This morning, we reported Mastercard’s financial results for the third quarter of 2018. We are pleased to deliver another very strong quarter, delivering EPS growth of 36 percent versus last year.

Net revenue grew 17 percent on a currency-neutral basis, driven by volume and transaction growth. Our volumes continued the momentum from earlier in the year, growing at a double digit rate across most regions, as cross-border volume increased 17 percent. 

During our conference call, Ajay and I discussed how we continue to execute against our strategy, investing in our core products and differentiated services capabilities to be a one-stop shop for our customers. Some highlights and themes from the quarter include:

Deal Momentum – Our focus on providing our customers the solutions that have meaning and value for the end user continues to differentiate us. In the quarter, we expanded a number of relationships with customers like HSBC across several markets, Bankia in Spain and PayPal through direct issuance in Germany and the U.K.

Supporting Local Needs – In Asia Pacific, we are building and expanding relationships with domestic networks. As we work to comply with local regulations, we are bringing integral experience and services – like safety and security and our e-commerce gateway – to provide even more value to consumers with new co-badged programs and debit portfolios that are moving to our brand.

Opening New Payment Flows – In September, we launched Track, a new global trade platform that will help businesses across the B2B segment better manage suppliers, create more transparency and soon integrate payments, including our account-based payment rails. Our Faster Payments activities are also delivering an advanced anti-money laundering solution in the UK and providing U.S. consumers a new way to view, manage and pay bills from their bank accounts and apps.

Focusing on the Digital Experience – We are focused on delivering the best possible digital experience for consumers, merchants and issuers. They want – and we are bringing them – a safe, streamlined and consistent checkout experience across all devices in-store and online. Throughout the quarter, we shared updates on how the investments we’ve made – industry standards, tokens, biometrics, AI and more – will help deliver this.

While the calendar is quickly shifting to the final months of the year, we are maintaining our focus on executing against our strategy and being the best partner to merchants and issuers. We will continue to invest in key long-term growth areas such as these to further strengthen our foundation for future growth.

The Insurance Innovation Awards are being held in conjunction with the Connected Insurance USA Summit, taking place November 28^th - 30^th at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, Chicago. The awards ceremony will be held at the conference on the evening of the November 28^th, where the winners of all categories will be announced. For more information, visit the website at https://events.insurancenexus.com/connectedusa/, or get in touch with me at: emma.sheard@insurancenexus.com

Emma Sheard

Insurance Nexus is part of FC Business Intelligence Ltd. FC Business Intelligence Ltd is a registered company in England and Wales. Registered number 04388971, 7-9 Fashion Street, London, E1 6PX, UK

Insurance Nexus is the central hub for insurance executives. Through in-depth industry analysis, targeted research, niche events and quality content, we provide the industry with a platform to network, discuss, learn and shape the future of the insurance industry.

Data Protection World Forum is delighted to announce OneTrust is sponsoring its 2018 Keynote Conference, which will host a wealth of speakers who have a proven track record in delivering critical advice and information on data protection and privacy. Taking place six months after the implementation of GDPR, the event is aimed to help educate, inspire and offer practical tips and advice, with some of the world’s largest organisations in attendance.

The Keynote Conference, sponsored by OneTrust, will be taking place throughout both days of the show, playing host to several thought leaders as well as data protection and privacy experts, who will deliver in-depth, interactive and engaging presentations. OneTrust’s Kevin Kiley, Vice President of Sales and Business Development, is amongst the speakers and will be delivering a keynote presentation on November 20^th at 10:50 - 11:20, titled “GDPR is here, now what? Top 10 Predictions for the GDPR Era.”

Further Speakers include:

• Steve Wood - Deputy Commissioner, Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
• Wojciech Wiewiórowski - Assistant Supervisor, European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS)
• Bruno Gencarelli - Head of the International Data Flows and Protection Unit, European Commission
• Rosalind Goodfellow - Head of Implementation, Cyber Security and Data Directorate, DCMS
• William Malcolm - Legal Director, Privacy, Google
• Jamie Bartlett - Journalist, Researcher and Author of ‘The Dark Net’

Speaking on OneTrust’s involvement at the event, Nick James, Founder of Data Protection World Forum commented: “We are delighted that OneTrust is a sponsor of the keynote conference at Data Protection World Forum. As a leader in GDPR & privacy management software, OneTrust understand the challenges businesses face in compliance and is committed to helping organisations comply with global regulations, such as GDPR.”

Onetrust are global leaders for GDPR & privacy management software, serving more than 1,500 customers. The firm caters to businesses of every size, from small and medium-sized enterprises up to the most complex global organisations.

Banks and merchants are experiencing unprecedented change. And while this presents significant opportunities, it also requires stakeholders to overcome a range of challenges to ensure the pieces of its strategic puzzle are all in the right place. 

Acquiring and issuing banks must balance the need to transform their strategies and infrastructures for long-term success, while ensuring short-term revenue growth. Retailers and merchants are required 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.

Merchant Acquiring and Processors

Fundamentally, acquiring banks need to balance increasing complexity while reducing transaction acquisition costs.

Transaction volumes are at an all-time high, pushing acquirers to develop new secure solutions to manage peak transaction volumes from multiple payment channels. All while maintaining PCI DSS compliance.

Additionally, retailers increasingly want to accept a wide range of payment form factors and new acceptance solutions like Android-based SoftPOS, as well as enabling seamless omnichannel buying experiences. All of this creates both opportunities and technical challenges to integrate new payments technologies for merchant acquirers.

Issuing Banks

Issuers face a range of challenges across all areas of their business. Firstly, increasingly complex regulatory mandates such as PSD2 and GDPR are changing business models and increasing competition. Issuers need to keep up to date with the new, agile FinTechs disrupting the issuing ecosystem and driving innovation across new payment platforms and form factors. Banks must decide whether to collaborate or compete with FinTechs on new, innovative projects, ensuring that they are delivering the highest levels of cyber and fraud security, while aligning with global and domestic payment standards.

The disintermediation created by FinTechs and ‘GiantPays’ is requiring new multi-factor authentication methods – that combine emerging technologies and protocols, including biometrics, risk-based, and 3-D Secure – to ensure security and strong customer authentication across in-store, in-app and online payment channels. Issuers must also ensure that they are upgrading back-end infrastructures to process payment data and authorization requests from new digital channels. Prioritizing and finding the best route forward can be difficult.

Retailers

As payment channels and form factors diversify, many retailers struggle to offer consumers choice while maintaining an interoperable and frictionless buying experience across multiple channels. It is essential that retailers deploy a seamless, omnichannel strategy to engage customers throughout the buying journey.

Retailers must also understand a range of new payment acceptance, authentication and security technologies to protect their business, and their customers’ data and money. The shift towards digital payments also means merchants need to aggregate increasing transaction volumes across large networks of stores both nationally and internationally, while identifying cost reduction and revenue enhancement opportunities.

Putting the pieces together

Navigating the complexities of digitalized payments and ensuring compliance with global and local requirements can be a real challenge for those looking to integrate new technologies. Expert support can help select the best technologies to meet business model needs and streamline the path to launch.

With unrivalled payments expertise, FIME can offer end-to-end project support, with testing, certification and comprehensive consultancy and solution engineering at the forefront, putting the pieces of a secure, compliant strategy together. 

We understand the market’s unique challenges. Need our expertise? Get in touch here.

• Product Reviews
• 30.10.2018 11:09 am

BitGo is a blockchain software company that offers secure storage of digital currency for institutional investors. BitGo technology provides solutions to its most difficult security, compliance, and custodial problems related to blockchain-based currencies, allowing the integration of digital currency into the global financial system. The list of BitGo’s customers includes world’s largest crypto exchanges and financial institutions, conducting over $10 billion transactions monthly.  

What is the solution?

Many application developers may begin building their applications without considering the full suite of services that will be required. As the application grows, it ends up needing more and more of these services, and the application layer is haphazardly updated to include these features in an ad-hoc manner. This process is time consuming and expensive. Building applications with the BitGo Blockchain Services enables developers to build faster and avoid these pitfalls while also enabling far stronger security and better usability. 

How does it work?

Private Blockchains is one of the company’s customizable solutions designed for managing applications like bitcoin blockchain. The company helps design, build and secure private blockchains to meet the end needs of clients. The customizable platform can be applied to any blockchain, delivering better user interface, more security, easy-to-use enterprise-grade API, and administration of the blockchain in the most efficient way. 

Source: BitGo

What is the demand for the solution?

BitGo believes that in the future many assets will be digitized and transacted on a blockchain. BitGo’s history of innovation and track record of solving the most difficult technical, security and compliance problems associated with blockchains uniquely positions itself to help clients create a solution that works for them in the real world. Many blockchain companies do proofs-of-concept. BitGo moves beyond proof-of-concept into design, development, and delivery of real-world applications. It approaches private blockchain construction in pursuit of the same end goal that has guided our work on public blockchains: making digital currencies function as mature systems with enterprise-scale tools.

Key Components

The BitGo Blockchain Services evolved from real world lessons in security and scalability when deploying blockchain solutions. Applications built atop the services layer benefit from this built-in security and scalability via a simplified API, enabling faster and higher quality development. 

• Indexing and Notification Services

The blockchain foundation processes the global transaction ledger used within the blockchain. While blockchain administrators are interested in the global state of the blocks and transactions, most users only care about transactions relating to themselves. Indexing services enable fast querying and organization of blockchain data, allowing users to quickly find their own transactions without needing to worry about all other data. Depending on the application, indexing can either be focused to a small set of the overall data or to the entire system.

• Key Management

Creating and storing keys may be the most critical element of security in cryptography. Others can easily create poorly chosen keys, and keys that are not stored properly can be stolen. To keep keys secure they must be safely provisioned and a definitive chain-of-custody must be understood at all times. Unfortunately, because keys can be easily stolen electronically, keys must always be stored in encrypted forms, and users are notoriously bad at maintaining strong passwords and remembering them. As such, much of the key management problem becomes a usability problem - how to strongly create, encrypt, and store passwords while providing failsafe mechanisms in case of human error. The BitGo platform solves these problems by use of multiple users, multiple keys, as well as storing keys encrypted in different forms.

• Multi-Sig Cosigning

Securing today’s online data is harder than ever, and no industry needs multi-signature security more than digital assets. Without multi-signature services, digital asset security suffers from a single-point of attack. If you secure your keys on your client, and your client is hacked, then you lose your digital asset; conversely, if you secure your keys in a service, and your service is hacked, then you lose your digital asset. Multi-signature technology radically reduces the risk of theft by forcing attackers to breach multiple, distinct systems. But with BitGo’s unique multi-signature security designs, are protected from many other vectors as well: coercion, forgotten passwords, lost keys, asset seizure, insider-theft, malware, death, and data loss (e.g. hard disk crashes).

• Policy & Security

While the blockchain foundation layer provides the basic logic to cryptographically protect your assets, blockchains today know nothing about people. For example, many businesses have multiple users of a single account, each with different roles. A CFO, for example, may have full privileges in the account, while a controller may have very few. The BitGo Policy Engine enforces the human aspects of digital asset account security. For example, transactions larger than a certain size may require two people to authorize the transaction; or a particular account may be configured to only send assets to a particular set of other accounts so that attackers cannot force theft of funds to a foreign account.

• Accounts & Balances

The Wallet Service on top of the blockchain foundation organizes blockchain transaction data into logical wallets (or accounts), allowing you to easily create, configure, and use digital asset accounts that resemble a bank account. Using the wallet service, applications can easily add metadata to transactions and wallets for use with auditing and data sharing between users of the wallet. Finally, as the number of transactions in a wallet grows large, the wallet service helps manage the assets by intelligently combining and splitting the assets for easy, fast transactions.

• Identity Services

Blockchains, in their current form, evolved primarily from cryptography. The mathematics behind these blockchains ensure utmost security of the digital assets they protect. However, the cryptographic keys that enable these protections are unidentifiable by themselves. BitGo’s platform combines a unique legal and technical foundation whereby keys can be identified within the platform, while retaining full privacy of the holder. The identity service enables blockchain applications to benefit from the security of cryptography while also maintaining regulatory and risk compliance needed when interacting between people.

For more information click here.

Cinnober, a global independent provider of exchange and clearing technology, announce today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company the patent Risk Assessment US 9,959,574 originally filed in 2011.

The invention comprises real-time risk assessments in a clearing system, including the calculation of margin requirements on accounts or groups of accounts triggered by events that affect the accounts as they occur, such as new trades or changes to market data. It also comprises netting of positions held in a group of accounts when calculating risk and carrying out several risk calculations in parallel using multiple risk algorithms, such as Value at Risk (VaR) and SPAN® to compare the outcome.

“This patent demonstrates Cinnober’s ability to innovate and our leading position in the development of next generation post-trade solutions,” says Peter K. Lenardos, CEO of Cinnober. “Cinnober is committed to providing best-in class solutions for financial markets and was first to provide a real-time clearing system, a solution that today powers some of the world’s most important clearinghouses.”

The invention enables clearinghouses to minimize the discrepancy between the value of the collateral provided by a member as security and the highest probable loss that the portfolio may experience. With real-time risk calculations, margin requests can be issued immediately when needed rather than waiting until the end of the day or for a scheduled run of calculations. 

The patent application was filed in June 2011 and adds to Cinnober’s existing patent for Micro Auction (US8719146) and a pending patent application related to order matching. 

Cinnober is the only independent provider of world-class trading, risk and clearing technology to marketplaces and clearinghouses globally. Its TRADExpress RealTime Clearing and TRADExpress CCP Risk solutions are used by clearinghouses globally, including Asia Pacific Exchange, B3, Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange, Japan Exchange Group and LME Clear. 

Full-service payment provider Concardis now offers hotel operators an interface between its solution for the hotel and restaurant industry – Concardis Payment Gateway (CPG) – and the hotel management software solution from Infor. Through the connection with Infor Hospitality, the Eschborn-based payment service provider further cements its position as the preferred payment partner for the hotel industry: Integrated solutions for automated processes are in high demand among customers. As a pilot customer, The Rilano Hotel München has successfully tested the new CPG-interface to Starlight PMS from Infor. 

‘We are thrilled to be supporting Concardis and that we had the opportunity to test the new interface in various phases of implementation,’ says Jan-Nicolas Corbach, general manager of The Rilano Hotel München. ‘We’re always looking for ways to optimise our front-end processes. The automated data transfer between our payment solution and our hotel management software saves us, and above all our guests, valuable time. This also helps to streamline administrative processes at reception and in accounting.’

‘Guest surveys show the relevance of fast, efficient service at reception. Infor supports hotels in their digitisation strategies in order to offer them new opportunities,’ says Stefan Bezold, executive sales director of hospitality in German-speaking Europe at Infor. ‘Concardis gives us an important building block for streamlining and automating all payment processes, both in the front end as well as the back end.’

‘Concardis has strong roots in the hotel industry, so we know precisely which solutions are truly needed: interfaces between individual digital systems enables hotel operators to really increase their efficiency. Close collaboration with the pre-eminent providers of hotel management software is therefore a priority for us,’ says Thomas Gregory, chief product officer of Concardis Payment Group.

With Payment Gateway, hotel operators receive from Concardis a software-controlled EMV card reader, which can simply be connected to the hotel management system from Infor (HMS or Starlight PMS) in the customer’s network. In doing so, all reservations and transactions flow together; the solutions interlock seamlessly. Thanks to a transfer of reference numbers between the systems, manual reconciliation is no longer necessary, for example – a real relief for accounting departments. 

Hotel operators also benefit with regard to data protection: Concardis now works with tokenisation as standard for Payment Gateway. All payment data are compiled and processed by Concardis. The hotel operator never comes into direct contact with the data – thus eliminating the need to go through the complicated PCI DSS data protection certification processes. The new solution also supports the contactless girocard application and all other international debit card brands.

In addition to national payment options, Concardis also offers all prevalent international credit card brands for international guests – even with Dynamic Currency Conversion upon request as well as a multilingual user interface. And acceptance of Alipay, the favoured mobile payment solution from China, has been recently fully integrated.

Aside from the new interface to the Infor Hospitality Management Solution, Concardis also offers integration with other popular property management systems in Germany. Partnerships with additional hotel software providers and an expansion of the interface functions are planned.

iPipeline – a leading provider of next-generation solutions and services to the life and pensions market – today announces that Mortgage Advice Bureau has adopted their protection sales support tool, PreQuo and their award-winning protection sourcing solution, SolutionBuilder.

PreQuo provides an immediate indicative cost of protection which can be used as an interactive protection sales aid. It allows advisers to quickly research protection options and provide them to the client in an instant, simultaneously assessing the client’s risk of needing that protection coverage. 

SolutionBuilder is an intelligent protection research, quote and apply solution that allows advisers to easily compare all protection needs within a simplified and responsive user interface. Delivering a complete service, the solution uniquely supports all views of single and multi-benefit products so that advisers can quickly identify the right solution, based on their client’s specific needs and budget.

Mortgage Advice Bureau is overhauling its protection advice processes – to ensure all clients receive the right advice conversation at the right time. This requires a combination of great advisers, great processes and great technology. The last piece of the jigsaw, technology, is being delivered with the launch of PreQuo and SolutionBuilder. Integrated with Mortgage Advice Bureau’s CRM, Midas, advisers can experience a seamless, more efficient process. 

Andy Walton, Protection Proposition Director at Mortgage Advice Bureau, commented “Protection is of vital importance to our customers and we are constantly looking at ways we can help our advisers demonstrate the risks associated with their customers not having cover, or sufficient cover, and present the most appropriate solution in a consistent and impactful way.

He added: “Working with iPipeline significantly enhances the adviser and customer experience, and also meets all our requirements in terms of digital solutions, as we look to widen choices for customers in terms of how they research, receive advice and transact.”

Paul Yates, Product Strategy Director, iPipeline commented: “Mortgage Advice Bureau is delivering a market leading protection proposition. We are pleased to support them in their aim to grow the protection market. During face-to-face meetings, advisers can have richer, more personalised protection conversations; visually demonstrate in an instant what cover can be achieved for what cost, helping clients understand their protection needs and helping deliver a faster, simpler fulfilment process. We are looking forward to seeing the benefit our technology will deliver to Mortgage Advice Bureau.”

Lee Murphy, the founder of cloud accounting software Pandle (www.pandle.co.uk), an accountant and tech entrepreneur, said: “Brexit is bearing down on us, whether it is next March or drifts off to later in the year, and there were some good measures to make sure the most flexible and successful sections of the economy are able to fire on all cylinders to offset any temporary shock to the economy from leaving.”

Welcome boosts for innovation and smaller businesses

Lee Murphy said: “There were quite a few announcements by the Chancellor of existing measures that help smaller businesses being extended, such the Annual Investment Allowance going up to £1million and Start-Up Loans continuing to 2021, that will help entrepreneurs.

“The cut in rates bills for retailers will also be a welcome move for small retailers to give them some respite against the move to online shopping, and the cut in the cost to small businesses of having apprentices is also very important.  We need to be investing in a more skilled workforce for the future, and this helps small businesses provide take on and train our future talent, as in the additional investment in tech and help for getting skilled people

“The reliefs combined with good news around tax free allowances going up and the fuel duty being frozen, mean that the Budget offered many useful benefits for microbusinesses and entrepreneurs”.

The big losers from the Budget are contractors

Lee Murphy said: “Contractors were the big losers from the Budget as the new taxation regime, known as IR35, is to be imposed on them from April 2020.  The Chancellor implied some would escape it as it will only apply to large and mid-sized businesses, but the reality is the vast majority of contractors work for such organisations, not small businesses.

“Effectively contractors, especially highly skilled IT ones, will be forced to join ‘umbrella companies’ and pay more tax and national insurance.”

For instance, we calculate that a self-employed contractor currently earning £50,000 per year, will typically take home £43,670 after tax, national insurance and other costs.   They will now be compelled to go through an umbrella company, meaning their take-home pay will reduce to £37,696 because of extra because of increased tax and national insurance costs.

CryptoCompare, the global cryptocurrency market data provider, today announces the launch of its mobile application, in response to demand from its crypto trading community.

The CryptoCompare app gives traders and investors the ability to monitor live bitcoin and altcoin pricing data, track cryptocurrency investments through multiple portfolios and get the latest news in the crypto space while on the move. Users of the mobile app can also stay informed with historical charts and technical analysis of all major exchanges and over 5,500 coins.

The mobile app provides the critical  information necessary to make smarter investment decisions based on insights gained from CryptoCompare’s real-time, historical and blockchain data for each currency. The app’s coins list displays real-time data from over 130 exchanges and most cryptocurrencies. The advanced charting tools enable investors to identify coin price trends, apply technical analysis and spot trading patterns.

Users now have the ability to:

• track their own customised list of coins and view trading volumes of the most popular coins

• create and manage multiple portfolios with accurate statistics, price changes and profit/loss information

• stay up to date with the latest financial market trends and make their own forecasts, as the app supports all major crypto news feeds

Charles Hayter, CEO and Founder of CryptoCompare, said: “We’re very excited to launch our mobile app to our community of more than 930,000 users. Our data is viewed between 20 and 180 million times per hour, peaking during times of higher market volatility. We continually invest in our technology and APIs to ensure our infrastructure remains robust and investors can access data as needed to execute trades on their investment portfolios. The launch of our mobile app is a natural next step, offering our users a choice in how they wish to interact with the crypto markets.”

CryptoCompare provides real-time, high-quality and reliable market and pricing data on 5,300+ coins and 240,000+ currency pairs globally, bridging the gap between the crypto asset and traditional financial markets. Acting as a gatekeeper for reliable, accurate and clean data, CryptoCompare adheres to rigorous standards to safeguard data integrity, normalising global data sources to ensure consistency and confidence in the market.