SWIFT has launched a Correspondent Banking Suite that provides a single solution for banks seeking cost-effective access to SWIFT while increasing the efficiency and security of their correspondent banking activities.  

Small to medium sized banks face a combined pressure of minimising operational costs while keeping their SWIFT infrastructure up-to-date in terms of technology and security. Additionally, evolving regulatory requirements and cyber security challenges make it crucial for banks to have an in-depth knowledge of their correspondents.

In order to facilitate efficient, secure and cost-effective correspondent banking, banks must be able to track payments, ensure trouble-free payments processing, defend against cyber threats and financial crime and access the data required for comprehensive analytics.

The Correspondent Banking Suite gives banks direct, cost-effective access to the SWIFT network via Alliance Lite2, a standardised, robust and secure cloud-based interface managed and operated by SWIFT. Alliance Lite2 combines the benefits of SWIFT with the added value typical of cloud solutions – a lighter footprint and faster time to market.

This is packaged together with SWIFT’s best-in-class products and services for correspondent banking, including:

• KYC Registry – shared platform for managing and exchanging standardised Know Your Customer (KYC) data
• Sanctions Screening – screens incoming and outgoing messages against the latest sanctions lists
• Name Screening – online lookup tool enabling screening of single names against sanctions, PEP and private lists
• Daily Validation Report – validate SWIFT transaction activity and understand payment risks
• Bankers World Online and BI Network Management – detailed correspondent banking traffic and payments reference data
• SWIFTSmart – cloud-based elearning platform
• Subscription to gpi Tracker – transparent, end-to-end payments tracking (available in the Correspondent Banking Suite in 2018)

The Correspondent Banking Suite consists of three packs that can be combined to meet an institution’s specific needs – Basic Pack, Compliance Pack and Business Data Pack.

Sophie Racquet, Head of Cloud Services, SWIFT, comments: “We understand that different organisations have different connectivity needs when it comes to the infrastructure they rely on for financial transactions. Small to medium sized banks that engage in correspondent banking face a unique challenge. They must reduce their operational burden without compromising on security while navigating the complexities of dealing with multiple institutions. We developed the Correspondent Banking Suite to tackle these challenges head-on, combining a set of trusted and proven SWIFT products and services at a cost-effective price point.”

Kofax®, a leading provider of software to simplify and transform the First Mile(TM) of business, today announced that Kofax Mobile ID(TM) has won "Most Innovative Solution for Banking Customer Authentication" in the 2017 Grand Prix Banque & Innovation Awards in Paris, France.

Now in its fourth year, the Awards identify excellence and innovation in the banking sector. The program acknowledges technology companies that have launched and implemented the most outstanding banking-related software solutions, initiatives and projects in France over the past twelve months. This award highlights the new facial recognition and ID verificationfeatures of Kofax Mobile ID that determine the authenticity and validity of identification documents and their holders.  

Kofax Mobile ID removes friction from the onboarding process and helps financial institutions comply with ever changing Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations to combat fraud.

Kofax Mobile ID allows an applicant to use a smartphone or other mobile device to take a picture of their driver license, passport or national identity card, and then uses liveness detection with auto capture to ensure that the applicant takes a live picture of themselves. Multilayered image filters are used to confirm the ID's authenticity, and facial recognition technology compares the just taken photograph of the applicant with the picture on the ID to ensure the applicant is in fact the person pictured on the ID. If they match, the applicant is validated and the digital content is then extracted, validated and submitted to Kofax TotalAgility®, the Company's unified digital transformation platform, and other enterprise applications for further processing.

"We're honored to win this award three years running. It validates our vision and expertise in mobile technologies and the banking industry," said Reynolds C. Bish, Chief Executive Officer of Kofax. "Kofax Mobile ID is already used by leading global organizations to onboard customers and verify their identities faster, which is critical to removing friction, reducing fraud and improving compliance."   

Kofax Mobile ID is available as a standalone product or bundled with Kofax TotalAgility to deliver a broader, more comprehensive solution to drive digital transformation throughout financial institutions.

We are excited to announce the second Andrew Zimine’s speech in a cycle devoted to the hottest trends in fintech and cryptocurrency! On November, 23 Andrew will make a speech at the Vienna International Payment Forum, focusing on EON blockchain as a particular case in terms of transactional business and regulation.

International Payment Forum will be held on the 23-24th of November in the Fleming’s Conference Hotel in Vienna, Austria. This important fintech event will focus on how companies today are preparing for the new European Regulations and such hot topics in the payment market like instant payments, blockchain, fintech, cybersecurity and many others that will be impacting the payment industry in 2018.

Andrew Zimine will talk about EON blockchain as a particular case in terms of transactional business and regulation. Although blockchain technology revolutionised the basis of transactional applications, providing authenticity and data safety, its regulation is still a serious problem. Andrew will show how EON platform not only allows to make fast and safe transactions, but also solves the question in terms of regulation.

Andrew Zimine is CEO and Founder of innovative financial ecosystem Exscudo, the Owner and CEO of Clarus, a major developer of exchange systems and security and ERP-systems for companies. He is a consulting expert on DAPS Ethereum and advises major European and Asian financial market players on cryptocurrency trading. A recognized expert on blockchain technologies and decentralized cryptographic data transfer networks, Andrew has over 8 years of experience in the management of companies and over 18 years of experience in IT technologies and their integration into the real sector of economy.

Accuity, the global financial crime compliance, payments and KYC solutions provider, today announced the launch of its Firco Live Services pilot with global banks.

Accuity has been working on its Live Services capability in collaboration with clients who are looking to improve their compliance agility by solving a number of the screening challenges they face. These include:

• automating compliance operations to improve efficiency and ease pressure on compliance and operational teams
• meeting regulators’ and auditors’ demands for proof that the bank is in control of its transaction screening at a granular level, easily and efficiently
• having visibility, traceability and control across compliance systems
• optimising screening in simulation environments and the ability to commit these changes directly to production in a safe and secure manner
• minimising human intervention to reduce errors and cost

The banks involved in the pilot are all existing clients.

Tom Golding, MD, Risk and Compliance, Accuity, said: “This pilot is the culmination of collaboration with our clients to innovate in compliance screening. Those clients taking part will have early access to our latest screening capability. Having an overview of and insight into compliance systems will help them meet a number of the challenges they face, principally in making their compliance processes more transparent and efficient, both to their internal and external stakeholders. Having access to a simulation environment where they can test their transaction screening and optimise it ahead of going live is an exciting prospect that has the potential to improve productivity and reduce false positive rates.”

Firco Live Services aims to satisfy the needs of compliance and operations teams, and ultimately regulators, by providing visibility and control over financial crime compliance screening operations. It provides a real-time, automated solution that presents the global compliance operations status in business terms so that compliance management can see and show their compliance policy in action at every level – and be ‘regulator ready’. At the same time, Firco Live Services helps clients improve the speed and efficiency of their compliance operations by streamlining existing processes and providing insight into how compliance operations are performing and how they can be more productive.

At the heart of the new Firco Live Services capability is a simulation environment that will allow banks to test their transaction screening and optimise their false positive reduction strategies outside their live environment. Given the need to adjust rules and exceptions every few days as sanctions lists are updated, this is currently a complex and time-consuming process using siloed tools. By providing rapid feedback through an integrated and collaborative process, Live Services will transform this task into one that is easier to manage and will help banks better optimise their configuration, reduce false positives and drive down the cost of compliance.

Tom Golding, MD, Risk and Compliance, Accuity, added: “We are delighted for our Live Services pilot to be actively used and deployed with our forward-looking clients. A side benefit of capturing more data on screening operations is that downstream we can perform more analytics to identify best practice and provide insight back. Our long-term vision for Firco Live Services is that it will provide a platform for greater collaboration between banks in their quest for efficiency gains, standardised process and regulator readiness.”

Leading market infrastructure provider Lucera has selected BSO’s connectivity route to expand its global FX trading reach, as trading volumes start to rise.

The agreement combines Lucera’s on-demand Software Defined Network (SDN) with BSO’s ultra low-latency circuit, enabling electronic traders to seek out new sources of FX trading flow and access the major currency regions faster. With average daily currency volumes reaching a 10-month high in September (Source: NEX Group), the added low-latency access provides Lucera’s clients, which include major investment banks, electronic market makers and hedge funds, with the best possible chance of tapping into available liquidity.

Commenting on the partnership, Peter Durkan, CEO of Lucera, said: “Getting circuits up and running more quickly provides our clients with access to liquidity much faster than would normally be possible. It was so important that our chosen provider not only had a strong U.S network footprint, but also a reputation for delivering high quality managed services support across the region. BSO’s ability to get network circuits in place promptly was key to our decision, as this has translated into improved trading performance for our FX clients.”

Fraser Bell, Chief Revenue Officer at BSO, added: “With FX volumes picking up last month, speed of information and execution becomes even more important to traders competing for access to new pools of liquidity. Thanks to our widely adopted FX triangle, Lucera’s clients can quickly and cost-effectively connect to the major currency hubs. With their unrivalled Global SDN allowing rapid provisioning of connectivity to traders, Lucera is the ideal partner for BSO.”

Lucera’s adoption of the Chicago-New York-London-Tokyo route reinforces BSO’s position as the leading FX connectivity provider across established markets. Simultaneously, BSO continues its commitment to being the leading low-latency supplier to emerging markets – following the expansion of its FX trading circuit across Asia earlier this year.

Ingenico Group, the global leader in seamless payment, has today announced its partnership with the British Home Store, popularly known as BHS, former mainstay of British high streets and shopping centres for over eighty years, since reborn and transformed online.

Ingenico provides a seamless payment experience for BHS customers, complete with multiple currencies and payment method options including credit card, debit and PayPal. BHS also has the option to add European payment methods and is supported by Ingenico’s powerful fraud screening services, which reduce fraud, maximise approvals, minimise chargebacks and reduce operational cost, while ensuring a smooth online shopping experience for customers.

Relaunched in October 2016, the new and improved “British Home Store” has seen tremendous online success including a 35% sales spike in its second quarter. BHS specialises in lighting, homeware and fashion with its womenswear sales division skyrocketing by 350% during the quarter.

Kevan Mallinder, Managing Director, BHS, claims that, “The solution to our problems was to have a start-up mentality. We had to find the software company that would be the best fit, and find a winning payments provider to ensure the checkout platform was seamless, ensuring our customers feel safe and secure when purchasing their goods.”

BHS trusted the Ingenico team to ensure that tokenisation would be executed by building the functionality into the Hybris Platform by the launch date, and the implementation process was seamless.

Mallinder continues: “Considering the timescale challenges we faced, we needed third parties to be as assertive as we were in delivering on objectives. While our chosen partners were very technically capable, we were mindful of allowing them the space to do what they needed to get our payments up and running quickly and securely.”

Ian Benn, Managing Director, Northern Europe at Ingenico, adds, “With a smooth user experience at the point of payment, BHS has seen tremendous success driving conversion, increasing customer satisfaction and recapturing UK market share. Its rebirth online is a fantastic story and we’re looking forward to helping the company grow further, now that it has redefined its position as a leading brand.”

BHS’s ecosystem of partners combines to create a functional, reliable and scalable website that has seen enormous success. The brand relaunched on schedule, just in time for Christmas 2016 and sales have soared in 2017, with first-time shoppers representing two-thirds of customers during the 35% Q2 sales boom.

Provenir announced today the expansion of its risk analytics and decisioning platform to include a microservices capability.

This empowers engineering and risk professionals to collaboratively create and implement risk processes, exposing them as REST APIs, which may include; risk models, scorecards, predictive analytics, machine learning algorithms and data integrations.

A microservices based architecture has become popular, allowing teams to develop, test, and deploy discrete easy to maintain functions without disrupting overall operations. ProvAPI’s simple and easy to use interface empowers technical and business users to expose business functions as discrete services, providing organizations with unprecedented agility when supporting risk strategies.

Paul Thomas, Managing Director at Provenir, points out, “Our clients value the flexibility Provenir provides when it comes to implementing new products. We see institutions eager to leverage the power of Microservices to deliver discrete, flexible capabilities. With ProvAPI, we’re delivering a tool which enables cross functional teams to implement improvements quickly with minimal impact to the rest of their infrastructure.

Hampshire-based customer communications software specialist Icon UK, has today announced its success in agreeingexclusive distributor rights with Antipodean based SuiteBox Limited for the powerful, ‘digital workspace’ solution of the same name, “SuiteBox”. The leaders of both companies used the platform to collaborate and conclude the contract negotiations, leading to formal signing this morning.

SuiteBox is provided as a SaaS product. The pre-integrated combination of different functionalities necessary to undertake remote document and identity processes face-to-face over a pane of glass of the user’s choice is turning the advisory and compliance sections of the Customer Communications Management market on its head. It’s unparalleled capacity to facilitate fast, secure and convenient personal communications is revolutionising some sectors of professional services.

The ‘virtual meeting room’ enables 4-way video conferencing and, unlike rival technologies, it is the only application to host an entire suite of indispensable business tools such as: screen share, instant chat, digital signatures, collaboration technology and recording functionality, in one ‘private cloud-based box’. 

SuiteBox CEO Ian Dunbar commented: “The importance of recording meetings and proven signatures on applications, documents and proposals becomes ever more critical across many sectors. But the range of regulatory regimes and local business practices means that we wanted to work with experts introducing innovative solutions to the UK and European markets. Icon UK have demonstrated the skills, desire and network to accelerate the adoption of SuiteBox in this important region”.

Familiar with the challenges that face heavily regulated industries, Icon UK adds a solution that both promotes regulatory compliance and client experience. It can transform an organisation’s approach to customer communication, collaboration, auditing and the requirement to travel for in-person meetings. 

Icon UK Managing Director Chris Jones said “SuiteBox strategically complements our existing portfolio of carefully selected relationship-led document and identity solutions. Life increasingly happens busier and faster for most people; In an age where we expect immediate service and responsiveness, traditional processes simply do not cut it with huge numbers of users. We instantly saw that SuiteBox enables face-to-face engagement with expert advisors without travel at the time of one’s choosing – which not only provides a source of competitive differentiation for providers, but dramatically improved conversion rates, costs, engagement and loyalty metrics. 

Icon UK is now actively growing our network of partners with deep sector specialist knowledge and relationships.”

SuiteBox is already used by financial advisers, lawyers, mortgage brokers, real estate and property professionals to efficiently increase sales and transactions, but any industry can benefit. It can apply to any business that requires online video meetings, collaboration, recording and transactions flowing from consents or document signing. The costs and time of integrating other alternative combinations of tools are orders of magnitude greater than introducing SuiteBox into existing technology infrastructures. 

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR), announced today the successful completion of a pilot with Natixis and Societe Generale which leverages blockchain technology to enhance the operational efficiency and auditability of bilateral repurchase, or repo, agreements. 

The pilot utilizes distributed ledger technology capabilities to reduce operational risk for market participants by providing a secure record of repo trade details, reducing the need for reconciliation and removing obstacles to straight through processing. This new blockchain-enabled solution, which automates end-to-end processes, streamlines the repo agreement and confirmation processes, offers a faster and more accurate collateral substitution process, while eliminating time consuming manual interventions, and reduces counterparty risk while increasing auditability.

“This latest blockchain-based initiative reflects our ongoing commitment to leading the development and implementation of innovative solutions that have the ability to make complex business processes in capital markets firms more secure, transparent and efficient,” said Vijay Mayadas, President of Global Fixed Income and Analytics at Broadridge. “Within the bilateral repo market, blockchain has shown that it can play an instrumental role in reducing operational cost and complexity.” 

“We are pleased to have partnered with Broadridge to initiate the bilateral repo Blockchain process. Our participation in this pilot displays Natixis’ strong commitment to leverage new technologies, aimed at reducing risk and improving efficiencies in the financial markets”, said Kevin Alexander, Head of Global Markets & Investment Banking Americas at Natixis.

“Proving the benefits of blockchain technology in the repo market lays the foundation for the development of broader collateral management solutions on blockchain,” said Jerry Friedhoff, Head of Broadridge’s Securities Finance and Collateral Management group.

This application follows Broadridge, J.P. Morgan, Banco Santander, and Northern Trust’s recent, successful completion of a blockchain proof of concept with an issuer agent to enhance transparency in the proxy voting process. This is another example of Broadridge leveraging innovative technology to help clients and the industry get ahead of today’s challenges to capitalize on what’s next.

The main Spanish banking, energy and telecommunications companies, among other sectors, have established Alastria, the world's first regulated national network based on blockchain. This non-profit consortium was presented today simultaneously in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia and Malaga. It will develop the Distributed Ledger Technology (DTL), which is set to become the new data exchange ecosystem and which will enable and accelerate the digital transformation of different industrial and business sectors in the coming years thanks to its agility, veracity, security and efficiency.

The Alastria consortium has been created to accelerate the creation of digital ecosystems by providing a common collaborative platform: the Alastria network. Since its very creation, the consortium has been made up of about 70 of the largest companies and institutions in different sectors (*full list of Alastria partners and Executive board at the end of the press release).

Among its founders are also professionals such as notaries and lawyers who will ensure the security and veracity of information through the identification of natural and legal persons. Not in vain, the digital ID will be the main focus of Alastria in its beginnings through the standard of Digital Identity "ID Alastria", which will allow citizens to have control over their personal information in a transparent way following the guidelines set by the European Union.

Alastria is an open platform for more companies, startups, SMEs, large corporations, universities and other actors from all sectors in Spain to join. Those interested in joining can access further information at www.alastria.es or send an email to members@alastria.io.

The Alastria network will provide a shared platform on which the various participants, and in particular large companies, will be able to create digital representations of the assets with which they work in their usual economic activity, also known as "tokens". With these "tokens" it is possible to develop new products and innovative cutting services, in addition to being able to develop current processes faster, safer and more efficiently. In this way, the network accelerates the digital transformation of current processes and enables a new paradigm of collaborative and multisectoral innovation in a very efficient way.

Alastria's objective is to transcend the business sphere and has held meetings with representatives of the Public Administration and Regulators, who have expressed their interest in collaborating with the consortium. In this sense, Alastria has requested the opening of collaboration channels to identify cases of use in public agencies and monitor those services that are in the process of study and analysis. To promote awareness and adoption of the network, Alastria is organizing training sessions for the Administration.

Furthermore, the development of the platform will not remain in the growth of its number of partners, but in the own development of the technology, which will be open. In this way, the Alastria consortium will make resources and contacts available to the community so that the ecosystem can grow and expand its potential benefits to more companies and users.

Beyond companies, Public Administration, Regulators and the developer community, the university community will play an important role in the Consortium. At present, several agreements have already been signed with renowned centres and, in addition, it will be an open process in which a significant number of institutions and university centres will be added. The aim is to establish agreements that promote research, experimentation and training.

Julio Faura, president of Alastria, said: "It is not easy for so many important companies to decide to bet a project together from the very beginning. That's the best proof of the incredible potential that this technology and the consortium have. He added: "We should be proud that a pioneering and unprecedented project throughout the world has been born in Spain, which places the industries of our country at the forefront of digital transformation.”

Alex Puig, Alastria's CEO, said: "Blockchain has the potential to become the biggest breakthrough in history in the way we share any digital element, whether it's a document, a service, a show ticket or money. In this regard, he stressed that the birth of the Consortium was necessary because "the Internet is being reinvented so that we can share and do business in a verified and secure way, but it is necessary to have a standard that allows all industries and the developer community to work with the same base.”

What is blockchain?

The blockchain technology, born in 2009, represents an evolution of network communications as they are known today. The Internet and the world wide web have been transforming our lives for decades. Information has never been so accessible and instantaneous. However, the system is not perfect and the network currently suffers from unreliability of data, security shortages and lack of verification of those involved in the communication.

Blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology (DTL) is probably the most disruptive technology since the arrival of the Internet and could transform industries by decentralizing trust, generating an exchange of goods and services without the need for third parties. This would be possible because the information circulating through shared accounting records will be verified, as will those at the extremes.

The information contained in this technology is entered by means of an unalterable registry (guaranteed by cryptography), replicated in all participants by means of a standard communications protocol, which is accessible to all of them, eliminating the need for acknowledgements of receipt and reconciliations. This allows the participants to offer and receive services with legal effectiveness in the Spanish environment and in accordance with European regulations.

Specifically, the Alastria network, a semi-public blockchain, is made up of nodes - computers hosted by several participants - and provides shared accounting recording services. In this way, the partners of this network will be able to develop services and products within Alastria with total confidence and security. The fact that each member's digital identity is certified and guaranteed allows them to use smart contract technology (smart contracts) on which they can offer services and exploit applications in a cross-sectional environment and with full legal guarantees in Spain.