Yesterday Huawei signed a mutual cooperation agreement with UnionPay International with the aim of working together to promote the globalization of Huawei Pay and to accelerate its roll-out worldwide in order to provide a better mobile payment experience for Huawei mobile device users. The agreement marks the first joint effort between Huawei and UnionPay to bring Huawei Pay to the global market since the two enterprises worked together to create Huawei Pay back in 2016.

In future, Huawei and Honor mobile phone users outside of China can make quick and easy mobile payments by adding their UnionPay bank cards to a phone that has Huawei Pay enabled and then placing their phone next to a POS machine that supports UnionPay mobile quick payment. In terms of security, Huawei Pay uses the all-device solution, which ensures user payment security. At the same time, payment token technology is applied to effectively protect the privacy and data security of cardholders.

As China's first security chip-based mobile payment service, Huawei Pay is already supported by 66 banks and is compatible with 20 mobile devices including various mobile phones and smart watches. In 2017, 4 billion RMB worth of payments were made using Huawei Pay.

Today, more and more people are using mobile payment services such as Huawei Pay in their everyday lives. With the continued increase in the number of Huawei and Honor mobile phones and smart watches sold all over the world and the expansion of Huawei Pay to international markets, the number of annual Huawei Pay transactions is bound to increase further.

At the signing ceremony, Zhang Ping'an stated, "open sharing is an important direction for the future of digital economy and intellectual interconnection, which is why Huawei end-user cloud services build an open and globalized smart mobile ecosystem for the end users. Huawei hopes to work with partners such as UnionPay International to provide more secure and convenient mobile payment services to each and every user of Huawei smart device around the world.

Wang Lixin stated that UnionPay International has always adhered to extensive cooperation and complementary advantages with all parties in the payment industry. This form of cooperation has many implications: firstly, by achieving worldwide cooperation, card issuers can simply connect to the UnionPay mobile payment service platform to quickly launch Huawei Pay Pay-as-you-go, significantly reducing time and economic costs. Secondly, allow UnionPay innovative products to become an important motivation for both sides and accelerate service localization, while helping other national and regional markets to upgrade and develop their mobile payment industries. Thirdly, jointly enhance the international influence of China's independent mobile payment apps.

Russia will be the first overseas market to receive the service. Currently, UnionPay bank cards are accepted in 85% of Russian territory, with over 400,000 POS terminals supporting UnionPay quick payment. More than 10 Russian banks have issued nearly 1.3 million UnionPay bank cards. After Russia, Huawei and UnionPay plan on bringing Huawei Pay services to other markets in Eastern Europe as well.

Relying on its "chip-device-cloud" synergies, Huawei actively distributes future smart products and creates the perfect full-scene smart life experience for consumers. Huawei's consumer services have won the favor of users worldwide. As of 2017, the number of global registered accounts have exceeded over 340 million.

With the global sales of Huawei end-user products, end-user cloud services represented by Huawei Pay, MyCloud, AppGallery, Video, and Music have also gradually accelerated their global deployments, bringing the latest technology and services to consumers around the world, so that more and more users can experience the convenience and joy of the "smart technology" era.

Volante Technologies Inc., a global provider of software for the integration, processing and orchestration of payments and financial messages, announced today that it has been collaborating with BNY Mellon on creating and deploying technology to enable real-time payments in the US and internationally.

BNY Mellon is a leader in offering faster and improved payments solutions to its corporate and institutional clients, as well as in advocating for payments modernization within the industry. As a part of BNY Mellon’s payments modernization initiative, the bank launched two services leveraging VolPay Hub technology provided by Volante. 

BNY Mellon’s first such initiative was to become the first bank to successfully originate a real-time payment over the The Clearing House’s new Real-Time Payments network. It has worked extensively with The Clearing House and other banks to define standards for clearing and settling payments in real-time.

BNY Mellon’s second initiative was to launch a new service, called "BNY Mellon Tokenized Payments® – now available with Zelle®", which will further accelerate the transition from paper to electronic payments for their clients.

In support of these initiatives, Volante developed its TCH RTP Processor Module in collaboration with BNY Mellon to process real-time payments  and to  allow a transaction to reach its recipient within 15 seconds or less. 

“We are creating the building blocks for an integrated payments ecosystem both for today’s needs and for the next generation. This approach allowed us to be first to market with RTP and will also serve us well over the long term,” said Saket Sharma, Chief Information Officer for BNY Mellon Treasury Services. “Working closely with trusted and innovative fintech providers such as Volante and our own development resources helps us deliver sustainable value quickly.”

Vijay Oddiraju, CEO, Volante Technologies said, “Our collaboration with BNY Mellon on first-to-industry payments solutions further establishes our payments innovation capability. We are enormously proud to have played such a significant role in the historic moment of US real-time payments. Implementing the first RTP processing hub in the US is the perfect example of collaborative teamwork between BNY Mellon and Volante, bringing greater value to BNY Mellon’s clients.”

Oddiraju continued, “This successful deployment further reinforces our core principle of using automation to reduce implementation time and cost for our customers. Adding tokenized payments capability to BNY Mellon’s real-time payments technology platform is a further testament to how we continue to collaborate and help our customers build out their future payment capabilities.”

 BAFT, the international financial services association, has announced its Future Leaders program class of 2018, recognising Pelican’s Hiren Shah as an upcoming leader in the transaction banking industry.

Pelican, a global provider of Artificial Intelligence powered payments and financial crime compliance solutions for banks and corporates, joins a prestigious list of global organisations with outstanding employees recognised by BAFT, including JPMorgan, HSBC, Société Generale, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and IBM.

Hiren Shah, a Senior Business Analyst for Pelican based in Mumbai, was inaugurated into the 2018 Future Leader program at the BAFT Global Annual Meeting (Europe) in London. The 2018 program features four project teams to address current industry topics such as correspondent banking relationships, cybersecurity threats, artificial intelligence, and transaction banking recruitment. The class of 2018 will conclude with formal graduation at the annual BAFT North America Conference in Florida in May.

Tod Burwell, president and CEO of BAFT, stated: “We launched this program in 2016 to identify and develop the next generation of leadership in transaction banking. We have since seen program graduates advance important industry issues both within their own organizations and through BAFT. We look forward to the contributions from the class of 2018.”

Hiren Shah, Senior Business Analyst for Pelican, commented: “I am honoured to have been selected for BAFT’s Future Leaders program and to join such an outstanding group of individuals from the transaction banking community. I look forward to working with my colleagues from 16 countries and being able to use my ten years of experience with Pelican’s pioneering AI technology to help identify solutions for the critical industry issues we face.”

Pelican has pioneered the practical application of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) disciplines of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning for global payments processing and financial crime compliance for over 20 years. Pelican has offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, Mumbai, Dubai and Hong Kong.

Cloud security pioneer, Cryptomathic, today unveils the only cloud encryption management solution to address market demand for new ‘Manage Your Own Key’ (MYOK) practices.

‘Bring Your Own Key’ (BYOK) cloud encryption solutions, which enable businesses using cloud services to generate, back up and submit their own encryption keys, have quickly gained traction among businesses that require a high level of control over their data security in the cloud. 

As the cloud encryption space evolves, BYOK is being superseded as companies that use multiple cloud service providers, or those that engage cloud service providers to manage highly sensitive data on behalf of their own customers, demand even greater control over their encryption keys. In response, Cryptomathic has further developed the BYOK model to enable MYOK practices and has manifested support for these in a new version of its popular key management solution, CKMS.

“By enabling users to control and manage the entire lifecycle of their own, unique portfolio of keys, Cryptomathic is answering the call for a new level of end user security control in cloud services,” comments Matt Landrock, CEO at Cryptomathic Inc. “Manage Your Own Key support enables users to generate, store, deploy, retrieve, back-up, restore, revoke and retire as they go. It also arms users with the capability to significantly expand their use of encryption. Today’s large enterprises invariably use a host of different cloud models – public, private and hybrid. MYOK systems enable users to address them all with cryptography, creating and managing keys regardless of their required shape, form and destination. This is simplifying what has, until now, been regarded as a complex and highly technical security process.”

The new version of Cryptomathic CKMS, version 1.17, provides a host of new key management functionalities and supports different cloud platforms, including the BYOK schemes implemented by AWS and Google Cloud.

Speaking about the wider security challenges that the cloud presents, Landrock adds: “Large enterprises have had a hard time balancing their need to guarantee security, control and confidentiality with the huge gains that the cloud can deliver in terms of flexibility, scalability and operational agility. Key management platforms enable this balance to be struck, reducing time to market for those delivering cloud-dependent products and services while, at the same time, ensuring they remain the sole proprietors of their data, regardless of where it is kept or how it is transmitted.”

State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) announced today FX Connect, its market-leading FX execution venue, will partner with trade technology software provider BestX in order to offer transaction cost analysis (TCA) solutions globally.

 “With a continued emphasis on best execution driven by regulation, market participants are increasingly looking for holistic solutions to be compliant,” said David Newns, head of execution solutions for Global Link, State Street’s suite of e-trading platforms, technology, data and workflow solutions. “We are pleased to be partnering with BestX in order to provide just this with tailored solutions for our clients’ specific needs.”

“We are delighted to announce the integration of BestX into the FX Connect transaction workflow,” said Oliver Jerome, co-founder of BestX.. “FX Connect and BestX have many mutual clients, our platforms are extremely complementary to one another, and the potential benefits to the buy-side from this partnership are significant. This integration is a key milestone for us in the path to being the industry standard for FXTCA.”

FX Connect works with institutional trading firms that require efficient management of multiple portfolios, best execution and effective operational risk from pre to post-trade.

Smartkarma, Asia’s largest provider of independent investment research, today announced the opening of its New York City office, headed by 30-year industry veteran Warren Yeh. Smartkarma is well positioned to expand into American markets after recently completing its Series B funding round, led by Sequoia Capital. With a base in New York, Smartkarma aims to bring unprecedented on-the-ground reach and insight into Asian markets for US-based asset managers. Smartkarma has expanded from its headquarters in Singapore to five locations around the world, servicing a global client base comprising of some of the world’s largest asset managers.

By bringing together the best independent insight providers and asset managers in one collaborative ecosystem, Smartkarma is reinventing the way research is created and consumed, with timely insights delivered in an intuitive and engaging way. Smartkarma has demonstrated rapid growth since its launch in April 2016, with its top ten clients alone accounting for US$13.5 trillion of assets under management. 

Raghav Kapoor, Co-founder and CEO of Smartkarma comments, “The demand for differentiated and unconflicted research is rapidly rising and US markets are no exception. Our Insight Providers, based in-country, provide US funds with local insight in areas underrepresented in traditional investment bank research, including IPO/M&A analysis, event-driven special situations as well as small and mid-cap company research.”

Smartkarma’s cloud based platform brings together:

• Over 400 Insight Providers covering in excess of 2,400 companies across 15 Asia Pacific markets.
• Instant access to analysts, creating on-demand and real-time coverage which is invaluable to investors sitting in a distant time zone.
• A unique Spotify-esque business model that enables asset managers to pay a single subscription for unlimited, personalised access to insight across all providers.

By adopting a model such as Smartkarma’s, US managers are responding proactively to evolving regulatory changes with global impact, such as MiFID II in Europe, which came into effect on 3rd January 2018. This aligns interests as many managers are starting to pay for research services out of their own P&L.

Leading Smartkarma in the US, Warren Yeh brings 30 years of buy-side experience in Asian and the US financial markets. Yeh notes, “As US investors hunt for alpha, many are looking for opportunities outside the domestic market of the US and see the emerging markets of Asia as still cheap, relative to historical levels and other asset classes. Smartkarma is an excellent fit for US funds investing into Asia, providing a level of transparency and independent insight that has not been available until now.”

eCurrency Mint Limited (eCurrency) announced today that it has partnered with Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) to launch its digital money product. 

SharedLabs, Inc. and ExoIS, Inc. on Friday announced they have completed a definitive agreement under which SharedLabs has acquired all of the stock of ExoIS  for an undisclosed sum.  ExoIS will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of SharedLabs until full integration is completed. Integration is expected to be completed within the first quarter of 2018.  Jonathan Clark, Founder of ExoIS, will report to John Andrews, COO of SharedLabs, Inc. Jason Cory, CEO and Chairman of the board, fully supports this transaction.

ExoIS is a leader in building, running, monitoring, and maintaining Cloud solutions in Public, Private and Hybrid environments for companies in the most demanding industries, including banking and financial services, technology, retail, and fintech and payments. With deep expertise and well-defined solutions in IoT,  Blockchain, Cyber Security, Mobility, DevOps, and Cloud, the company also has specialized offerings for clients in the fabless semi-conductor, IoT, and digital media spaces. Each of the solutions the company offers are designed to deliver better deep business insights and reduce risks in operations.

SharedLabs CEO, Jason Cory, commented on the transaction saying, "The purchase of ExoIS  has expanded the portfolio of clients served by SharedLabs, while enriching our portfolio of offerings with new tools and techniques to build, support, and run private clouds and securely leverage appropriate publicly available Cloud services in a cost-effective manner. The purchase has also opened the door for expansion in new geographic areas where these services will prove very valuable, while allowing us to expand our wallet share in existing clients and win new clients in the markets we serve."

"We believe that SharedLabs and ExoIS have complementary offerings which enable us to better serve our clients, while expanding into the more than 400 SharedLabs clients. By combing the rich development and dev ops capabilities of SharedLabs, and the Hybrid cloud, IoT, and Security solutions of ExoIS , we will be well-positioned to grow the business, while exceeding client expectations," said ExoIS founder, Jonathan Clark.

Duco, the data engineering technology company, today announced the completion of a $28m investment round by Insight Venture Partners, NEX Opportunities and Eight Roads Ventures. The round also includes an investment by lifetime entrepreneur and former CEO of SunGard, Cristóbal Conde. 

Duco provides technology that enables banks, brokers, asset managers and exchanges to normalise, validate and reconcile any type of data in Duco’s cloud, providing firms with on-demand data integrity and insight. The company has seen rapid and global growth as the industry re-platforms, adopting advances in leading technology to eliminate operational risk and cost and making actionable data more immediately available across the enterprise. Duco will use the investment to expand its global footprint, with headcount growth in Europe and the US, the launch of an Asia office and an expansion of its award-winning product set. 

Christian Nentwich, CEO of Duco, said, “Duco’s approach to solving complex data problems in financial services is to empower experts with self-service solutions. We have gained considerable traction as the industry looks for intelligent answers to evolving new market realities. Our clients have engaged us globally at a strategic level and are relying on our proven ability to deliver at scale. This investment enables us to push further in applying our natural background in Computer Science to solving fundamental industry problems, while strengthening our resources to deepen relationships with our existing client base.”

Peter Sobiloff, Managing Director, Insight Venture Partners, said, “Insight Venture Partners tracks many companies, but few stand out. Duco is one of the few. The company has already demonstrated tremendous growth, and we are looking forward to scaling that growth to the next level. We are impressed by the management team’s ability to deliver tangible impact in a challenging and complex business-to-business environment while amassing an impressive global client list with high customer satisfaction levels and retention rates. Insight is looking forward to working with the Duco team.”

Michael Spencer, CEO of NEX, said, “The evolution of the post-trade environment in financial services requires fundamental changes in market structure, processes and technology. In areas such as data, a deeper and more technical level of innovation has been required and this is exactly where Duco are the industry’s pioneers. NEX has supported the firm from its conception  and we are thrilled, but not surprised, to see its substantial progress.”

Cristóbal Conde said, “I am delighted to be deepening my relationship with Duco at this important inflection point for the company. Reconciliation in financial services, and particularly in banks and large asset managers, is an area that requires a shake-up and re-engineering in the coming years. Duco is focused on bringing technological advancements to market in an industry that is ripe for disruption. The company is taking significant market share and will emerge as a household name in the coming years.”