• 15.10.2018 -- 09:37 am

Bank of Beirut has implemented Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX to provide its software for managing International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 9. The accounting standard replaces the IAS 39 standard and came into effect at the start of the year. It addresses classification and measurement, impairment methodology and hedge accounting.

OneSumX IFRS 9 is a comprehensive and modular solution which provides the financial industry with a solid framework to capture and store all relevant contractual information, manage events and transactions, IFRS calculations, accounting generation and processing up to the delivery of the disclosures. OneSumX IFRS 9 includes a ‘cash-flow characteristic’ test to assess eligibility to measurement at amortized cost and pre-defined IFRS 9 classification business rules. It also includes an amortized cost-calculation engine with built-in support for debt restructuring, below-market loans and wide variety of product lifetime events as well as fair value measurement techniques.

The implementation of the software is part of the bank’s drive to achieve IFRS 9 compliance with a broad range of regulatory requirements across many jurisdictions and other financial reporting obligations. MDSL SAL and its sister company and Wolters Kluwer regional partner Advanced Financial Solutions (AFS), implemented the Wolters Kluwer solution, supported by advisory services firm, True North Partners.

“Bank of Beirut required a solution that could comprehensively manage its IFRS 9 requirements across the Group’s operating jurisdictions (namely Lebanon, Oman, Cyprus and the United Kingdom and, at a later stage, Australia),” notes Antoun Samia, Head of Group Risk Management, at Bank of Beirut. “Wolters Kluwer, with its strong reputation in the field for IFRS 9 solutions was an evident choice for us. The implementation work with AFS and MDSL has been exemplary and we are now in a position to ensure ongoing compliance with the standard.”

The Finance, Risk & Reporting business is part of Wolters Kluwer’s Governance, Risk & Compliance Division and 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. It receives frequent independent recognition of its excellence and innovation. Notably, in July 2018, Risk magazine awarded Wolters Kluwer its coveted Regulatory Reporting System of The Year Award and Central Banking magazine recently named OneSumX for Regulatory Reporting its Best Technology Solution For Regulatory Compliance. Both awards celebrate success in the field globally. Chartis Research, meanwhile, has also named the firm a Category Leader in both its IFRS 9 Technology Solutions Report and CECL Report. 

Leading financial services firms from across the world have implemented the company’s award winning OneSumX solution for integrated Regulatory Reporting, Risk and Finance. Major financial services providers that have recently announced their use of Wolters Kluwer solutions include ABN AMRO, SME Development Bank Malaysia Berhad, Bahrain Middle East Bank, China Everbright Bank, China Merchants Bank, LGT and Nordea.

Business bank account Penta today announced a €7 million investment round as its customer base continues to grow at pace. User numbers have increased over 900%, since the company's last fundraise just eight months ago. This brings Penta’s total fundraising to €10M.

A transparent, community-driven approach and active commitment to world-leading customer service has helped Penta win favour of the German business community since launching back in December 2017.

The funding will be used to drive Penta’s hiring efforts, as the team works hard to support its growing user base and to build its marketplace offering. Based in Penta’s Berlin HQ, the team now numbers 40 with plans to grow to 100 in the coming year.

Penta CEO and Cofounder Lav Odorovic said,

"We’re very happy to have closed our Series-A as it’s a huge endorsement for the product we’re offering and the customer’s we’re serving. We're grateful to have such brilliant and passionate team as well as investors who have unparalleled skills in building global businesses.

We’re fortunate to have great traction so we did not have to look for new investors (something which is often tedious and time-consuming) as a result we had more time to focus on the business and serving the needs of our customers.”

Our ultimate goal is to make it as easy as possible for business owners to manage and make the most out of their time and money while offering them the best products on the market. To help us achieve this goal, we will continue to hire brilliant people while continuing to focus on building the best business bank account that Europe has to offer.”

In addition to being able to open a business bank account online in minutes, Penta’s customers can also issue multiple MasterCards to their team for easy expense management. In the coming months, Penta plans to introduce other exciting features including automated accounting, international transfers and more. Anyone can see and comment on what Penta is working on, on their Open Product Roadmap: https://trello.com/b/v0hXe4kb/penta-product-roadmap

68% of Penta’s new customers accounts are businesses who are switching from their existing bank to Penta, while the other 40% are businesses who are incorporating.

“Startup founders and business owners waste so much time and money dealing with annoying admin tasks. That’s why we’re offering the tools like Multi-User that can help you get business banking done in a fraction of the time. We want to help businesses owners spend less time banking and more time focusing on their business.” said Odorovic.

International Financial Corporation (“IFC”), a member of the World Bank Group, and Ant Financial Services Group (“Ant Financial”), the world’s leading tech company and the operator of Alipay, jointly announced the 10x1000 Tech for Inclusion programme at the 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group.

The initiative will include a comprehensive programme that embraces interactivity and the exchange of ideas to provide training to 10,000tech experts in emerging markets from both public and private sectors over the next 10 years.

Alibaba Group founder and Executive Chairman Jack Ma said that the programme aims to build an interactive and open platform to increase support for tech leaders and skilled individuals who are working to alleviate poverty and make basic financial services more broadly accessible in Indonesia, which will be the first stop of the programme within emerging markets.

“I believe that investing in people is investing for the future. Cultivating talent is one of the most significant things the Alibaba ecosystem can do. My hope is that emerging markets will benefit from the individuals that are nurtured under this new 10x1000 Tech for Inclusion programme and be able to embrace a brighter future through the digital economy,” said Ma, who is an adviser to the Indonesian government steering committee for e-commerce.

The 10x1000 Tech for Inclusion programme will seek support from local public and private sector partners in emerging markets. A series of Techfin workshops will be held across China and various countries. The workshops will aim to inspire tech leaders and local talent to become “drivers for change” in the digital era, promoting technology inclusion and global sustainability.

“Technology offers the largest dividend of the digital era bringing unprecedented opportunities for financial inclusion,” said Eric Jing, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ant Financial. “Individuals with talent in technology are the drivers for change who can inspire innovation that will lead to a better collective future. Now is the time for Alipay to share its knowledge and experience in digital financial services to broaden the tech communities and ecosystem within emerging markets.” 

IFC and Ant Financial have partnered on initiatives to extend micro-credits to small- and women-owned businesses in China and over the past year have driven collaboration on inclusive digital finance, green digital finance and business-environment enhancement. In 2016, Ant Financial signed onto the World Bank Group Universal Financial Access 2020 goal and committed to increasing access to financial services for 100 million underserved individuals.

Philippe Le Houérou, IFC CEO, said, “Digital finance is transforming the financial landscape, creating new markets, empowering consumers and putting banking in the hands of unreached millions worldwide for the first time. The joint programme will further deepen knowledge and create new opportunities for digital financial services to expand financial access and improve lives.”

Murex, a global leader in trading, risk and back-office solutions for the capital markets and Al Rajhi Bank, the largest Islamic bank in the world, are pleased to announce that Murex’s MX.3 platform has been selected to support the bank’s evolving Islamic finance activities and to meet the demands of local and international regulators.  

With new regulatory demands, Al Rajhi Bank also wanted to modernize their system landscape and build a coherent strategy for regulatory compliance and internal risk management. MX.3 will allow the bank to more effectively manage risk and comply with demanding Basel regulations, including SA-CCR and FRTB.

Murex was selected for its unparalleled local presence and regional knowledge, proven track record of successful project implementations and personalized support model.  In addition, Murex’s high level of investment in new technologies and the latest architecture were also deciding factors.

Speaking about the new project, Abdulrahman El Fadda, General Manager Treasury at Al Rajhi Bank, says, “We are pleased to partner with Murex to implement their MX.3 treasury solution at Al Rajhi Bank. This initiative is part of ARB’s strategy to become a digital leader, enhancing capabilities and increasing efficiency by leveraging a single, end-to-end platform that can handle all the activities of our treasury business. We aim to use MX.3 to improve customer experience and to add new and innovative products to our Sharia-compliant treasury portfolio. We are looking forward to a successful MX.3 implementation and long-term partnership with Murex.”

Philippe Helou, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Murex says, “We are delighted that Al Rajhi Bank has selected Murex to support their Islamic finance business. With this signature, we are significantly expanding our presence in Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Following the successful and collaborative selection process, Murex is thrilled to start this project and I look forward to a successful partnership.”

On the heels of its renewal with the International Olympic Committee through 2032, Visa (NYSE:V), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) today announced a commitment to enhancing the experience for fans of the Olympic and Paralympic Games around the world. 

UniCredit Bank Hungary and Alipay have signed an agreement, the first in the country, making China's most widespread mobile payment method available to Chinese visitors coming to Hungary from 2019

Palo Alto Networks (NYSE:  PANW), the global cybersecurity leader, announced today that it has completed its acquisition of RedLock Inc., a cloud threat defense company. For Palo Alto Networks, the transaction will extend its cloud security leadership.  

"With the combination of RedLock and our existing cloud security offerings, we are well-positioned to solve our customers' most difficult challenges of securing a mobile workforce, protecting the public cloud and stopping advanced threats," said Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks. "Since announcing the transaction, our integration planning teams have been working to combine the strengths of both companies in an effort to bring an integrated offering to market quickly."

Palo Alto Networks already provides a broad security offering for multi-cloud environments with inline, host-based and API-based security, bolstered by the acquisition of Evident.io in March 2018. The company currently serves more than 6,000 cloud customers globally with its cloud security portfolio that includes VM-Series next-generation firewall, Aperture, Evident, and GlobalProtect cloud service. 

Palo Alto Networks will combine the Evident and RedLock technologies to provide customers with cloud security analytics, advanced threat detection, continuous security, and compliance monitoring in a single offering anticipated early next year. The company expects that the new offering will allow security teams to respond faster to the most critical threats by replacing manual investigations with automated, real-time remediation and reports that highlight an organization's cloud risks.

DVM IoT Solutions and dizmo, the Interface of Things™, are today announcing at GITEX Technology Week a technology partnership to strengthen market offerings and enhance the delivery of impactful IoT solutions to the global IoT marketplace/ customers. 

With this partnership, DVM will be able to incorporate dizmo's interactive workspace and thereby generate complementary value to both existing and new IoT architectures. Dizmo is a front-end, multi-purpose integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) with a set of patented techniques that other web environments – static mash-ups, mobile apps, or even workflow integration canvases – do not have. 

By adopting a modular, microservices approach, the software is able to surface data streams from underlying APIs into a non-hardcoded interactive workspace and empower the user to source, mix and match third party functionality in a self-service way. 

Apps are not siloed in the dizmo workspace, but rather inter-communicate and automate data between them, enabling agile correlations or empowering business users to create dynamic, on-the-fly workflows on your factory data, your ERP data, your smart fleet, your smart grid data and many other types. 

Essentially, in the B2B world these techniques are bringing consumer grade usability to business apps, enabling an unprecedented level of event-driven dynamic orchestration. In B2C scenarios, such as the smart home, users cite enhanced and simplified UI/UX. Metrics show substantially reduced clicks and keystrokes, lower abandonment and greater rates of engagement with the medium. 

"When it comes to our customers' strategic needs, DVM wants to be at the very forefront of digital transformation thinking. With this partnership, we are adding a disruptive, front-end, data interaction solution to our technology portfolio. We believe that dizmo's technologies will drive increased value delivery to our customers," said Arda Aksaray, Partner at DVM. 

"DVM's unique understanding of the region, long-time experience with IoT leading platform, PTC ThingWorx and an appetite to build differentiated final-customer products make for a strong business fit for us," said Luigi Mantellassi, CEO & Co-Founder at dizmo. "Together with DVM, and their partners and customers, we will continue to work to transform the way people engage with data potentially across all IoT domains."

At GITEX Technology Week, DVM is showcasing a dizmo-powered smart living application layered on top of leading IoT platform, PTC ThingWorx. "We're very excited to see how DVM, a long-standing partner of Etisalat, have introduced the dizmo technology into their solutions. Its unique data integration and interaction properties enable you to connect up previously disparate elements for a seamless experience, from Smart Home to Factories," Alberto Araque, Vice President, Internet of Things and Digital Payment, Etisalat Digital.