PPRO, a cross-border payment specialist, has officially been granted an e-money licence by the Ministry of Finance in Luxembourg, securing its long term future in Europe The new local entity ‘PPRO SA’  (société anonyme) has been authorised to conduct financial services across the EU under the supervision of the national financial services regulator, the CSSF (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier).

PPRO processes cross-border payments for Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and other merchant aggregators. As a financial institution, a license with permission to operate across the European Union is imperative. Without this licence, PPRO would lose passporting rights (the free movement of services within the European Union) once Brexit has been implemented. 

Even before the Brexit referendum, PPRO commenced contingency planning to continue its operations in the EU. Subsequently, PPRO decided to apply for an e-money licence (Electronic Money Institution Licence) in Luxembourg, the same operating licence currently being used in the UK. Luxembourg is a major e-money regulator and is one of the only few triple A-rated countries in the EU. With strong political and economic stability, many UK FinTechs have opted to apply for licences in Luxembourg. 

Jack Ehlers, Director for Payment Partnerships at PPRO SA, who has overseen the licensing operation, said “It has been a long three-year process, but we’re delighted to have been granted our e-money licence by the Ministry of Finance in Luxembourg. It was essential we secured this licence to continue operating in Europe, regardless of how Brexit now happens”. 

Luxembourg for Finance CEO Nicolas Mackel commented “We are delighted to welcome PPRO to Luxembourg. This demonstrates the appeal of the financial centre as a leading EU payments hub and constitutes a further addition to the local FinTech ecosystem. Luxembourg’s international environment provides FinTechs with a strong base from which to successfully serve their European clients.”

The Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) and the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) announce 4^th April 2019 as the ‘go-live’ date for the new initiative to start linking International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs) and Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) for the global financial industry. The initiative has been created to help improve transparency of exposure by linking the legal issuing entity (Issuer) to their issuance of securities, and to also address some of the regulatory requirements under the Prospective Directive, the CSDR and SFTR.

Over the past nine months, ANNA and GLEIF have worked together on technical developments on how the new global initiative will map ISINs to their corresponding LEIs. From April, a consolidated view of ISIN-LEI links provided by National Numbering Agencies who have opted into the initiative will be provided to the GLEIF by the ANNA Service Bureau (ASB). This published ISIN-to-LEI mapping will be made freely available to all without restriction on the GLEIF website. Eleven NNAs have already opted in from the start, with many expected to follow in the coming months.

This initiative underlines ANNA’s and GLEIF’s commitment and mission to promote the use of standards, including the two ISO standards used in this initiative: ISIN (ISO 6166) and LEI (ISO 17442). By linking the two ISO standards together, firms will be able to aggregate data to gain a clear view of their securities exposure for a given issuer and its related entities.

As the registration authority for the ISIN, ANNA has been responsible for evolving and promoting the ISIN standard through its work and collaboration with members, regulators and the industry at large. As a result, ISINs are issued today in more than 200 jurisdictions worldwide, enabling efficient global cross-border trading and improved transparency.

Established in 2014 by the Financial Stability Board, the GLEIF is tasked to support the implementation and use of LEIs, to help drive forward transparency within the global financial markets. Public authorities in many jurisdictions rely on the LEI to evaluate risk, take corrective steps as well as improve the accuracy of financial data in order to minimise the risk of market abuse.

Uwe Meyer, Executive Director & Secretariat, ANNA, said, "We are delighted that GLEIF and ANNA have joined forces to provide such a high quality and useful link between two very important ISO standards. We are constantly looking for ways to bring about further harmony in the markets by promoting standardisation, and are pleased that our work with GLEIF is furthering this end. Our work with the National Numbering Agencies has made this initiative ready for launch in just a few months, which is an incredible achievement and testament to the collaboration within the industry.”

Stephan Wolf, CEO, GLEIF, said, "GLEIF has been working with ANNA on this initiative to improve transparency and efficiency by aggregating ISINs with LEIs. We are excited to see the uptake in April this year and look forward to providing a service of links so that market participants can better see their exposure by having data on the issuer and issuance of securities in one place.” 

Klarna, a leading global payments provider, today announced the launch of its global authentication platform — an aggregator with multiple global and local authentication solutions. The platform allows multinational businesses, including merchants and other banks, to provide a simple, secure and personalised customer authentication experience irrespective of market, through a one-time integration.

Klarna has enabled millions of customers globally to shop securely without compromising their experience through an inhouse-developed customer authentication platform. This platform is now made available for other businesses. These businesses will benefit from an easy set-up giving them instant access to a wide range of global and local authentication methods to choose from, including SMS and email one-time-passwords, local alternatives like Swedish BankID, and Klarna's self-developed global identity solutions such as bank login.

The platform allows businesses to choose authentication methods best suited for their customers. It will also keep their customers’ data safe, while remaining regulatory compliant, without adding unnecessary friction to the user experience. Once the authentication platform has been embedded on the site it will always be kept up-to-date as new authentication methods are automatically added without any extra work from the site owners’ developers. Klarna controls and continuously optimises the user experience, so businesses can focus on continuing to develop their core operations.

Nir Aravot, Product Manager Customer Authentication Platform at Klarna, says: “At Klarna we have a relentless focus on the customer experience. Security is not an excuse for a poor experience, and we know that customers will simply not accept it. Offering an authentication platform that minimises the friction, offers a personalised experience and doesn’t compromise the overall user flow, will not only benefit customers everywhere, but also provide a competitive advantage for businesses.”

Klarna’s customer authentication platform enables online businesses to:

• Use many different customer authentication solutions through one simple integration globally
• Personalise the customer authentication experience to each user
• Comply with PSD2 and KYC regulation without compromising their users’ experience
• Increase engagement and decrease user acquisition costs
• Customise the experience to their brand easily
• Make their customers feel safe and secure shopping on their site

Leah Farmer, Vice President Product, Merchant Services, at Klarna, says: “Establishing trust online between business and customers is key for unlocking the potential of online commerce. Achieving that, without comprising the overall customer experience is a challenge for most businesses. With our customer authentication platform, we make it easy for businesses to establish this trust, comply with regulations, and tailor the experience to offer their customers a quick and safe way to identify themselves.”

CBA has seen contactless payment transactions linked to a debit or credit Mastercard almost triple, since the introduction of Apple Pay earlier this year.

The addition of biometric features further enhances the security of strong customer security, which is of crucial importance in a world that is becoming more and more digital. This multi-factor authentication solution allows financial institutions to comply with the Regulatory Technical Standards of PSD2. The updated solution, with biometric technology is also FIDO (Fast Identity Online) compliant.

Strong customer authentication
Users today increasingly utilize services such as online banking. This means they have to identify themselves online more and more often. With a large range of digital services available to end users, online services must be protected from unauthorized access at all times in the best possible way. The WL Trusted Authentication solution was built already years ago to answer the increasing needs of banks, governments and other organizations for strong authentication solutions to ensure secure remote access for mobile users. Since the start, this solution has been widely adopted and now processes more than ten million transactions per month.

Biometrics
The WL Trusted Authentication solution, provided with a software development kit (SDK) or a white-label app, already offered two-step verification via device enrolment (possession factor) and PIN code (knowledge factor). That means it already met the requirements of the PSD2 regulation to improve online payment security. With the introduction of fingerprint and faceID (inherence factor), users can now access their favorite online services even more securely. The biometric features also improve the ease of use and increase the adoption rate.The updated solution is compliant with the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) protocol, designed to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face when creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords.

Innovating for the future
Wolf Kunisch, COO at equensWorldline: “With the introduction of biometric features, our authentication solution is future-proof. However, this does not mean that we are finished, on the contrary. In this rapidly evolving industry, innovation is key. Therefore we are continuously seeking ways to further improve the user experience while simultaneously enhancing the security of payment solutions for our clients and their customers.

Looking at future innovations, this year equensWorldline will release a browser-based version of Trusted Authentication, in complement with the mobile version. This will provide financial institutions with full coverage for all users, an important point to consider as a replacement solution for the SMS One Time Password (OTP).

WL Trusted Authentication can also be linked to Mobile Security Operation Center, the Worldline solution that protects users against frauds and attacks, such as sensitive data hacking and phishing. This mobile solution was honored with the Banque & Innovation award in 2018, which recognizes technological innovations that benefit customers.

Payment industry experts have joined forces with SWIFT to step up the drive to move cross-border transactions to the ISO 20022 standard. 
 
In light of multiple planned migrations to ISO 20022 by high-value and instant payments infrastructures, the SWIFT community has agreed to create a common end-to-end implementation that will deliver increased efficiencies, support end-to-end STP, facilitate improved regulatory compliance, enhance the party identification process and enable new business opportunities.  
 
SWIFT convened the first Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) group – a working group of international payments experts that will formulate global Market Practice and Implementation Guidelines for the common rollout and implementation of ISO 20022 for cross-border payments. 
 
The guidelines drafted by the group will lay the cornerstone for a successful migration of cross-border payments traffic to ISO 20022 beginning in November 2021. A standardised global approach will lower the implementation cost for the industry as a whole. 
 
The start of cross-border migration in 2021 is aligned with adoption of ISO 20022 by high-value payments systems in the Eurozone, which will be quickly followed by operators in the US and UK. A four-year coexistence period will allow all members of the SWIFT community to make the switch by the end of 2025. SWIFT will provide a service to translate between ISO 20022 and the MT messaging standard to assist the community with the transition. 
 
SWIFT will also provide testing environments for institutions to ensure implementation conforms to the working group’s guidelines, and to test the translation facility. 
 
Trish McSweeney, Director of Industry Relations at CIBC, said: “It’s exciting to be involved in the renovation of the global payments system. It’s a long road we’ve embarked on, but we’re addressing a historic challenge from clients, regulators, and working to meet our own needs, especially for faster innovation and better data quality. There’s a lot do, and we have made a great start.” 
 
Paula Roels, Head of Market Infrastructures and Industry Initiatives at Deutsche Bank, said: “As the migration to ISO 20022 is a community-driven initiative, the work of this group is critical to success with a project of this magnitude. From the consideration of pain-points in the market through to challenging market practice to ensure interoperability, the group plays a vital role in identifying any potential drawbacks to timely migration as well as establishing global usage guidelines catering for all market stakeholders and the future needs of our clients.” 
 
Harry Newman, Head of Banking at SWIFT, said: “Our mission is to standardise business and operational interaction as much as possible, rendering a seamless service that banks can offer competitively to their clients. The benefits of the common rulebook within SWIFT gpi show how successful this approach is, and the work that this group is doing to create a common implementation of ISO 20022 continues the transformation of cross-border payments.”  

 
The migration to ISO 20022 is a community-driven effort that will require regular engagement from and dialogue between SWIFT’s users. SWIFT will invite the community to review and comment on the guidelines as they mature. The guidelines will be published on the MyStandards platform, allowing easy access to all interested parties. 
 
The participants in the working group include senior payments experts representing Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the Nordics, the United Kingdom and the United States as well as the International Securities Services Association

KBC, CBC and KBC Brussels customers who have a Fitbit smartwatch or activity tracker can now use it to pay in shops that accept Maestro and have contactless payment available. The initiative makes KBC the first financial institution in Belgium to offer Fitbit Pay, a fast, secure, free and convenient contactless payment option for customers who lead an active life. 

The launch adds to KBC’s commitment to pioneering new payment methods and follows the bank’s introduction of Google Pay and Garmin Pay. 

Karin Van Hoecke, KBC's General Manager of Digital Transformation: ‘The launch of Fitbit Pay in Belgium is an ideal solution for KBC customers who lead an active life. We recently provided the possibility to pay with Garmin Pay and the feedback we've received has been very positive. A more general wearables payments trial where customers can pay with their watch, ring, bracelet or key holder, is now running and again the reactions are promising. By including Fitbit Pay in our range of payment solutions, we hope to satisfy even more active customers. It allows a seamless connection between sport and payments, with no need to carry cash or your bank card.'

Contactless slowly but surely becoming an established means of payment
•KBC made contactless payments possible being the first Belgian Bank offering contactless debit cards1. Today 91% of all KBC debit cards are contactless and 10% of the payments are contactless(compared to 3% a year before). 
•Making payments with Google Paybecame possible in September 2017. Since then, more than 9.200customers at KBC, CBC and KBC Brussels actively use this payment method, each carrying out an average of two transactions a month. 
•KBC customers1 with an Android device have also been able to make contactless payments with KBC Mobile since last summer, without having to download an extra app. Almost 8.500 customers used it making about 18.000 payments. 
•Garmin Pay was launched in October 2018, since then almost 500 customers1 have enrolled the payment process on their device, doing more than 2300 transactions. 
•In December 2018, KBC started a trial with 1.000wearable devices (watches, rings, key rings and bracelets). Trial progress and initial findings will be communicated separately in due course. 
 

Calastone, the largest global funds transaction network, today announces the appointment of David Zwirn as Managing Director, Head of UK & Ireland Sales and Relationship Management.