A European Fintech Hub Report, published today by B-Hive, takes a deep dive into the European fintech scene in 2018. The report discusses the strengths of key European fintech hubs, the importance of collaboration and provides insight into the multiple opportunities that fintechs can tap into across Europe to further expand internationally.

Europe’s growing fintech scene is still running behind the world’s superpowers China and United States and as the competition gets tougher, the importance of collaboration increases. The report brings attention to the effects of creating fintech hubs to unlock more business opportunities for all fintechs in Europe. The access to a growing network and a huge market as well as the exchange of knowledge, technology and talent across borders results in growing businesses and increase in a more global mindset. 

Commenting on the launch of the report, B-Hive’s Executive Chairman, Fabian Vandenreydt, stresses the importance of pancontinental collaboration: “Because of the continent’s total market size, collaboration is the only way Europe can survive the world chessboard against US and China. This is the reason why we need to unlock continent-wide opportunities to position the whole of Europe as a true contender in the world market.”

One of the undeniable assets of the countries part of the European Union is the freedom of movement which gives fintechs access to a highly skilled workforce. The report focuses on this asset in addition to other key factors that have a significant impact on the area’s fintech scene. The other factors include region, business landscape, fintech attractiveness, key players and access to research.

The report focuses on a variety of regions: Brussels, Amsterdam, the Baltic States, Dublin, London, Luxembourg, Milan, Paris, Stockholm and Tel Aviv. Through cooperation, the European fintech industry can reach its true potential since success in the fintech scene is often a matter of connectivity. A strong, united fintech ecosystem allows fintechs to grow and expand internationally, and each actor can be a part of the winning formula.

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that its annual Temenos Community Forum (TCF), will take place April 2-4 in The Hague, The Netherlands. At its flagship event, Temenos will be showcasing its cloud-native, cloud-agnostic new products: Temenos Infinity – a breakthrough digital front-office product – and Temenos T24 Transact – Temenos’ next-generation product in core banking.

With the theme of ‘Digital Banking Reloaded’, TCF 2019 is a three-day event featuring keynotes by banking and technology leaders, as well as panels, user-led workshops and design-led thinking sessions on the most pressing industry topics:

• Leveraging the benefits of cloud-native, cloud-agnostic banking software to gain unprecedented speed, scalability and resilience.
• Developing API-first strategies to connect with wider ecosystems and innovate at scale and speed to accelerate time to value.
• Building consistent digital journeys to transform multiple siloed banking channels and legacy applications into compelling, frictionless digital customer experiences. 
• Defining use-cases that harness the power of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.
• Taking advantage of the most advanced continuous-deployment tools and methodologies so banks can roll out new applications within hours, rather than weeks or months.
• Digitally transforming the entire bank to gain operational excellence and gain lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

This year’s TCF will welcome more than 1600 attendees, including forward-thinking leaders from established banks, neo banks and digital disruptors, as well as partners, fintechs, analysts, journalists and industry experts from around the world. The event offers the incomparable opportunity to share experiences with Temenos clients, and hear about real-life use-cases from banks of all tiers that are using technology to digitally transform their customer experiences and gain operational efficiencies. 

Carl Robertson, Chief Marketing Officer, Temenos, said: “This year we expect to welcome over 1600 attendees globally at our TCF event which promises to be the biggest and best yet. TCF is now established as the banking industry’s leading forum and a celebration of our community; our clients, partners and our Temenos MarketPlace technology providers form the most dynamic banking technology community. Together, we help banks of all sizes to embark on their digital transformation journeys and reimagine their business models.

We are looking forward to meeting you all and showcase our cloud-native, cloud-agnostic products Temenos Infinity and Temenos T24 Transact. At the event we will be demonstrating how advanced API-first technology coupled with leading design-led thinking and continuous deployment empowers banks to rapidly innovate, connect to ecosystems and enable developers to build in the morning and consume in the afternoon.”

At TCF 2019 attendees will be able to:

• Access the latest research and insights – hearing from over 30 industry experts on new perspectives and opportunities on banking trends. Temenos will also be releasing its annual flagship retail banking survey in partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit, the annual wealth management research with Forbes Insight as well as the “2019 State of  Digital Banking” Temenos research; 
• Share ideas and experiences with banking pioneers from banks of all segments, tiers and regions –over 25 client success story presentations will take place;
• Experience firsthand the most innovative banking software technologies through live demos and over 30 breakout sessions and get exclusive access to detailed overviews of the Temenos product roadmaps  
• Engage with the Temenos partners – as well as connect with Temenos’ MarketPlace - over 65 certified fintech partners

Corlytics, the innovative regulatory risk intelligence and analytics company, has won first place in the Deloitte Regtech Challenge. As part of the prize, the company will now be collaborating in client engagements with some of Deloitte’s EMEA Risk Advisory firms.

The aim of the competition was to find the most innovative start-ups using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve regulatory problems, particularly in relation to Conduct Risk. Corlytics competed against 40 other businesses at the RegTech Challenge Pitch & Award Day, which took place at Deloitte Greenhouse in Milan earlier this month. The business was awarded with the accolade after showcasing how it is incorporating advanced AI modelling to provide regulatory risk ratings for financial institutions.

The competition success follows a number of major milestones for the business, including:  

•       The announcement in November 2018 that Corlyticsis set to close a new €10m funding round
•       Success in Allen & Overy's Fuseprogramme, a tech innovation space to explore, develop and test legal, regulatory and deal-related solutions
•       Cutting-edge innovative work with two new banking clients, introduced to the business by A&O
•       Six successful global deals across 2018, with more new wins than competing emerging regtech companies 

Kevin O’Leary, VP product management at Corlytics, comments, “The practical nature of Deloitte’s prize – which includes the opportunity to solve real business problems for their clients – makes this a brilliant win for the team. We were thrilled to compete against those doing some great work in the regulatory landscape.

He continues, “The accolade comes at a time when we are seeing real momentum in the regtech market. We’re now looking forward to delivering pilots and proof of concepts to help Deloitte’s partners understand the size, scope and root causes of regulatory risk.”

The Deloitte RegTech Challenge team declared: "We had the privilege to get in touch with some highly impressive start-ups throughout our RegTech Challenge and we want to congratulate Corlytics for the excellent result achieved. As Deloitte we are proud to create for Corlytics the opportunity to be a part of our innovation ecosystem that aims to solve real business problems and meet our clients’ needs.”

Onfido, the award-winning global identity verification company, today announced it has signed more leading French brands, including the Europcar brand (part of the Europcar Mobility Group brands portfolio) and AR24, and has partnered with IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, to promote its rapid expansion in France. In support, it plans to open its first Paris office to help the company deal with increased demand for its AI-powered identity service.

Husayn Kassai, CEO and co-founder of Onfido, said: “We’re excited to be investing heavily in France as the demand for robust identity verification (IDV) solutions continues to grow. Paris, being a centre of tech excellence, is another ideal location in Europe, augmenting existing offices in San Francisco, New York, London and Lisbon, allowing us to further improve our support for all our Europeans customers, including our newest clients and partners, Europcar Mobility Group, IDEMIA and AR24.”

Onfido’s end-to-end IDV service helps keep fraudsters off its customers’ platforms. It does this by verifying new users at the point of sign-up with a selfie and a photo of their identity document (ID). Onfido’s technology then checks their ID is genuine, compares facial similarity and cross references the ID against international watchlists. Using artificial intelligence, Onfido’s technology enables companies to automate checks on over 4,500 document types across 192 countries, detecting anomalies automatically in as little as 15 seconds, and using human experts to verify outliers.

From banking, to fintechs and car rental, to online marketplaces, fraud is becoming a growing concern in France as more businesses choose to transact online. McKinsey predicts the digital identity verification market will grow between 9-15%, reaching $16-20B by 2022 with Europe accounting for $1.8-2.4B.

Onfido plans to invest over €4 million over the next twelve months building out its French presence. Onfido’s Paris office will open in Q1 2019 and will become the company’s seventh global location.

Onfido and IDEMIA today announced a new partnership to streamline digital identity verification and customer onboarding for financial institutions. This new strategic agreement will support Onfido’s global expansion strategy.

Pierre Barrial, Executive Vice-President for Financial Institutions activities at IDEMIA, said: “We are thrilled to join forces with Onfido in order to meet the requirements and needs of our financial institution customers in remote ID Proofing. Onfido is a perfect complement to the IDEMIA suite of solutions available to the financial market globally. It contributes to strengthen our position as the partner of choice of Financial Institutions for building security and trust in their digital transformation.”

Caroline Jannel, Group Customer Journey Director at Europcar said: “As a global provider of mobility solutions - from vehicle rental to vehicle sharing and chauffeur services - with over 6 million customers using our services daily, be it for one hour, one day, one week or longer, it is critical to be able to verify a customer quickly and accurately so we can get them into a car as fast as possible. When we looked at the available IDV solutions, Onfido’s provided the best speed and user experience we could find. We’re now excited to hear they are investing further in France, our homegrown market.”

Guillaume de Malzac, CEO and founder at AR24, said: “As the first certified electronic registered mail (ERM) provider in France, we needed a reliable end-to-end IDV solution to secure the identification of ERMs recipients. Our service is used by thousands of lawyers, public agencies, banks, insurance companies and individuals, so building trust and security is key. Onfido’s IDV solution delivers this in an easy to use package. We’re excited Onfido is focusing more on the French market and look forward to growing with them.”

Onfido first entered the market in France in 2014 and early French customers include BlaBlaCar and Drivy.

Safe-T®, a leading provider of software-defined access solutions for the hybrid cloud, announced today that it has signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) for the acquisition of a fast-growing Israeli company in the business proxy network solution industry. The purchased company offers extensive experience in cloud services, operating a unique, wholly-owned global proxy network technology used by web intelligence and cyber companies.

The purpose of the acquisition is to combine Safe-T's Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) offering with the purchased company's globally-located independent cloud-based service, providing Safe-T's customers with a cloud-based Software Defined Access service for the first time. The joint service will control all incoming access to internal services and outgoing web browsing, allowing Safe-T's customers to completely hide their location from the outside world. The purchased company is synergetic to Safe-T's operations and could contribute in penetrating new markets and reaching additional customers in various industry segments. The proposed acquisition, if closed, is expected to significantly increase Safe-T's revenue and may contribute to its cash flow. 

Under the terms of the LOI, Safe-T will purchase all of the company's issued and outstanding shares. The expected payment for the transaction is $9.7 million, which will be paid in a combination of equity and cash. The consideration may include an additional earn-out payment in 2020, subject to the level of increase of the purchased company's sales during 2019 compared to 2018. 

Pursuant to the LOI, the parties will enter into definitive agreements within 40 days, and the closing will take place no later than 45 days thereafter, subject to closing conditions. There is no assurance that definitive agreements will ever be entered into and that the transaction will ever be closed. 

OneSpan (NASDAQ: OSPN), a global leader in software for trusted identities, e-signatures and secure transactions, today announced it has joined the National Cyber Security Alliance as a Champion of Data Privacy Day, an annual, international effort to raise awareness about the importance of respecting privacy, safeguarding data and enabling trust. As a Champion, OneSpan takes responsibility for being a conscientious steward of personal information while also developing new tools to fight data theft.

Two new cloud-based solutions from OneSpan, Intelligent Adaptive Authentication and Risk Analytics, act to safeguard and help stop the abuse of previously stolen data. With data as today’s currency, stopping its fraudulent use devalues it and removes the incentive for its use by fraudsters for application fraud and identity theft.

According to the Verizon 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report, the leading cause of data breaches are attacks against identity. As the rate and severity of data breaches increases, OneSpan is taking an active role in helping financial institutions protect their customers against fraud using ID verification, mobile security, intelligent adaptive authentication and risk analytics to accurately detect known and emerging fraud and assign trust to users, devices and transactions across digital channels.

“Passwords and personal identifiable information are almost guaranteed to be exposed in ever increasingly sophisticated and frequent data breaches,” said OneSpan CEO, Scott Clements. “It’s more important than ever to secure and protect the entire digital customer journey, and the data captured within, by taking a layered approach to security. This helps capture and analyse multiple complementary authentication factors and correlational data to establish trusted identities, devices and transactions. This is how we help our global banking customers – by making it harder for cybercriminals to capture data and commit fraud.”

Curve, the smart card that lets users keep all their credit and debit cards on a single card, today announces Amex support in Beta. 

Discover and Garmin International, Inc., today announced that Discover cardmembers can now make payments using Garmin PayTM, a contactless payment solution for people on the move. 

 NICE Actimize, a NICE business (Nasdaq: NICE) and leader in Autonomous Financial Crime Management, today announced IFM-X, its next-generation Integrated Fraud Management (IFM) platform that leverages automation and machine learning to optimize effectiveness while reducing the total cost of implementing and operating an enterprise fraud risk management system. By utilizing NICE Actimize’s IFM-X, financial institutions will be able to integrate limitless data into their fraud detection systems and utilize agile advanced analytics, while optimizing fraud operations efficiency.

Leveraging NICE Actimize’s deep experience in fraud management, the IFM-X platform marks another advancement in its Autonomous Financial Crime Management strategy. The modernized platform allows financial services organizations to more easily integrate data, and better cope with data growth in a more cost-effective manner.

NICE Actimize’s IFM-X provides machine-led detection, decisioning and self-learning capabilities that can adapt and scale to meet the needs of a financial services organization’s operations. Through an open, services-based architecture, NICE Actimize IFM-X leverages the recently introduced NICE Actimize X-Sight Platform-as-a-Service for developing and optimizing fraud analytics fueled by market-wide collective intelligence.

“Rapidly changing demands in the fraud marketplace led NICE Actimize to develop the new IFM-X platform in response to our customers’ challenging requirements,” said Craig Costigan, CEO, NICE Actimize. “This new platform unleashes the power of our market-leading fraud expertise coupled with expert-led machine learning technology to enable superior protection against constantly evolving and malicious fraud attacks.”

Leading capabilities for the NICE Actimize IFM-X platform include:

·         Easy Data Integration – Using automated tools and a real-time big data repository, financial institutions can integrate new data sources, both structured and unstructured, to their fraud hub in minutes.

·         Augmented Intelligence – Combining machine learning with human expertise equates to better detection. Expert features, built over many years in the field by data scientists as part of customer implementations, are fused with machine learning features which are discovered by running algorithms on deep sets of trained and untrained data to provide laser accuracy in detection.

·         Open AI – The new X-Sight Studio, included with IFM-X, provides data driven, machine-led analytics development with expert fraud features. Machine Learning analytics may be developed, tested and validated in the cloud and seamlessly deployed in IFM-X’s AI engine for immediate use in detection. This accelerates the time to value for analytics.

·         Entity InsightsTM – The IFM-X platform moves financial institutions beyond transaction-based analysis to a visual holistic view of entity risk for faster, simpler and more precise resolution providing massive efficiency gains for operations teams.