The Chartered Banker Institute is proud to announce that it has become one of the first UK organisations to endorse the UN Principles for Responsible Banking. 

The Principles were developed by 28 of the world’s leading banks, all members of the United Nations Environment Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). The Principles are currently out for global public consultation until May 2019 and will become available for signature in September 2019, during the UN General Assembly. Until then banks and stakeholders can join this forward-looking coalition by becoming official endorsers of the Principles. 

The Principles provide guidance for banks to create value for their customers, shareholders and society. They are the first global framework to enable banks to integrate sustainability across all business areas, from strategic, to portfolio, to transaction level. The transparency and accountability mechanism of the Principles requires signatories to address their most significant impacts, set public targets and report back on progress. 

Simon Thompson, Chief Executive, Chartered Banker Institute commented: 

“Successfully embedding the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) at the heart of our sector is crucial. As the oldest banking institute in the world, we have a long-term commitment to setting and driving upwards the standards for knowledgeable, accountable and responsible bankers and, through, this work our support of the responsible banking agenda. Having launched the world’s first Green Finance Certificate in 2018, we are now ensuring that the PRBs are being included in all our qualifications. This will not only help embed sustainability within our sector but will demonstrate in a very practical way the social purpose of banking and help reconnect banks and society.” 
 

The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), a non-profit member-driven organisation that helps to assure the resilience and continuity of the global financial services sector, today announced that it has conducted its second EMEA cyberrange exercise in Zurich on 13 February.

The cyberrange exercise, hosted by UBS, follows FS-ISAC’s prediction that artificial intelligence will be increasingly used to create new ransomware that is able to evade detection and circumvent protections in 2019. FS-ISAC partnered with UBS, an institution known for its commitment to investing and allocating significant resources to protect its critical infrastructure and customers against cyberthreats.

The exercise convened CISOs, CIOs, Heads of Security and Security Analysts from 14 leading financial services and trade associations from across Europe to take part in a WannaCry-style attack on a simulated bank network. The exercise was also observed by several multinational retail and investment banks, asset and wealth management and financial services companies

“Having attended FS-ISAC’s previous cyberrange exercise, we were keen to host one at our offices in Zurich given the close alignment with our existing security efforts. We enjoyed working with representatives from other organisations and saw first-hand the impact that collaboration and information-sharing had on the participants’ decisions-making and response times,” said Carlo Hopstaken, Chief Information Security Officer and Head of Cyber Assurance Testing at UBS. “We look forward to strengthening the relationships that we developed during the exercise and we will encourage others in the industry to communicate with their peers more to improve the overall resilience of the financial services sector.”

The exercise tested how organisations can better understand and improve how they respond to, communicate, get assistance, and recover from real world cyberattacks, which infect their systems. Participants took part in an on-site technical and hands-on-keyboard experience that allowed them to collaborate and share information across with other teams and organisations, thereby enabling them to exchange best practices and raise their capability maturity levels.

“The EMEA exercise programme encourages members and interested parties to mitigate the risks posed by the ever-changing cyberthreat. Participation in the exercises contributes to improved response capabilities and acts as an effective stress test on organisations’ existing processes.” said Ray Irving, Managing Director, Global Business Services at FS-ISAC. “We are pleased that the second instalment of the exercise programme was met with such enthusiasm and we are committed to working with our existing members and the wider financial services industry to emphasise the value of sharing information and in regularly practicing defensive mechanisms.

Following the heightened engagement of the exercise, FS-ISAC will host the next cyberrange exercise, which will feature an updated version of the ransomware, in partnership with Santander in Spain in June 2019.

Allevo, a financial services software company, and DocProcess, a business process automation company, announce their technological partnership today. The two Romanian companies will collaborate to ensure the interoperability of their own systems to deliver unique financial services on the international market, dedicated to banks and corporate clients.

Allevo offers software solutions that help financial institutions, SMEs, and public administration to process financial transactions and comply to the latest standards and regulations. DocProcess offers complete automation services for back-office business processes (P2P, O2C, procurement, and logistics), being one of the main promoters of electronic invoicing, supported by Artificial Intelligence, OCR, and RPA.

The partnership ensures a complete set of professional services for banks and corporations. The benefits consist in less manual work and less time dedicated to synchronization and processing. The joint solution automates flows between ERPs and core banking systems, as well as those dedicated to processing documents on the Purchase 2 Pay and Order 2 Cash flows. The process is automated, paperless and achieves accounting reconciliation of the financial flow.

Our goal, through this partnership, is to create a digital ecosystem where suppliers, buyers and banks, as well as the increasingly numerous FinTech companies can collaborate 100% digitally by using harmonized and automated flows. Given the two European directives – PSD2 (Open Banking) and EU 55/2014, concerning mandatory eInvoicing for B2G trade, we believe that this is indeed the best moment to come up with integrated solutions for all these players. – Liviu Apolozan, DocProcess CEO.

We are thrilled to announce this partnership with DocProcess, a company that is very similar, and yet complementary to Allevo from both a solution and an expertise standpoint. From the early stage of our relationship, we explored opportunities identified within the financial market. The teams of DocProcess and Allevo architected software solutions that offer financial institutions access to a completely automated financial flow, based on existing standards and regulations. -  Sorina Bera, Allevo CEO.

Furthermore, the partnership involves the development of new financial products, unique at both a local and even international level, dedicated to both banks and FinTech companies. These products will significantly decrease the operational effort for factoring and crediting and open new service opportunities to banking clients, all based on Artificial Intelligence and API communication.

Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, announces the industry-first 5G SIM in order to meet operator requirements for the new generation of network deployments which will emerge in 2019. Compliant with the latest ETSI 3GPP[1] specifications and SIMalliance[2] recommendations, the 5G SIM is defined by them as the only solution capable of securing 5G network access. The Gemalto 5G SIM brings not only improved data privacy and seamless 5G global roaming imposed by the latest standards but is also the first to add enhanced protection against hacking to anticipate future requirements. 

By 2024, 5G network coverage is expected to reach 40% of the global population, and will account for 1.5 billion subscriptions[3]. Leveraging the benefits of 5G, key use cases of the new SIM are set to include enhanced mobile broadband, massive IoT applications, and critical communication infrastructures.

The Gemalto 5G SIM will be available in all SIM form factors (removable SIM, M2M SIM, eSIM), during the first half of 2019. Key benefits of the new 5G SIM include full anonymization of end-to-end subscriber identities thanks to onboard identity encryption; it eliminates the potential to misuse such information to locate and trace individuals, or collect personal data, and ensures mobile operators comply with regulations such as GDPR[4]. In addition, trusted environment resilience will help operators secure the entire SIM lifecycle, eliminating exposure to hacking attacks and accidental breaches. A seamless 5G roaming experience is also supported, maximizing revenues and enhancing the customer experience.

Gemalto has been working closely with key 5G industry stakeholders around the world in the development of 5G SIM, through standardization, prototyping and testing.

"The 5G SIM provides the foundation of trust in this next generation mobile network for operators and other stakeholders in the eco-system" said Emmanuel Unguran, EVP Mobile Services & IoT Business Unit, for Gemalto. "It will help operators unleash the full 5G potential, maximize their network investments, and simplify new service deployment with full backward compatibility to previous 3G/4G technology." 

"Qualcomm Technologies has a longstanding relationship with Gemalto focused on delivering mobile solutions with robust security," said Gautam Sheoran, Senior Director, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "We are now extending this collaboration to allow OEMs to easily develop exciting 5G devices with strong security, using both Gemalto 5G SIM and our next generation flagship Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 855 Mobile Platform to pave the path for 5G commercialization in 2019."

Qualcomm and Snapdragon are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries. Qualcomm Snapdragon is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Eventus Systems, Inc., a leading global trade surveillance and market risk platform provider, announced today that Singapore-based Straits Financial Group Pte Ltd – which became a client in May 2018 for its U.S. subsidiary, Straits Financial LLC – has just expanded the relationship by signing on to the Validus trade surveillance and risk management platform for its Singapore headquarters.  Straits Financial Group is the brokering division of the CWT Group, a leading global provider of integrated commodity services.

Eventus CEO Travis Schwab said: “We began our expansion into the APAC region last year with a presence in Singapore, and we’re thrilled to build on our relationship with Straits after the firm’s U.S. operation has seen what a tremendous difference our Validus platform can make. We will continue to grow our footprint in the region, adding to our Asian gateways and leveraging our sales presence in Singapore.” 

Said Paul Fry, Chief Operating Officer of Straits Financial LLC: “Our team looked at a wide range of platforms to find a solution that would fulfill our stringent regulatory requirements.  We chose Eventus because the firm met our needs for processing trade-lifecycle data from dozens of exchanges on multiple platforms, with a flexible user interface and a powerful reporting tool.  We have been pleased with the Eventus team throughout the evaluation process, both in terms of responsiveness and domain knowledge.”

Available as an on-premise or cloud solution, Validus provides comprehensive market surveillance and trading risk management for firms and marketplaces in global futures, equities, equity options, fixed income, foreign exchange and cryptocurrencies.  Validus helps firms monitor for unwanted behavior such as spoofing, layering and wash trading as well as comply with the requirements imposed by exchanges across the globe.

Payments Canada announced today the selection of SIA as the application provider for the country’s new high-value payments system, Lynx. This payments Modernization milestone is the outcome of an extensive procurement process with participation from key industry partners, including Canadian financial institutions.

In April 2017, Payments Canada announced a list of suppliers invited to participate in a competitive procurement process for Lynx. This process has ended, and Payments Canada has selected SIA as the Lynx application provider, subject to negotiation of the final agreement and final regulatory approval. SIA will work closely with Payments Canada and key industry stakeholders on the next version of their Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS)application solution to deliver on the needs identified during consultations for the future of payments in Canada, in compliance with strict Canadian and international risk standards. SIA is well known in the global landscape as a leader in payment infrastructures and services, providing a number of countries, such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden, with their RTGS systems developed by its wholly-owned subsidiary Perago, the excellence and competence centre for central bank solutions.

“SIA has a proven track record of delivering innovative, sophisticated solutions across the global payments ecosystem making them well-suited to support with the delivery of Canada’s new high-value payments system,” said Gerry Gaetz, President & CEO of Payments Canada. “We look forward to partnering with SIA, along with our key stakeholders to ensure that the end product delivers on what Canadians asked for and ultimately strengthens Canada’s competitive advantage on the global stage.”

Introducing Lynx is a fundamental part of Payments Canada’s multi-year payments Modernization initiative aimed at transforming the country’s payments ecosystem. The new system will replace Canada’s current Large Value Payments System and will be based on the global ISO 20022 messaging standard.

“We feel very proud to have been chosen to implement Canada’s new payments system because it’s a further confirmation of our critical role in RTGS modernization initiatives. The establishment of the new Payments Canada core system marks the first time ever project for SIA in North America and further strengthens our position in the international market. Our secure and reliable technologies currently support 20 central banks around the world to improve their own country’s payments infrastructure in order to keep pace with the increasing speed of digital transformation,” said Nicola Cordone, CEO of SIA.

Payments Canada has recently launched a procurement process for combined hosting and system integration services in support of the end-to-end delivery and operations of Lynx. This approach will ensure that Lynx aligns with the highest international security, resiliency and operating standards. This process is expected to be completed in 2019.

As regulatory bodies around the world step up enforcement of investment suitability regulations to ensure firms and advisors are properly managing investor wealth, NICE Actimize, a NICE (Nasdaq: NICE) business and the leader in Autonomous Financial Crime Management, has enhanced its Sales Practices & Suitability solution with new flexible client review models and investigative tools that enable firms to align compliance programs with changing business models to better serve customer needs, while also driving down costs by automating investment suitability compliance processes. 

Using the NICE Actimize Sales Practice & Suitability solution’s new flexible client review capabilities, firms can easily manage client risk across a household, while meeting business needs and suitability obligations. Clients benefit from optimized portfolio performance and better breakpoint discounts; and firms benefit by being able to align compliance with changing business models so they can manage risk more effectively and better serve customer needs. 

“While assessing client risk holistically at the household level is an increasingly popular method for managing wealth, it’s not without challenges,” said Chris Wooten, Executive Vice President, NICE. “Today, most compliance operations struggle to see the complete picture of a client’s holdings because their legacy technology cannot link, aggregate and analyze accounts at the household level. Firms also have to rely on analysts to manually pull and correlate data from different systems, which is costly, cumbersome, error-prone and risky. Or they resort to expensive in-house solutions which fall short of the mark. The newest enhancements to NICE Actimize’s Sales Practices & Suitability solution address these challenges.” 

Using the NICE Actimize Sales Practices & Suitability solution, FSOs first determine the ‘house holding’ structure that best meets their business needs, and then maps those structures to the client review model. The Sales Practices & Suitability solution then automatically finds connected accounts and compiles accurate investment profiles for households in seconds. Analytics are run at the household level and alerts are generated when risk thresholds are breached. 

NICE Actimize ActOne Automates Investigations

Additionally, with the native integration of Sales Practices & Suitability used in combination with NICE Actimize’s ActOne case management platform, investigation time can be reduced by up to 70 percent. ActOne applies automation and intelligence to the compliance investigation process. Robotics automate repetitive, manual investigative tasks, while policy-driven workflows guide analysts through each action they need to take. Analysts can also use ActOne to collaborate with team-members, escalate cases, upload documents and notes, and share detailed findings, resulting in significantly streamlined investigations. 

ActOne provides a unified platform and focal point for compliance personnel to manage a wide range of alerts and cases related to regulatory compliance issues and financial crimes. For example, an analyst can automatically correlate sales practices analytics and related communications to verify that investor protection guidelines around risk disclosure were met.

“As wealth management firms change their business models to adapt to new customer demands, compliance is playing catch up,” added Wooten. “NICE Actimize’s latest enhancements make this transition easier. Firms can reduce the cost of compliance through automation, eliminate burdensome manual processes, meet their obligations to regulators, and better manage client risk on a more holistic level to encourage lifelong customer relationships, all while building a robust bullet-proof suitability compliance program.”