Truss Edge, a technology company that has been founded to support the day to day portfolio management and reporting tasks of hedge funds and ETFs, is launching in Europe this week.

Verifi, Inc., a leading provider of payment and risk management solutions for POS and card-not-present merchants, today announced the launch of its Authorized Reseller Program. 

 Providing secure, differentiated and rapidly delivered cloud services to customers is a crucial requirement for today's service providers.  To meet cloud infrastructure demands, global service providers are increasingly turning to the Cisco® Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI(TM)), the industry-leading software-defined networking (SDN) solution. Cisco ACI reduces operational costs with an automated, policy-based programmable architecture, while improving scalability and security. In addition, new Cisco ACI multi-site management capability helps service providers to connect and manage multiple geographically distributed Cisco ACI fabrics and to move and manage workloads with a single pane of glass.

Cisco ACI is being deployed worldwide by service providers such as NTT Communications (United States), T-Systems (Germany), Hosters (Denmark), scanplus GmbH (Germany), Tieto Oyj (Finland), and Ritter (United States).

NTT Communications
NTT Communications (NTT Com) is a subsidiary of NTT Group and a 20-year IT service provider veteran.   The U.S. division of NTT Com recognized a market opportunity to better serve the enterprise market with a portfolio of managed service offerings tailored to key vertical markets that would also meet compliance mandates and regulations. 

To succeed in this new direction, NTT Com decided to transform its data centers with a focus on greater security and performance. NTT Com selected Cisco ACI because it offered a much more agile management model over competing industry solutions.  NTT Com can now quickly set up highly complex data center domains, bringing new customers onboard in as little as three days, and the security policies inherent in Cisco's SDN solution also support the compliance needs of its customers. 

"Cisco ACI means applications guide the way the network acts, not the other way around," says Indranil Sengupta, vice president of product engineering at NTT Com.  "We're able to offer an outstanding customer experience with fewer errors and up to 80 percent better application performance."

T-Systems

With operations in more than 20 countries and multi-billion euro revenues, T-Systems, based in Germany, is one of the world's leading providers of information and communications technology.  Increasingly T-Systems midsize customers are requesting new services based on cloud services and innovative business models, such as data analytics, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications, and industrial Internet.  T-Systems selected Cisco ACI to provide its customers with tailored infrastructure, platforms, and software solutions.

"Our customers want high quality services, uncompromised security, and flexibility, all at a reasonable price," says Andreas Schwall, Delivery Executive Production Midmarket at T-Systems. "Our challenge was to reduce IT effort and maintenance-based outages, while improving capacity at the network and security layer."

In addition, Cisco ACI allows T-Systems to run more agile, flexible operations and open up new security offerings for customers. "Based on open APIs and an application-centric view of our landscape, we can reduce lead times during the onboarding process and rapidly add more services to our portfolio," adds Schwall.

Now application traffic steers the network, rather than the other way around, enabling T-Systems to build the network environment around different customer applications, significantly improving performance and better meeting requirements.   Optimizing software-defined automation has reduced manual tasks by 90%, providing a productivity gain equivalent to three full-time employees.

Hosters
Hosters, located in Denmark, is a certified Microsoft Azure Managed Service Provider offering cloud and hybrid solutions.  The company turned to Cisco ACI to reduce time to market and to provide customers with the right solution easily and quickly.  Security was also an important consideration, and Hosters worked with Fortinet and Cisco ACI to ensure the highest levels of security for customers.  Cisco ACI is now operating in three Hosters data centers and baby spines, and the company is planning to upgrade its data centers to 100GbE, made easier with the Cisco ACI deployment.

"The results of the Cisco ACI deployment have exceeded our expectations," said Thomas Raabo, CTO, Hosters.  "Our deployment time of new services to customers has been cut down from weeks to hours, and we are spending less time on systems integration and more time on innovation.  We're moving to a DevOps model of continuous improvement, and we're creating agility and value that can be passed along to our customers."

scanplus GmbH
As a leading provider of managed cloud services in Germany, scanplus delivers to Deutsche Telekom business customers carrier-grade cloud services with rock-solid service level agreements throughout Europe. scanplus wanted to provide Deutsche Telekom customers with a "cloud in a box" that offered options and full automation and delivery through a self-service portal. scanplus chose Cisco ACI to address these needs, and will also benefit from a network fabric that scales to multiple sites, with single pane-of-glass management and automation.  Because scanplus is supporting a large number of business customers in a shared cloud environment, data protection and strict tenant segmentation are essential.   Designed for secure multi-tenancy, Cisco ACI makes it possible for applications and users to share the same infrastructure without leaking information across tenant boundaries. 

"With Cisco ACI, we have full segmentation of each tenant, and can also reference other tenant objects within a tenant while maintaining isolation, which makes them private, separated, and highly secure," said Stefan Daiber, head of architecture at scanplus.  

Using Cisco ACI multi-site functionality, scanplus is also in the process of extending its network fabric to multiple data centers.  Because the solution works with any vendor's hypervisor, it can easily accommodate the different systems in each location.

"The openness of Cisco ACI is a big benefit," said Daiber.  "It doesn't just support any hypervisor, but also all of the network equipment surrounding the hypervisor.  It gives us a tremendous amount of choice and flexibility."

Tieto Oyj
Tieto Oyj, headquartered in Finland, is a Nordic software and services company.   Tieto has deployed Cisco ACI as a Layer 2 fabric in six data centers in three countries.  Tieto's growth strategy is to shift from providing basic services to also delivering an outstanding experience for its customers. That means being able to deliver services quickly and making it possible to build anything on the application level that a customer wants-without being hindered by the underlying physical infrastructure.  

Tieto selected Cisco ACI solution to ensure a holistic architecture with centralized automation and policy-driven application profiles. Using the Cisco ACI unified policy model, the team enforces policy through endpoint groups (EPGs), a collection of network endpoints that includes a wide range of entities, including bare-metal servers, virtual machines, and containers.

"Cisco ACI provides a foundation that we can build on to channel innovation into new services," said Juha Syrjänen, Head of Connectivity Services Business at Tieto. "We'll be able to quickly and efficiently deliver basic connectivity services, while building a new connectivity ecosystem between our customers, their other partners, and Tieto."

Ritter Communications
Headquartered in the United States, Ritter Communications serves more than 45,000 customers in rural Arkansas and Tennessee with advanced voice and data services typically only found in major metropolitan areas.  Although Ritter Communications has provided local phone service since 1906, sheer connectivity doesn't deliver the revenues it once did.  Ritter needed to deliver a new set of business-focused cloud services to drive revenue growth.  But Ritter had limited operational experience with cloud services, and so did its customers.

"We serve a very rural market, and many network managers are tied to their servers.  They wouldn't feel comfortable putting everything in the public cloud," said Greg Sunderwood, vice president of engineering at Ritter Communications.   "We wanted more differentiation on the front end and more control on the back end."

Ritter's Hosted Solutions team found the answer in Cisco Cloud Architecture for the Microsoft Cloud Platform.  The integrated solutions feature a combination of Cisco ACI, Windows Azure Pack, and Cisco Unified Computing Systems (UCS®). 

"We essentially pull the public cloud into a customer's environment," says Brandon Fergerson, senior cloud engineer at Ritter Communications.  "Microsoft Azure is the customer-facing management console, and Cisco ACI handles back end infrastructure and network management."

The Hosted Solutions team has gone from manual provisioning to 100 percent virtual deployments, and customer spending for the new services is 50 to 60 percent higher than Ritter anticipated.

"We've turned server-hugging skepticism into cloud-first approaches," Fergerson says.  "I see it all the time.  The subscriptions start with just one low-risk server, then it seems like every time I check back on that tenant, they are adding more and more resources in the cloud as the trust grows.  The Ritter cloud is a simple, customer-friendly, highly automated offering, and it's been the catalyst for a mind shift-for us and our customers."

PayByPhone, the global leader in mobile parking payments, today announced that it will appoint Andreas Gruber as president and Chief Executive Officer effective June 1st, 2018. Francis Dupuis, the former President and CEO, will take over a position in Germany with parent company Volkswagen Financial Services AG. To provide additional impetus to the PayByPhone board, two new board positions have been created and as a result Maggie Clay (CFO) and Catherine Scott (Legal Counsel) will be appointed effective June 1st, 2018.

During his time at PayByPhone, Francis led the business through significant growth and organizational change and leaves the company well positioned for continued success. "We would like to thank Francis for his strong leadership and look forward to building on his experience within Volkswagen Financial Services," Gerd Künne, Vice-President of mobility unit at Volkswagen Financial Services, said. 

Francis is excited about working in the parent company, but is also grateful for his time at PayByPhone: "Working for the PayByPhone team has been an amazing experience; I will be cheering the team on from Germany!"

Andreas, a former board member of PayByPhone, will take the reins of a company poised for global expansion. "With close to 20 years of international experience in the OEM business and with an extensive background in Strategy and Business Development, Andreas is the ideal candidate to continue to lead PayByPhone into a successful future," Lars Henner Santelmann, CEO of parent company Volkswagen Financial Services AG, said.

Andreas Gruber is looking forward to the new challenge: "I have been deeply involved in the Parking business in recent years through my board appointments at PayByPhone and Sunhill technologies. Parking is today one of the key pain points for drivers around the world. I very much look forward to working with the team at PayByPhone and to delivering great products that will make the world of mobility an easier place for our customers."

• Reports
• 19.04.2018 12:27 pm

Ahead of the upcoming TradeTech US Fixed Income Leaders’ Summit, WBR Insights, the research division of Worldwide Business Research, surveyed 100 North American Fixed Income professionals, from traders and portfolio managers to CIOs. Among the priorities listed, was the need for new Fixed Income technology, cited by 63% of participants. These technological enhancements, coupled with the constant pressure to reduce costs, indicate that the current operational environment of legacy and best of breed systems cannot support the long term strategy of Fixed Income desks, and are also an expensive burden on day to day front office activities and P&L.

According to the report, Fixed Income desks face a number of critical challenges:

• 81% are hampered in understanding firm wide limits, counterparty exposure and other important risk indicators
• 70% find securing timely and accurate start of day/intraday positions and cash projections challenging
• 59% struggle to measure investment performance relative to blended benchmarks/indices
• 56% spend up to an hour reconciling positions and cash at the start of their day, just to reach a ‘satisfactory confidence level’

SimCorp, a leading provider of investment management solutions and services to the global financial services industry, today announces the findings of a newly commissioned WBR market survey, ’Fixed Income 2018: Goals and Challenges for the Front Office’. The report reveals 66% of Fixed Income professionals are seeking to reduce high operating costs, which impact profitability of the Fixed Income desk, as their number one priority for 2018. The report comes at a pivotal time in the global market, marked by the return of inflation and volatility, and unveils the impact of costly and ineffective fragmented operations, critically affecting the success of Fixed Income desks.

Ahead of the upcoming TradeTech US Fixed Income Leaders’ Summit, WBR Insights, the research division of Worldwide Business Research, surveyed 100 North American Fixed Income professionals, from traders and portfolio managers to CIOs. Among the priorities listed, was the need for new Fixed Income technology, cited by 63% of participants. These technological enhancements, coupled with the constant pressure to reduce costs, indicate that the current operational environment of legacy and best of breed systems cannot support the long term strategy of Fixed Income desks, and are also an expensive burden on day to day front office activities and P&L.

According to the report, Fixed Income desks face a number of critical challenges:

• 81% are hampered in understanding firm wide limits, counterparty exposure and other important risk indicators
• 70% find securing timely and accurate start of day/intraday positions and cash projections challenging
• 59% struggle to measure investment performance relative to blended benchmarks/indices
• 56% spend up to an hour reconciling positions and cash at the start of their day, just to reach a ‘satisfactory confidence level’

Many Fixed Income desks are impeded by a history of adding additional systems and interfaces whenever a new challenge has arisen. As a result, they are now not only faced with increasing maintenance costs, but also heightened investment and operational risk, caused by data gaps between the multiple systems put in place, to support the investment lifecycle. To date, many firms have attempted to overcome this obstacle by deploying more resources to fill in these critical gaps. With tighter margins leading to leaner teams, this status quo has now become unsustainable and more importantly, is eating into time spent on vital alpha generation.

Terry Flynn, Front Office Specialist, SimCorp said: “The report’s findings make it clear that Fixed Income operations is in need of significant change. For years now, investors have ploughed their assets into cheap multi-asset ETFs. Fixed Income professionals have a real opportunity to fight off this passive trend, but they must first confront the fragmented operations that burden their daily lives. Delayed and incomplete data, limited firmwide exposure views, restrictive asset class coverage and Excel-driven manual reconciliation, have tied the hands of many Fixed Income desks. To free themselves of this burden, firms need to eliminate the bottlenecks by consolidating their investment operations. This will create the operational efficiency required to deliver competitive returns and attract and retain investors.”

Oliver Kirkbright, Content Director, Fixed Income Leader’s Summit, WBR: “With the return of VIX volatility and increasing inflation driven by the recent Federal Reserve interest rate rise, the fight for fund flows, between active management and passive management has taken a new turn. Fixed Income professionals have a clear opportunity to gain back market share. But to do this successfully, they need to address the operational hurdles that are currently thwarting their profitability, and seek a consolidated operational strategy that will deliver immediate results, as well as  long term profitability.”

Click here to access the full report Fixed Income 2018: Goals and Challenges for the Front Office

Wolters Kluwer has hired Dan Carnevale to further strengthen its Finance, Risk & Reporting business in Canada.

Carnevale, based in Toronto, joins the company as Country Manager, with a remit to ensure customers experience value from products and services, aligning Professional Services and Product Management resources.

Carnevale brings 15 years of financial markets experience to the team, including more than six years in capital markets positions at CIBC Mellon and two years of securities lending experience at Royal Bank of Canada Investor Services. He has also held senior sales positions at Calypso Technology and Thomson Reuters.

Wolters Kluwer has had a continuous presence in Canada for more than a decade and more than 10 leading banks currently use the firm to provide the software for their Bank of Canada reporting obligations.

“As part of our strategic plans for 2018 and beyond, we are continuing to invest in Canada, demonstrating our commitment to delivering superior deployment and implementation services for existing and new clients in the country,” comments Todd Lawrence, General Manager for Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting, Americas, business. “Our award winning OneSumX suite of solutions is used by financial services firms across North America to manage a broad array of regulatory reporting, finance and risk obligations. Our technology and content expertise means we are able to offer integrated regulatory compliance and reporting solutions for managing ever more complex finance, risk and regulatory reporting obligations.”

Last year Canada’s Equitable Bank selected the company’s OneSumX Finance, Risk and Reporting solution. The solution will help Equitable Bank manage regulatory and supervisory expectations for its credit and capital management processes, as well as automate its International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9 requirements.

Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business is global, with regional headquarters for the Americas region managed from Waltham, Massachusetts. In the Asia Pacific region operations are headquartered in Singapore and in Europe, Middle East and Africa the firm’s operations are managed from offices in Belgium and London.

Leading financial services firms from across the world have implemented the company’s OneSumX solution for Regulatory Reporting, Risk and Finance (including IFRS 9 solutions). Major financial services providers that have recently announced their use of Wolters Kluwer include ABN AMRO, Bahrain Middle East Bank, China Everbright Bank, China Merchants Bank, LGT, Nordea and BBVA.

Palette Software, a leading provider of accounts payable automation and purchase to payment software, has announced the launch of PaletteOnline, a new cloud solution that enables customers to access an end-to-end P2P solution via the cloud, guaranteeing optimal functionality, security and scalability.

With PaletteOnline, users gain access to the entire product range included in PaletteArena suite, that enables companies and organizations save time and costs by automating their management of purchases and invoices, utilizing a software-as-a-service delivery model.

PaletteOnline includes:

• All functionality, always updated: The complete range of products in PaletteArena are available, but customers only pay for the functions that they use. With the SaaS model, users avoid costly upgrades of hardware and always have access to the latest updates.
• User-friendliness: A completely new user interface that is intuitive and easy to use.
• Compatibility: Easy integration with other business and purchase systems. Standard integrations are available for over 50 business systems.
• World class security: Hosted on the cloud platform Microsoft Azure which guarantees the best possible security.
• Scalability: At any time, customers have the opportunity to scale up or down the scope of their use.
• Freed-up time for the IT department: All operations and maintenance runs automatically and without additional costs, reducing demands on IT department resources.

“With PaletteOnline, we are taking automation of administration for the finance and procurement departments to the next level. This is the most flexible, secure and scalable version of our product offering so far,” says Johan Harrysson, CEO at Palette Software.

Bamboo Capital Partners (“Bamboo”), the pioneering private equity firm delivering positive social and financial value, today announces that it has exited its investment from Mibanco, Latin America’s largest microfinance bank by asset size, through a divestiture to Credicorp Ltd.