Amongst esteemed Partners such as Kyndryl – the world’s largest IT infrastructure services provider – Verve Management is thrilled to announce an unmissable opportunity for banking professionals to delve into the world of fintech technology and banking innovation – the Future Banks Summit & Awards KSA  at the Riyadh Marriott Hotel, Saudi Arabia on September 11th & 12th. 

With successive advancements in digitalization within the financial sector, the 4th Annual Future Banks  Summit this year will take on a whole host of thought leaders, experts, and enthusiasts, focused on the conversation surrounding technological empowerment in The Kingdom. 

Promising an array of insightful discussions and interactions, attendees can expect to dive into topics surrounding the realms of; Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies, AI and Machine Learning in Finance,  RegTech, Compliance, API Innovation, and Open Banking. 

Verve Management is setting out to unveil an extraordinary roster of speakers at the Future Banks  Summit this year, amongst whom are: 

• Fionnuala Morris – Vice President and Managing Director, Kyndryl Middle East • Ahmed Darwish – Head of Digital Delivery, Bank Albilad 

• Ali Al Ghamdi – Director of Digital Banking Operations, Bank Saudi Fransi • Osama Bukhari – CEO, The Saudi International Chambers of Commerce • Issa Al Hurimmeess – Country Head MSB & Small Business, Al Rajhi Bank • Abdullah Alshahrani – Business Development & Digital Transformation Director, Tamweel  Aloula 

• Abdullah Alghofaily – VP Digital, LIV-KSA 

• Fahad Al Juwaidi – CEO, First Abu Dhabi Bank - KSA 

"Saudi Arabia is witnessing a remarkable stride in digital transformation within its financial services  sector," says Fionnuala Morris. “At Kyndryl, we take immense pride in supporting the evolution of the  sector and being the partner of choice to some of the leading players in the Kingdom as they advance on  their digital journeys.”. 

Each attendee brings in an invaluable perspective, fostering an atmosphere surrounding knowledge,  collaboration, and trends that are vital to the transformation and Saudi’s Vision 2030. Secure a spot now and witness the conversation, first-hand. 

Register now by reaching out at info@verve-management.com, and visit the website ksa.futurebanksummit.com.

 Spendesk, the leading 7-in-1 spend management solution for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), is pleased to announce the appointment of Sarah Whipp as Chief Marketing Officer.

With extensive experience in both Fortune 500 companies and start-ups in diverse B2B and B2C sectors, Sarah's addition to the executive leadership team promises exceptional strategic expertise and a fresh perspective. Sarah’s forward-thinking approach and proven track record position her as a valuable asset to Spendesk's continued growth across Europe.

As the former CMO at AI-based digital identity pioneer software company, Callsign, Sarah facilitated rapid growth and established the business as a trusted partner for major financial institutions, showcasing her ability to drive brand success in competitive markets. Her career highlights also include senior marketing roles at tech industry leaders such as S&P Global Ratings, Symantec, and McAfee.

Beyond professional achievements, Sarah's influence extends to shaping prominent enterprise marketing communities. As an Advisory Board member for HotTopics and a Forbes Communications Council Member, she actively contributes to the evolution of marketing practices.

Furthermore, Sarah shows her commitment to social responsibility through her engagement in internal boards for CSR/ESG initiatives and her role as a dedicated charity trustee.

Speaking about her new role, Sarah said: "Spendesk has cultivated and shaped the most remarkable company culture and I'm excited to contribute further. Spendesk stands as a pioneer, inventing a category to address critical business needs, and garnering fantastic client reviews. I look forward to accelerating our presence and collaborating with the marketing team to drive growth and bring long-term success."

Rodolphe Ardant, Spendesk Co-founder and CEO, said of the appointment, "Sarah's remarkable expertise in crafting and executing successful marketing strategies fits seamlessly with Spendesk's vision. Her leadership will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in driving our growth and help us become the new standard of payment at work.”

Following a successful roll-out of its Business Carbon Manager app in Australia, sustainability fintech, Cogo, is launching its app for UK SMEs to help them measure, understand and reduce their carbon footprint. Accounting for over 99% of private sector businesses in the UK, SMEs have a huge opportunity to make a positive impact on climate change.

To launch the Business Carbon Manager in the UK, Cogo is continuing its partnership with global small business platform, Xero, which was announced in September 2022.

Emma Kisby, Cogo CEO, EMEA: “There are 5.5million SMEs in the UK, contributing around 30% of the UK’s emissions so the potential collective impact that they can have is huge. To date, SMEs have typically been left out of the climate conversation, but our new Business Carbon Manager looks to address this and take the complexity out of carbon management.”

Managing an SME’s carbon footprint involves measuring and reporting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions a business generates. It is a crucial first step in any business’s sustainability journey as it identifies emissions hotspots and discovers opportunities to reduce climate impact. Once a business has measured its carbon footprint, carbon reduction targets can then be set. This transparency is crucial in today’s business environment as big businesses and governments are increasingly making companies that are part of their value chain report on their climate impact.

Kisby adds: “Some see sustainability as an added expense and a ‘nice to have’, but our Business Carbon Manager tool helps businesses identify where they are wasting energy and money, and in turn recommends easy to implement climate actions that they can take while also reducing their carbon emissions and costs.”

Tamara Somers, Director of Sustainability and ESG, Xero, said: "It's great to see Cogo entering the Xero UK App Store. Together, we're excited to support small businesses getting started on their journey to measure, understand and reduce their carbon footprint."

The app is available to Xero customers and is free to use. Premium features, such as downloadable reporting and public profile, are available for as little as £15/month. Sign up for the Cogo Business Carbon Manager via the Xero App Store here.

Learn more about Cogo’s Business Carbon Manager here.

Hitachi Payment Services, India’s leading payments and commerce solutions provider, today announced the launch of the country’s first-ever UPI-ATM as a White Label ATM (WLA) in association with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), offering secure card-less cash withdrawals. The UPI-only White Label ATM significantly enhances customer security by eliminating the need for physical cards.

The Hitachi Money Spot UPI ATM would provide customers a unified and secure user experience while offering them the convenience of card-less cash withdrawals. Furthermore, it will drive financial inclusion by facilitating easy access to banking services in areas where traditional banking infrastructure and card penetration is limited.

Leveraging advanced and innovative technology, the Hitachi Money Spot UPI ATM delivers a seamless digital experience for customers. Hitachi Payment Services has been at the forefront of bringing innovative offerings in the payments domain and presently is the only White Label ATM operator to offer Cash Deposit facility. This service can be accessed at more than 3,000 ATM locations.  

Sumil Vikamsey, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer – Cash Business, Hitachi Payment Services, said, “As India’s leading end-to-end payments and commerce solutions provider, we are happy to launch an industry-first offering in the White Label ATM space with Hitachi Money Spot UPI ATM. This novel offering empowers any bank customer to experience the convenience of QR-based UPI cash withdrawals. UPI has been the fastest-growing payment mode in the country and accounts for more than 50% of digital transaction volumes. The Hitachi Money Spot UPI ATM is a testament to Hitachi Payment Services’ technological capabilities and commitment towards making innovative banking services accessible to citizens across the country.”

Commenting on the announcement, Mahesh Patel, Director – Products and Digital Transformation, Hitachi Payment Services, said “We are excited to launch the country's first-ever UPI ATM on Android platform for our White Label ATM network in association with NPCI. The Hitachi Money Spot UPI ATM is built on Android OS and brings in significant possibilities of transitioning from legacy architecture of transaction processing and ATM management to offering solutions in line with evolving technology. We believe the UPI ATM is a major milestone in the banking landscape.”

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), said, "We are delighted to empower customers with this innovative and customer-friendly enhancement for ATM transactions. The launch of the ‘UPI ATM,' will mark a significant milestone in banking services by seamlessly integrating the convenience and security of UPI into traditional ATMs. This innovative concept is designed to provide quick access to cash even in the remote areas of India without the need for a physical card. "

Hitachi Payment Services is a pioneer in the payment industry in India, offering a comprehensive range of payment solutions including ATM Services, Cash Recycling Machines, White Label ATMs, POS Solutions, Toll & Transit Solutions, Payment Gateway Solutions and innovative offerings such as SoftPOS, POS Value Added Services and next-gen mobile based merchant platform enabling end-to-end services. The company is committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences and driving financial inclusion across India.

Today, Horizon Software (Horizon), provider of electronic trading solutions and algorithmic technology for the global capital markets, announces that Maybank Sekuritas has deployed Horizon’s Platform for Warrants Market Making.

The Horizon platform for Warrant Market Making empowers Maybank Sekuritas to deliver an enhanced trading experience to clients, combining Horizon's advanced technology with Maybank Sekuritas's market expertise. This collaboration enables seamless execution, comprehensive risk management, and real-time market monitoring, facilitating efficient and accurate warrant market-making operations.

This announcement represents one of the first clients to go live with Horizon’s warrant market-making feature in Indonesia. Maybank Sekuritas has introduced 30 structured warrants on the Horizon platform to date, utilizing Horizon’s innovative technology offering to provide an overall better trading experience for clients in the region.

Stefany Chew, Manager, Equity & Commodity Derivatives Indonesia at Maybank Sekuritas said, “We were able to increase our capacity and capability to provide structured warrants market-making in Indonesia, thanks to Horizon’s platform. As the demand for our structured warrants is picking up, it is imperative that we continue enhancing the features to ensure a seamless market-making experience and boost our confidence in listing more structured warrant series in Indonesia.”

Emmanuel Faure, Head of APAC at Horizon Software, added, “We are pleased to be Maybank’s Partner in Indonesia. As a result of this partnership, Horizon is the first provider to deploy our latest solution to help them quote and trade structured warrants actively on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. Ultimately, this demonstrates a key pillar of our growth strategy, providing customers with access to cutting-edge technology to better service their clients on a global scale.”

NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank, a leading renewable energy financier, has gone live on a new version of the MX.3 platform using Murex continuous integration solutions and services.

NORD/LB capital markets activity relies on the MX.3 platform for front office, enterprise risk management—limit control, credit risk and stress testing—and back office, including collateral and accounting.

By upgrading its MX.3 installation, NORD/LB sought to primarily protect itself against technical deprecation and end-of-life issues related to third-party components—the operating system, database and Java versions. Adopting the newest MX.3 version also aimed to improve operations resiliency in the context of DORA regulation. The bank successfully achieved its strategic goals and attained high levels of automation, enabling the continuous evolution and seamless integration of innovations into its MX.3 platform.

“The implementation of the continuous integration is a major milestone for the NORD/LB financial markets platform and supports our business strategy and related Murex projects,” said NORD/LB Financial Markets Program Manager Joachim Grimme.

“The implementation of the Murex continuous integration pipeline during the MX.3 binary update project was a decisive move to improve the quality of the deployment and reduce complexity significantly, while improving the productivity,” said NORD/LB Project Manager Frederike Haase. “It allowed us to efficiently manage multiple MX.3 installations that we use to develop and test customizations required by our business in various front-to-back-to-risk domains. On the hardware infrastructure side, it permitted us to better leverage our existing capacity and avoid any waste, which aligns with our ESG objectives.”

“Using the Murex continuous integration toolchain allowed NORD/LB to automate the conversion activities required for the upgrade and eliminated operational risks,” said Murex Project Director Hadi Abi-Tayeh. “It is a big success for the bank and validates the strategic decision to progressively adopt continuous integration tools and methodology.”

Murex is pleased to support NORD/LB in its DevOps journey and to accompany other institutions in their continuous integration transitions. NORD/LB is now planning new business initiatives, such as the introduction of FX TARF (target redemption forward) products to its customer base and the calculation and processing of initial margin (ISDA SIMM) for non-cleared derivatives. These initiatives will be implemented using the new way of working.

Murex continuous integration services deliver a high level of test automation. This enables NORD/LB to realize the full potential of MX.3, reducing time to market for new products or regulations, removing operational risk related to IT manual and repetitive tasks, and maximizing velocity with predictability and traceability.

In the longer term, NORD/LB’s strategic focus on business growth could be facilitated by a lift-and-shift of its MX.3 installation to the Murex SaaS. As a result, Murex would host and manage NORD/LB installations of MX.3 on the bank’s behalf. The end-user experience, integration of MX.3 within NORD/LB’s IT landscape and ability to customize MX.3 according to NORD/LB’s unique needs would remain unchanged and within the bank’s control.

Toluna, the leading global insights technology and panel provider, today shared key UK insights from Decoding Crypto – a global consumer study into consumer perceptions of cryptocurrency and their investment habits. 

Despite global optimism, reservations remain for UK consumers

When asked about levels of trust in financial products, UK respondents ranked crypto products as the least trusted by far, with 31% not trusting cryptocurrencies at all and 23% feeling the same towards crypto derivatives. This is followed by hedge funds (15%) and non-crypto derivatives (14%). As such, attitudes toward cryptocurrency are primarily cautious, with 38% of UK consumers feeling sceptical about it and 33% unsure.

Regarding the top barriers to entry for crypto in the UK market, nearly half of respondents believe it is too risky and 38% claim not to know enough about it to invest. However, almost one-quarter of UK consumers feel curious about cryptocurrency, indicating that a stronger understanding could support further investment. The continued squeeze on household budgets is likely impacting investment as well, with 28% of consumers needing money for other things.

Online and social platforms are key sources of information about crypto

UK consumers most often learn about cryptocurrency through online articles, according to 30% of respondents. Social media platforms come in as the second most used information source at 25%, with YouTube the top platform (52%) versus Facebook (42%) and Twitter/X (31%). 

Mark Foran, Financial Services Senior Associate Director at Toluna, commented: “Overall, global insights find current investors have a positive outlook on crypto, suggesting that overcoming barriers to entry is the biggest hurdle for growth in the UK market. When these barriers include the need for a deeper understanding and trust, it’s  important to know the sources consumers turn to when looking to discover more about crypto. These sources are key to boosting awareness and knowledge, which in turn could unlock greater investment .” 

Further findings from Toluna’s Decoding Crypto report are available here. The report provides an overview of the insights from this consumer study into perceptions of cryptocurrency and investment habits. 

Methodology

In December of 2021, Toluna conducted the first wave of a wide-scale tracking study that spanned across global markets to understand consumers’ investment habits, perceptions, and future purchase intent with regard to crypto. Since then, Toluna has conducted subsequent waves every quarter to build a continuous understanding of the market outlook.

The research for this report was conducted among 10,500+ consumers ages 18+ across 19 global markets in May 2023. It explored consumer outlooks on cryptocurrency and the part financial institutions can play in this dynamic landscape. 

“I am delighted to be joining IGF, a long established, independent and entrepreneurial lender whose aspirations match my own. I’ve watched John Onslow and his team build a fantastic business from a standing start, helping hundreds of businesses in the UK with their financing requirements. This is a rare opportunity for me to join this dynamic team and I look forward to working with the group to achieve our exciting ambitions.”

“I am delighted we have appointed Steve as our new CEO. He brings new energy and drive in addition to his undoubted knowledge and expertise of the market, which will all be key ingredients for the Company’s continuing success. Following a rigorous search & selection process, I am confident we have identified the best person possible for this job.”

“I was very impressed with the quality of candidates that we attracted for this role and am highly confident that we have the right individual for the job. I would like to wish Steve every success at IGF.”

Social media: an idea originally born to connect us with friends and acquaintances via the internet. Today, social media has evolved into a source for financial advice and insights for so many of us. Whether it’s crypto community open spaces on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) or TikTok influencers offering their followers tips on the best ‘side hustles’ and investment opportunities right now.

According to recent research, more than one-in-five (21%) of 18-34 year old’s now turn to Instagram for financial investment advice. Given these figures, how did we get here and why are young investors phasing out traditional finance when it comes to looking after their money?

Jeremy Baber, CEO of Lanistar comments: “Slowly but surely, social media has grown into an ever-present in our lives and is now impacting the way we approach our financial decisions. In particular, if you fall into either the Gen Z or Millennial generation brackets.

“Twenty years ago, the idea of securing a job via a social media platform would have been unheard of, but today it is common practice to place our trust into these platforms when it comes to important financial decisions like these. Financial opportunities on social media are not exclusively reserved for job hunters either - investment advice or personal finance influencers are in abundance across various platforms.

“What we can see from the increased trust being placed in social media when it comes to our finances is a shift away from traditional finance. When it comes to seeking financial advice, it has become increasingly difficult in recent years to access in-person advice following the closure of many high street bank branches.

“For younger users, accessing advice via social media feels natural compared to leaving home and having to seek out a local bank branch which potentially could be closed or busy during peak times.

“Our reliance on social media can be celebrated but at the same time, caution must also be advised. Following influencers and trend-setters can lead to overspending in some cases as desirable lifestyles and possessions are frequently on show as part of its attraction. Before engaging with influencers or financial advice online, it’s always advised to conduct your own research before engaging and to always have a clear budget plan in mind relative to your income.”

Today, social media platforms are inundated with financial discussions. Whether users engage with the advice or not, a recent survey found that 69% of social media users came across financial advice on their feed.

Baber concludes: “Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, seeking financial advice has changed forever due to social media’s booming presence within our lives. Having the power to research tailored credit card deals, secure crypto offerings and so much more via a social media platform is a powerful tool. Users are no longer restricted to 9-5 Monday to Friday opening hours of high street bank branches – social media never closes.

“Sceptics will highlight the warnings on becoming overly reliant on this new form of talking about finance. But in truth, when it comes to financials, due diligence and research should always be the first step anybody makes – be that on social media or via traditional finance channels. Nowadays, we demand an instant flow of data and this also includes advice or opportunities concerning our money, social media is quickly becoming the perfect vehicle to facilitate these needs. In short, the way we approach and talk about money has evolved and it’s here to stay and it’s just a few taps of your phone screen away.”