Published
- 01:00 am
Fidor Bank won silver in the category of “Best New Business Ecosystem” at the Efma Accenture Awards, held last night.
The awards are part of the Efma - Accenture Banking Innovation Programme which aims to identify and celebrate the most innovative projects in the retail banking sector globally. The competition for this category was fierce this year, and the winners were decided by public voting.
Fidor Bank wants to re-establish lost confidence in banking with new and customer-focused services and wants to foster a new approach to financial services in the digital age. Traditional banks do not reflect their customers’ needs in this current digital era. Fidor Bank believes in openness, fairness, and involving customers in their decision-making process. Fidor Bank has defined a completely new banking relationship for digitally-savvy consumers and business customers.
Fidor Bank received its full banking licence in May 2009 and started business in December 2009 in Germany. It launched into the UK in 2015 and it has over 200,000 members.
Matthias Kröner, CEO, Fidor Group said: “We’re thrilled to have been recognised as one of the best new business ecosystems within banking. We at Fidor pride ourselves on the community we’ve built and that continues to serve as the driving force behind the bank. As we continue moving toward a digital, cashless society, I’m excited to see how our customers help us evolve and keep ahead of trends, ensuring we’re always the best in the business.”
- 03:00 am
The FinTech Association of Hong Kong (FTAHK) has signed three separate Memoranda of Understanding with the Singapore FinTech Association, the Swiss Finance + Technology Association and the Taiwan FinTech Industry Development Association. These were completed during the HongKong FinTech week that is currently underway. All three associations have the goal of collaborating in the promotion of the global FinTech industry.
FTAHK will work with its partners on initiatives to support FinTech development, including potentially making joint responses to their markets’ respective regulators and other relevant local bodies. The associations will also participate in each others’ events, helping to deepen understanding of the opportunities presented through FinTech and further improve the FinTech ecosystem across Asia and Europe.
Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have emerged as dynamic FinTech hubs in Asia, seen by the governments of each as an important growth area. Similarly, Switzerland, with its long banking tradition and emergence as a hub for innovation in Europe, has become a strategic location for the development of a vibrant FinTech industry. By fostering greater collaboration, the partnerships FTAHK has announced today will help support a more connected and co-ordinated approach to FinTech development across the world.
"Collaboration is crucial to the development of FinTech, not just in Hong Kong but globally. It is also one of the founding principles of FTAHK. Our partnerships with the Singapore FinTech Association, the FinTech Industry Development Association in Taiwan and the Swiss Finance + Technology Association are excellent examples of how we want to work with all relevant parties to the benefit of the wider community.”
Chia Hock Lai, president of the Singapore FinTech Association, said, “Our partnership with the FinTech Association of Hong Kong will help us set Asia even more firmly within the global FinTech community. We’re looking forward to working together on many more projects where we have shared interests.”
Alexandre Gaillard, vice president of the Swiss Finance + Technology Association, said, “The Swiss and Hong Kong FinTech scenes are both evolving in a fast and exciting way. Working together will act as a catalyst to a greater understanding of the role of FinTech in our different markets and help further its continued development.”
Joanna Jui-Feng Yang, chairman of the Board of the FinTech Industry Development Association in Taiwan, said, “We are pleased to be joining forces with the FinTech Association of Hong Kong to promote the value of FinTech at home and abroad. We believe our partnership will benefit the FinTech community and the wider region.”
- 03:00 am
This December, Brickblock will become the first platform in the world to sell tokenised real estate on the blockchain. It’s the inaugural step of the company’s goal to make investing cheaper, easier, and more secure.
Brickblock’s newest addition, Peter Schott, will manage the first properties sold on Brickblock. Schott boasts 30 years of experience in the real estate and finance sectors, with expertise ranging from investment banking to securitization. Currently, Peter is Managing Director of RSI Group in Frankfurt-Wiesbaden, where he provides comprehensive support in connection with commercial and residential real estate investments and transactions, asset and portfolio management and optimisation, financing, and debt advisory.
His prior banking positions include managing director and head of the securitisation business unit at Westdeutsche Immobilien Bank AG (WestImmo), as well as managing director and head of credit treasury at Aareal Bank AG, both specialized commercial real estate financing banks.
At Brickblock, Schott’s organisation will act as the Portfolio Manager of any real estate transactions within the DACH (Germany/Austria/Switzerland) region. He will be an intermediary between property sellers and the platform, identifying properties that meet Brickblock’s needs and the needs of its users. This includes performing feasibility assessments, conducting due diligence, and supporting all phases of transaction, as well as the ongoing management of the real estate portfolio afterwards.
The first property to be sold on the blockchain will be a 27-unit, 1528-square metre multi-storey apartment in Berlin, which will be for sale through the Brickblock platform in mid-December 2017. Documentation for two more properties to be sold shortly after is currently being drafted.
“In order to offer our clients secure investments with potential for growth, our acquisitions throughout Germany focus on residential buildings in economically vibrant population centres,” says Schott. “With their stable value and yield, rental properties are some of the most secure investments.”
According to current forecasts, the value of apartments and residential real estate is expected to grow over the long term and demand in the German residential market is predicted to remain strong in the future.
Brickblock’s investment process is simple: users choose a property, invest into the property by acquiring tokens reflecting the economics of the property, and earn passive income out of the property. The allocation of the income is achieved by depositing the excess cash flow out of the property into the investor’s Ethereum wallet by means of a smart contract. Schott’s role, as with all Brickblock asset managers, will be to look after all aspects of managing the property that ensure its profitability.
“It is important that all work related to the property – leasing and rental assistance under our supervisory, representation in owner meetings, and other administration tasks – can be delegated to third parties. My team will make sure that investors never have to do any work related to their investment,” says Schott. “This extends to include property and location checks in the acquisition phase through to the preparation of all necessary contracts, financing support, if needed, as well as personal and individual advice.”
- 04:00 am
China Internet Nationwide Financial Services Inc. (NASDAQ: CIFS) ("CIFS" or the "Company"), a leading financial advisory services company, today announced the expansion of its service offerings with the launch of its supply chain financing services (the "SCF Services"). The SCF Services provide owners of small to medium sized enterprises (the "SMEs") with holistic supply chain financing solutions and value-added services in order to reduce financing costs and improve efficiency during a business transaction. With an initial focus on the medical supplies and medical equipment, airline catering and bulk commodity supply chains, the SCF Services will be operated through Fu Hui (Shenzhen) Commercial Factoring Co., Ltd., a recently incorporated, wholly owned subsidiary of the Company.
Mr. Lin continued, "Since our inception in 2014, we have been aiming to become a one-stop shop to meet the financing and capital needs of SMEs who are often ignored or underserved by commercial banks in China. Leveraging our strong track record of helping SMEs through our existing advisory services in commercial payment, international corporate financing and intermediary bank loans, we firmly believe that we can capture our fair share of the fast-growing supply chain financing services market in the coming years."
- 06:00 am
BCS Technology, a global IT professional services company providing end to end solutions in big data and analytics have expanded their services through SAS, the global leader in analytics and their release of SAS Viya on the SaasNow cloud application.
Companies today realise the advantages of harnessing big data although many are focusing attention on getting the architecture right and less on the analytics. The need to find one solution to handle all requirements leads to the use of different platforms and tools where common challenges such as high costs, lack of scalability, lack of portability, and lack of flexibility arise.
With the introduction of SaasNow, no matter how small or large the problem is, companies can start their analytics journey from experimentation all the way to the implementation of an end to end big data ecosystem without difficulty.
Operating on SaasNow, SAS Viya the cloud platform, provides an environment that enables users to configure, implement, manage and explore their data, and gain the ability to deploy bigger and better cloud solutions with increased flexibility and scalability. SAS Viya complements existing SAS products and is run on the cloud where multiple users with different skill levels can collaborate, reducing the complexity in scaling across multiple clouds without it impacting performance.
The partnership between SaasNow and BCS Technology opens opportunities to companies in the ANZ and SEA regions where they now have access to the SaasNow cloud solution, maximising the use and flexibility of SAS products.
Additionally, as a preferred partner of SAS, BCS Technology have engaged in resell and implementation services for all SAS solutions. With their expertise, their services now expand over the suite SAS solutions in the SaasNow Cloud infrastructure, offering ease in exploration of insights for companies that lack IT infrastructure and skilled resources.
"Many companies underestimate infrastructure and resource requirements to implement a live analytics environment," says Richard Parhusip, BCS Technology's Commercial Director. "SaasNow eliminates this problem, giving individuals the power to process any analytic models in a work- ready environment within 30 minutes of setup by BCS."
"Our partnership with BCS Technology enables our clients to explore their analytic capabilities, quickly transforming data into effective business decisions," says Dermot McCutcheon, Alliances & Channels Director at SAS ANZ. "Organisations looking to explore analytics and get started quickly with low cost now can. Constant changes in the market force organisations to be more dynamic and in turn, have increasing flexibility in their technological, and data landscape that SAS products and the SaasNow environment is made for."
- 08:00 am
DomainTools®, the leader in domain name and DNS-based cyber threat intelligence, today announced its top cybersecurity predictions for the coming year. Following a year of headlines littered with ransomware attacks, consumer data breaches, and attacks on infrastructure, DomainTools' top security experts expect organizations of all sizes and industries to be on the front line as cybercriminals become more sophisticated and targeted in their attacks. A new DomainTools whitepaper, "Cybersecurity Outlook for 2018," outlines cybersecurity trends and their implications for organizations seeking to thwart threats and keep their networks secure.
"Burgeoning trends in anonymization technologies and user privacy interests continue to put pressure on the ability for security professionals to predict, detect, prevent and investigate cybercrime and cyberespionage, effectively making the internet safer for the bad guys and less safe for the rest of us," said Tim Chen, CEO, DomainTools. "However, organizations that prioritize a combination of ongoing security training and technology, have the best chance at successfully defending themselves in the coming year."
In the coming year, thought leaders from DomainTools expect to see the following trends:
Rise of the Machines
According to DomainTools' Senior Data Scientist, John Conwell, "Since 2015 we've seen a huge uptake in the development of commercial uses for drones, including construction surveying, mine surveying, delivery services, agricultural monitoring, and most recently, disaster and insurance assessment. These devices are guided either by a connected pilot or via an autonomous system; both of which are susceptible to influence or interruption by external actors. Drone manufacturers are in a race right now to create the "GoPro" of the drone industry and security most likely will be an afterthought. Early attacks will probably start out as amateur script kiddies trying to see if they can hack a flying drone, but could evolve into coordinated attacks by professional hackers."
Nation States Adopt the Tactics of Cybercriminals
"In 2018, we will see an uptick in nation-state level actors involved in what is traditionally considered 'cybercrime,'" said Kyle Wilhoit, Senior Security Researcher. "Nation states, which are under heavy sanctions will likely increase their 'cybercriminal' behavior as a method to supplement cash flow, such as ATM hacks, bank compromises, etc."
Governments Under Attack
Tim Helming, Director of Product Management predicted that "Next year, we will see a major disruption to a government agency's online operations. While there have been data breaches, denials of service, and temporary defacement of websites in the past, we predict a more comprehensive attack that cripples an agency's functions for an extended time period. We know that governments are targets and threat actors are relentless."
Lack of Net-Neutrality Creates New Targets
Senior Data Scientist, Sean McNee posits that "Deregulation of internet service providers (ISPs) to allow preferential traffic will create a multi-tiered internet system: those who can afford to use VPNs/proxies to get the traffic they want at the speeds they want, and those who cannot. Deregulated data streams will be modified and augmented by ISPs to insert ads or other content – these augmented streams will be quickly compromised and malware will be sent to customers with no way to block it. Moreover, anti-malware software could be directly blocked by these hacked data streams. For reference, think of how the cheap android phones with built-in apps were hacked to steal data from the device without anyone knowing."
To read more predictions, including data from a recent survey of cybersecurity professionals on what will be keeping them up at night in 2018, download the full whitepaper.
- 01:00 am
Delphix, the company that has changed the dynamics of managing and consuming data, today announced top online retailer myToys has selected the Delphix Dynamic Data Platform to support their Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) projects and drive continuous innovation.
myToys uses Oracle EBS to run everything from purchasing, finance and accounting to order/ inventory management, customer service and logistics. By adopting the Delphix Dynamic Data Platform, myToys expects to use secure, up-to-date data to improve application development and testing processes, reduce time-to-market and improve quality.
myToys ERP embraces DevOps in many aspects of the Software Development Life Cycle, the goal of which is to strive for daily application releases that keep up with market changes; however, they found that their test automation processes were broken and inhibited both quality and speed. Before the Delphix implementation, their development team shared two environments between them to support the 70+ projects they worked on per quarter, which inhibited the development process and stifled innovation.
"With Delphix, our vision is to let any developer generate an environment on-demand risk-free with the right data and application stack. Data operators will be able to provide self-service access to developers, accelerating the speed at which they can work on critical projects," stated Ralf Schmilewski, head of ERP Development with myToys.
After evaluating potential solutions, myToys selected Delphix, as the team found the platform to be a proven solution for Oracle EBS projects. Other important factors in the decision were the mature DevOps features in the Delphix Dynamic Data Platform and ease of implementation resulting in rapid time-to-value.
Schmilewski continued, "Delphix has many Oracle EBS customers around the world and demonstrated a wealth of expertise and knowledge in their German team. We felt confident in the best practices and data expertise by the Delphix technical staff. In addition, Delphix self-service features are built for test automation. Delphix is the missing link in DevOps."
With data forecasted to grow at 20% per year, myToys is also expecting a considerable storage savings due to the way Delphix virtualizes at the data level.
"We are delighted that myToys has chosen Delphix and recognizes the value the Delphix Dynamic Data Platform will deliver to their Oracle EBS projects," explained Minas Botzoglou, Regional Sales Manager for DACH at Delphix. "We look forward to helping more companies in Europe and across the world maximize the effectiveness of DevOps investments to drive innovation."
- 08:00 am
When we launched Mastercard Send in May 2015 as the first-of-its-kind brand agnostic card based push payments platform, we knew we were on to something big – changing the direction of our card network to push funds to accounts using Debit PANs to unlock new transaction pools in P2P and B2C payments.
Fueled by the worldwide momentum on faster payments, it was soon apparent to us that this demand for real time push payments was as big as we had imagined. With Mastercard Send, our vision is to be a global push payments platform that will deliver funds quickly and securely, domestic and cross border, from any funding source (be it cash, card or account) to any card or account destination enabling our customers to deliver superior value propositions in a variety of use cases.
Over the last 12 months, we have made significant progress in advancing this vision with a series of initiatives and customer engagements.
We now have PayPal using Mastercard push payments for wallet cash out and we have just announced Western Union as the first money transfer service to leverage Mastercard Send for P2P transfers in the U.S. The solution is also integral in delivering ubiquity for Zelle – a P2P program launched by many banks in the U.S.
In the cross border space we continue to leverage our JV with HomeSend to help our leading global banks deliver faster and more transparent international payment services to both businesses and consumers. Standard Chartered is the latest global bank to integrate to Mastercard Send to broaden their cross border services.
And finally, by leveraging our Vocalink assets and partners, Mastercard Send will enable real time payments to any bank account in the UK by Q2, 2018 – taking a bold, new step in fulfilling our vision to become a single platform for our customers to reach card and non-card end points.
The next 12 months look even more exhilarating as we expand our global footprint and look to unlocking more opportunities – we have our seatbelts fastened for this ride!
- 04:00 am
ING announced today it has launched ING Ventures, a EUR 300 million fund aimed at investing in fintech companies. To accelerate the pace of innovation, one of ING's strategic priorities, ING Ventures will expand the existing portfolio of investments in the coming four years.
ING considers partnering with and investing in fintechs as a key element of its innovation strategy. ING has successfully launched various own innovations in the market, but scanning the outside world for solutions that help create a differentiating customer experience has always been part of the bank's approach. ING Ventures will build on the success that the current approach has already brought over the past 3 years, leading to the current 115 fintech strategic partnerships and investments globally.
ING Ventures will be part of ING's Chief Innovation Office and will be entirely funded internally by ING. While it will adopt investment methods and portfolio management based on venture capital structures, the aim will not be to achieve a solely financial purpose. ING Ventures will serve ING's businesses to accelerate the Think Forward strategy. The fund will focus on start-ups and companies that already gained some market traction. The companies it will invest in are generally, but not exclusively, fintechs that are active in countries where ING has a presence or where ING has the intention to expand into.
Benoit Legrand, global head of Fintech, has been appointed CEO of ING Ventures. He commented: "ING has been very active in developing strategic partnerships and investing in fintechs that help to empower our customers to stay a step ahead in life and in business. This has worked very well: our current partnerships have resulted in products and services that are making the lives of our customers easier. As we see changes in the external environment happen faster and faster, we have to anticipate and step up our pace as well. Establishing this fund is yet another way for ING to use the digital revolution as a growth opportunity and help transform the bank to become the go-to platform for financial needs and become part of other platforms."
- 02:00 am
Squirro, the AI-driven context intelligence and data insights solution provider, is opening its first office in Asia, looking to use the new Singapore office as a base from which to target other countries in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
Squirro’s AI-driven context intelligence and data insights solutions are used by Financial Services (FS) firms all over the world, including organisations such as Wells Fargo, Investec and SwissRE. The Singapore office will be Squirro’s fifth opening, with offices in three European locations and its US HQ in New York.
This latest international expansion is the first since Squirro finalised a $10M Series B funding round in July 2017, with investors including Orange Growth Capitaland Salesforce Ventures.
“Our continued international expansion reflects the growing maturity of AI and machine learning, technologies that are finally starting to deliver on the promise and hype,” said Dr. Dorian Selz, CEO at Squirro. “Opportunities for financial services in the APAC region are growing as FinTechs take the lead. Technology has created an ongoing evolution in the industry, a shift from traditional financial services to financial technology. Squirro’s technology, particularly our new advanced AI platform TRINITY, addresses the challenges of dealing with 99% of the company data that is not addressed and provides FS firms with far greater customer knowledge than they have ever had.”
More than 200 banks have a presence in Singapore, and with the 2013 appointment of a Renminbi (RMB) clearing bank, financial institutions in Singapore have been able to play a significant role in bridging trade and investment flows between China and other countries.
“Not only is Singapore one of the world’s most prominent financial centres, it’s really where much of the region’s growth is. Furthermore, it is incredibly well connected across the rest of South East Asia,” continued Dorian Selz. “Singapore was therefore the obvious choice when it came to launching Squirro’s first office in Asia. It gives us the perfect platform to work with FS firms in Singapore and the rest of the APAC region.”
