Online lender Spotcap today opened the Fintech Fellowship to applicants. The programme offers an £8k award to a postgraduate student studying a fintech related course at a UK university. Applications will be open for four months and close on the 1  August 2018.

The fellowship launched last year to raise awareness of the fintech talent gap and to encourage industry stakeholders to get involved in addressing the skills shortage. Forty-two universities from across the UK supported the programme. Last year’s winner was Mohammed Hussan, who is using the award to support his MSc in Computer Science.

“Seeing positive collaboration between groups of talented entrepreneurs and established financial institutions really inspired me to apply”, said Mohammed. “I believe it is a game-changer.”

Fintech and talent

The fintech industry is the fastest growing sector in the UK with higher than average growth expected; however, finding the right talent can be challenging. 58 percent of respondents to the UK FinTech Census 2017—which was commissioned by HM Treasury—reported that they considered attracting suitable and qualified talent as one of their top three challenges, with access to coding and software skills being of particular concern.

Niels Turfboer, Spotcap’s managing director, comments: “The possibility that access to skilled workers from Europe will be reduced after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019, has put talent on everyone's radar. The fintech sector, academia and the government are all trying to find ways to plug the growing skills gap, but we can achieve more if everyone collaborates with each other.”

This year’s judging panel

Spotcap is delighted about this year’s Fintech Fellowship judging panel, which consists of the following key industry leaders and fintech experts:  

• Marilena Ioannidou, Director & Team Lead on Fintech Investments, British Business Investment

• Stephen Ingledew, Chief Executive, FinTech Scotland

• Elizabeth Lumley, global fintech commentator and advisor

• Tanya Andreasyan, Managing Director and Editor, FintechFutures/Banking Technology

• Niels Turfboer, Managing Director, Spotcap

Marilena Ioannidou from British Business Investments, comments: “Initiatives such as the Fintech Fellowship are vital in supporting and inspiring talented graduates, helping to secure the future of the sector. ”

Elizabeth Lumley, a global fintech commentator and advisor, adds: "Fintech provides a great opportunity to improve banking and financial services for society as a whole. I welcome initiatives like the Spotcap Fintech Fellowship which can offer an opportunity for people to expand their knowledge and create innovation and advancement."

Tanya Andreasyan from FinTech Futures/Banking Technology adds: “Everything is speeding up, technology is making such huge strides forward. We have to make sure the industry keeps up with the times and the pace of change, and it’s great that initiatives such as the Fintech Fellowship strive to address the issue! Without the right talent, we won’t be able to progress – it’s simple as that.”

For more details on the fellowship, visit the dedicated site:

https://www.spotcap.co.uk/fintech-fellowship/

Vantiv, now Worldpay, Inc. (NYSE: WP) announced today at ETA TRANSACT (Booth #410) it is adding the handheld PAX A920 to its line of SmartPay Series™ terminals. These devices feature a single software platform providing a common user experience for merchants. SmartPay terminals also use a flexible Android-based operating system with pre-loaded business application bundles specifically designed to best meet a merchant’s needs.

“At Worldpay we strive to create solutions for merchants that meet the new and changing demands of their customers, which is why we created our SmartPay Series,” said Jon Pollock, SVP of Product Management at Worldpay. “By adding a variety of form factors, and now the handheld PAX A920, merchants can accept payments as well as streamline the same loyalty, payroll, inventory and sales tools across multiple smart devices.”

With an open-solution design, powered by AEVI, Worldpay can offer its channel partners and merchants innovative terminals, all of which go beyond the POS with applications that will help grow revenue through loyalty and analytics tools.

“From the outset, we’ve sought to deliver unique flexibility and choice to merchants, by enabling the PAX A920 to our app marketplace, we continue to do just that,” said Mike Camerling, CEO at AEVI. “We will continue to work with Worldpay to deploy our platform on more devices and provide even more business applications to further meet the needs of businesses in this changing payments landscape.”

The PAX A920 features a sleek design with a large touchscreen, a fast thermal printer and contactless capability making it ideal for line-busting, pay-at-the-table and other trending payment methods. The PAX A920 is expected to be available from Worldpay starting in June 2018.

“Our A920 was designed to be a secure Android platform with the horse power to run the kind of innovative applications Worldpay and AEVI are using it for,” said Andy Chau, President and CEO at PAX Technology, Inc. “We are excited to bring the most advanced Android payment solution to Worldpay’s merchants. Our device’s compact and elegant design provides merchants win with an easy-to-integrate solution that enhances their ability to run their business.” 

Learn more about the SmartPay Series™ from Worldpay, and other merchant solutions such as FastAccess Funding, at ETA TRANSACT at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas April 17-19 where Worldpay will © 2018 Worldpay, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks, service marks and trade names referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. Worldpay and other Worldpay products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of Worldpay, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. be demoing AEVI-enabled devices including PAX A920. This and other information on POS solutions for small businesses from Worldpay can be found here.

The Open Banking Implementation Entity (the ‘OBIE’), the body created by the UK’s largest personal and small business current account providers to create a better way to move, manage and make more of your money, announces that regulated companies are now able to offer new Open Banking services to consumers and businesses.
Since launch on 13 January 2018, the OBIE has operated a ‘Managed Roll Out’ programme designed to prove that this critical new piece of UK financial infrastructure is ready for customers. *1

The Managed Roll Out programme has successfully proven the account data access functionality of the Open Banking system and FCA authorised and registered third parties are now able to offer products based on it to customers.
However, as regulated companies have focused on the Data capabilities of Open Banking, it has not been possible to test the Payments functionality to the same degree and, therefore, new payments-focused services will still be put through extensive
proving as they engage with the system.

Imran Gulamhuseinwala, Trustee of the OBIE, said: “Managed Roll Out has enabled us to introduce a vital new piece of our financial system ready for customers in just a few weeks. We have learned an enormous amount and refined the system to the point where we can be entirely confident that we can now give consumers and businesses real control of their financial data.”

In addition to ending Managed Roll Out, the OBIE has also created a new service for companies coming in to the Open Banking ecosystem. ‘Launch Support’ will provide an end-to-end guidance service for third parties to ensure that they are helped to go live, from obtaining the appropriate regulation to connecting to accounts.

Avoka, the global leader in customer acquisition journeys in banking, today unveiled the findings of its 2018 State of Digital Sales in Banking Report. The report, now in its third year, compares the digital account opening capabilities of 50 of the largest banks in North America, Europe, and Australia, measuring both the breadth of their offerings and the quality of their customer experience.

“The results of this year’s report speak for themselves - account opening and onboarding have emerged as a hot spot in the digital transformation of the customer experience. Banks have acknowledged that no matter how well their digital marketing works, if their digital sales efforts don’t match up, customers simply won’t convert. They have accepted that digital account opening capabilities are a must-have, not a nice-to-have,” said Phil Copeland, Avoka CEO.

This year’s report brings back Avoka’s proprietary “Digital Sales in Banking Readiness Matrix.” Drawn from the company’s leading knowledge of the global digital sales landscape, the Matrix maps out which banks which are lagging behind in their digital sales implementation, which have prioritized digital readiness, and which have reached the optimal “Digital Promised Land.” The Matrix is the only tool of its kind to measure both the quality and the quantity of banks’ digital offerings.

Global Shifts

While banks continued to improve their digital onboarding capabilities over the past year, the global landscape has shifted in notable ways. Australian banks remain the leaders in the digital race, but this year’s study found that North American banks are quickly catching up. North American banks showed the largest year over year improvement, led strongly by the US. Data reveals that in 2018, the number of US banks that reached the “Digital Promised Land” doubled, reflecting the strong efforts that large US institutions are applying to digital sales.

In Europe, meanwhile, a restrictive regulatory climate caused a slowdown in digital transformation efforts. With banks in countries such as the UK focused on preparing for far-reaching directives like Open Banking and GDPR, many fell behind in their digital sales readiness. Even European banks that fared well in prior years showed flat trajectories in the 2018 Report. 

Improvements Made, Challenges Remain

Over all, the number of banks in the “Digital Promised Land” has increased to almost 50% in this year’s report. Helping to drive this progress is the personal banking sector, where 69% of products worldwide can now be applied for online. Also of note is a sharp reduction in the gap between mobile and desktop digital account openings over the past year—from over 50% to only 20%. Mobile account openings are quickly becoming the norm for personal, wealth, and business accounts, refuting the notion that consumers want to ‘browse but not buy’ on mobile.

While still lagging behind personal banking and wealth management, business banking—the most profitable and most complex of many banks’ product lines—has also displayed notable progress in digital account opening availability over the past year, with a worldwide increase of 300% for online sales readiness. As major banks continue to build out their digital sales capabilities, this is likely to form one of the most important new battlegrounds.

“We have seen dramatic improvement in the state of banks’ digital sales capabilities over the past year, but there is still much work to be done,” says Copeland. “Business banking in particular presents the next frontier for banks as they seek to ensure frictionless, user-friendly account opening and onboarding experiences across all business lines. Implementing effective digital sales processes in this area will be a key task for banks going forward.”

InvestCloud Inc., a global FinTech firm, has announced FCI Advisors as the latest wealth manager to adopt its digital platform. FCI will use InvestCloud to digitize services and engagement for its high-net-worth and institutional clients.

FCI Advisors has been using InvestCloud’s document storage apps since 2014. The wealth manager has now added new functionality from InvestCloud to give clients the ability to interact with their wealth in more ways online. It allows them to monitor allocations, securities and transactions, and to review performance.

The client portal also stores relevant documents and provides news content so clients can access information in one place.

Rachel Stewart, Vice President, Marketing and Communications at FCI Advisors, said: “Digital isn’t just for the latest generation of investors – many clients are already looking for new ways to interact with their wealth. This is what the InvestCloud digital platform does for us – allowing us to serve today’s investors and give them the tools they need while also providing for the next generation of clients. It allows us to further our mission to counsel investors, steward their assets and create peace of mind.”

The digital platform is powered by the InvestCloud Digital Warehouse. Going beyond simple information storage, the Digital Warehouse aggregates data from multiple systems and custodians and integrates it into meaningful information that is securely stored. This includes external news and social media sources, alongside market and portfolio data.

Founded in 1966 and headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, FCI Advisors is a registered investment adviser with more than $8.1 billion in assets under management. It provides financial advice and investment management for institutions and high-net-worth private investors.

John Wise, Co-founder, CEO and Chairman of InvestCloud, said: “There is a desperate need for the wealth industry to go digital. Wealth managers are being fired by more than two-thirds of millennials who inherit wealth, and more than 70 percent of investors are interested in a digital platform for investing. This isn’t a future problem: this is an issue that is already threatening the bottom line for wealth managers.”

Wise added: “We are proud to work with forward-thinking firms such as FCI Advisors. By combining their long heritage and expertise in financial advice with an intuitive, involved and individual digital platform, they are leading the way in building better relationships with their clients and delivering superior performance.”

Path Solutions, the global leader in Sharia-based technologies to the Islamic financial services industry, announced today that the company and its Group Chairman & CEO, Mohammed Kateeb, have been awarded this year’s ‘Best Islamic Banking Technology Provider EMEA’ and ‘Best Islamic Finance Technology CEO EMEA’ respectively by Global Banking & Finance Review.  

The Global Banking & Finance Review Awards were created to recognize companies that are at the summit of achievement in terms of excellence, impact and know-how within the global financial community. They also honor leaders who have contributed immensely to the strengthening and promotion of the tech industry in the region. The awards reflect the innovation, achievement, strategy, progressive and inspirational changes taking place within the global financial sector.

For over 25 years, Path Solutions has been engaged in the development and implementation of cutting-edge software solutions and services to address the growing needs of the Islamic finance sector. Being at the forefront of Sharia-based core banking technology, the company provides cloud-ready and on premise software suite with a robust set of capabilities to help Islamic financial institutions enhance their most distinctive operations.

Mohammed Kateeb has earned a number of awards over the years, including the prestigious 'Leadership Award in Information Technologies & Media’ from ISFIN in 2017, and was named three times in ISLAMICA 500 among the 'Top 50 Most Influential Leaders Who Make the Islamic Economy'.

“Kateeb’s aggressive support of innovation in the technology industry, paired with the corresponding results and tremendous impact on the sector were particularly remarkable”, commented Wanda Rich, Senior Editor, Global Banking & Finance Review. “Under his watch, Path Solutions has achieved significant growth and success, contributing exciting tech developments and innovations that have global reach, and thus, making it the dominant player in its field”, she said.

Mohammed Kateeb commented, “We are honored to be recognised once more by Global Banking & Finance Review as a technology pioneer. Technology is the most important force energizing the growth in our industry, and Path Solutions recognizes the critical importance of IT innovation. We have developed a world-class core banking platform engineered to be linearly scalable to empower the move to digital, allowing our clients to generate significant economies. We remain as committed as ever to helping our clients achieve their goals of agile growth, smarter operations and transform from traditional to intelligent financial institutions”.

Winners will be announced in the upcoming edition of the print publication. This news will also be published in the online publication of Global Banking & Finance Review.

SafeCharge, a leading payments technology company, today announces that it recorded an increase of 60% in number of processed transactions for Saturday’s Grand National, the biggest race in the British horseracing calendar, compared to last year’s event. With over £200m in bets placed each year during this event, SafeCharge payments data suggests that Grand National bets are significantly increasing in payment processing volumes, challenging payment processing infrastructures just like Valentine’s Day or Black Friday.

This year, SafeCharge payments data shows that the peak number of transactions processed per second soared by 118%, whilst the value of bets placed throughout the race increased by more than 60% compared to the 2017 event. Furthermore, the speed at which transactions were processed through SafeCharge’s payments platform increased by more than 10%, highlighting the need to rely on a robust processing architecture able to guarantee zero downtime and an always-on approach.

"Our data suggests that the volume of online transactions being processed during the Grand National, as well as the speed these are being processed, is increasing significantly year-on-year to become the de-facto method for placing bets at this major event. This obviously puts strain on payments infrastructure which needs to be up to the task,” said David Avgi, CEO, SafeCharge. “We are proud to support payment processing for some of the most prestigious and best-known operators at the Grand National. Our technical expertise and robust payments architecture is trusted by the biggest names in the industry, with a solid track record going back to 2007.”

“The Grand National is a landmark event for online betting, attracting huge numbers of players every year,” stated Jim Noakes, Head of Strategic Development and Optimisation at Ladbrokes Coral. “The robustness, scalability and quality of SafeCharge’s Payments Engine has been instrumental to deliver an unparalleled user experience for our customers at the event.”

Tigo Tanzania’s (www.Tigo.co.tz) mobile financial services business, Tigo Pesa (www.Tigo.co.tz/tigo-pesa), has received the GSMA Mobile Money Certification, recognizing Tigo’s ability to deliver safe, transparent, reliable and more resilient services that promote consumer rights and prevent malicious transactions. Tigo Pesa is amongst the first mobile financial services providers around the globe to be certified by the GSMA.  

The GSMA Mobile Money Certification is a global initiative to bring safer, more transparent, and more resilient financial services to millions of mobile money users around the world. The GSMA Mobile Money Certification represents a strong proactive move on behalf of the mobile money industry, demonstrating its commitment to Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), and to delivering quality, safe and fair services to customers and partners.

With over 690 million registered accounts globally, the mobile industry is making the world a better place, and mobile money has given millions of previously unbanked people access to financial services.

Speaking during a press briefing in Dar es Salaam today, Tigo’s Chief Officer of Mobile Financial Services, Hussein Sayed said: “Tigo Pesa is proud of its contribution in driving the financial inclusion agenda in Tanzania by giving millions of previously unbanked people access to financial services. This certification is evidence that we have taken a step further to ensure that customers’ funds are in safe hands, and that their rights are being observed through our business practices and that a high level of customer service can be expected”.  

In order to achieve the certification, each mobile financial services provider is measured against global industry best practice, and a pass mark of 100% is required. Certified providers are those that have proven that their business practices are amongst the best in the industry and that they are trustworthy and responsible financial institutions at par with the rest of the financial ecosystem.

“Tigo Pesa is proud to meet the requisite criteria to receive the GSMA Mobile Money Certification. This not only demonstrates the quality and reliability of our services but ascertains that we are at the cusp of the digital financial revolution that is sweeping the globe,” Hussein added.

In addition to Tigo’s utmost commitment to ensuring that we provide world-class services to our customers, our Tigo Pesa business is delivering the most innovative mobile financial services to our customers. We have always been at the forefront in introducing relevant innovations to the market including: the first operator to create the world’s first interoperable mobile money market, the first East African cross-border mobile money transfer with currency conversion and the first telecoms company worldwide to share profit generated from our Mobile Money Trust Accounts in the form of a quarterly distribution to our customers.

“Certification is a sign that our business practices are among the best in the industry, that we are a trustworthy and responsible mobile financial service institution, and therefore an attractive candidate for collaboration with potential business partners including but not limited to banks,” Tigo’s Chief Officer of Mobile Financial Services added.

AxiomSL, the leading global provider of regulatory-reporting, risk and data-management solutions, today announced that Chartis Research, a provider of research and analysis on the global market for risk technology, has named AxiomSL a 2018 Category Leader in its FinTech Quadrant^®, “Data Integrity and Control Solutions in Financial Services.” This is the second year Chartis has recognized the company as a Category Leader for this solution.

“We’re pleased that Chartis Research has recognized our industry-leading data integrity and control platform for the second year,” said Alex Tsigutkin, Founder and CEO of AxiomSL. “As the volume and diversity of data pools explodes and stakeholders’ expectations for improved governance, data quality and controls keep rising, it is critical for financial firms to optimize business processes and exert higher data integrity and control. AxiomSL’s state-of-the-art platform brings together people, processes and controls to address intrusive, fragmented and data-intensive regulatory mandates, best practices in risk management and business efficiency. This intelligent data-management platform leverages data as an enterprise asset, enabling executives to enhance decision-making processes, business growth and change management. It’s immensely gratifying to have our team’s hard work and commitment to innovation recognized by an organization that has as outstanding a reputation as Chartis.”

At the core of AxiomSL’s ControllerView™ “Platform for Change” is an innovative technology that combines the following important functions:

• Integration and management of data taxonomy;
• Native understanding of relationships and transformations with drill-down to data and process;
• Continued control from data implantation to data visualization through a unified user interface;
• Fully integrated data logic and process visualization in a unique graphical navigator
• Support for big data, real time processing and Cloud.

AxiomSL’s ControllerView™ platform is equipped with a dynamic data-lineage module that can be compared to the company’s “GPS” navigator – tracking the “data route” from source to final destination and collecting vital information and analytics that can streamline and optimize the client’s processes in a controlled environment. This data-lineage module captures and documents data flows, data transformations, critical data elements and business logic throughout the entire regulatory and internal management reporting process. The intelligence gathered yields business value and faster time-to-market, while delivering the most reliable and trusted data.

“Our clients are thinking strategically about data, especially when initiatives such as BCBS 239 have made data lineage a top concern,” Tsigutkin added. “With regulators asking for more granular and timely information – with quarterly, weekly and sometimes daily frequencies – tactical approaches and manual processes that attempt to capture lineage and document it in Excel are unsustainable. Our data-driven platform alleviates those operational inefficiencies by automating the delivery of thousands of data points.  The goal of AxiomSL’s core platform is to provide seamless integration of new technologies and analytics to process more data, bring more control and governance, make development easier and enable faster processing.  Our most recent innovation has been to certify our platform with Amazon Web Services, giving clients the choice to implement regulatory reporting and risk management solutions on the Cloud. ”

“AxiomSL’s data and process-driven platform interfaces across business functions, and its data quality control procedures help ensure the accuracy and transparency of data,” said Sidhartha Dash, Research Director, Chartis Research. “The platform also allows executives to reuse and leverage data and processes while avoiding siloed responses.”

Chartis’ Category Leaders combine depth and breadth of functionality, technology and content with the required organizational characteristics to capture significant share in their market, and they demonstrate a clear strategy for sustainable, profitable growth. Their best-in-class solutions offer the range and diversity, sector coverage and financial strength to absorb demand volatility in specific industry sectors or geographic regions.

Chartis’ FinTech Quadrant™ reports are written by experienced analysts with hands-on experience in selecting, developing and implementing financial technology solutions for a variety of international companies in a range of industries including banking, insurance and capital markets. The findings and analysis in the FinTech Quadrant™ report reflect Chartis analysts’ considered opinions, along with research into market trends, participants, expenditure patterns and best practices. Chartis uses a combination of sources to gather market intelligence. These sources include vendor evaluation forms, risk technology user surveys, interviews with subject-matter experts, customer reference checks, vendor briefing sessions and other third-party sources.