ICS Financial Systems Limited (ICSFS), the global software and services provider for banks and financial institutions, today announced that Hammurabi Commercial Bank, a new established bank by the Central Bank of Iraq, has selected the multi-awards winning solution ICS BANKS Universal Banking Software Suite.

It is worth mentioning that ICS BANKS from ICSFS has been in production and live in Iraq for over 15 years, with over 25 banks of Iraq’s local and foreign banks using ICS BANKS.

CEO of Hammurabi Commercial Bank; Dr. Majed Al-Souri stated,

“We have chosen ICS BANKS Universal Banking application from ICSFS for its long, proven track record and trusted credentials in providing bespoke banking technology services in Iraq. We are looking for a great partnership in delivering the utmost banking services and provide a secured and enjoyable customer journey.”

Executive Director of ICSFS; Mr. Wael Malkawi stated,

“We are fully dedicated to our customers to provide them with growing business, identify profitable opportunities, increase their return on investment (ROI), and reduce costs, in addition to assist them in making the right decision. We are confident that Hammurabi Commercial Bank will benefit from our indepth experience in Iraq’s banking market and generate a better customer experience ecosystem.”

ICSFS invests in its software suites by utilising modern technology in launching new products, constructing a secured and agile integration, and keeping pace with new standards and regulations worldwide. ICS BANKS software suites future-proof banking activities by providing a broad range of features and capabilities with more agility and flexibility, to enrich customers journey experience, hence improving the trust and confidentiality between the customer and the bank. ICS BANKS has always been a pioneer in utilising the latest technology to serve financial institutions. In addition to its embedded Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA), the system can be deployed on premises or in the cloud.

Wolters Kluwer’s Lien Solutions has won three notable industry awards, recognizing excellence and innovation. US Business News has named the company Lien Management Technology Provider of the Year, 2018, as parts of its Technology Elite awards series. Corporate Vision magazine, meanwhile, has named the company “Best for Lien Services, 2018,” with Lien Solutions also being recognized with a silver medal for Best New Product Feature of the Year in the 2018 Best In Biz awards.

All three accolades recognize the superior technology and user functionality of iLien, a market-leading, web-based tool that gives lenders the ability to conduct public record searches, retrieve and view Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings and corporate records, create filings and keep track of their entire loan portfolio. iLien’s new Manage capabilities provide holistic view of the lien portfolio that gives lenders clear understanding of issues that could compromise their protections in real time. 

US Business News is published by AI Global Media and has a subscriber base of more than 175,000 business and professional service providers, including CEOs, partners, directors and litigators. Corporate Vision magazine reaches more than 130,000 top-tier professionals, including financial and investment executives, globally. The Best in Biz awards are now in their eighth year and are the only business awards program judged by independent panels of prominent writers and editors from top-tier publications, including Businessweek, The Financial Times, Forbes, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and more.

“It is particularly pleasing to receive broad based industry recognition of our market leading products and services, receiving independent validation of our nearly 30-year commitment to innovation and technologies that help empower lenders to mitigate risk and operate more efficiently,” said Raja Sengupta, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Wolters Kluwer’s Lien Solutions. “iLien’s Manage function offers a better, more proactive automated way to mitigate our customers’ risk and protect their portfolios, providing lending organizations with the most advanced, complete, one-stop lien management platform in the market.”

Lien Solutions, which is part of Wolters Kluwer’s Governance, Risk and Compliance division, provides data for clients researching organizations during the lending process and works with lenders to secure and protect their legal interests. Lien Solutions places an emphasis on managing the lien process amidst the ever-changing compliance environment and across multiple jurisdictions throughout the lifecycle of a loan. It has more than 3,000 clients including many of the largest and most sophisticated banks, equipment leasing financers, and other organizations creating and managing liens.

Additionally in 2018, Lien Solutions won a Bronze award in the New Products and Services category of the 2018 Golden Bridge awards, and a Bronze American Business (Stevie^®) Award, in the category of “Service Department of the Year – Business Services.

• 17.12.2018 -- 09:29 am

Financial IT interview with Simon Hardie and Luke Griffiths

IronX is happy to welcome on its Advisory Board Dr Paolo Tasca, Executive Director of the Centre for Blockchain Technologies, and Tal Cohen, ex-CEO of Sirin Labs, which raised $157.8 million via its ICO. Both appointments coincide with IronX's recent IRX token sale extension, which is now running until January 15, 2019.

IronX is proud to announce that Dr Paolo Tasca and Tal Cohen have joined its Board of Advisors. The IronX Exchange is a joint venture between the IronFX Group, an award-winning global online trading platform and EmurgoHK, developers of Cardano (ADA coin). The main aim of the IronX Exchange is to create a fully regulated exchange ecosystem and to seamlessly blend cryptocurrencies trading with traditional online trading via a common trading portal. At the same time, IronX targets to provide benefits to IRX holders in both the IronX and the IronFX Group trading platforms. 

Dr Paolo Tasca is a digital economist, specialising in P2P financial systems. He served as special advisor on blockchain technologies for the EU Parliament and the United Nations. He will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to IronX. His academic work in this field of expertise is exceptional. Dr Tasca is a serial entrepreneur in the blockchain space and is also the Founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Blockchain Technologies (UCL CBT) at University College London. Before that role, he was the Lead Economist on digital currencies and P2P financial systems at Deutsche Bundesbank (Frankfurt).

“Paolo’s first-hand experience with P2P financial systems and blockchain technologies, both from an academic and practitioner point of view, will be of tremendous value to IronX. He has a proven track record, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to bring him into our team,” said IronX CEO Dimitris Hatzis.

Tal Cohen is the co-founder of Compass Blockchain Solutions and has a highly specialised understanding of cryptocurrency operations and investments. Since 2016 he has advised numerous blockchain startups, including Sirin Labs which raised $157.8 million, Fusion which raised $60mn and many other projects. Tal was a co-founder and CEO of Sirin Labs for its initial four years of operations. It is one of the world’s most secure and advanced mobile phones and has recently launched its blockchain dedicated phone, Finney. Tal has been part of some of the most amazing companies in the business world, including McKinsey and Google.

“Tal brings a range of knowledge and experience from his past blockchain ventures and is highly regarded in the cryptocurrency community. The IronX board will benefit enormously from his strategic and operational expertise as we are moving forward to establishing IronX as a key crypto exchange destination in 2019,” said Dimitris Hatzis.
 

Path Solutions, the Fintech solution provider for Islamic finance, today announced that the International Development Bank for Investment and Finance (“IDB”) in Iraq has successfully completed the upgrade of its core banking system to the new Path Solutions’ core, digital platform and echannels of iMAL R14, as of 30^th September.

Founded in 2011, IDB Iraq is a leading private bank operating in all major Iraqi cities via 15 branches and an extensive ATM network. The bank offers a diversified portfolio of retail and corporate banking services, investment and treasury services, SME banking, trade finance and credit cards.

The successful Go Live signifies a pivotal point in IDB’s development. Built on an open architecture and developed in Java, the iMAL R14 allows the bank to take advantage of the digitalization, flexibility, reliability, scalability and portability that this new core banking platform offers. IDB Iraq can now offer a wider range of banking products and services based on specific requirements to its customers all over Iraq.

Mohammed Kateeb, Group Chairman & CEO of Path Solutions commented, “Path Solutions invests 25% of its annual revenue on R&D for building tomorrow’s solutions based on cutting-edge technology and added-value components to remain the global benchmark for Islamic financial technologies. This ensures that our clients can stay future-ready and never have to worry about falling behind the industry. We’re excited for IDB Iraq to take advantage of the latest version of iMAL, an open and highly configurable platform built for the digital age, incorporating industry best practices based on iMAL rich functionality and large number of implementations at over 140 Islamic financial institutions”.

Path Solutions’ iMAL is the most widely deployed Islamic core banking platform globally. This upgrade will enable IDB Iraq to further enhance its operational efficiencies and improve its compliance and risk management functionalities. It will also provide the bank with an advanced digital banking platform enabling its customers to access the bank services 24x7.

Ziad Khalaf Abed, Chairman of IDB Iraq said, “Our current objective is to continue to be the most advanced bank in Iraq, and our long-term business strategy is to become an international bank with global presence. In the current climate, speed of deployment is vital for banks to quickly experience and maximize the benefits of upgrading to a new platform to improve customer experience, deliver market-leading products and enhanced digital banking services to their customers. Path Solutions was up to the mark in ensuring proper roll-out of the new system as per the timelines. This project necessitated conducting rigorous application, integration and performance testing in parallel to ensure uninterrupted operations after the upgrade. Path Solutions’ consultants helped us to achieve this goal and we look forward to expanding the use of iMAL in line with our business needs”.

The iMAL R14 Go Live Ceremony was held at IDB Representative Office in Beirut, Lebanon on Monday 19 November 2018. The ceremony was honored by the attendance of the Chairman of IDB Iraq, Mr. Ziad Khalaf Abed and the Group Chairman & CEO of Path Solutions, Mr. Mohammed Kateeb, and senior management from both institutions.

Nordea is launching Instant Reporting, a new Open Banking solution that enables corporate customers to access their own accounts and integrate real-time data with their own systems and processes. It is the first offering from Nordea that moves beyond legal requirements in PSD2 and turns Open Banking into a commercially viable product.

PSD2 (Payment Services Directive) is an EU directive that requires banks to open to third parties to offer their services to the bank’s customers. This is intended to increase competition in the banking sector and is often called Open Banking. Nordea has chosen to see this as an opportunity rather than just a requirement from legislators and can now announce the launch of a reporting tool based on open Application Programme Interface (API) – Instant Reporting.

- We have been committed to Open Banking from the beginning because we could really see the potential for creating new products and services that bring value to our customers. The exciting thing with our new product, Instant Reporting, is that it gives corporates the chance to directly access their real-time data which will have a big impact on the way they organise their businesses, freeing up valuable time and resources, says Gunnar Berger, Head of Nordea Open Banking.

Giving companies access to their accounts, balances and transactions allows them to complement their current file-based systems simply by connecting to the Instant Reporting API. Each time they log on to their system they will access fresh real-time data.

- After taking the leading position in Open Banking in the Nordics, I am delighted to see that we can now offer the first real commercially viable product from the project and one that has the potential to benefit many customers. This launch is just the first of many great products ahead resulting from Nordea Open Banking, says Erik Zingmark, Head of Transaction Banking at Nordea.

Instant Reporting is initially launched in Sweden and Finland.

Nordea’s Open Banking platform was launched at the end of 2017. More than 3,300 developers have now registered to test Nordea’s APIs. The next planned steps for the Instant Reporting is to provide access to Danish and Norwegian accounts.

To register and gain access to the Open Banking sandbox visit nordeaopenbanking.com.

It seems like that cryptocurrencies are the greatest craze of the last decade. When Satoshi Nakamoto introduced the concept for the Bitcoin in 2009, many considered it an unrealistic concept. The skepticism that was spread around held many from making their first investment in Bitcoin. Things, however, are much more different now. In 2017, the popularity and value of this cryptocurrency literally skyrocketed.

These days, more and more people choose to invest in Bitcoin. Moreover, the number of online stores that allow you to make purchases using Bitcoin instead of credit cards continues to grow with each day. Also, if you take a look at our Bitcoin casino reviews here on BitFortune, you’ll notice a great number of online casinos that support Bitcoin – and other cryptocurrencies – as a payment method.

According to many gamblers, the main advantage of using a cryptocurrency is anonymity, in addition to the instant transactions. In fact, unlike with credit cards, using Bitcoin doesn’t involve a middleman, like a bank in the first case. All you need is your e-wallet ID, which isn’t associated with your name in any way.

Although opinions are still divided on this subject and people need to get more familiar with the concept of Bitcoin, one thing is certain, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin will continue to cause turbulence on the market. There are many people who believe in the power of crypto and have never stopped working on this idea. Below, you will see a list of 15 crypto kings that are making history with their engagement in the field of cryptocurrencies.

Some of them earned a real fortune by investing in and trading with cryptocurrencies, while some of them are the creators of some of the most popular cryptocurrencies we know today. Check out the infographic below to learn all about these people, their contribution to the cryptocurrency world as we know it, as well as what they’ve gained from those endeavors.

The blockchain world is currently looking towards the European Commission (EC) as it takes prompt steps to embrace integration and implementation of trusted blockchain ecosystem. European countries such are Slovenia, Malta, Liechtenstein, France, and the Netherlands together with the European Blockchain Hub (EU BC HUB) are showcasing significant examples in the world on blockchain implementation, as well as demonstrating the key role of blockchain in realization of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Following the recent worldwide tour of Blockchain for Sustainable Development Goals, the EU BC HUB along with the Nispana and under the patronage of Ministry of Economic Development and Technology – Republic of Slovenia are all set to ‘roll out carpets’ and welcome blockchain professionals and enthusiasts from all around the world to The Global Blockchain Summit Slovenia, Scheduled for 29 – 30 April 2019 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The government of Slovenia illustrates blockchain as a friendly environment that offers ease of doing business for the growth of companies, which makes Slovenia a unique and most sought-after destination for a host to the Global Blockchain Summit.

‘I believe that the future of society lies in the ability of people to communicate, cooperate, and create good projects together. Blockchain can help us as a tool to act into this direction.’

Blaž Golob, president and CEO, European Blockchain Hub

The Summit will be a unique event for global exchange for governments, businesses, as well as other communities driven by blockchain. It will offer rich space to discuss implementation of blockchain in realizing UN SDGs, tokenizing economy with suitable ecosystems for ICO’s, bringing a wide spectrum of successful blockchain use cases worldwide. It will provide examples on how to learn and benefit from the exchange to foster and strengthen the cooperation amongst blockchain businesses, larger society, and regulators with the goal of developing the trustful and secure blockchain ecosystem.

The two day Summit will gather participants from over 30 countries, with 1000+ delegates, 100+ exhibitors, and 100+ leaders, investors, blockchain companies and startups. All of them will not only share innovative ideas, but also offer their valuable experience within action-packed schedule. In addition, you will benefit from rich networking opportunity with some of the biggest names in the industry.

For Enquiries:

Website: http://www.globalbcsummit.eu/

Call us on:

Nispana: +442034554101 | +91 (80) 4933 1000

EU BC Hub: + 386 (0)1 810 94 12

The past year has been extremely eventful in terms of the digital threats faced by financial institutions: cybercrime groups have used new infiltration techniques, and the geography of attacks has become more extensive. According to the KSN statistics by Kaspersky Lab (www.Kaspersky.com), the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) region witnessed 17% increase in banking malware attack to reach almost half a million attacks in 2018.  Cryptocurrencies have also become an established part of many people’s lives, and a more attractive target for cybercriminals across the world, which resulted in a rapid increase in malicious mining of cryptocurrencies.  

Kaspersky Lab recorded a 4-fold increase in cryptomining attacks in the META region from 3.5 million in 2017 to 13 million in 2018. 

“The META region is becoming more appealing to cybercriminals, with financial and malicious cyrpotomining attacks taking center stage. We discovered six new ATM malware families in 2018. On the other hand, illegal mining of cryptocurrencies has increased dramatically to overtake the main threat of the last few years: ransomware. We believe the reason behind this is that mining is silent and cause less impact that ransomware, making it less noticeable,” said Fabio Assolini, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

Cybercriminals are not showing any signs of stopping and attacks will continue to evolve. Below are predictions by Kaspersky Lab experts on how these trends could affect our lives in the coming year.

The CB Alerts portal, developed with Ethoca, allows ecommerce merchants to collaborate with card issuing banks in near-real-time to fight fraud, reduce chargebacks.

CB Alerts: Now Available

The CB Alerts portal provides e-merchants with an early warning of cardholder confirmed fraudulent transactions and creates a valuable window of time to prevent a fraudulent sale, stop the shipment of goods and/or interrupt the provision of services. E-merchants can therefore limit the risk of fraud and delinquency-related losses and reduce the number of complaints from otherwise defrauded customers.

CB Alerts: A win-win partnership for e-merchants and banks

E-merchants subscribing to the CB Alerts service receive notification of fraudulent transactions to as soon as cardholders report piracy, loss or theft of their payment card to their bank. E-merchants then may cancel the sales process and avoid the dissatisfaction of their customer. For large, high volume e-tailers, CB Alerts automates the notification process for greater operational efficiency.

The CB Alerts portal is highly secure, with a strong user authentication process, and complies with regulatory requirements for data protection (GDPR compliance and PCI DSS certification). "We launched CB Alerts as part of our desire to enrich the services provided to merchants and banks. Security is in the DNA of CB, along with the implementation of the PSD2, RTS and strong authentication this portal will help to fight ecommerce fraud." says Philippe Laulanie, CEO at Groupement des Cartes Bancaires CB.

"Ethoca is honored to have been chosen to work with CB to help e-merchants and French banks reduce fraud and eliminate the need to raise chargebacks," said Trevor Clarke, EVP Business Development at Ethoca. "Merchants are now able to take immediate action in cases of

confirmed fraud and are free to focus on growing their business and offering their customers exceptional experiences."