eGain (NASDAQ:EGAN), the leading provider of cloud-based customer engagement solutions, today announced that chatbot silos are the biggest hurdle for consumers in using virtual assistants. The finding is from an independent survey of 3,000 consumers, conducted by Chatbots.org.

Established in 2008, Chatbots.org is a global community devoted to the promotion of AI for business and societal value. The organization collaborates with businesses and academic institutions, sharing new developments in AI technologies such as chatbots and reasoning, and propagating best practices in leveraging them.

Sponsored by eGain, the research was conducted by Chatbots.org in Q4 calendar 2017 across the US and the UK, using SurveyMonkey(TM). Responses were compiled from 3,000 consumers who had used a chatbot for customer service in the prior 12 months. Key findings and corresponding viewpoints from Chatbots.org and eGain are:

• 59% of respondents (62% in the US and 55% in the UK) found that having to repeat information and context to a human agent in the event of escalation from chatbots was the biggest hassle by far in using virtual assistants1. Not surprisingly, this is a result of chatbot deployments that are completely disconnected from agent-assisted touchpoints.
• The second biggest deterrent at 32% (29% US and 37% UK) was chatbots "getting stuck and not knowing what to do next." This is a common problem that arises from a lack of focus on knowledge management to empower chatbots.
• 53% of the consumers surveyed (54% US and 52% UK) found chatbots to be "not effective" or only "somewhat effective." US consumers were harsher in their assessment of chatbots with 14% rating them as not effective versus only 5% of UK consumers. This is perhaps an indication that US consumers are challenging chatbots with more complex questions than UK consumers.
• Younger consumers thought that chatbots were more effective-where 22% of Generation Z and 15% of millennials rated them as "very effective," only 12% of boomers and the silent generation gave them the same rating. This is likely due to the positive attitude that digitally savvy Gen Z and millennial consumers have towards chatbots.
• Consumers with higher education found chatbots to be twice as ineffective as the less educated consumers did-13% of respondents with undergraduate or graduate degrees rated chatbots as "not effective" versus 7% of those with high school diplomas or incomplete high school education. This could be because educated consumers challenge chatbots to resolve more complex service problems.

"We wanted to understand the barriers consumers face in using chatbots in order to promote their adoption," said Erwin van Lun, CEO and founder of Chatbots.org. "The survey findings will help technology providers improve their offerings while helping businesses select and deploy chatbots the right way to make it easy for consumers."

"eGain is a pioneer in chatbot and AI technology with over 20 years of experience in the domain," said Ashu Roy, eGain CEO. "The survey validates our vision of unifying chatbots and other touchpoints through a customer engagement hub to enable seamless, omnichannel customer service journeys."

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai and HERE Technologies today announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding on a long-term technology collaboration with the aim of mapping the city with high definition technology for the first time. HD maps are a prerequisite to moving Dubai closer to its goal of having 25% of public transport self-driving services by 2030.

Both parties plan to deploy newly available location technologies in the development of a data infrastructure to support safe, sustainable and efficient autonomous transportation. These efforts are in line with Dubai's Smart City strategy and its self-driving transport roadmap, which ultimately aim to increase the quality of life for people in Dubai.

As part of their planned cooperation, RTA and HERE intend to conduct a number of pilots aimed at enabling HD Live Map, HERE's map for autonomous cars, for public service vehicles operating in Dubai. HD Live Map is a high definition and self-updating map designed to provide vehicles with accurate information about what is happening on the road.

An additional focal point is on utilizing the HERE Open Location Platform (OLP) as a system to intelligently connect vehicles with each other as well as the road infrastructure, such as traffic lights and sensors on roadways and sidewalks. OLP enables multiple automakers and other organizations and sources to transmit live, anonymized sensor data that is then aggregated, enriched with high-precision location data, and transmitted back to cars in the form of near real-time, geo-targeted, contextually-relevant information about changing road conditions.

Following initial planning and proof-of-concept phases, RTA and HERE share the objective to target joint pilots utilizing the new technologies as part of preparation to deploy self-driving vehicles at EXPO 2020, which Dubai will be hosting.

Abdulla Al Madani, CEO of RTA's Corporate Technology Support Services Sector expressed his pleasure to sign this MoU with HERE Technologies, reaffirming RTA's commitment to work with internationally recognized technology companies to deliver the latest solutions to the public in Dubai.

"RTA has always been a forerunner in harnessing the most sophisticated technologies through collaborating with the world's best providers taking into consideration the contribution to make Dubai the world's smartest city and make its residents, tourists and visitors happy and satisfied," said Al Madani.

Leon van de Pas, SVP, Internet of Things at HERE Technologies, said: "Dubai recognizes the importance of new location technologies in making transportation more efficient, safer and sustainable for people. Driven by our vision of enabling an autonomous world for everyone, the HERE Technologies team is excited and energized to help Dubai deliver on its ambition plans for a driverless future."
 

PrePay Solutions (PPS), Europe’s leading prepaid and digital banking specialist, has partnered with new business bank account provider, Coconut, to enable the delivery of  an app-based account that uniquely manages tax and expenses for freelancers and self-employed people.

Despite accounting for 15% of the workforce, many of the UK’s 4.9m self-employed community do not have access to appropriate money, tax and expense management tools. HMRC’s Making Tax Digital Initiative, which will require all small businesses and self-employed people to file quarterly tax from April 2020, will compound this issue for unprepared freelancers.

Under the new partnership, PPS is providing full banking infrastructure and card technology to help Coconut deliver its account, which will help freelancers to manage their finances and prepare for the implementation of Making Tax Digital. Using the transaction information from the cards provided by PPS, Coconut will also be able to offer more personalised products to its customers.

Ray Brash, CEO of PrePay Solutions, said: “It is exciting to be working with a company as innovative as Coconut. As with any partnership, the chemistry has to be right and the Coconut team is perfectly aligned with our company vision and ambition.  Freelancers, sole traders and small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but they are completely underserved when it comes to fit-for-purpose digital banking & account tools. Working together with Coconut, we’re offering a completely new type of product to a growing and underserved group, helping them to benefit from personalised accounts that truly meet their business needs both now and in the future.”

The Coconut account includes a smartphone app featuring fully-automated tax management and expenses tools, as well as a contactless Mastercard for making payments in store and online. An account can be opened in minutes on a user’s mobile, and offers instant notifications on all transactions, in addition to a function for storing receipts, all feeding into a real-time tax assessment preview to help budget for tax bills.

Sam O’Connor, CEO, Coconut, added: “We’re really pleased to be working with the PPS team – they have created the best banking infrastructure product in the UK and are bringing some of the most innovative financial products to market. We’ve worked together to deliver our product in record time with our Beta launch this January. PPS is a crucial long-term partner for us.”

Coconut specialises in making business accounting instant and effortless. The company is backed by leading tech accelerator, Techstars, and was recently named one of the ten winners of theNesta Open Up Challenge, a competition to award grants to innovative businesses using new Open Banking APIs. 

Following the announcement 15 November 2017 that Heikki Ilkka is leaving Nordea the process to secure the future CFO of Nordea has now been completed with the appointment of Christopher Rees (46), currently Deputy Head of Wholesale Banking and Head of Nordea Markets, as new Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Head of Group Finance & Treasury and member of Group Executive Management (GEM) from 1 March 2018.  

Christopher Rees joined Nordea in 2015 as COO for Wholesale Banking and most recently held the roles of Deputy Head of Wholesale Banking and Head of Nordea Markets. 

Christopher has had an impressive career in the financial services sector since 1996. Before joining Nordea he held senior positions in investment banking, capital markets and risk at Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. 

- In Christopher we have found the ideal CFO for Nordea. Christopher has significant sector experience and a truly global perspective given his experience. Furthermore, he has a proven track record of driving top performing teams. The recent transformation completed in Markets speaks to Chris’s abilities to build for the future. A capability that will also be valued in completing the transformation of Group Finance & Business Control. I am pleased to see that we can nurture and foster talent internally and look forward to welcoming Christopher to GEM, says Casper von Koskull, Group CEO of Nordea.   

Christopher will step into his new role as of 1 March 2018, but will start the transition and handover from Heikki Ilkka immediately. 

- I very much look forward to this challenge and to continuing the exciting journey to shape the future of Nordea in this new capacity, says Christopher Rees, future CFO of Nordea.

The process to identify a successor in Markets has been initiated. In the meantime, Martin A. Persson, Head of Wholesale Banking, will take on the interim role as Head of Markets with Christian Fink Karas, COO of Markets, as interim Deputy Head of Markets.

Europe's first chargeback management and dispute resolution company for businesses, The Chargeback Company, also known as Chargebacks911, has secured a major coup in welcoming Stefano Petrazzoli as its new Director of Travel Relations.

Stefano joins from Booking.com, where he built its Global Payment Operations team, focussing on tackling the rising industry threat of chargebacks. Leading the payments department, Stefano was responsible for creating and scaling first-class operations, including chargeback and payment trend analysis and managing relationships with vendors, travel industry's merchants and providers. Stefano will use his knowledge to boost The Chargeback Company’s expertise in the travel industry.

As Director of Travel Relations at The Chargeback Company, Stefano’s role will see him supporting ongoing lobbying efforts to improve dispute processing rules and strategies, expanding travel-specific channels, and working to enhance the relationship between suppliers, affiliates, merchants and financial institutions; supporting customers’ needs, and creating opportunities for cooperation and awareness in the travel industry.

Speaking about his new role, Stefano commented: “It’s great to be joining a team that stands out for the quality of its services, as well as the highest ethical and professional standards in the industry. Not only does it have an outstanding reputation, but it has the results to match.

“The Chargeback Company is unique for its global vision with a powerful long-term plan to revolutionise chargeback management within the travel industry, bringing together international parties and creating a community which will ultimately benefit the travellers worldwide.”

The Chargeback Company’s Director of Global Business Development, Carolyn Sweeney, added: “Stefano brings vast ability and industry know-how to his new role. It’s a rare occasion to acquire someone of his outstanding aptitude whose whole focus is the customer, ensuring their needs are constantly addressed and assuring the best possible service. Stefano is as talented as he is amiable, a true industry gem.”

The ai Corporation (ai) an FCA approved expert in payments, fraud and risk management, today announced the appointment of Robin Whitehead, David Gilhespy and Natasha Westover, as Chief Technology Officer, Chief Operations Officer and Finance Director, respectively.

Today’s strategic hires build on ai’s 2017 acquisition of the fuel card processor, SmartCentric, and come at a time when ai is experiencing consistent and significant growth. In 2017, ai continued its double-digit growth track record, with a 50% increase in normalised revenue year on year.

ai’s fuel card processing solutions cover over 15 million B2B active cards over 45 countries, in over 200,000 sites and 90+ product types. Its existing payments and fraud portfolio also cover over 100 banks, protecting three million multi-channel merchants and over 300 million consumer cardholders, across the globe.

“I’m pleased to say we’re positively impacting our industry, from both a client success and technological innovation perspective. We take customers from where they are, to where they want to go, and we work side-by-side with our partners to simplify their approach and drive business success,” said Dr Mark Goldspink, CEO of ai.

“Our business is growing and we’re on our way to becoming one of the most recognized brands in the machine learning, payment, fraud and risk management space. Building out the team to strengthen our brand globally with the additions of Robin, David and Natasha, drives our business forward and will further cement our ability to provide an end to end solution, that enables real-time card management, with real-time fraud prevention.”

As CTO, Robin Whitehead will head the company’s data science, technology and engineering teams, underpinning its solutions, with the latest machine learning techniques and technology. He will be responsible for continued growth and innovation of ai’s core technology platforms. Whitehead was most recently ai’s Development Director. Prior to that, he held executive positions at PayVector.

“I’m excited to be appointed as ai’s CTO at such a pivotal time in the business’s history, and to help ensure the company’s legacy of enhanced payment, fraud and risk management solutions continue to thrive,” said Robin Whitehead. “I’ve dedicated my career to ensuring end customers are able to succeed by simplifying their omni-channel payments processes, while stopping fraud at source.”

David Gilhespy will be responsible for managing and overseeing ai’s global operations. As Chief Operations Officer, Gilhespy will focus on growing the footprint of ai’s international business and continuing the company’s mission to simplify the complexities of omni-channel payments and fraud prevention.

As Financial Director, Natasha Westover will support ai’s CEO, Dr Mark Goldspink, its commercial directors and senior management team regarding financial strategy, accounting, budgeting and financial reporting and management relating to ai and its subsidiaries.

Deko – the retail finance technology provider – has strengthened its board with the appointment of a new sales and marketing director, as it sets its sights on major growth. 

Kaye Rickards brings over 20 years’ industry experience to the role, having held senior business development, new sector development and account strategy positions within the information technology sector across all aspects of retail lending. 

Kaye joins Deko from Callcredit Information Group, where she worked for 13 years initially as part of the start-up founding team that challenged, disrupted and ultimately changed the UK bureau market. Most recently, Kaye led the strategy and teams for two of the UK’s largest banks, focusing on data and technology for origination, customer management and digital on-boarding. 

Before Callcredit – and propelled by an eight-year stint in solutions at Experian – Kaye held various leadership positions at FT.com. Focusing on research services for a range of FTSE 100 clients, Kaye headed up teams within client management and business development.

In her new role, Kaye will be responsible for leading the sales and marketing strategy at Deko, working closely with all core functions of the business to refine the proposition, expand partnerships, further develop the team and drive growth.

Deko’s innovative technology and multi-lender platform helps customers easily and effectively spread the cost of purchases, allowing merchants to improve sales conversion and increase average order values. The company is working with merchants from a wide range of sectors to challenge traditional consumer credit models and disrupt the finance marketplace.

Kaye said: “It’s been hugely exciting for me to become part of the Deko team. There’s a lot of talent in this business, not to mention a world class technology platform. It’s the very thing that attracted me. With a strong background in finance and technology and a love of collaboration and creating winning propositions for clients, I feel that, together with the rest of the team, we can steer Deko towards our growth targets. At the same time, we’ll be helping more consumers to access good finance and more retailers to boost their bottom lines.”

Deko recently reached a milestone £500 million in accumulative lending and has plans to diversify its product range, grow its portfolio of lenders and merchants and expand internationally.

Peter Mansfield, CEO at Deko, said: “We’ve got very ambitious growth plans at Deko and are expanding at a rapid rate. It’s therefore essential that we have the right people with the right experience in place to help us achieve those goals. Kaye has proven her ability to deliver commercially-driven campaigns and secure new business, so we look forward to seeing her apply her expertise to retail finance and help to perfect our proposition and penetrate new markets.”

Gemalto, the world leader in digital security and  #1 payment card supplier, has joined forces with Entrust Datacard, a leading provider of trusted identity and secure transaction technology solutions, to provide a unique, SaaS-based instant issuance solution for U.S. financial institutions.

Instant issuance is a must-have for financial institutions

In 2006, instant issuance began to penetrate the payment card industry, and banks were presented with the opportunity to set themselves ahead of their competition by providing consumers with a higher level of service and differentiated products. With additional benefits to the solution, it has now become critical for financial institutions to integrate instant issuance into their portfolio. Aite Group's Tiffani Montez agrees: "The ability to instantly issue a card in a branch was a luxury in the past, but as more and more issuers implement this capability, it is slowly moving from a nice-to-have to a must-have."

Aite's research also shows that from 2017 to 2021, the number of North American financial institutions who have implemented instant issuance will jump from 3,312 to 5,483, representing 55% market adoption. 

Strengthen customer relationships and accomplish business goals with optimized time, increased activation and cost savings

By coupling Entrust Datacard's industry-leading instant issuance solution and ease of deployment with Gemalto's SaaS platform, the barriers of entry are lowered so that financial institutions of any size can profit from the many benefits of a SaaS-based instant issuance solution. 

With complete control over card delivery, the wait for a new card – whether for normal issuance cycle or because of loss or theft – is practically eliminated. Instead, banks can now use that gained time to focus on customer relationship, improve engagement and cross-sell additional products and services. 

Furthermore, cards instantly issued in the branch have proved to increase activation rates by 82 percent and usage rates by 32 percent. Combined with the cost savings linked to reduced waste and postage, but also to IT overheads thanks to SaaS-based seamless implementation, financial institutions can see an uptick in profit.

Gemalto and Entrust Datacard's partnership brings together the industry's widest portfolio of issuance systems and a secure, future-proof, reliable solution to help financial institutions save money, maximize time and build stronger customer relationships. 

A hosted end-to-end solution for easy, affordable and fast card issuance in the branch

With this combined solution, Entrust Datacard's instant issuance printers are installed and set up at the branch. State-of-the-art EMV cards can then be personalized and printed on-demand while the issuance software is hosted by and remotely managed from Gemalto's secure, cloud-based SaaS infrastructure.  

Executive Quotes:

"With both Gemalto and Entrust Datacard's strong experience in the banking and payment industry, we've been able to apply that expertise to bring instant issuance to market. The SaaS aspect really sets the solution apart from others in the field, and financial institutions of all sizes will be able to reap the benefits."

• Paul Kobos, SVP Banking and Payments, North America, Gemalto

​"With a SaaS-based instant issuance solution, we are able to not only provide financial institutions with the ability to instantly meet their customer's needs, but do it in a manner that drives retention, and increases activation and usage rates, all while reducing the overhead expenses to the bank."

INDATA, a leading industry provider of software, technology and services for buy-side firms, today announced the successful completion of the Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type II and Statement on the Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) 18 Type II audits. Conducted by an independent auditor, the certifications verify that the system architecture and security controls across iPM, iPM Cloud and associated INDATA products and services continue to provide highly secure, available and private cloud software and services offerings.

SOC 2 Type II and SSAE 18 Type II assessments, introduced in 2011 and updated in 2017, provide third-party assurance about a provider’s internal operating practices related to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy and are the financial industry’s standard for software, private cloud and infrastructure-as-a-service providers. The comprehensive examination period was conducted over a number of months and concluded with an onsite audit to authenticate the effectiveness of policies.

“We are very pleased to have achieved this accreditation which attests to our expertise as a provider and also the dedication of our employees,” commented David J. Csiki, President of INDATA. “We will continue to invest in our best-of-class software, technology and services infrastructure to the benefit of our clients,” he added.

For more information on INDATA’s product offering, visit www.indataipm.com

INDATA is a leading specialized provider of software, technology and services for buy-side firms, including trade order management (OMS), portfolio modeling, compliance, portfolio accounting and front-to-back office delivered via iPM Epic - the industry’s first investment technology platform specifically designed for the era of big data. INDATA’s iPM – Intelligent Portfolio Management® technology platform allows end users to efficiently collaborate in real-time across the enterprise and contains the best of class functionality demanded by sophisticated institutional investors. The company’s mission is to provide clients with cutting edge technology products and services to increase operational efficiency while reducing risk and administrative overhead.

INDATA provides software and services to a variety of buy-side clients including asset managers, registered investment advisors, banks and wealth management firms, pension funds and hedge funds. Assets under management range from under $1 billion to more than $100 billion across a variety of asset classes (i.e. equity, fixed income, etc.) both domestic and international.