Pelican (pelican.ai), a global provider of AI-powered payments and financial crime compliance solutions for banks and corporates, today announced the further extension of its API Interoperability solution, with expanded support for the six popular Open Banking API standards, now including the UK’s OBWG, France's STET and the Berlin Group, together with the Czech ČSOB, and the Polish and Slovakian APIs.

The Pelican API Interoperability solution enables Third-Party Providers (TPPs) to access PSD2 Payment Initiation and Account Information services, and to seamlessly connect to financial institutions implementing any of the popular Open Banking APIs, regardless of whether they are native TPPs, or banks wishing to operate as TPPs in an Open Banking environment.

In comparison with other more limited API ‘aggregation’ hub approaches that restrict financial institutions to using a single, and often proprietary API, the Pelican API Interoperability solution is unique in enabling organisations to adopt any of the popular PSD2-compliant APIs and to connect to all European banks, regardless of the different popular API standards the banks may be using. Pelican provides seamless and risk-free interoperability between all accepted formats, acting as a conversion ‘switch’ that harmonises the differences between various APIs.

Pelican’s interoperability capabilities are also attractive to banks wishing to internally standardise on one single API, but with a need to offer multiple API standards to reach a wider pan-European marketplace, or for banks that have already published a specific API and wish to support various other API standards across different business lines or in different jurisdictions.

Parth Desai, founder and CEO of Pelican, commented, “With the expansion of our API interoperability support, Pelican will enable banks and TPPs to seamlessly reach 500 million potential customers across Europe through any of the popular PSD2-compliant APIs. The Pelican API Interoperability solution is part of the comprehensive Pelican Open Banking Hub that delivers a true pan-European service, removing all the technical complexity of achieving multiple API support and connectivity to customers’ accounts. This allows TPPs and banks to focus on delivering their core proposition to customers, while Pelican takes the pain out of connecting to multiple API standards.”

Pelican’s subsidiary company, PelicanPay (pelicanpay.com), is a regulated TPP providing additional Payment Initiation and Account Information Services solutions to SMEs, corporates and fintechs.

To increase velocity for deploying predictive models, FICO and Equifax are introducing the Data Decisions Cloud. The new Data Decisions Cloud is an end-to-end data and analytics suite that addresses key needs across risk, marketing, and compliance to enable financial institutions to meet the needs of consumers faster and more precisely than ever before. 

The Data Decisions Cloud integrates the Equifax Ignite^TM platform differentiated data and analytic management with FICO Cloud applications and the FICO® Decision Management Suite (DMS), a digital decisioning platform. This broad strategic alignment will enable organisations to easily explore differentiated data, uncover deep new insights, build highly-predictive models and rapidly deploy decisions into production systems across the customer lifecycle. Financial institutions will benefit from an increased pace of innovation for data and decisioning, supported by incredible industry expertise and explainable artificial intelligence (AI).

“We are energised about this broad partnership between Equifax and FICO. Two industry leaders are joining forces to help financial institutions better meet the needs of consumers and improve business agility,” said Mark W. Begor, CEO of Equifax. “Our partnership will seamlessly integrate Equifax’s differentiated data assets and Ignite platform with FICO’s market-leading cloud based decisioning software and applications.”

“Our common mission is to empower financial institutions to leverage data-driven decisioning in all their customer interactions,” said William J. Lansing, CEO of FICO. “With this strategic partnership, FICO and Equifax will help organisations operationalise the best data with unparalleled predictive analytics and applied AI, and do so in a streamlined and cost-effective way.”

The strategic partnership is focused on a connected, end-to-end development and decisioning management platform that allows customers to quickly explore, develop, test, and deploy powerful insights into production systems across the organisation. In addition, FICO and Equifax are planning to release three pre-built solutions later this year:

• A connected system for real-time access to raw and trended data that enables the rapid creation and deployment of new predictive elements and promotes data science collaboration across the enterprise.
• A Compliance-as-a-Service solution that enables customers of all sizes to support their anti-money-laundering and know your customer obligations across the customer lifecycle.

• An integrated pre-screen marketing automation solution that develops FCRA-compliant campaigns to acquire and retain customers.

“Currently, there is a deluge of data, and while we have processes to extract meaningful insights to make it actionable, it is a cumbersome and time-consuming process,” said Liza A. Yannon, director of Quantitative Analysis at Key Bank. “I’m excited to see that FICO and Equifax listened to the voice of the customer by coming together, and I look forward to seeing how they help us obtain more ready access to data, enabling better use of it in analytics and business decisions.”

 “We know there is an overwhelming amount of data in the world and we know consumer expectations are on the rise as they demand highly-personalised engagement, in real-time. To compete in this dynamic market, financial institutions need to leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics to find the key insights that will help them deliver differentiated and profitable customer experiences,” said Brian Riley, director, Mercator Advisory Group. “The Equifax and FICO partnership underscores these trends and should help address the industry’s most challenging problems like streamlining the customer experience, improving data analytic capabilities, and reducing operating costs.”

Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. These statements can be identified by expressions of belief, expectation or intention, as well as statements that are not historical fact. All statements that address new products and services, including the Data Decisions Cloud, product development activities, expectations of the strategic partnership, the future operating performance of both companies, and events or developments that we expect or anticipate will occur in the future, including statements relating to the benefits and synergies of the strategic partnership, the potential market impact of new products and services and plans to release additional products and services are forward-looking statements.  Several factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the ability of the parties to enter into definitive agreements for the strategic partnership, the ability of the parties to realise the anticipated benefits and synergies of the strategic partnership, technical or other difficulties in connection with the introduction of new products and services and the market acceptance of new products and services. A summary of additional risks and uncertainties can be found in Equifax’s and FICO’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are given only as at the date of this release and the companies disclaim any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Open banking Third Party Provider (TPP) Identity & Regulatory checking specialist, Konsentus, and turnkey open banking platform provider, Token.io, today announce a strategic partnership to provide European financial institutions (FIs) with a fast and powerful combined solution for PSD2 compliance.

With PSD2’s Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) deadline passed, European FIs are under pressure to move quickly to deliver open APIs for testing. The Token and Konsentus partnership enables FIs to fast-track PSD2 compliance by connecting to a managed combination of two best-of-breed open banking technology platforms.

By connecting banks and FIs to its SaaS PSD2 API, Token can provide the functionality required by the RTS including readiness for external testing and readiness for full production by 14^th September. Konsentus’ SaaS platform simultaneously conducts automated checking and verification of TPPs that are requesting data and payment access to banks.

Maximising their open banking connectivity and turning regulatory due diligence into a market differentiator will enable FIs to establish a serious competitive advantage in open banking, as well as establishing PSD2 compliance in the shortest possible timeframe.

Brendan Jones, Chief Commercial Officer, Konsentus, comments: “Combining our identification and regulatory checking services with Token’s open banking platform delivers a true fast-track to compliance. Together, our ‘plug and play’ proposition is really powerful, especially for those under pressure to meet the regulatory requirements.”

“The clock is counting down for banks that are not yet compliant,” adds Marten Nelson, Co-founder, Token. “Our proposition with Konsentus not only gives these players a helping hand towards compliance but puts them in a position of strength for when the game really begins later this year.”

The combined solution is based on TokenOS^TM which delivers flexible, open APIs and programmable money technology, with the operational support, consent management, monitoring and reporting required to achieve compliance and develop new value-added services.

Konsentus provides fully automated (TPP) identity and regulatory checking services that ensure FIs only provide payment initiation and account information data to regulated TPPs which have demonstrably secured their customers’ consent.

Identification platform Verimi and digital identity solutions provider Signicat have today announced a partnership which delivers a better multi-factor identification and authentication solution across Europe. The agreement, signed today, includes the integration  of Verimi’s identification platform into Signicat’s Digital Identity Hub. 

Verimi is the leading ID provider in Germany and was selected by Signicat after intensive testing as a strategic ID Partner for its entry into the German market. Signicat’s Digital Identity Hub allows customers to connect once, then digitally onboard and authenticate their clients in a verified, compliant manner. The partnership means that Signicat customers can add Germany to the list of markets where they can digitally onboard customers. 

The agreement enables Verimi to attract more international partners via their network and means that Verimi will be an ID provider for Signicat’s services in Germany. Signicat will integrate Verimi services into their digital identity hub so that new and existing clients can use Verimi’s identification and authentication methods. Overall, the partnership ensures that secure and effective digital on-boarding, identity verification services, and regulatory compliance offerings can be provided in an interoperable manner across Europe.

Signicat and Verimi will together provide regulated businesses with verified digital identity solutions. Verified digital identities are increasingly important to many industries, in particular for banks, financial service providers, insurance companies, and public services.

Gunnar Nordseth, CEO of Signicat, said: “Germany is rapidly becoming a digital-first nation and our partnership with Verimi means we can offer our international clients an excellent identity verification and authentication method to attract and retain new customers. Verimi’s exciting offering is opening new doors for us in Germany and we look forward to working together with them.”

“Verimi starts to gain a foothold in the European market for digital identities and Signicat is the ideal partner for Verimi to attract even more new clients in Europe. We are happy to enter into a partnership with Signicat and become the ID Provider of choice in Germany“, said Roland Adrian, Spokesman for the Management Board of Verimi.

As the threat landscape continues to evolve, so does the need for organizations’ approaches to defending against the business impact of cyber attacks. In light of this trend, cyber security provider F-Secure is calling for greater emphasis on both the preparedness for a breach as well as fast and effective containment that covers the correct balance of people, process and technology.

“Cyber breaches are now a fact of life for many companies. It’s no longer a matter of ‘if’ a company will be breached, the question is ‘when’. And that calls for a shift in how organizations handle many aspects of security,” said F-Secure Countercept Managing Director Tim Orchard. 

Research highlights one current area of weakness as the lack of investment in effective incident response strategies. 44 percent of respondents to a recent MWR InfoSecurity (acquired by F-Secure in 2018*) survey said they invested less in their response capabilities than in threat prediction, prevention, or detection. Only 12 percent said response was prioritized over their other security capabilities.

Continuous response, the art and science of having the right people in the right place at the right time armed with the information they need to take control of the situation, is an emerging concept in cyber security that’s central to boosting response capabilities. The aim is to combine elements of collaboration, context, and control into a fluid process. In practice, this could mean a single team of threat hunters, first responders, administrators and other personnel working together to actively identify and remediate potential threats before they escalate.

“Having the tools and techniques in place to quickly detect, contain and frustrate attacks as they unfold buys you time, and gives you an opportunity to understand the full picture about how attackers are exploiting your weaknesses and moving through your network. And they need to be sophisticated enough to avoid tipping off an attacker that you’re onto them, and prepared to evict them in one concerted push,” explained Orchard. “And it’s important to put these tools and techniques into the hands of the right team if you want them to work.”  

The MDR blend of collaboration, context, and control 

According to the Gartner’s “Answers to Questions About 3 Emerging Security Technologies for Midsize Enterprises”** report, “MDR is about ’renting trained eyes’ you can’t find or afford to detect incidents that go undiscovered...It’s about finding the 10% of incidents that bypass traditional firewall and endpoint protection security.”

MDR solutions typically offer 24/7 threat monitoring, detection, and response services that leverage advanced analytics and threat intelligence to help protect organizations. Generally, MDR vendors deploy sensors (such as an endpoint agent or a network probe) to gather data from a client’s systems. The data is then analyzed for evidence of compromise and the client is notified when a potential incident is detected. 

After detection, clients either respond on their own or bring in external IR teams and approaches, which can include local or remote investigations and forensics, as well as advice on a possible orchestrated technical response. But at best, response activities stop at isolating hosts using EDR agents or firewalling. 

But effective solutions can potentially do much more. Treating response as a continuous activity means team members will be in constant communication and collaboration with one another, able to discuss suspicious events happening anywhere within their infrastructure. MDR solutions can facilitate this process, giving defenders the edge they need to stop, contain, and ultimately, eject an adversary.

“Finding a balanced MDR solution, regardless of whether its an in-house solution or outsourced, is key. I think our approach to preparing our clients to assume the breaches have already happened, and then help them hunt down those threats, is the essence of continuous response,” said Orchard. “Getting this right lets defenders evict attackers quickly on their first try, and prevent those adversaries from repeating their attack.”

Cleanshelf, a leading SaaS spend optimization solution, announced a partnership with OneLogin, the leader in Unified Access Management, to help companies automatically identify unused, underused, or unmanaged SaaS licenses and subscriptions.

"SaaS spend is already reaching $10,000 annually per employee, growing at a 25 percent CAGR," said Dusan Omercevic, CEO at Cleanshelf. " Companies need a solution to control the rising SaaS spend and to reduce 30 percent-40 percent in wasted expenses due to a lack of proactive vendor management and account rationalization. We're excited to join forces with OneLogin to continue helping companies with an easy-to-use and powerful SaaS spend optimization solution."

Cleanshelf's integration with OneLogin provides companies with actionable information about their cloud software subscriptions - from actual usage and department utilization to spend. OneLogin's identity service integrates seamlessly via API to Cleanshelf's state-of-the-art platform and allows companies to immediately track, optimize, and benchmark their cloud software subscriptions for all OneLogin-connected cloud tools such as Salesforce, Box, AWS, Office 365, Jira and Slack.

Qumulo, the fast-growing tech innovator from Seattle that builds solutions for hybrid cloud file storage, saw immediate results in leveraging the integration of OneLogin with Cleanshelf. Lynn Johnson, Director of Business Systems at Qumulo, emphasizes the smooth onboarding due to Cleanshelf's tight integration with OneLogin and immediate ROI they received by benefiting from Cleanshelf's most valuable features - SaaS app usage insights, detailed overview by departments and advanced reporting dashboard.

Johnson explains that their first priority has been overviewing and managing the growing software use inside their file storage technology company - swiftly and efficiently. "And that's exactly what we're achieving. If I could describe Cleanshelf's integration with OneLogin in one word - it's simplicity." Cleanshelf tracks monthly active members with the information pulled directly from OneLogin. She adds what happened was fascinating: "We effortlessly got visibility into usage and utilization of all services that we connected with OneLogin. It helped us make sure people are buying SaaS tools that aren't redundant or overlapping."

Ellation and Drawbridge echo Qumulo's experience and positive outcomes while leveraging Cleanshelf's features. One company's IT led the rollout of a popular file sharing and collaboration software Box. Initially, the adoption of Box within the company was high with nearly 90 percent of employees using the tool. Usage quickly dropped and hovered around 65 percent. By using data from Cleanshelf pulled directly through OneLogin, IT was able to detect the root of the problem and introduce better education; helping employees better experience the benefits and see the challenges the new tool resolved. Knowledge of usage is power - and is essential to realize ROI of a software project.

"OneLogin is thrilled to support partners developing innovative, API-built solutions that solve real-world challenges. We're excited to partner with Cleanshelf to provide organizations with a more comprehensive view of their SaaS environment and actionable insights, leveraging OneLogin's extensive catalog of prebuilt application integrations." - Matt Hurley, VP Global Channels, Strategic Alliances and Professional Services at OneLogin.

Cleanshelf's tight integration with OneLogin enables coupling of spend and usage information to let finance, procurement, and IT departments maximize ROI on cloud software subscriptions while driving new levels of utilization insight and decision-making certainty for finance leadership. CFOs are able to achieve transparency, full accountability and economies of scale for technology spend at their organization.

OneMarketData, LLC, a leader in tick data management and analytics, today announced that Invast Global, a leading multi-asset prime brokerage firm in APAC, has selected OneTick Surveillance, to be hosted and fully managed by OneMarketData. With increased regulatory requirements and pressures placed on financial services firms, Invast Global can now ensure that all trades carried out globally are protected and monitored appropriately as part of an auditable workflow.

Invast Global will take advantage of the OneTick Surveillance integrated web dashboard designed for the efficient review of surveillance alerts, rapid examination of new alerts and for assigning, reviewing, annotating and archiving them to meet compliance obligations. The solution includes pre-built, configurable alert rules and monitors along with the tools and user interface to manage, track and audit.

“Increasing regulatory scrutiny has put pressure on firms to ensure they have a solution in place that can analyze complexities in trading across multiple different asset classes,” said Nick Briscoe, Chief Operating Officer at Invast Global. “OneTick Surveillance has given us peace of mind and confidence that we are meeting the growing number of regulatory requirements across multiple global jurisdictions and market conditions.”

“Ensuring controls and surveillance procedures are in place has become more critical as trading requirements become more complex and OneTick Surveillance provides clients like Invast Global with a consolidated view of all activity being carried out,” said Ross Dubin, SVP and Global Head of Sales, OneMarketData. “We look forward to developing our relationship with Invast Global into new geographies and supporting their compliance requirements across the board.”

NuMSP, a leading national managed service provider (MSP) offering IT and cybersecurity solutions, announced its acquisition of the Boise, Idaho assets from Corporate Technologies. Corporate Technologies continues its operations in California, North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, and New Jersey.

"We are happy to reach an agreement with Corporate Technologies to buy the business in Boise," said Jim Griffith, CEO of NuMSP. "The Boise market is a vibrant, growing market for businesses, and NuMSP looks forward to delivering IT services to those businesses with the highest level of excellence."

This acquisition is the ninth for NuMSP. The company is building a nationwide company with the scale and resources to deliver advanced IT services to SMBs that will rival incumbent solutions at Fortune 500 companies to meet the challenges SMBs face in leveraging their IT investments.

"NuMSP was our first choice for an MSP committed to the SMB market when we decided to exit the market. We remain committed to our customers in our California, North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, and New Jersey markets," said Elam Baer, CEO of Corporate Technologies. "Jim and his team at NuMSP will continue to take care of the Boise customers with the same level of care and service delivery we provide."

NEXT Biometrics (Oslo Bors: NEXT), a global leader in fingerprint sensor technology, announces that Shanghai Basewin Technology Co., Ltd. has started to integrate its Aadhaar-certified fingerprint sensor modules into Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals. First volumes of the NEXT NB 2023 modules have been shipped.

Shanghai Basewin Technology Co., Ltd. is one of the biggest Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) solution providers in China. The Company produces a range of high-end handheld and POS terminal solutions for administrative law enforcement, finance, traffic and other applications.

"We are pleased that another POS manufacturer has chosen our certified fingerprint sensor technology for Aadhaar based solutions," said Alain Faburel, NEXT Biometrics Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. "This clearly underlines the advantages and superior performance of our technology."

"NEXT Biometrics` fingerprint sensor technology is a proven and trusted solution," said Steven Ding, CTO of Shanghai Basewin Technology Co., Ltd. "Reliability and technological excellence are key selection criteria for us."

Gresham Technologies plc, the leading software and services company that specialises in providing real-time data integrity and control solutions announces a second major global bank win in the first quarter of 2019.

Since the first Clareti customer went live in 2013, Clareti technology has been adopted by over 100 firms and the platform has become a de-facto industry standard for enterprise data integrity and control. 

The most recent bank win comes hot on the heels of a comparable 'bulge bracket' global investment bank win in February, the two new wins together represent over £7M in total contract value. 

One of the banks selected the Clareti platform, together with one of Gresham's strategic alliance partners, Cognizant, to deliver a fully managed service to replace core cash and stock reconciliations as well as address new global requirements. The second bank will also replace a legacy vendor solution for its global cash and securities processing operations with Gresham's more agile technology. 

With ambitious strategic digitalisation plans, both firms independently identified the need to replace inflexible, inefficient legacy applications that date back to the 1990's. The Clareti platform is the only modern enterprise-grade alternative, proven to operate at scale and flexible enough to handle the industry's new demands.

Ian Manocha, CEO at Gresham, commented:

"Two more of the world's largest banks' have turned to Gresham to enable their post-trade digitalisation, with Clareti underpinning their approach to enterprise data control and automation. Success alongside a partner of Cognizant's calibre, further demonstrates how Clareti has become the industry's only proven alternative to legacy reconciliation technology."

Bill Blythe, Global Business Development Director at Gresham:

"There is a seismic shift happening in capital markets today as banks move toward strategic global control platforms and lower cost utilities for their data quality problems. These wins displace legacy technologies that have become blockers to innovation, regulatory compliance and efficiency, some of which are approaching end-of-life."