.   

Kevin will expand Centiro’s presence in North America from its US headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.

ACH Alert, an award-winning provider of electronic payments fraud prevention technology for financial institutions of all sizes, announced the addition of George Leto as Channel Sales Manager to support increased sales within its existing channel partner division, which has seen significant growth due to rising demand for its payments fraud solutions.

Over the last two years, more than half of ACH Alert’s new business has been acquired through its channel partners, demonstrating the strong demand for the company’s solutions as well as prompting the need for additional leadership to support this growing division. In Leto’s new role, he will drive continued growth, reach competitive markets within the financial industry, and extend the reach of ACH Alert’s solutions.

Leto has more than 20 years of experience building trust, delivering value and developing long-term relationships with financial institutions and third-party partners with the financial technology space. He has proven success in capturing new business and increasing revenue performance within an existing client base. Leto also has an exceptional record for driving sales growth and market share in highly competitive markets.

“ACH Alert understands the importance of offering financial institutions a superior platform to help prevent fraud and increase corporate and consumer confidence in electronic payments,” said Leto. “I am thrilled to be part of a team that is devoted to delivering solutions that help community financial institutions enhance the capabilities of their digital banking offerings with actionable fraud prevention tools.”

“George has extensive experience maintaining and building strategic partnerships, through excellent service and positive experiences,” said Deborah Peace, AAP, chief executive officer of ACH Alert. “He truly believes in ACH Alert’s mission to offer financial institutions fraud prevention solutions that empower account holders by allowing them to take action and protect themselves against suspicious activity. As we continue to grow, we plan to use this momentum to protect a greater number of financial institutions and their account holders from payments fraud, as well as the frustration and financial loss associated with it.”

Aiven has completed an €8 million Series A funding round to enhance its leading cloud data platform with more integrated solutions and to accelerate international growth.

"We see a tremendous number of companies around the world now implementing their new real-time data platforms in the cloud. The new funding will allow us to better cater to their requirements,” states Oskari Saarenmaa, co-founder and CEO at Aiven.

The round was led by Earlybird Venture Capital with participation from Lifeline Ventures and Nokia chairman Risto Siilasmaa. Hendrik Brandis, partner and co-founder of Earlybird, joins the Aiven board of directors as part of the transaction.

“Aiven’s ability to outcompete established market players and build a highly capital efficient international business is impressive. We’re eager to become a part of the story and continue growing the company,” discusses Brandis.

Aiven launched its data cloud in 2016 with a suite of the best open source data infrastructure services that now include the Apache Kafka event streaming engine and databases such as PostgreSQL and Apache Cassandra. Aiven services cover all the needs of complex internet applications and have earned the trust of a growing number of customers, such as Atlassian, Comcast and OVO Energy.

Committed to open source, Aiven recognizes the importance of the communities behind these projects and will step up its participation in them. This will mean creating new open source tools such as Kafka connectors as well as participating in feature development and quality assurance of the core projects.

Aiven’s mission is to enable developers to focus on their core business and build great applications without worrying about software infrastructure. The next step in this journey is offering more integrated solutions on top of the individual building blocks that are currently available on Aiven’s data cloud, which will allow teams to build what they couldn’t imagine before.

The European P2P platform Robo.cash has analyzed the average investment made within the first months of investing. The results show that the average investment increases by 30% after the first month of investing on the platform and by another 10% - after the second one.

Currently, the fully automated P2P platform Robo.cash has 6,200 registered users, and the average investment on the platform amounts to €2,000. According to a recent analysis by Robo.cash, investors allocate on average €1,059 during the first month after registration. Next month, the investment volume increases by 30% and reaches €1,391. After two months of investing, it grows by another 10% and amounts to €1,531.

Today, there are 182 investors on Robo.cash with the maximum €10,000 on the investment balance. 30% out of them placed €10,000 on the platform within the first month of investing. Another 20% started with less than €1,000 on the balance and increased the investment volume to €10,000 over time.  

“Investors tend to increase the volume of invested funds after making sure that a P2P platform is reliable. Our recent survey confirmed that they pay much attention to it. Thus, a third of respondents expects higher safety of investments on P2P platforms in the future. Another reason for investing less at the start is that investors tend to diversify their portfolios and try different platforms to see how they work. According to our data, 64% of investors use five or more platforms, whereas only 5% use just one,” - said Sergey Sedov, CEO Robocash Group.

Robo.cash has been active for two years now. As of the end of April, it has attracted €6.6 mln of investments in total, which has allowed to finance 880,000 loans for the amount of €77 mln. Since the start, investors of the platform have earned €725,000.

 Mastercard (NYSE: MA) today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Transactis, a platform that helps businesses deliver bills and receive payments through one simple-to-navigate experience.

In today’s digital age, a surprising 44 percent of the 15 billion bills that Americans pay each year are made by paper check or cash. Consumers who pay their bills online do so in a variety of ways, including online banking applications or biller’s websites.

Transactis’ technology helps companies improve their customers’ bill payment experience, while reducing inefficiencies associated with paper bills and checks.  It provides access to a flexible digital service that can be used by even the smallest businesses, such as schools and property owners, who often don’t support online bill pay.

Transactis distributes its technology through a broad network of bank and non-bank partners.

“We see Transactis as strengthening our support of the bill payments space,” said Colleen Taylor, executive vice president of new payment platforms, North America for Mastercard. “Transactis’ technical and commercial know-how, combined with our reach and comprehensive payment options will greatly simplify the entire process. We’ll be able to deliver a better real-time consumer experience, from sign-up to viewing and paying bills, leveraging the investments that have been made in the core infrastructure.”

Redefining Online Bill Pay
Last fall, Mastercard announced Mastercard Bill Pay Exchange, a new digital solution that makes it easier for consumers to view, manage and pay telecom, utility, rent, credit card, mortgage and other personal bills. The platform allows consumers to use their existing banking apps to easily set up all billers, receive notifications when a bill is due, see bill details, and manage multiple bills in one place including specifying when and how much to pay.

Bill Pay Exchange is offered to banks and credit unions through a core set of APIs, enabling them to provide this service to their customers through one easy interaction. While some bill pay services only offer card or ACH-based payments, Bill Pay Exchange provides the choice of all payment types – including real-time payments – through the consumer’s existing online or mobile banking app.

Enhanced Capabilities, Better Experience
With the acquisition of Transactis, Mastercard will now be able to address bill payment needs in online bank applications as well as in biller websites with enhanced end user interfaces, expanded payment options and digital bill presentment capabilities.

“Mastercard has been a great partner and pushed the industry forward in this space,” said Joe Proto, Transactis CEO. “Historically, neither the Bank Bill Pay nor Biller Direct models has delivered the ideal experience or the complete solution. We see this as a unique opportunity to bring our complementary technologies together to deliver a better bill pay experience accelerating the migration of paper bill and checks to these online channels.”

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter. Mastercard Bill Pay Exchange is slated for full launch later in the year.

Digital transformation is a natural progression from traditional business, one better suited to today’s world. The analytic difference is the playfield for innovation, ascendable and agility that are possible in the transformation process, now that digital is a part of the mix. Digital transformation has the ability to deal with uncertainty and respond quickly to change, rather than setting long term goals and moving steadily towards them. Digital transformation is not a close-ended program, once it has begun, it opens up endless effective evolution.

Digital disruption is changing the world in which we live and work. Unique technologies have conceived new markets that, create new customers and new competitors. The consumers and dark horse are driving new expectations. The speed of change is unlikely to slow any time soon.

To be successful in the digital world, businesses must not only provide superior experiences for consumers, employees and citizens but deliver on their promises in a better pace, more quick-witted way. The opportunities are huge, but only for administrations that understand how far and fast they need to transform.

Digital transformation is enabled and enhanced by technology, but its success story is about much more. It means taking on an enterprise-wide change to change an organization’s business and operating models. And it means combining high volumes of data to influence, predict and respond to customer behaviour. All with the objective of assuring clear business outcomes.

In 2019, 40% of IT projects will create new digital services and new revenue streams that monetize data.  In the customer experience domain, transformative projects will include analytics based segmentation of customers, predictive marketing, personalization and enhancement of touch-points to align with customer journeys. On the operational wing, there will be a greater focus on the workforce with data-driven decision making and, ultimately, data-informed analytics

Understand industry-specific opportunities for digital disruption:

Leverage can now be taken by all businesses, digital innovations such as mobility, digital labour, iot, data and analytics. What matters is how they implement them to business challenges. Leverage comes not just from identifying and getting to know the innovations and implementing them, but from using them in new combinations to address specific challenges and thrive in transformation.

For instance,

Industry: Healthcare

Driver: Insufficient access

Patients today want flexibility and choice in how and where they access care and nurturing. Telemedicine allows them to access an immediate care physician or specialist from home. Advancements in e-health records with cybersecurity measures mean that the patient information can be stored securely, shared and accessed.

Telemedicine enhances the customer experience while allowing provider companies to reduce their own operating costs, improve patient outcomes and results, minimize hospital visits, and meet Government rules to lower total cost of care – all critical elements in the industrywide transition to value-based care.

Embracing digital transformation must be driven by much more than a desire to appear on the cutting edge. Instead, it should be about harnessing innovation to transform what a business is and how it remains relevant. There is a strong and growing connection between enhancing customer and employee experiences and improving top-line revenue.

To know more visit: https://www.oec2019.com/