Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ: RMBS) and American Express Australia today announced a new collaboration to help merchants enrich and secure e-commerce and m-commerce transactions with tokenization. Rambus Token Gateway will enable global online merchants, payment service providers and acquirers to quickly and securely connect to the American Express Token Service and tokenize card-on-file e-commerce transactions. With this collaboration in place, Rambus is the first solution provider to offer an off-the-shelf retail token gateway solution with American Express embedded.  

Tokenization mitigates fraud by replacing sensitive payment account information with a non-sensitive equivalent, known as a token, that cannot be used outside the scope of the original transaction. Designed to reduce complexity, the Rambus Token Gateway provides a single, easy-to-use interface which enables merchants to connect to tokenization services from various payment schemes in the payment industry.

Robert Tedesco, vice president, Global Consumer Services A/NZ at American Express said: “This new partnership with Rambus will mean merchants can offer our card members even more secure payment methods at the time of checkout. We’ll also to be able to offer merchants access to our digital payment capabilities such as Pay with Points and Smart Offers, to further build customer loyalty with their customers that use American Express cards. We look forward to expanding this relationship in the future to further improve the buying experience.”

Advantages for card issuers, acquirers, merchants and consumers

Because the American Express tokenization services have been integrated at the platform level in the Rambus Token Gateway, merchants will have access to all the current American Express capabilities along with new features as they are added, all without significant ad-hoc or custom work required.

• Customer convenience and confidence – Consumers no longer need to update card details following a card reissue, reducing frustration. Knowing that their card details are not shared with merchants will also increase trust and the number of consumers willing to shop online safely and securely.
• Quick time to market – Merchants reduce the need for end-to-end development activities and can launch a token-on-file initiative more quickly.
• Reduced fraud – Real card account numbers are replaced with tokens that are more secure and may help lower the risk of fraud.
• PCI compliancy – As merchants don’t have to store vulnerable data, their payment card industry (PCI) compliancy requirements are limited.
• Flexibility – Merchants can engage with payment service providers or acquirers of their choice while still benefiting from e-commerce tokenization.
• Cost savings – Token Gateway assures that merchants are constantly aligned with the latest card scheme tokenization specifications, eliminating the need for manual integration work.
• Single interface – Token Gateway provides a single interface to connect with all contracted token service providers, supporting a variety of messaging interfaces.

Jerome Nadel, SVP/GM of Payments and Ticketing and CMO, Rambus commented: “Fraud continues to rise for e-commerce transactions and we need to give consumers more secure payment methods without compromising usability. By facilitating the use of tokens online, merchants and card issuers can increase trust in transactions throughout the ecosystem to drive higher authorization rates and improved customer conversions, resulting in greater revenues.”

Merchants across the globe are able to benefit from this joint collaboration immediately.

For more information on Rambus’ tokenization solutions, visit rambus.com/security/payments/.

PwC and UKBlackTech have joined forces in a drive to encourage greater diversity in the technology sector and to inspire more young people from a range of backgrounds to pursue careers in technology.

The partnership will see PwC and UKBlackTech, which was founded in 2016 by a group of technology leaders passionate about increasing black and ethnic representation in  the UK technology industry, hosting Tech Insight and networking events across the country. The interactive events will be open to all, and give attendees real life examples of how technology is key to future business growth. The aim is to inspire young people by giving them access to role models already working in technology, and an opportunity to discuss career opportunities in the sector.

The pairing will also use PwC’s existing regional schools network to run a range of digital and business skills workshops with young people across the UK to educate, inspire and enthuse around a career in technology. PwC has a number of other initiatives aimed at widening the future talent pool in technology, including Tech Degree apprenticeships in five cities across the UK and the Tech She Can Charter.

PwC will also mentor UKBlackTech, advising them on ways to grow their organisation and reach.

Sunil Patel, Chief Operating Officer, Technology & Investments at PwC, said:

"Improving diversity in the tech sector is a no brainer - providing a wider pool of talent and ideas, ensuring the products and services of tomorrow work for everyone, and opening up opportunity to more people. We're excited to be working with UKBlack to help make this happen. Collaboration is key to having more impact.

“Technology is already central in driving change across all industries and, in order to think differently and thrive, companies need to have the best talent at their table. This means people of all backgrounds - diversity drives innovation.

“In order to improve the diversity of people working in technology, businesses have a responsibility to ensure opportunities are available for all. We hope to do this by working with UK Black Tech by shining a light on the opportunities available.”

Mark Martin, Founder at UK Black Tech, said:

“We are on a mission to make the UK technology sector the most diverse in the world, and are excited that PwC want to be a part of this courageous journey. Since launching 18 months ago, UKBlackTech has made a major impact on the tech sector through being visible and signposting opportunities.

“We want to be the agent of change for our future generation and ensure that tech products, services and companies reflect us all. We are positioned perfectly to make this happen because of the connections we have across the sector.

“This partnership will be the start of something great and we look forward to travelling around the UK to teach, inspire and connect communities to the digital skills and digital jobs available on their doorstep.”

An expanding UK tech firm is to highlight the latest in disruptive business solutions at the world’s most important gathering of chief information officers and senior IT executives.

Digital supply chain specialist Transalis aims to use its involvement as sponsor of the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Barcelona to explore and share insight on new approaches to data management.

The Portsmouth-headquartered company already underpins billions of pounds’ worth of global trade by helping clients automate transactions and reduce the need for costly management of paper documentation and associated errors.

A leading exponent of EDI, or electronic data interchange, Transalis currently offers cloud-based applications to more than 10,000 business users across 32 countries.

The company will be the only EDI vendor exhibiting at the Barcelona event.

Among the Transalis team attending are co-founders and Joint Managing Directors Aniello Sabatino and Paul Simpson, Business Development Consultant Kieran O’Connor and Mark McGarry, Senior Account Manager. 

Paul said: “This is our third Gartner event and once again it is an ideal opportunity to engage some of the biggest and most well-known business brands across the globe. We’ll also be speaking with government, financial and charitable organisations. We believe no other EDI provider is viewed in the same light due to our agile methodology, organic model and forward thinking.”

As well as EDI, the Transalis team will be discussing the emerging market use of blockchain technology, a decentralised, peer-to-peer way of sharing business documents that is set for expansion across industry verticals.

Kieran said: “We’re looking to raise our profile and expand our network of contacts while discussing and addressing new solutions areas on the horizon. Our message is all about helping organisations to build the supply chain of the future by overcoming challenges and achieving more efficient automation and integration.”

Thousands of delegates from across the world are expected to attend the five-day Barcelona event to gain a strategic view of emerging trends shaping business technology.

As well as its involvement in the Barcelona symposium this year and last, Transalis was a sponsor of the Gartner’s Supply Chain Executive Conference at the InterContinental, O2 London in September, 2018. 

The Gartner Symposium/ITxpo event takes place at the Barcelona International Convention Centre from 4th to 8th November, 2018. Transalis has produced a mobile app to support its involvement at the symposium. See: http://gartner.transalis.com/.

Aquila Capital, the alternative investment company, is delighted to announce that it has been voted the winner of the Swedish Renewable Energy Award 2018.

The award, given by the Swedish Wind Energy Association (SWEA), was presented during the VIND conference in Stockholm on October 24^th. The aim of the award is to highlight role models in the business world that understand the need for renewable energy and the industry’s key role in this transition. Previous winners include Apple, IKEA, Tesla and Google. 

Aquila Capital has rapidly become one of Sweden’s most active renewable infrastructure investors. Its systematically growing Swedish portfolio includes Project Valhalla, one of the largest wind farms in Europe, located in Sweden’s Bollnäs and Ockelbo municipalities. Since the firm’s inception, Aquila Capital has invested in renewable energy assets with a total capacity of approximately 3 GW.

Earlier this year Aquila Capital launched the Energy Transition Infrastructure Fund (ETIF), which invests in the three most important subsectors of Europe’s energy transition, namely renewable energy generation, energy storage and energy transportation.

Roman Rosslenbroich, Co-founder and CEO at Aquila Capital, commented:

“We are thrilled to be the recipients of such a prestigious award. Sweden continues to play a vital role in Europe’s transition to renewable energy and we look forward to expanding our presence here over the coming years. As one of Europe’s largest investors in renewable infrastructure we want to be valued not only for the quality of our assets, but also the way we manage them. Integrating these two objectives is central to our corporate philosophy and this award is testament to the progress we’re making.” 

 AxiomSL, the leading provider of regulatory reporting and risk management solutions, today announces that it has partnered with SKS Unternehmensberatung, a leading implementation provider of regulatory, risk and compliance management systems in Germany. The new partnership will enable AxiomSL to further expand their presence in Germany, Austria and Luxembourg by leveraging SKS’s well established consultancy expertise and extensive knowledge of the reporting obligations in the region.

AxiomSL’s strategic platform and solutions are already widely used by German firms and this collaboration enhances its market position, as the company will utilise SKS’s German reporting know-how and functional capabilities. This will allow AxiomSL to expand solutions delivery in the region, aligned with the business and reporting requirements of both domestic and European banking supervisory authorities, and enable clients to benefit from faster, more efficient and cost-effective implementation.

SKS Unternehmensberatung covers the entire change cycle from identifying regulatory requirements to technical conception, including facilitating implementation and testing, as well as the launch of compliant reporting in the banking system landscape. The two firms will work together on client implementation projects and this collaboration will deliver a simplified process, where the regulatory reports will be generated and submitted to the relevant authorities within short implementation timeframes. 

Compliant with both national and international requirements in Germany and around the globe, AxiomSL’s strategic platform and state of the art solutions are compatible with Central Bank Reporting, AnaCredit, SHS, Basel III and IV, Capital and Liquidity reporting, Trade and Transaction reporting, BCBS 239 and more. 

Jan Hrynko, COO, SKS Unternehmensberatung commented: “This partnership is a key milestone in our ongoing professionalisation and growth strategy. For our customers, in addition to our consulting expertise, reliable delivery and the quality of our partners’ products are particularly important. Partnering with AxiomSL will enable us to respond more comprehensively and professionally to our customers’ wishes and needs at home and abroad.”

Ed Royan, CEO, AxiomSL EMEA commented: “AxiomSL’s partnership with SKS Unternehmensberatungemphasises our commitment to delivering high performance, agile and transparent solutions for all regulatory disclosures in Germany. Our strategic platform empowers firms with a sound regulatory reporting infrastructure designed to address complex local and global regulatory requirements. AxiomSL’s industry leading platform and track record of global success combined with SKS’s functional capabilities and regional footprint will enable firms to benefit from differentiated solutions and meet regulatory demands in a hassle free, timely and cost-effective manner, leveraging a single platform and proven regulatory reporting and risk management technology.

The 2018 Global DNS Threat Report, shared by EfficientIP, leading specialists in network protection, revealed the financial services industry is the worst affected sector by DNS attacks, the type cyber attackers increasingly use to stealthily break into bank systems.

Last year, a single financial sector attack cost each organization $588,200. This year the research shows organizations spent $924,390, to restore services after each DNS attack, the most out of any sector and an annual increase of 57%.

The report also highlights financial organizations suffered an average of seven DNS attacks last year, with 19% attacked ten times or more in the last twelve months.  

Rising costs are not the only consequences of DNS attacks. The most common impacts of DNS attacks are cloud service downtime, experienced by 43% of financial organizations, a compromised website (36%), and in-house application downtime (32%).

DNS attacks also cost financial institutions time. Second to the public sector, financial services take the longest to mitigate an attack, spending an average of seven hours. In the worst cases, some 5% of financial sector respondents spent 41 days just resolving impacts of their DNS attacks in 2017.

While 94% of financial organizations understand the criticality of having a secure DNS network for their business, overwhelming evidence from the survey shows they need to take more action. Failure to apply security patches in a timely manner is a major issue for organizations. EfficientIP’s 2018 Global DNS Threat Report reveals 72% of finance companies took three days or more to install a security patch on their systems, leaving them open to attacks.

David Williamson, CEO, EfficientIP, comments on the reasons behind the attacks. “The DNS threat landscape is continually evolving, impacting the financial sector in particular. This is because many financial organizations rely on security solutions which fail to combat specific DNS threats. Financial services increasingly operate online and rely on internet availability and the capacity to securely communicate information in real time. Therefore, network service continuity and security is a business imperative and a necessity.”

Recommendations

Working with some of the world’s largest global banks and stock exchanges to protect their networks, EfficientIP recommends five best practices:

1. Enhance threat intelligence on domain reputation with data feeds which provide menace insight from global traffic analysis. This will protect users from internal/external attacks by blocking malware activity and mitigating data exfiltration attempts.

2. Augment your threat visibility using real-time, context-aware DNS transaction analytics for behavioral threat detection. Businesses can detect all threat types, and prevent data theft to help meet regulatory compliance such as GDPR and US CLOUD Act.

3. Apply adaptive countermeasures relevant to threats. The result is ensured business continuity, even when the attack source is unidentifiable, and practically eliminates risks of blocking legitimate users.

4. Harden security for cloud/next-gen datacenters with a purpose-built DNS security solution, overcoming limitations of solutions from cloud providers. This ensures continued access to cloud services and apps, and protects against exfiltration of cloud-stored data.

5. Incorporate DNS into a global network security solution to recognize unusual or malicious activity and inform the broader security ecosystem. This allows holistic network security to address growing network risks and protect against the lateral movement of threats.

Notes to Editors - The 2018 Global DNS Threat Report 
The report was conducted by Coleman Parkes from January to April 2018. The results are based on 1,000 respondents in three regions - North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Respondents included CISOs, CIOs, CTOs, IT Managers, Security Managers and Network Managers. Financial sector organizations comprised a total of 14% of the entire survey base.

S&P Global Market Intelligence, a leading provider of data, research, and analytics, and Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business, are partnering to provide an end-to-end Current Expected Credit Losses (CECL) solution. 

S&P Global Market Intelligence’s CECL Models leverage proven methodologies linked to 36 years of default and recovery data to bring an off-the-shelf solution that includes built-in forecasts. Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX CECL, where the CECL Models are housed, is a leading technology platform where clients such as investors, regulators, and auditors can navigate the CECL process. In June 2018 Chartis Research named Wolters Kluwer a Category Leader in its CECL Technology Solutions report.

When the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) introduced a new impairment model through CECL, it represented a major shift from the existing incurred loss model. Like IFRS 9, financial institutions in U.S. GAAP based countries such as the United States, Israel, Japan (limited), Switzerland (optional), now need to adopt a forward-looking expected loss model. Unlike IFRS 9, CECL permits historical factors to retain a greater role in the process. Additionally, there is a difference in how the results of expected loss calculations are used throughout an organization and in reports to regulators and shareholders. Banks now require an end-to-end solution to ensure compliance with the standard, due to be implemented in 2020. 

Claudio Salinardi, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business, said: “Those firms impacted by CECL need to act now to ensure they are firmly on the road to compliance. S&P Global Market Intelligence brings deep rooted credit content and methodologies to this exciting partnership. Coupled with Wolters Kluwer’s expertise in integrated finance, risk and reporting this partnership provides an unrivaled opportunity to existing and new clients alike.”

Cristiano Zazzara, Head of Credit Analytics, Global Risk Services, added: “With pending CECL implementation, financial institutions are now tasked with shifting away from the existing incurred loss models and require new ways to effectively navigate through the CECL process. With Wolters Kluwer’s technology, reporting capabilities and experience, combined with S&P Global Market Intelligence’s deep suite of credit content and methodologies, we are excited to partner to provide clients a solution that no other single vendor offers.”

S&P Global Market Intelligence provides industry-leading data and models so clients can meet analytical and operational challenges from evolving industry requirements such as Basel, Solvency II, MiFID II, IFRS 9, and CECL. The company’s Credit Assessment Scorecards and Credit Analytics tools estimate the probability of default and loss given default of private, public, rated, or unrated companies and government entities. These include: 

• Scorecards: leveraging robust methodologies to overcome data scarcity for low-default portfolios.
• Credit Analytics: utilizes a large data set of company financial information to statistically analyze credit risk. 
• CreditPro: offers an extensive database that provides a strong statistical foundation to assess ratings migration, default and recovery rates across geographies, regions, industries and sectors.

Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business is a global market leader in the provision of integrated regulatory compliance and reporting solutions, supporting regulated financial institutions in meeting their obligations to external regulators and their own boards of directors.

The OneSumX CECL solution leverages Wolters Kluwer’s integrated Finance, Risk and Reporting platform, enabling compliance with all CECL requirements, from data management and governance, to credit risk models, expected credit loss calculations, accounting and disclosures. The credit risk modeling capabilities include historical models such as vintage and loss rate methodologies, adjustments for current conditions through qualitative factors and adjustments for reasonable and supportable forecasts using quantitative overlays and mean reversion techniques. The solution also leverages its state of the art accounting framework with Wolters Kluwer’s Regulatory Update Service (RUS) to apply and maintain all required allowance accounting, producing all FASB mandated disclosures.

DESPITE GDPR legislation having come into effect over four months ago, the majority of UK information and communication businesses are now risking penalties by failing to adhere to some of the rules.

According to a survey of 1,002 UK workers in full or part-time employment, carried out by Probrand.co.uk, a large proportion (39%) of businesses in the information and communication industry failed to wipe the data from IT equipment they disposed of in the two months following GDPR.

This news is perhaps less surprising given the research also found that 58% of all UK information and communication businesses do not have an official process or protocol for disposing of obsolete IT equipment.

What’s more, 66% of information and communication sector workers admit they wouldn’t even know who to approach within their company in order to correctly dispose of old or unusable equipment.

The top 5 industries most guilty of not clearing the memory of IT equipment before disposal in the months following GDPR were transportation (72%), sales and marketing (62%), manufacturing (59%), utilities (58%) and retail (57%).

Matt Royle, marketing director at Probrand.co.uk commented: “Given the amount of publicity around GDPR it is arguably impossible to be unaware or misunderstand the basics of what is required for compliance. So, it is startling to discover just how many businesses are failing to both implement and follow some of the simplest data protection practices.”

“This is especially startling to see from businesses within the information and communication sector, where sensitive customer information is handled all the time.”

“The fines involved in a GDPR breach can potentially run into the millions – and what appear to be less tangible impactors, like reputational damage, customer trust and loyalty, will ultimately become financially significant.”

“Given these findings, it is clear that more needs to be done to ensure that all businesses have a disposal procedure in place to avoid inadvertently leaking sensitive.data.”

The top 10 industries which are most guilty of not clearing the memory of IT equipment before it is disposed of:

1.  Transportation – 72%
2.  Sales and marketing – 62%
3.  Manufacturing – 59%
4.  Utilities – 58%
5.  Retail – 57% 
6.  Education – 54%
7.  Leisure and travel – 49%
8.  Healthcare and hospitality – 45%
9.  Trades / administration – 44%

10. Information and communication – 39%

Probrand is the UK’s first marketplace for business IT, providing IT Products, managed IT services and IT solutions. Find out more at www.Probrand.co.uk.