Published
- 09:00 am
With plans to release in Q2 2019, the QashBack platform is set to revolutionize the online reviews market as it leverages on the characteristics of blockchain technology.
Creating a Win-Win Ecosystem for Everyone
Users on the QashBack platform are rewarded with QBK tokens, the ecosystem's own cryptographic token, for writing reviews, regardless of their bias. This change alone significantly reduces polarization bias that is inherent in existing online review sites.
With permission from the consumer, merchants can offer QBKs as an incentive to encourage customers to participate in contests, view advertisements or take up a marketing promotion.
Blockchain technology enables QashBack to acquire real and factual reviews for consumers through its immutability and authenticity. All transactions on the QashBack platform are recorded on the Ethereum blockchain, making them transparent, self-executing, not reliant on any single third party for clearing and cannot be removed or edited.
The QashBack Business Model
Earlier this year, the tech startup signed an exclusive partnership with Oriental Mace Group Berhad to tap on its mobile application, MyBeauty, supported by the Malaysian government as part of their national tourism strategy. The portal encompasses over 1,000 beauty service providers and thousands of product suppliers to the beauty tourism industry in Malaysia.
QashBack's partnership with Oriental Mace will generate a critical mass of users and reviews, as well as grow Malaysia'sbeauty tourism industry.
QBK Token Sale Details
The estimated receipts of US$18 billion per year will generate sustainable and rapid demand for QBK tokens. QashBack will mint one billion QBK tokens, of which 10% (one hundred million tokens) was made available for public sale on 10th of December 2018. The opening value is set at US$0.40 per token. Over US$14 million had been raised during the private sales launched in July, with contributors consisting of high net-worth individuals and institutional backers.
Contributors who are looking to trade QBK on various crypto exchanges will get the opportunity to do so from 5th of January 2019 as the QBK token will be listed on UDAX Hong Kong that day. The technology firm also has plans to list in other top exchanges such as Coinsuper, Dobi Trade, Upbit, and LAToken during Q2 and Q3 2019.
- 09:00 am
Objectway, the leading Fintech group in Italy and one of the premier European players in software and services for the wealth, investment and asset management industries, acquired Algorfin, the software and services division of Unione Fiduciaria S.p.A.
Algorfin is specialised in IT and administrative outsourcing services for Asset Management Companies, Custodian Banks and other financial operators, through the Archimede, Diogene and Archimede Governance software platforms.
Archimede is the leading solution for the complete management of open-end and closed-end investment funds, including investors' management, NAV calculation, compliance and any type of regulatory compliance required. Diogene supports the management of all the activities of a Custodian in the fund management area. Archimede Governance allows Asset Management Companies to perform all the checks required by the European UCITS V regulations. Moreover, Algorfin provides administrative services for back-office management and accounting to some of the premier Italian Asset Management Companies.
A team of over 100 Milan-based, highly specialised professionals from Algorfin join the Objectway Group, which reaches approximately €75 million of annual consolidated revenues following this latest acquisition.
In addition to its core business, Unione Fiduciaria will continue to carry out IT and administrative services for trust companies and to provide its own application software to support control functions and whistleblowing managers.
"This is a significant acquisition for our Group - declared Luigi Marciano, CEO of Objectway - as it consolidates our position as leader in the Italian market for Banks, Asset Management companies, Brokers and Custodian Banks, with a comprehensive offer that covers their application needs and opens new growth opportunities in Italy and other markets."
"Unione Fiduciaria has identified in Objectway a solid and reliable partner to pass the baton for the development of the Algorfin business. With this sale, the process of focusing on fiduciary activity, the company's core business, continues and accelerates. This operation allows Unione Fiduciaria to invest additional resources for expansion and thus continue a path already started several years ago," commented Filippo Cappio, Managing Director of Unione Fiduciaria.
Objectway partially financed the operation, with the support of UBI Banca and Unicredit, as lending banks, and with the assistance of Marco Carbonara from Hi.lex and of Simmons & Simmons, as legal advisors. For the execution of the deal, Objectway was assisted by: UBI Banca, as financial advisor; Giovannelli e Associati, as legal advisor; Russo De Rosa Associati, as tax advisor; Accuracy for carrying out the financial due diligence. Unione Fiduciaria was assisted by Synpulse, as strategic advisor; by KPMG Advisory as financial advisor, KPMG for the vendor due diligence, and by Grimaldi as legal advisor.
- 02:00 am
Intesa Sanpaolo and FIPE (Federazione Italiana Pubblici Esercizi - Italian Federation of Public Establishments) have signed an agreement for the benefit of the Federation's member companies (more than 100,000) operating in the catering, entertainment and tourism sectors.
To encourage digital payments, even for small amounts, the agreement calls for the elimination of the fees charged to merchants for all POS transactions below €15.
With regard to loans, an exclusive offer was formulated to support investment plans with specific conditions and with innovative ways of securing credit. Furthermore, the maturity date of the loan granted to the creditors of QUI!Group, which are still in difficulty as a result of the QUI!Group's bankruptcy, has been extended.
FIPE members, new Intesa Sanpaolo customers, can also count on the Best Premium package which includes a current account with unlimited transactions and the option of adding additional products and services at favourable conditions.
Among the other innovative products and services that round out the offer included in the agreement, Intesa Sanpaolo has made available Digifattura, the service for managing electronic invoicing, and InfoVendite, a marketing intelligence platform that allows merchants who have POS terminals to view sales trends, compare them with those of their competitors and analyse customer purchasing behaviour.
Finally, in the coming months training events will be held in the main cities with the aim of improving the financial knowledge of member companies and fostering the relationship between companies and the bank.
“The topic of securing credit is becoming increasingly important even for small businesses. This is not just a question of costs, but is mainly an issue concerning the best means for their development needs. The partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo has been devised to provide practical answers to the pressing questions that come from our members to whom we are also committed to launching a series of meetings throughout the country to improve relations with the bank and to increase the financial knowledge of enterprises," explained Roberto Calugi, General Manager of FIPE - Federazione Italiana Pubblici Esercizi.
"We felt it was important to come to an agreement that addresses the specific needs of FIPE members, especially considering that catering, entertainment and tourism are strategic sectors for Italy. As the banking partner, we want to contribute to the growth and development of micro, small and medium-sized businesses, offering innovative services and facilitating their access to credit, thanks also to the dissemination of improved financial awareness," declared Andrea Lecce, Head of the Individual and Retail Company Sales & Marketing Department of Intesa Sanpaolo.
- 03:00 am
“MineralTree is redefining how middle-market businesses manage AP,” said BC Krishna, MineralTree founder and CEO. “The success we’ve seen with this integration confirms our shared vision of enabling financial institutions to offer solutions that optimize cash flow, eliminate inefficiencies, and improve controls for their clients.”
MineralTree’s AP Automation solution streamlines the entire Accounts Payable process, from invoice capture and approval to payment authorization and execution. With the out-of-the-box integration to Mastercard In Control, financial institutions can easily offer their clients a simple way to convert paper checks to virtual cards. The result? Working capital benefits plus greater convenience, security, and control when paying vendors.
“Our partnership with MineralTree enables us to provide additional solutions targeted to the middle market,” said Greg Pastorek, Director, B2B Partnerships, New Payment Flows, Mastercard. “MineralTree, integrated with Mastercard, is a great way for financial institutions to offer a product to their clients that eliminates the friction of everyday accounts payable, while driving working capital benefits.”
MineralTree’s Invoice-to-Pay solution is pre-integrated with Mastercard In Control, ensuring easy on-boarding and rapid time-to-value for both Mastercard issuers and their clients.
More than 25 leading financial institutions are offering MineralTree’s solution to better serve their commercial businesses. Now with the Mastercard partnership, MineralTree can deliver even more value to Mastercard-issuing banks.
- 08:00 am
As part of the ongoing expansion of its banking and payments security and consultancy offering, Fime has confirmed the appointments of Arnaud Crouzet and Edouard Baroin.
“Banking and retail are experiencing unprecedented change and, while the digitalization of payments represents significant opportunities, each stakeholder must overcome a range of challenges,” comments Lionel Grosclaude, CEO at FIME. “Banks must balance the need to transform their strategies and infrastructures for long-term success, while ensuring short-term revenue growth. Retailers and merchants need to make increasingly complex strategic decisions to reduce costs and increase revenues in today’s omnichannel world, but with margins constantly squeezed, it is difficult to know where to focus resources.”
New talents bringing new strategic support to banks & retailers
Arnaud will head up FIME’s security and consultancy offerings, helping banks and merchants to secure, automate and digitize payments while improving the buying experience. For the last eight years he has been in charge of payments strategy at Auchan Group, the world’s 11th largest food retailer. He is also General Secretary of nexo standards, the association dedicated to delivering fast, interoperable and borderless card payment acceptance, and previously worked for American Express Group and Ingenico. Arnaud holds a degree in telecom engineering from EPITA and an executive MBA in business strategy and management from CNAM Paris.
“This is an extremely exciting time to join FIME,” adds Arnaud. “Regulations, standards and new technologies are changing the game, and key stakeholders are completely reevaluating their roles in the payments ecosystem. FIME is perfectly placed to support banks and merchants throughout every stage of their digital transformation projects. Our consultants, engineers and testing experts are removing pain and friction from payments and helping our customers to deliver richer, more secure omnichannel buying experiences. I look forward to collaborating with my new colleagues.”
Edouard Baroin joins FIME to support banks, merchants and other payment ecosystem stakeholders to define and launch the best solutions for their customers and their business models. He brings extensive consultancy experience to FIME, having led teams at Deloitte, Beobank and Eurogroup Consulting. He holds a degree in mathematical sciences and an MBA in corporate finance.
“We enable our customers to innovate in a secure and sustainable way. Testing and compliance are therefore essential, but on many projects we are helping to define the future of payments and standards are yet to catch up. This is where our expertise and consultancy comes in,” concludes Lionel. “The arrival of Arnaud and Edouard is another step towards excellence as we revolutionize our consultancy offering and app security testing methodologies. We have some important new services to launch this year to help our customers define, design, develop, validate and launch new products and services, so please join me in welcoming Arnaud and Edouard to help us achieve our ambitious goals.”
- 04:00 am
§ UK tech companies indicate loss of momentum in the final quarter of 2018
§ Business activity expands at slowest pace since Q4 2015
§ Tech sector much more upbeat than the rest of the UK economy regarding business outlook in 2019
KPMG UK Tech Monitor Index
Above 50 = growth, seasonally adjusted
Sources: KPMG, IHS Markit
Political uncertainty and global trade frictions have dented client confidence, but buoyant staff hiring and capital spending plans are still in place for 2019, according to a new quarterly survey of UK technology sector companies by KPMG.
UK tech sector growth cools
The tech sector experienced a difficult end to 2018, as business activity growth eased to its weakest for three years and new work remained subdued. Global trade frictions and Brexit-related uncertainty were widely reported to have acted as a headwind to client spending.
At 52.4 in Q4, the KPMG UK Tech Monitor Index - which measures the strength of business activity across the sector - remained above the crucial 50.0 no-change value, which continued the upward trend signalled since the summer of 2012.
However, the latest reading was down from 54.0 in Q3 and pointed to the slowest rate of tech sector business expansion since Q4 2015.
Tech companies also signalled the sharpest fall in backlogs of work for seven years, suggesting a lack of new work to replace completed projects at the end of 2018.
Staff hiring slows from peak
Some tech companies have responded to subdued business investment across the wider economy by putting the brakes on staff hiring at the end of last year.
While employment numbers continued to rise overall in Q4, the rate of growth continued to soften from a survey-record high seen at the start of 2018.
Higher wages drive up costs in Q4
Operating expenses continued to rise sharply at tech firms, albeit at a weaker pace than the record highs seen in 2017. Difficulties filling vacancies pushed up staff costs, while exchange rate depreciation fuelled input cost pressures for dollar denominated purchases.
Business outlook remains upbeat
Looking ahead to 2019, there are positive signs in the latest report. While tech firms report that projections for demand growth have softened, they remain highly upbeat about their capital expenditure plans.
A strong record of R&D spending continues to drive confidence regarding new product launches, according to survey respondents. Some suggest that a competitive boost from the weak pound will help achieve new export sales.
Tech businesses appear set to remain a strong engine of job creation. Almost half of the survey panel expect to boost workforce numbers, while less than one-in-ten forecast a fall.
Tech sector employment plans are far stronger than that reported by the UK private sector as a whole, which are now the lowest since Q1 2013.
Comment
Bernard Brown, vice chair at KPMG UK said:
“Our survey reveals that political uncertainty has dented client confidence contributing to a slowdown in growth at the end of last year. But, buoyant staff hiring and capital expenditure plans are still in place for 2019. This confidence is reflected in the statistic that almost 50% of UK tech firms intend to add jobs over the next year, whilst many traditional manufacturers are considering moving jobs offshore. This demonstrates the strength and resilience of the UK tech sector in the new digital economy.”
- 02:00 am
The Nottingham Building Society has today announced its Chief Risk Officer, Charles Roe, has been appointed as an Executive Director of the Society.
Charles joined The Nottingham in April 2018 as Chief Risk Officer and is accountable for the design of the Society’s risk monitoring plans, ensuring they provide assurance and control over key risks; and assessing the effectiveness of The Nottingham’s Risk Management Framework.
Prior to joining the Nottingham, Charles was a director in the Regulatory Financial Services Practice at Grant Thornton LLP and worked for the FCA/FSA for 11 years. Whilst at the FCA, Charles undertook a number of senior supervisory roles including Head of Department for the Insurance Broking, International Banking, Mortgage and Building Society sectors. Charles started his financial career working for Standard Chartered Bank in the East Midlands.
David Marlow, Chief Executive at The Nottingham, said: "We are delighted to add Charles to our board of Executive Directors. His wealth of experience is a huge asset to the board and with his support and knowledge, we position ourselves well for continued growth in a sustainable and complaint way, doing the right thing by our members throughout."
Charles commented on his appointment: " Charles commented on his appointment: "I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at The Nottingham, so I’m really pleased to be appointed as an Executive Director. This year the society is 170 years old and part of my role of Executive Director and Chief Risk Officer, is to help ensure we enjoy another 170 years of doing the right thing. My focus remains on working with teams to find solutions and make improvements that will benefit our members, colleagues and the society as a whole to deliver our strategy and help The Nottingham to grow and flourish."
Charles joins fellow Executive Directors David Marlow and Dan Mundy from January 16th 2019.
- 06:00 am
The public consultation process for the draft international privacy information management standard, ISO/IEC 27552, is now open until 25 February 2019.
BSI, as the UK’s National Standards Body, is seeking to consult with interested parties from the tech industry, data protection practitioners, information security specialists and individuals. Experts can register their comments online at: https://standardsdevelopment.bsigroup.com/projects/2016-03384?_ga=2.176888802.655974847.1547469065-1085050989.1522317317
Digitalization, globalization and the personalization of services to the public have led to greater collection and processing of personal information. Therefore, the need for guidance on how organizations should manage and process data to reduce the risk to personal information is also growing globally. This is particularly important now as many countries already have, or are in the process of enacting, data protection and privacy legislation.
The aim of ISO/IEC 27552 Security techniques – Extensions to ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27002 for privacy information management – Requirements and Guidelines is to help organizations establish, implement, maintain and continually improve a Privacy Information Management System (PIMS). This new international standard for privacy information management will help organizations by providing:
• best practice guidance
• transparency between PII controllers
• an effective way to manage PII processes
• reassurance to customers that PII is effectively managed
This standard is a privacy extension to ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management System and ISO/IEC 27002 Security Controls, and intends to provide guidance on the protection of privacy, including how organizations should manage personal information. It also aims to assist in demonstrating compliance with privacy regulations around the world.
Anne Hayes, Head of Governance and Resilience at BSI, said: “Given the dynamic environment in which we operate, the need for guidance on how organizations should manage and process data to reduce the risk to personal data is becoming more important. This is why we are encouraging everyone to engage and share their feedback on this draft privacy information management standard.”
- 05:00 am
People's United Bank, N.A., a subsidiary of People's United Financial, Inc., has acquired VAR Technology Finance, a private, independent leasing and finance company that supports equipment sales through its financing programs within the technology channel for small, medium and large technology manufacturers, software companies and resellers. Headquartered in Mesquite, TX, VAR Technology Finance will become a division of People's United's operating subsidiary, LEAF Commercial Capital, Inc. ("LEAF").
"We are pleased to welcome VAR Technology Finance and their specialized experts to People's United Bank," said Jack Barnes, Chairman and CEO of People's United Financial. "VAR's sole focus and knowledge of the technology sector for nearly 30 years is a critical component of this acquisition, allowing us to further expand our equipment leasing and finance offerings into the technology sector. VAR will be a valuable addition to our equipment finance portfolio and enhance the client experience."
"With People's United and LEAF, we will strengthen our infrastructure and access to capital and marketing capabilities, allowing us to accelerate growth and expand resources to better serve our clients," said Gary Sutton, President and CEO of VAR Technology Finance.
Established in 1990 by President and CEO Gary Sutton, VAR Technology Finance provides financing for commercial and public sector customers of large technology suppliers that sell through the Information Technology channel, using an industry-focused software platform and private label programs. They have over 25,000 direct end-user customers in commercial and public sectors, including small, medium and Fortune 1000 companies, in addition to K‐12 and universities. In 2018, VAR produced approximately $180 million in originations, and ranked among the top private, independent equipment finance companies nationwide for new business volume. VAR Technology Finance will maintain their existing brand and become a division of LEAF. Since its founding in 2002, LEAF has financed over $6.8 billion for more than 250,000 customers nationwide.
"VAR has been an existing business partner for many years and has a strong brand and reputation in the technology sector," said Crit DeMent, Chairman & CEO of LEAF. "We have a deep understanding of their business model, a similar culture, and look forward to leveraging the many synergies that exist to better serve clients and strengthen our position as a leading tech-industry lessor."
Hovde Group, LLC served as financial advisor and Hodgson Russ LLP served as legal counsel to People's United.
Jackson Walker LLP served as legal counsel to VAR Technology Finance.
- 02:00 am
Certify, a leading provider of financial management software, has launched Certify Purchasing, a new solution for finance professionals.
It’s the first move into the procure-to-pay market for the software company, and another development in Certify’s rapid growth.
Certify Purchasing is a SaaS-based solution that automates key purchasing-related tasks such as requisitions and vendor payments, reducing human error and improving spend oversight. One key feature of the solution is its sophisticated routing capabilities. Line-of-business managers can define purchase-approval thresholds, tolerances, escalations and proxy configurations, streamlining the procure-to-pay process throughout the organization. Certify Purchasing users can also access the platform from their desktop or mobile phone, replacing paper-based and manual processes with automated workflows and budgetary controls.
Once purchases are approved in the Certify Purchasing system, invoices are two- or three-way digitally matched to purchase orders and packing slips depending on company preferences. This lowers an organization’s administrative costs and its cost of goods, shortens fulfillment cycle times, unleashes data visibility across the business, and improves relationships with vendors. More information about Certify Purchasing can be found here.
“We’ve led the market for several years with the usability of our software for travel and expense, and Certify Purchasing provides us the opportunity to bring the proven business processes and intuitive interface of our T&E products to the wider procure-to-pay function,” explains Robert Neveu, CEO of Certify. “We want to continue to empower AP teams by giving them the tools they need to automate key processes and enjoy increasingly strategic roles within their organizations.”
