ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced that Westpac New Zealand has completed a wide-ranging banking technology transformation, underpinned by ACI’s powerful and comprehensive Universal Payments (UP) portfolio of solutions. Westpac NZ, one of New Zealand’s leading retail, corporate and investment banks, has adopted UP real-time payments and fraud prevention solutions with Agile methodology and DevOps practices through ACI.

Westpac NZ, a long-standing ACI customer, is utilizing ACI’s UP Immediate Payments solution as its financial transaction hub, orchestrating payments across channels, networks and payment types, and settling to any clearing stream in real-time. Core payment processing is handled by ACI’s market-leading UP Retail Payments solution which acquires, authenticates, switches and authorizes financial transactions across multiple channels. The implementation allows Westpac NZ to make changes at speed and rapidly scale up operations to overcome market challenges.

“Building on our close collaborative relationship with ACI, it was logical to partner with them as we shifted to DevOps methodology and practices,” said Dawie Olivier, CIO, Westpac NZ. “Implementing ACI’s retail payments solution on Linux positions us to fully capitalize on the transformation of both our IT culture and technology stack. We can leverage capabilities across the solutions that are part of ACI’s Universal Payments Framework, and bring them together in a multitude of innovative products.”

The ability to detect fraud – and well as process payments – in real-time has also become a competitive differentiator for Westpac NZ, as the bank is the first tobenefit from the new capabilities of ACI’s UP Payments Risk Management solution. The solution’s scalable, high-processing transactional throughput delivers real-time adaptive machine learning and the ability to pattern match, so that fraud trends can be identified before they impact the bank’s customers or the bank itself.

“Westpac NZ is a shining example of how a long-established bank can transform its IT culture and operations to become nimbler, and supply customers with innovative solutions,” said Phillip Finnegan, General Manager, Pacific, ACI Worldwide. “ACI’s UP solutions provide the underlying technology, but it’s the company’s agile implementation approach that has made this a truly transformative project that has sped up time to market, enabled innovation, and – crucially – reduced the risk of operating in a real-time world.”

AEVI and Vantiv (NYSE:VNTV) announced today at Money20/20 USA, a major strategic partnership in North America to provide Vantiv’s channel partners and merchants with an open application platform across the acquirer’s SmartPay Series of hardware devices.

Vantiv and AEVI’s innovative offering is the first in the US to provide a payment solution with the security of next-generation smart terminals and the flexibility of a rich, Android-based application marketplace.  The venture will allow Vantiv’s small and mid-size merchants to benefit from increased functionality and versatility to efficiently run and grow their business, their way.  

As the first open marketplace solution that runs on multiple third-party hardware platforms, the SmartPay Series marketplace enables Vantiv’s channel partners and merchants to revolutionize payments at the Point of Sale. They will be able to deliver tailored, value-added solutions that enhance the checkout experience, payroll management, loyalty programs and more, across different verticals.

“By offering more choice through an open application platform, we can drive a simpler smart terminal solution to help our partners and merchants win in the market,” said Scott DeAngelo, Senior Vice President, Product at Vantiv. “With this solution, we are placing our partners and merchants ahead of the curve - whether it’s through core software applications addressing specific POS needs, growing revenue through loyalty and analytics tools, or protecting their bottom line with inventory and labor management tools.”

AEVI’s Marketplace will be available to channel partners as a plug-and-play solution for merchants, backed by Vantiv’s payment expertise and scale.

“We are very excited to partner with Vantiv, the largest merchant acquirer in the US, launching our open ecosystem for the North American market,” said Mike Camerling, Director Marketplace at AEVI. “Our mission is to provide acquirers with their own marketplaces making available their unique combination of business apps to deliver unprecedented value to merchants. By enabling third-party devices, we can initiate a new era of payments and business services in the US, based on even more choice and flexibility.”

Initial availability of the Vantiv/AEVI SmartPay marketplace solution is expected in select markets during the first quarter of 2018.

Visit Vantiv.com, for more information about Vantiv’s in-store payment solutions for small businesses.

For further information about AEVI’s global Marketplace solution visit AEVI.com.

Find out more at Money20/20 USA at The Venetian, The Palazzo in Las Vegas as AEVI and Vantiv will be jointly presenting their partnership at 11:50 a.m., on Tuesday, Oct. 24 Track 5, Level 3, The Venetian. More information on the presentation can be found here.

This is a definitive and optimistic occasion, in which a major bank partners with a leading technological university to connect the world of economics with the digital domain," said Prof. Boaz Golany, Technion's Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development, at the inauguration of the Technion-Poalim Data Science center (TPADS).

The new Center was established by Bank Hapoalim and Technion’s Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, with the aim of harnessing new technologies for the development of the bank of the future. Researchers from Technion and bank analysts collaborate to address the major challenges of the technological-banking world. According to Prof. Golany, “This pairing between Bank Hapoalim and Technion may be strange at first glance, but it is based on the innovation that characterizes both partners. The digital revolution changes perceptions that we have become accustomed to and will cause banks to look completely different within a decade. Academia, like the financial world, must adapt itself to the digital revolution.”

The cooperation between Bank Hapoalim and Technion is carried out by the bank’s innovation division, and as part of a joint initiative with the Technion’s Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management led by the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Avishai Mandelbaum.

Avi Kochva, Deputy CEO of Bank Hapoalim and the Head of the Innovation Division, said at the ceremony, “A year ago we announced this collaboration and I am pleased that we have reached this festive day of inauguration. The bank of the future is a proactive one, committed to understanding customers’ needs and adapting to them. A key part of this is the development of information and data analysis, and therefore we partnered with Technion - to strengthen these capabilities of ours.”

“This is an innovative project based on intra-organizational entrepreneurship and creativity on both sides,” said Prof. Mandelbaum. “This is a partnership between equals - the bank provides data and full partnership in analysis and Technion develops advanced theories and related data analysis tools, so as to apply to the bank’s data. Progress made in the past year has been significant, and we continue along the delineated path to benefit from the fruits of our joint research.”

The Center is led by Profs. Avigdor Gal and Oren Kurland of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at Technion, together with Noam Zeigerson, Director of Information and Analysis at Bank Hapoalim's innovation division.

Red Deer, a next-generation financial technology company dedicated to enhancing the performance of active investment managers, is pleased to announce that its MiFID II research valuation solution has been selected by GAM, one of the world’s leading independent, pure-play asset managers. GAM will use the solution to consume and value research so that it can be paid for independently from trade execution, in compliance with the MiFID II regulations that come into effect on 3 January 2018.

“The solution that Red Deer offers for managing research consumption, research valuation and preventing inducement under the new MiFID II rules will allow us to ensure compliance across all investment teams in all locations. GAM has strong internal research capabilities, and Red Deer’s solution will help us leverage this across our investment business, in addition to managing access to external research,” said Matthew Beesley, GAM’s Head of Equities.  “GAM has announced the decision to absorb all research costs from January 2018 as we continue to place clients’ interests first, and Red Deer’s solution will allow us to manage these costs in the most efficient way.”

Red Deer’s MiFID II solution enables firms to address the MiFID II regulations around inducements and research valuation by aggregating all independent and street research, including emails, calls and corporate access events.  It also provides full consumption and valuation metrics, such as ratings and read time, and tracks contributions from hard and soft budgets, with alerting to ensure budgetary thresholds are maintained. 

Luke Oubridge, CEO of Red Deer, commented, “We are delighted to welcome GAM to our fast-growing client community. It’s a great opportunity to help such a well-established and respected firm achieve compliance, and a chance to add real value to the investment process by improving the quality of front office information for a large number of Investment managers, analysts and traders”.

After completing the EON blockchain testnet we will launch a bunch of products, united by the EON platform. One of them is the Channels wallet, decentralised, safe, fast and transparent, which is planned to be launched in Q1 2018. Within this wallet a user can have several accounts: in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. These accounts will be operated with color coins, equivalent by value to the corresponding cryptocurrencies. For the user’s convenience we added to the wallet a “killer” feature, which enables to convert funds from one currency to another, and transfer them from one internal account to another at the rate set by the user (or at the exchange rate). And you even do not need to exit your wallet to do this!

How it works:

Channels issues a letter of credit for any color coin in EON network, and this letter goes directly to the Exscudo exchange. The exchange accepts it and conducts a conversion operation. After that color coins are transferred to the corresponding Channels account, and the balance is returned to the user’s deposit account. Letter of credit has a period of validity - if the price set by a user does not interest anyone on the exchange the operation is canceled and money is returned to the user’s account. 

Example. How it works from the user’s point of view:

User N has Channels wallet with EON, BTC and Ethereum accounts in it. He wants to exchange one bitcoin for the corresponding amount of ethereum at rate 1ETH = 0.0726BTC. His order is sent to the exchange where it meets the relevant offer, and the transaction is made. Then 1 BTC is written off from the user N’s BTC account and his ETH account is credited with 13.77ETH. The balance is sent to the deposit account. The only case when this operation will not work is if user N sets the rate which simply cannot find a counter-proposal on the exchange, such as 1 BTC = 1 ETH. But even then user N has nothing to worry about: after the letter of credit validity period expires his funds will be returned to his deposit in safety.

Exscudo wallet killer feature is the synergy of account conversion. Read how you can convert funds from one cryptocurrency to another without exiting your wallet to convert funds from one currency to another, and transfer them from one internal account to another at the rate set by the user (or at the exchange rate). And you even do not need to exit your wallet to do this!

The Fixed Income Leaders Summit has published the report “On the precipice: Are you ready for MiFID II”, following a survey it conducted of 100 heads of European fixed income in Q3 2017. The report comes as the buy-side is in the midst of preparations for the legislation before the looming 3^rd January implementation deadline. In addition to the impact of MiFID II, the report focuses on the liquidity challenge as well as the impact of “hard Brexit” on London’s financial hub status.

The findings of the report have been published ahead of the Fixed Income Leaders Summit in Amsterdam on 8^th and 9^th November, where Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP will deliver a Brexit keynote to over 700 attendees and over 350 buy-side heads of fixed income.

The research highlights three central themes posing the biggest challenge to fixed income trading desks:

MiFID II implementation concerns spread across multiple facets

Forty-five percent of respondents are still struggling with MiFID II compliance despite the January implementation deadline now upon them. As the date approaches, 28% of respondents were most concerned with compliance with post-trade transparency requirements including trade and transaction reporting. However, research unbundling (26%), pre-trade transparency (25%) and systematic internalisers (21%) also gained near-equal share of concern among fixed income heads suggesting that MiFID II is causing headaches across the board.

The liquidity question remains and technology is still the answer

Sourcing liquidity emerged as the biggest challenge facing fixed income leaders with 55% of respondents listing it as a top three challenge for their trading desk, followed by sourcing and paying for reliable data (52%) and increasing on-the-desk technology (51%). Given these results, there is little surprise that 54% see implementing technology as the biggest priority for fixed income trading desks. The need to source liquidity is also leading to increased buy-side collaboration with 78% of respondents stating that they would be willing to partner with other desks.

London’s status as financial hub to diminish in case of “hard Brexit”

Negotiations surrounding Britain’s exit from the European Union continue to rage on in Brussels. Whether Brexit will result in the displacement of London’s status as Europe’s financial hub is the cause of much debate. In the case of a hard Brexit (no deal), nearly 70% of European heads of fixed income believe that London’s status as Europe’s financial hub will significantly diminish.

Oliver Kirkbright, Editorial Director for the Fixed Income Leaders Summit, commented: “With the MiFID II implementation deadline upon us, the report paints a picture of a race against time with firms struggling with their preparations for January 2018. In addition, on-the-desk challenges such as sourcing liquidity, data and technology continue to be a high priority for heads of fixed income. Given the strong belief that hard Brexit will impact London’s status as Europe’s financial hub, it is excellent that November’s Fixed Income Leaders Summit in Amsterdam will welcome Nicky Morgan MP to the stage for a keynote Brexit speech.”

The Fixed Income Leaders Summit, hosted by World Wide Business Research, will take place in Amsterdam in the iconic former commodity exchange, the Beurs Van Berlage. On the 8th and 9th November, the event will play host to over 700 attendees and over 350 buy-side heads of fixed income, representing more than 420 companies from across the full fixed income value chain.

Opus, the leading provider of global compliance and risk management solutions, today announced the launch of its new Third Party GDPR Compliance solution, developed specifically to identify and manage General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) risk in third-party relationships.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which comes into force on May 25, 2018, is a significant overhaul of data protection laws that impacts all companies that process the personal data of EU citizens. Among other requirements, organizations that are subject to the GDPR must clearly document their data processing activities and have procedures in place to promptly detect and notify regulators, and any affected individuals, if they experience a data breach. This means that organizations need to know which third parties have access to personal data, and understand their third parties’ information security procedures, to properly respond to GDPR. 

“It’s a tremendous challenge to identify where all the personal data held by a company is, and whom it is shared with,” says Richard Saville, Solutions Consultant at Opus. “However, with GDPR around the corner, regulated companies are more at risk than ever from their third-party relationships.  In a recent Opus and Ponemon Institute survey, 56 percent of respondents confirmed that their organizations experienced a data breach caused by a vendor. And only 35 percent of respondent have a complete inventory of third parties with whom they have shared sensitive information. Our solution simplifies the challenge of identifying an organization’s exposure to GDPR risk through third parties, helping to manage this risk efficiently and effectively.”

Opus’ Third Party GDPR Compliance solution was developed based on published regulatory guidance from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, and allows organizations to identify third parties that expose them to risk, providing a robust framework to manage this risk. This includes the ability to:

·    Identify the third parties with whom you share personal data

·    Scope the appropriate controls for each third party based on the data shared

·    Send relevant questionnaires to each third party to assess whether they meet these controls

·    Automatically map responses back to specific controls

·    Assess and document the effectiveness of a third party’s controls

·    Recommend and track remediation where a control is not met

Tying in with Money 2020 USA this week, Fidor, the innovative provider of digital banking solutions, today signed a partnership agreement with Eight Inc., the strategic design and innovation firm renowned for bringing transformative innovation to leading brands.

The partnership will see Eight Inc. and Fidor jointly designing the customer experience for Fidor’s digital, community-based marketplace for financial services.

The product, called Fidor FinanceBay, is an online marketplace which connects curated Fintech, InsurTech and TradeTech offerings from the wider ecosystem, to consumers, all with the aim of bringing both much closer together in an easy and value adding way. With Fidor FinanceBay, customers can easily browse financial and insurance products, as well as convenient tools, all in one place. 

With this product, Fidor, renowned for its customer-centric approach, is once more striving to provide its customers with new, cutting-edge services, which also benefit the wider fintech community.  

It was initially launched to Fidor Bank customers in Germany as a Beta Test. Due to its widespread success, Fidor and Eight Inc have joined forces in a partnership, that will see Eight Inc. designing the future, post-Beta-phase customer experience for Fidor’s digital financial services marketplace.

Fidor FinanceBay will be rolled out as a standalone market infrastructure and white-label solution for distribution partners.

Matthias Kröner, Founder & CEO of Fidor Bank, commented: “At Fidor, we strive to provide the best possible customer experience through our banking applications and solutions. We were successful in gaining the trust of customers and ensuring that their voices were heard. Today, we want to take our user experience to another level, and we are glad to partner with Eight Inc the renowned design firm in building tailored and relevant experiences on our Fidor’s Digital Marketplace: FinanceBay.”

Tim Kobe Founder & CEO of Eight Inc. said, “We are proud to announce at Money 2020 USA that we are partnering with Fidor to leapfrog once again the way people interact with their money. Eight Inc. will bring our user-centric focus and innovation background to the Fidor App Store and we look forward to collaborating with both Fidor and their clients across the globe.”

Zero, a new mobile banking experience that combines the best features of debit and credit cards and offers up to 3% cash back, announced today that it has raised $8.5 million in funding, led by ENIAC Ventures. 

Milestone Group, provider of managed technology solutions globally for the investment management industry, today announced that Artemis Investment Management LLP (Artemis) has gone live with pControl Oversight across its unit trusts, OEICs, investment trusts and venture capital trusts.

As Artemis’ product range has continued to evolve, the number and complexity of its fund structures has increased. Artemis has chosen Milestone’s technology to introduce a greater degree of automation of its oversight activities.

pControl Oversight has enabled Artemis to enhance its oversight of its third-party administrator in relation to daily fund pricing. The system allows a large volume of data to be processed and checked in a more efficient manner, via an automated, standardised and scalable process across Artemis’ range of funds.

Paul Roberts, Managing Director of Milestone Group in EMEA, added: “We are delighted to welcome Artemis to our growing client community who are establishing oversight best practice in their retained operations. Having one fully automated system for oversight is a critical capability for firms as they seek to meet regulatory requirements in an efficient and scalable way.

“Milestone Group’s clients continue to benefit from our commitment and ongoing investment in providing the market leading oversight solution. Through our latest release, Artemis are able to take advantage of an extended library of oversight validations available as well as our proprietary Back-up NAV methodology.”