European Commission’s VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) proposal and its effects on how to issue, exchange, process E-Invoices, and on how to report VAT data will be at the centre of discussions at the E-Invoicing Exchange Summit in Dublin from October 2 to 4, 2023. The presentations and the discussions with international high-level experts will shed light on how to maximise efficiency potentials for businesses under ViDA E-Invoicing.  

Key topics from the agenda  

+ The Commission’s Proposal on VAT in the Digital Age - State of Play 

+ Peppol and Decentralised Continuous Transaction Controls (DCTCE) 

+ What Governments Can Do to Ease CTC Introductions 

+ Requirements and Technical Specification to Extend EN 16931 for B2B E-Invoicing + Preparing for E-Invoicing from a Finance, IT, and Tax Perspective 

+ Update on Global Regulatory Compliance and Legal Frameworks for B2B, B2G and B2C + Maximising Efficiency Potentials for Businesses under ViDA E-Invoicing 

An exhibition of the leading industry partners in the field of E-Invoicing, payment and process automation will be featured. 

More information on the E-Invoicing Exchange Summit Dublin: www.exchange-summit.com/europe 

WhisperClaims, an award-winning UK-based R&D tax fintech company, has today announced its latest support offering to enable accountants to submit effective claims compliant with HMRC's new Additional Information Form (AIF), which comes into effect 8 August 2023. Initially proposed to apply to claim periods starting on or after 1st April 2023, following the Spring Budget, the new requirement affects all claims submitted on or after 8th August 2023, placing additional demands for information on claimants and accountants. 

The change of effective date means that all claims submitted after 8th August will need to be submitted with an AIF, regardless of claim dates or when the claim was prepared. 

Claimant companies will be required to give the HMRC more information than ever before and advisors will need to update their claim preparation and submission processes in order to ensure that they gather all the required information at the correct time and submit the form seamlessly, or risk the claim being rejected by HMRC. 

While the new regulations have the laudable intent of curbing fraudulent R&D claims, they will likely discourage bona fide innovators and accountancy firms from making legitimate claims if they feel unable to meet the additional administrative demands of the AIF.

WhisperClaims is determined to make this transition as easy as possible for accountants by providing them with a robust and compliant framework for preparing genuine R&D tax relief claims. It has evolved its software so that it ensures that outputs are compatible with the Additional Information Form and that accountants are prompted to gather all the information required in advance. Its new software offering includes: 

1. Adding questions to work out how many project descriptions will be needed for the Additional Information Form 

2. Adapting how WhisperClaims gathers the costs of the projects to make sure that accountants can output the costs in an AIF compatible format 

3. Tailored questions to cover other points HMRC ask for in the Additional Information Form, including costs for qualifying indirect activities 

4. Updating WhisperClaims’ technical report output to reflect these changes 

5. Creating a new output containing just the information that HMRC asks for in the order and format required for the Additional Information Form, to enable quick and easy transfer into the form itself

HMRC is still expecting accountants to submit reports, but the arrival of the AIF has created an additional administrative burden and will therefore increase the associated costs of putting a claim together. WhisperClaims’ software will mitigate this additional admin overhead for accountants, and make sure they can continue to deliver an effective and compliant R&D tax service to their clients whilst still maintaining margins.

Mike Dean, Managing Director at WhisperClaims commented, “Accountants need to be aware of these new regulations. And, in order to minimise the increased costs of administration of the scheme, they will need to implement appropriate new business processes. Their operational costs are going to skyrocket if they are not working with technology to support them through this new process.

“Backed by WhisperClaims' technology and support, accountants can continue to feel empowered to submit compliant R&D tax claims. And, with legislation continuously evolving, accountants have a prime opportunity to carve themselves out as the trusted advisor for R&D tax relief claims. 

“A genuine R&D claim still offers significant tax benefits to businesses, and with the AIF coming into play in August, many businesses will be turning to their accountants for advice.  It's now more crucial than ever that accountants equip themselves with appropriate technology and support to meet this challenge. ” he concluded. 

“Singapore and Indonesia confirm their status as regional fintech leaders. This is also the case regarding the number of unicorn companies. Focused primarily on domestic markets, Singaporean and Indonesian investors act with lower risks and have a chance to assess the potential of fintech companies more accurately. This provides opportunities for the rapid development of national fintech,” - analysts of Robocash Group say.

Blockchain for finance pioneer Quant has recruited an experienced financial services sales specialist as it looks to serve more banks, asset managers and other financial institutions with its enterprise-grade technology.

Kirat Rawel joins Quant as Head of Divisional Sales, responsible for designing and executing the firm’s overarching business development strategy and building out the sales function. She has 15 years’ experience in financial services managing full profit and loss, setting up new businesses, and managing programmes across a range of international banks and financial enterprises.

Rawel joins Quant from global fintech Finastra, where she spent four years, latterly as Senior Director for the automation marketplace. She has previously held account management roles in Citibank corporate & retail banking, project management roles at Santander and has been a part of Accenture Consulting serving financial services.

Gilbert Verdian, founder and CEO, Quant, comments: “Financial institutions and their corporate customers are racing to harness the power of blockchain - whether it be to launch their own programmable money, tokenise traditional assets, or even explore other solutions such as carbon credit or real estate tokenisation. We provide the infrastructure that facilitates these many use cases, so we’re reaffirming our commitment to our clients and further growth of the company. Kirat will be instrumental in this strategy.”

In June, Quant launched its low-code, SaaS platform Overledger. This is the technology that has been used to underpin the Bank of England’s exploration of central bank digital currencies. Overledger uses patented technology which allows customers to issue digital money and interoperable assets; write new apps that will run on any network; create secure smart contracts that will execute on any blockchain; and use simple APIs to integrate with their existing systems.

Rawel adds: “I am excited to be joining Quant at such an important time for the intersection of blockchain and financial services. Blockchain is the future for business, and having a sophisticated sales and business development strategy is necessary to support Quant’s clients and the business’ rapid growth.”

Provenir, a global leader in AI-powered risk decisioning software, today announced the relocation of its London office to a larger facility at 76 Charlotte St. Fitzrovia W1T 4QS to accommodate its expanding team. Over the past 12 months, Provenir has experienced a remarkable 138% growth in its London team, owing to the continuous acquisition of new customers in the UK and throughout Europe.

Provenir saw strong growth in 2022 globally, achieving 35% growth in revenue and expanding its customer base by 24%, adding new customers worldwide, including AMU Leasing, AutoChek, Davivienda, DeltaPay, Investree, Provu, Quick Finans, Topi and Varo. The company also expanded into France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, the Balkans and Benelux; Colombia, Brazil and Mexico; and Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam to meet customer demand.

“We have seen a real surge in demand for our credit risk decisioning solutions in recent years,” said Frode Berg, Managing Director of Europe at Provenir. “In times of uncertainty such as these, where consumers face a heightened need for credit and financial institutions adopt a more cautious lending approach, advanced AI-powered decisioning tools play a crucial role in navigating uncertainties and facilitating informed lending decisions. As I reflect on our exciting milestones and sustained growth in the UK, I am incredibly proud of our exceptionally talented workforce. The relocation of our office will allow us to accommodate our growing team and better support our rapidly growing customer base.”

An £83.5 billion opportunity

The UK has one of the strongest AI markets in the world, behind only the United States and China, with significant government funding and research activity in the field. Earlier this year, the British government pledged £1 billion of government funding for the next generation of supercomputing and AI research to establish the UK as a science and technology superpower.

Already, 15.1% of all British businesses have adopted at least one AI technology, with the adoption rate expected to increase to 22.7% by 2025 and 34.8% by 2040, according to the UK government. Expenditure on AI technologies is expected to increase from £16.7 billion in 2020 to £83.5 billion in 2040 at a compound annual growth rate of 8.4%, presenting Provenir with an immense growth opportunity as a leading provider in the market.

Independent funder, Bibby Financial Services (BFS), has supported major telecommunications comparison company Comparison Technologies with a multi-million-pound funding line, in order to facilitate a management buyout. 

Headquartered in Maidstone, Kent, Comparison Technologies is a leading independent comparison, switching and customer acquisition platform in the UK. It delivers 300,000 customers and over £250 million lifetime value annually to its industry-leading partners operating in the Pay TV, broadband and mobile markets.

In July, the business required a new funding partner to enable a management buyout, and support its continued cashflow to allow subsequent growth - and was introduced to BFS’ Corporate team by Darren Miller and Bilal Hasan at FRP Corporate Finance. Led by Corporate Sales Manager Michael Reid, BFS provided a multi-million-pound Invoice Discounting (ID) package. BFS was chosen as Comparison Technologies’ funding partner due to its understanding of the business’ requirements, and its ability to quickly offer a flexible facility structure.

Peter Callander, CFO, Comparison Technologies said:"As we enter a new era of the business, it was crucial that we partnered with a funder that recognised our specific business needs and our vision for the future. The team at BFS have exceeded our expectations, and I am excited about what is ahead for Comparison Technologies with BFS at our side.”

Darren Miller, Partner, FRP Corporate Finance added: “Comparison Technologies is comprised of a team of hardworking and dedicated professionals, evident in the management buyout that took place in order to take the business forward. We’re delighted to have advised the management team on its MBO, and to have facilitated this partnership with BFS, which proved it was the best fit due to its attitude, flexibility, and commitment to matching the business’s needs.“ 

Michael Reid, Corporate Sales Manager at BFS commented:"We’re proud to be Comparison Technology’s chosen funding partner, and to assist the team at the helm of an impressive industry-leading business. We’re dedicated to supporting the company and its evolving needs in this next stage of its growth.” 

BFS was supported from a legal perspective by David Gledhill and Rachael Killworth from Bermans.

Tink, the market leader in open banking, has announced the expansion of its existing partnership with Irish postal services provider An Post.

Just 16 months since the initial partnership was announced, An Post’s free Money Manager smart budgeting tool is now available to everyone in Ireland, expanding access to the service beyond solely An Post Money customers. 

Using Tink’s open banking technology, the Money Manager smart budgeting tool securely links people’s current accounts and credit cards from all major banks in one place, giving them a deeper understanding and more holistic view of their financial behaviour over longer periods of time. 

Completely personalised, it allows users to better manage their savings and set budgets to stay on track with their financial goals. To facilitate this, spending and budget alerts show users when they are approaching their personally-set limits enabling them to adjust their spending accordingly. They also receive useful insights into things such as unusual transaction patterns and can categorise spending into different categories so that money can be mapped and tracked on an ongoing basis – helping to reduce financial surprises.

Tasha Chouhan, UK & IE Banking Director at Tink, commented: “In the current economic climate, people are understandably on the lookout for tools to help them understand and track their spending. The expansion of our partnership with An Post means that anyone with a bank account in Ireland can now use their open banking-powered Money Manager app to access real-time insights into their financial circumstances. At a time when many are struggling with their day-to-day finances, this will add considerable value to customers – putting power back into their hands and allowing them to make informed financial decisions.”

Bruce Richardson, Senior Manager Change at An Post added: “Our recent researchshows people in Ireland feel a lack of financial control, as they try to keep afloat during challenging times. In fact, almost nine-in-ten (87%) over 18s have expressed financial concerns for the year ahead. We are proud to expand our existing partnership with Tink – allowing anyone with a bank account in Ireland to use our engaging Money Manager tools. This enables us to provide people with a real-time view of their financial situation, with features which will help users to improve their financial situation.”

An Post recently launched a national TV campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of using open banking to help people manage their finances. Existing An Post Money customers can use their ten-digit User ID to access the app once downloaded while new customers who wish to use Money Manager can download the An Post Money app on the App Store or Google Play and link their accounts. 

Several global banks have progressed with the Finteum Platform integration work, ahead of going live with the system. The Finteum Platform is an execution venue that brings intraday funding capabilities to the global interbank market. 19 banking groups with a combined balance sheet of $23.5trn attended a joint trial of the software in Q2 2023, together with observers from national prudential authorities. The Finteum Platform is expected to complete its first live trades by the end of 2023.

In the recent trial, over three days, participants discussed the business case and market structure for intraday markets. Attendees were a diverse group of large and midsize global organisations and included clearing banks for six different home currencies CAD, CHF, EUR, GBP, JPY and USD.

The banks progressing with the integration work and planning to go live soon include UBS and NatWest. Intraday FX swaps and intraday repo are recognised to be an increasingly important part of liquidity management strategies at global banks. The Federal Reserve included intraday liquidity risk management as a supervisory priority for 2023, and recent bank failures have highlighted the need for banks to have access to multiple tools and sources of liquidity.

As there are few solutions to control the receipt of funds within a settlement window, bank treasury teams maintain large buffers of High-Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) for intraday. Holding this HQLA is increasingly expensive, due to the rising interest rate environment.

Banks require agile mechanisms that enable them to swiftly access and move funds when needed. Finteum trial participants responded to a poll on the tools they would like to possess to manage intraday liquidity; 94% selected intraday and overnight funding markets, such as the Finteum Platform. The second most popular tool was central banks (facilities, FX swap lines, and liquidity bridges) at 75%. Accessing commercial bank credit lines, and throttling and payment queue reordering, were less popular at 30% or less.

By gaining faster and better access to a currency, and by holding it for only as long as is needed, banks can meet customer obligations, reduce the HQLA required and meet increasing regulatory expectations to be able to fund payment activity in real-time. This subsequently reduces bank costs, with estimates of up $75m per year for a large bank. In another trial poll, 64% of respondents believed they had adequate real-time data on their payment patterns to execute intraday trades, with others indicating they could use historical patterns instead to model regular, useful, intraday transactions.

The Finteum Platform uses R3’s Corda Enterprise distributed ledger technology (DLT) protocol. DLT enables both parties to a trade to send money and securities to each other, without needing to exchange and reconcile MT300 or similar confirmation messages. Post-trade actions such as 'early maturity’ or cancellation of trade are also agreed through the DLT platform. All data records are stored on a shared ledger that is only visible to the parties to the trade – not to Finteum, R3 or anyone else.

Trades during the interbank trial were agreed in a simulated settlement environment. Real money trades are scheduled for later in 2023. The banks integrating with Finteum are going live using existing Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems for intraday FX swaps. Following requests from banks, newly built “capacity” functionality helps bank teams to coordinate with each other regarding how much of each currency the bank should borrow or lend, and for which hours. Also, bank risk teams can now input intraday credit limits into the platform, to manage intraday counterparty credit risk.

Finteum is built to be able to integrate with any market infrastructure, including BNY Mellon’s triparty repo platform, Euroclear Bank’s triparty repo platform, RTGS systems, T2S, as well as DLT-native technology such as the Fnality Payment System, HQLA^X, Baton Systems' Core-FX and RTGS.global. Member banks plan to transition FX swap settlement from RTGS systems to "Payment vs Payment" solutions, when appropriate.

Finteum is building out the second wave of banks that will go live on the platform in 2024 and will start benefiting from intraday markets. Incentive structures are in place for second-wave banks. If you would like to set up a call or demo, please contact the Finteum team.

Automated Systems Holdings Limited (ASL) (771.HK), a leading global IT solutions and services provider, has strategically partnered with Finastra, a global provider of financial software applications and marketplaces, to bolster its industry-specific DevSecOps business and strengthen its fintech trajectory.

Under this partnership, ASL has become the sole authorized service provider for Finastra's Kondor solution in Hong Kong and Macau. As ASL continues to build its industry specialization this collaboration enables ASL to provide managed services to financial institutions investing in Kondor, Finastra’s comprehensive off-the-shelf front-to-back risk treasury solution. With ASL’s expertise in application development (Dev), cybersecurity (Sec) and 24/7 omni channel managed services (Ops), the partnership ensures the seamless integration and smooth operation of Kondor for clients.

Amid favourable fintech policies, including the Chinese government's Fintech Development Plan (2022-2025) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Fintech 2025 strategy, ASL is well-positioned to reinforce its strong presence in the fintech sector. With Hong Kong being one of the Asia Pacific region’s key fintech hubs, this partnership enables ASL to expand its reach and venture into the Greater Bay Area. The partnership, integrating Finastra's Kondor system with ASL's managed services, marks a promising milestone in the evolution of fintech and Open Banking sectors.

Wang Yueou, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Automated Systems Holdings Limited, said: "Industry focus has been a pivotal business strategy for ASL. This partnership not only enhances our unified service in the fintech sector but also lays a solid foundation for providing industry-as-a-service. Our extensive DevSecOps IT managed services cover fintech organizations’ needs throughout the entire IT lifecycle, in on-premise, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. We are committed to investing in our clients' businesses, as always."

Richard Zhu, Managing Director, APAC, Treasury and Capital Markets, Finastra, said: "We are thrilled to partner with ASL, a company known for its deep industry expertise and commitment to client success. Kondor is a best-of-breed trading system that meets the growing need for more sophisticated treasury solutions, and we believe this collaboration will foster even greater innovation and efficiency in Hong Kong and Macau’s financial sectors, reflecting the shared vision of both Finastra and ASL.”

For over two decades, ASL has harnessed the power of technology to deliver end-to-end IT-managed services with an industry-specific focus, driving businesses in Asia Pacific and managing over 160,000 devices and 220,000 users globally. ASL’s service record, boasting a customer base with an average trust span of 7 years, includes more than 60% listed companies, among which are globally recognized names, including a Fortune 500 company. The strength of ASL lies in its experience, maturity model, AI-powered platforms – Unified Operation Center, Security Operation Centers and Service Center, and a holistic approach that combines people, processes, and technology to deliver innovative, secure, and reliable IT services.

ForwardLane, the provider of AI-powered intelligence solutions, announces today the launch of its new generative decision intelligence platform EMERGE to help solve many enterprise challenges such as data transparency, data privacy and data security issues within the wealth, asset management and insurance industries.

Following conversations with C-Suite executives and Data & Analytics teams in financial services firms, it became clear to ForwardLane that the complexity of deploying private, secure, and accurate generative AI is a big challenge and a large drain on resources.

EMERGE enables a new generation of professionals in advisory, distribution, sales, marketing, business intelligence, management, and product to harness the power of generative AI to easily find, create, preview, publish, and interact with entirely new and unknown insights – while remaining private, secure and accurate.  

This reduces reliance and demand on data science teams, while freeing them up to strategically scale D&A capabilities across the organization without the overhead of analytics aggregation, data processing, insight creation, Large Language Model fine-tuning, and last mile delivery of Insights and Next Best Actions.

From an IT and Cybersecurity standpoint, the EMERGE platform resolves some of the biggest enterprise challenges today: it ensures private data remains private and does not get shared externally; provides transparency and explainability in how answers are arrived at; and produces a full audit log to ensure compliance with regulators.

EMERGE combines the power of ForwardLane’s state-of-the-art composite AI - EMERGE-GPT - with Visual Insight Generator, a zero-code tool to easily create insights from data in natural language without the need for any LLM technical expertise. Together with ForwardLane’s Next Best Action platform, this enables the full circle of insight creation, orchestration, last-mile delivery, and usage feedback.

Nathan Stevenson, Founder and CEO, ForwardLane said: “We have been leveraging AI since 2016 and have made significant investments in building an enterprise-grade Next Best Action platform for wealth, asset management and insurance. EMERGE is an applied Generative AI solution for financial services that brings together the best functionalities of ForwardLane’s ViGOR and privacy-friendly EMERGE-GPT. It gives financial services firms the ability to rapidly activate their existing data and data science investments and deliver insights to their frontline advisory and sales professionals.”

Wealth, Asset Management and Financial Services Professionals can use EMERGE to:

• Prioritize clients, identify opportunities, and spot risks across their clients and prospects
• Get read-outs of up-to-date client intelligence and analytics with recommended Next Best Actions
• Receive Next Best Action recommendations that integrate via API with workflow links, such as personalized content pieces, marketing campaigns, and actions such as proposals, client engagement plans, and personalized communications
• Transform daily workflow with the ability to read 100X faster, as well as summarize and interact with PDF, XLS, DOC and other files up to 25,000 pages on a secure, self-service basis to obtain key takeaways, action items, and insights to share with clients
• Obtain buying behavior insights, advisor priority, and opportunity and risk scores with data fused from internal and external data including advisor intent data, CRM, marketing, advisor team buying data, and many broker-dealer data packs without violating enterprise data licensing terms, a boon for fund wholesalers

Enterprises can use the EMERGE platform on a white-label basis and it can be deployed on their preferred cloud platform or hosted by ForwardLane, ensuring full control and compliance with data licensing and transfer requirements.

Designed to be transparent, flexible, easily deployable, and upgradeable and compliant with financial services regulations, the solution is currently in limited beta testing with premier partners, while interested parties can join the waitlist with wider availability coming in Q3’23.