Published
- 06:00 am
ClusterSeven, the leading global supplier of strategic spreadsheet and end-user computing (EUC) management software, has launched Cloud Spreadsheet Manager (CSM), an enterprise level, on-demand spreadsheet management solution. CSM will enable organisations to have complete control of their spreadsheet environment to support audit and compliance, governance and financial reporting in the most efficient and productive manner.
Organisations will have the ability to risk check files for errors, compare multiple versions of a spreadsheet to ensure accuracy and manage business-critical spreadsheets with an automatic audit trail in the cloud – in parallel to their enterprise systems – whenever and from where ever they need to. CSM is delivered securely via the Microsoft Azure platform. ClusterSeven is a Microsoft Gold certified partner and a member of the company’s Independent Software Vendor program.
“Financial reporting is putting a major strain on the office of the CFO and the need for transparency around the creation of critical reports has never been greater. In addition to internal reporting, regulatory compliance demands such as Sarbanes Oxley is growing. For instance, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is demanding that organisations institute tighter reporting controls and demonstrate evidence of those processes,” explained Henry Umney, CEO of ClusterSeven. “With spreadsheets used extensively for modelling and reporting, organisations need anytime, anywhere access to spreadsheet management and risk checking processes to ensure timely, accurate reporting. CSM delivers against these requirements.”
Recent research by the FSN Modern Finance Forum reveals that financial reporting is keeping 97% of CFOs awake at night. This finding is based on the largest and most authoritative global survey of its kind.
CSM enables organisations to understand the complexity of spreadsheets and identify where there might be potential for error so that the issue can be proactively remediated by amending the spreadsheet design or implementing stronger controls and usage policies. “This type of remediation is where the ClusterSeven Partner Network adds significant value. Many of our partners are developing specific offerings around CSM to deliver innovative value-added services to their customers,” commented Tony Bethell, VP Strategic Alliances.
Often multiple versions of a spreadsheet get created by users. CSM allows users to compare different versions of a spreadsheet to quickly identify how it has changed, enabling organisations to reduce the risk of errors in business-critical applications. This will facilitate increased confidence in the accuracy of data used for audit and compliance and financial reporting.
To enable organizations to get a feel for the value the solution delivers first-hand, ClusterSeven is offering a free evaluation of CSM’s risk check functionality. Organisations can risk check with no financial commitment and learn how CSM can reduce the risk of errors, increase user productivity and ensure accuracy of critical spreadsheets for reporting, board packs and business models. Organisations can apply to participate in this offer by emailing on csm-evaluation@clusterseven.com.
- 07:00 am
Volante Technologies Inc., a global provider of payments and message integration software today announced that VolPay Hub is fully tested, qualified and integrated with TokenOS, a leading open banking platform.
By leveraging open banking practices, Token enables banks, consumers and corporations to securely move money through its network whilst offering value-added services to members within the Token ecosystem.
VolPay Hub enables banks to connect, process and orchestrate transactions emanating from the Token network with greater ease, speed and lower operating costs through cloud deployment. The joint TokenOS and VolPay Hub proposition means banks can offer additional services and enhanced customer experience without the need for the banks to re-engineer their back-end payment systems to handle API based payment orchestration and processing.
VolPay Hub is the next generation payments business application that dramatically reduces the cost and time of implementations. VolPay Hub’s configurable and system agnostic nature enables any payment type from any payment channel or network to be processed easily.
Nadish Lad, Global Head of Payment Products, Volante Technologies, said, “Volante is excited to help accelerate banks’ adoption of TokenOS by removing the complexity associated with payments processing. Lowering the costs and time taken in implementations is on the minds of every CIO - and we remain eager to help them achieve their goals. Both Token and Volante will be demonstrating the joint VolPay Hub and TokenOS proposition at SIBOS in Toronto this year.”
Steve Kirsch, Founder and CEO, Token, said, “We are delighted to further enhance the benefits of our open banking platform, TokenOS, through this seamless integration with Volante's VolPay Hub. With TokenOS, banks quickly and cost-effectively offer new products and services that retain and attract new customers. Such new offerings include advanced programmable money solutions and the opportunity to make secure immediate payments domestically and across borders. Together we are able to deliver a fast route to market and highly cost-effective migration path away from legacy infrastructure, with enhanced customer experience.”
- 09:00 am
Today sees the official UK launch of Revista Systems; a new firm created to support the specialised communications needs of the financial services community.
Revista CCM, available as a private cloud or a SaaS solution, integrates quickly and easily with existing communications infrastructure to structure and link metadata to and create a structured record management repository. Improved workflow and automation capabilities facilitate the instant and accurate linking of every relevant interaction related to enquiries and trades from inception to settlement.
With the MiFIDII deadline looming, surveillance and compliance teams, sales and business managers have access to a highly adaptable and cost-effective solution which significantly improves transaction communications scrutiny and overall efficiency and productivity. Revista CCM is a non-disruptive solution which can be up and running very quickly with a flexible range of options from micro-service deployment to multi-channel integration. APIs, automation and CRM integration reduce manual intervention, accelerating regulatory compliance capabilities and facilitating improved business productivity. Its inherent design is highly flexible and is appropriate for both buy and sell side financial firms.
Umesh comments, "Under MiFID II, although yet to be confirmed, it is very likely that financial firms will only have 48 hours to provide complete evidence of all communications relevant to any business or trading transaction that is under investigation. This mandate applies equally to both internal and external interactions. Without Revista's comprehensive linking and tagging capabilities this is very difficult to achieve, and currently it's highly likely very few firms would be able to comply with this non-negotiable, time sensitive demand."
Umesh concluded, “The impact of increased regulation, together with changing technology is transforming the way financial firms conduct their business and MiFIDII is just another agent of change. We believe Revista has created a truly unique, highly configurable solution which not only satisfies the immediate regulatory requirements, but also enables business users to accommodate both clients’ preferred interaction channels and the new demands of regulators.”
Andrew Robinson, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Revista Systems, said, "We are delighted that someone of Umesh's calibre and experience has agreed to join us to lead the business in London. Our principle for this important market is Communications Convergence Management (CCM) and our goal is to provide a competitively priced, agile system which helps financial firms to achieve their market conduct and productivity goals. We are already engaged in conversations with a number of financial institutions, and very encouraged by the genuine interest these have generated."
- 02:00 am
SWIFT and EBA CLEARING today announced that users of EBA CLEARING’s instant payment system, RT1, will be able to access the platform via SWIFTNet Instant from November 2018.
Erwin Kulk, Head of Service Development and Management, EBA CLEARING, said: “RT1 will provide the European payments industry with a pan-European infrastructure platform for real-time payments in euro from day one of the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer Scheme. We expect to see close to 30 joiners for the go-live on 21 November 2017 and more than 50 users in the system by mid-2018. We are pleased that SWIFT’s instant payments solution will become available to RT1 participants from November 2018 on, providing the user community with additional choice in terms of connectivity options.”
SWIFT’s instant payments solution is designed to work anywhere in Europe and around the world, enabling SWIFT customers to connect seamlessly to multiple instant payment clearing and settlement mechanisms. For the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), SWIFT has already agreed to offer connectivity to EBA CLEARING’s RT1 system and to the Eurosystem’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) platform. As announced in June, SWIFT will support delivery of the future Eurosystem vision of a single gateway to Eurosystem market Infrastructure services and access to other clearing and settlement mechanisms.
Alain Raes, Chief Executive of Europe, Middle East & Africa, SWIFT, said: “Europe is taking important steps to ensure its lead in the instant payments area and we are pleased to be able to connect our customers to such critical infrastructures. Our solution is future-proofed to meet the current and future messaging needs of our customers in Europe and those in the rest of the world."
The solution for European customers is the next step in SWIFT’s global instant payments strategy, which began in 2015 when SWIFT was awarded the contract to build the messaging infrastructure to underpin Australia’s new payments platform, NPPA. In August this year, SWIFT announced that it will provide US financial institutions with a gateway to The Clearing House’s real time payments platform. SWIFT is providing a similar solution to participants to Hong Kong’s Faster Payments System (FPS).
The pan-European infrastructure platform RT1 will be used for the 24/7 settlement of real-time payments in line with the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) Scheme of the European Payments Council (EPC). Together with 39 funding institutions, EBA CLEARING has been developing and implementing RT1 since April 2016. The objective was to provide payment service providers across SEPA with a real-time payment processing facility operating around the clock on any day of the year. RT1 is scheduled to go live on 21 November 2017.
RT1 will be open to any account-servicing payment provider (AS-PSP) adhering to the EPC SCT Inst Scheme. The platform has been conceived as a network-agnostic system, meaning that users can rely on different network solutions, provided they have been introduced at platform and user level in line with the necessary security requirements.
The availability of SWIFTNet Instant for connecting to RT1 adds another chapter to the long-standing successful partnership between SWIFT and EBA CLEARING, which dates back to the launch of the high-value payment service, EURO1, in January 1999; SWIFT provides the messaging layer and operates the settlement system on behalf of EBA CLEARING. SWIFT also provides the messaging layer to STEP2, the pan-European Automated Clearing House, which processes euro retail payments, and links the system with Target2 for liquidity transfers.
The industry’s move to instant payments and the European Single MI Gateway will require significant infrastructure and operational change. SWIFT is committed to supporting its community in this important transformation.
Carlo Palmers, Head of Market Infrastructures, SWIFT, said: “Through other European developments such as Euro1, T2 and T2S, we have clearly demonstrated our ability to deliver mission critical industry projects. We will make instant payments simple and seamless for our customers, who will be able to reuse the investment they have made already. For new customers, we will offer complete on-boarding services to reduce risk and manage costs.”
- 07:00 am
BME, through its new technology subsidiary BME Inntech, has developed Bankia's new online securities operation as part of the digital transformation process being carried out by the financial institution.
On the other hand, the service includes differential elements in the market, such as fundamental and technical analysis and market news, tools necessary to become a leading broker in the Spanish market.
BME Inntech provides solutions and services that cover the entire value chain by offering its current and future clients the best technological and compliance solutions as well as the knowledge, reliability and reputation that only a group such as BME - with its robustness and national and international experience -can provide.
- 02:00 am
A2X Markets (A2X), South Africa’s newest stock exchange, made its debut this morning with three listings and four of the industry’s leading brokers on board.
Financial services companies, African Rainbow Capital Investments (AIL), Peregrine Holdings (PGR) and Coronation Fund Managers (CML) are the first counters to take advantage of a secondary listing on A2X.
Leading stockbrokers RMB Morgan Stanley, Peregrine Securities, Investec Securities and Avior Capital Markets have been approved while Nedbank Securities, SBG Securities and Sinayo Securities have applied and look set to follow shortly.
A2X has appointed Strate as its central securities depository and will operate within the proven and reliable South African settlement structure.
RMB Stockbroking Operations (Pty) Ltd and Computershare Outsourcing have also been approved as settlement agents, to perform a critical part of the post trade process where brokers elect to outsource their settlement services.
A2X CEO, Kevin Brady, says that the issuer pipeline is strong with significant corporate interest in a secondary listing on A2X. “In addition, we are working closely with many of the remaining top ten stockbroking firms to have them signed up before the end of the year. We are thrilled to kick off with such high calibre issuers and brokers and thank them for their support. By using the latest technology and free of the legacy business practices that hamper efficiency, we have been able to materially reduce the cost of transacting and this benefits all participants including the end investor and pensioner,” he says.
ARC joint CEO, Johan van der Merwe, says that one of the main draw cards of an A2X listing was the potential for improved liquidity. “Even though we are shareholders in A2X, we understand the value that a secondary listing brings to our company and we believe in free market principles that allow companies to grow and flourish.”
Anton Pillay, Coronation CEO, says, “As an active player in the South African equity market as both an issuer and fund manager, we appreciate the impact that A2X is likely to have on South African markets. For this reason, we felt that Coronation needed to be part of the evolution.”
Peregrine Holdings acting CEO, Rob Katz, says that the company expects its A2X listing to enable better price discovery and to broaden the base of shareholders, given that trading costs on A2X are significantly lower. “Peregrine Securities is a key player in SA capital markets and therefore if we are supporting the initiative from a trading perspective, it made sense to support A2X from a listing perspective too.”
With the end-to-end costs of transacting in excess of 40% lower than current trading costs, stockbrokers have welcomed the choice brought about by a competitive exchange in South Africa.
Director of Peregrine Equities, Tshepo Maseko says, “Internationally, stock exchange competition leads to improved responsiveness and innovation as well as service-oriented capital markets environments. This is positive for brokers and has the potential to lift the market as a whole.”
Investec Equities Head, Tinus Rautenbach, expects A2X to benefit investors by providing more liquidity, ultimately making the cost of execution lower. “The engagement process with A2X has been seamless and the new exchange has been very responsive in our engagements with them,” he says.
Brady says that A2X’s business model is dependent on throughput - the more trades processed via the exchange, the greater the revenues for A2X. “A2X’s model aligns with the objective of growing the overall market in South Africa - lowering costs, improving liquidity and being both innovative and responsive to market needs,” he says.
A2X uses technology developed by the UK’s Aquis Technologies, a division of Aquis Exchange, which includes proven exchange matching and surveillance systems and a clearing platform custom-built for A2X. Aquis Exchange is authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The market leading exchange and surveillance systems are fast and efficient ensuring that any anomalies are detected early. They also allow for cross market surveillance which will be a first in South Africa.
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- 08:00 am
Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), the region’s leading financial market, has unveiled its latest digital services as part of its participation in the Abu Dhabi Digital Government stand, during GITEX Technology Week 2017.
ADX’s showcase highlighted some of the many benefits that can be availed by the public through its new innovative services, such as Blockchain technology. As part of ADX’s commitment to achieve the Abu Dhabi Government's vision of digital transformation and provide innovative solutions, ADX became the first financial market in the MENA region to apply Blockchain technology in its services through e-voting for Annual General Meetings (AGM). This technology offers companies the opportunity to share statements with investors in real-time and allows for simultaneous e-voting that can be accessed through the internet from any location in the world, increasing cost-efficiency and enhancing corporate governance across the board.
In addition to real-time data, this service will also provide increased credibility and transparency of e-voting in the interest of a more secure and safe digital ecosystem for auditory and regulatory industry bodies. The launch of the e-voting service comes in line with the Abu Dhabi Digital Government's commitment to innovation and creativity as well as enhancing the quality of services and delivering fast and efficient solutions in addition to the market's willingness to employ digital solutions in the stock market.
H.E. Hamad Abdulla Al Shamsi, Chairman of ADX emphasized the market's commitment to work towards the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 and Abu Dhabi Government's vision of digital transformation through the development of innovative digital solutions that provide a flexible business environment whilst also enhancing the Emirate's competitiveness. "Blockchain technology, which is unique to ADX in the region, is one of the primary electronic voting tools used in Annual General Meetings, and is considered one of the safest ways to conduct exchanges as it extracts personal information from identity cards in an automated, safe and secure manner.”
Visitors to ADX stand also have the opportunity to learn more about the Business Intelligence System (BI) project, which was launched with an aim to establish a unified reporting and analysis center, while building a sustainable digital database. This project enables users to access reports across a single platform linked to a database that includes information about different market systems. The system is capable of analyzing information and business data through both current and old systems, allowing market management to study various potential scenarios and their impact on other financial markets.
The business intelligence system (BI) provides an integrated reporting platform with robust security rules and standards based on the best global standards. It allows for the analysis of historical data, in addition to the amalgamation of accurate statistics and reports generated from all electronic systems and market technical instruments. The demonstrated patterns and trends for various indicators, stocks and trades, in turn serves to supports decision making at several levels.
H.E. Hamad Abdulla Al Shamsi stated: “The establishment of Business Intelligence (BI) is among ADX’s most recent efforts to demonstrate its own commitment to improving the quality of innovative services, facilitating user access and creating an efficient and innovative system that supports the construction of a sustainable digital base. The system provides reliable information and analysis, which supports decision makers and provides them with an in-depth understanding of market performance upon which to make intelligent decisions.”
ADX also showcased its Electronic IPO (eKtetab) platform, which provides investors with the ability to register online through the IPO site. The ADX-eKtetab is a platform that provides a range of application, data visualisation and reporting tools for investors and has been designed to standardise the IPO process, improve efficiency and minimising errors and ensuring accuracy. Furthermore, the platform provides accessibility to all IPO subscription information collection processes - data integrity, accountability, compliance and security. The platform provides complete transparency of real-time subscription information for all key stakeholders during and after the offer live period and results in a quicker ADX listing for the issuer, as well as allocation and refund results. Additionally, the platform enables complete end-to-end project coordination support services throughout the offer period and allows any bank or financial advisor to act as a lead manager or lead receiving bank.
Commenting on the platform, H.E. Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), said: “The e-Ktetab platform is based on the market’s belief and commitment to achieve the Abu Dhabi Government's vision of digital transformation, which aims to achieve innovative, sustainable and efficient digital solutions. It also comes in line with the market’s strategy to attract investors as well as encourage the issuance of securities to offer shares for subscription, and the listing of shares where the platform links directly to the IPO mechanism and registration of these securities in the market.”
These digital initiatives are part of Abu Dhabi Digital Government efforts to enhance the quality of its services, and facilitate users’ accessibility to these services by presenting fast and efficient solutions that help achieving customers’ happiness, which supports Abu Dhabi position as international hub for business and investment, and regional center for digital transformation, as well as strengthening the cooperation between the government partners. Abu Dhabi Digital Government aims to and support innovation, by displaying the latest applications, innovations and system, which supports Abu Dhabi position as international hub for business and investment, and regional center for digital transformation, as well as strengthening the cooperation between the government partners.
- 06:00 am
Thomson Reuters has launched Fixed Income Callouts, a flexible and transparent App on the Eikon platform that facilitates the negotiations and agreements of fixed income bond trading terms within banks in country and across African markets, improving price discovery, market monitoring, execution and market transparency.
“African bond trading holds huge potential to deepen financial markets and drive investment. Challenges for traders today include, reliable price discovery, market monitoring, execution uncertainty, speed of trade tickets, and ambiguity such as settlement differences,” said Sneha Shah, Managing Director Africa, Thomson Reuters. “Callouts provides an automated way to capture and disseminate the details of negotiated trades, as well as to report on market trends, direction and pricing over time.”
Callouts enables bond price / yield discovery. It enables the user to ask multiple counterparties for bond prices, fostering transparency and efficiency. The development complements the Thomson Reuters wider Fixed Income offering. The resultant benefits are real-time data from these markets, enabling investors to make decisions based on accurate, reliable and trusted market data. Moreover, all of this is a value-added service available to our existing FX clients.
“A significant feature of the app is the central view of transaction activity across the market for the use of regulatory oversight and monitoring of activity,” said Malcolm Collins, Head of Fixed Income Market Development for Emerging Markets at Thomson Reuters. “It enables governance and oversight by regulatory bodies and central banks and helps support compliance for back and middle office users.”
The app provides trade confirmation tickets, trade downloads and the availability of real time post trade feeds direct into back office systems to support STP (Straight Through Processing) needs. Errors and delays are reduced, improving efficiency at all stages of the trade lifecycle and reducing operational risk. The applications scalable, easy to use and fit for purpose design makes it attractive to Fixed Income dealers across Africa.
- 09:00 am
ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today launched the UP Real-Time Payments Solution—the only global solution that allows financial institutions to address their Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), SWIFT messaging and real-time payments needs with a single, universal offering.
New requirements for payments processing have never been more prolific. Real-time payments, changes to processing of RTGS payments, SEPA Credit Transfers and Direct Debits, Open APIs and Blockchain are all prioritised for investment—but banks are increasingly challenged by the complexity and cost of addressing them all.
The UP Real-Time Payments Solution gives banks complete control, choice and flexibility in how they route their real-time payments. As a single, universal offering, the UP Real-Time Payments solution removes the complexity banks face in managing separate systems to support the wide range of low and high-value payment options that their customers need. It also empowers banks to optimise their transaction costs and orchestrates any payment type, channel, currency or network in a single or multibank setup with 24X7 worldwide support.
The UP Real Time Payments solution combines the power of the ACI Money Transfer System and the innovation and real-time processing of UP Immediate Payments—providing connectivity to immediate payments schemes and RTGS globally. Banks can implement the features required to enable these latest initiatives, from basic connectivity to a new scheme—such as those supporting SEPA Instant Payments, The Clearing House or Zelle—to full-service processing that includes validation, verification, fraud and compliance, authorisation, liquidity and exception handling.
“Banks are facing acute pressure to provide customers with a real-time experience,” said WA Proctor, vice president, ACI Worldwide. “Competition from start-up companies offering real-time payments—combined with a rising number of domestic and global payment gateway connections—has led to a convergence of the retail and transaction banking world. The UP Real-Time Payments Solution grows with a bank’s evolving needs, to help its customers to take advantage of global transaction growth opportunities that real-time payments enable.”
By harnessing ACI’s proven mission critical payment engine Money Transfer System, handling $14 trillion in daily transactions and the innovative UP Immediate Payment solution, banks now have choices. They can choose the optimal path for real- time transactions, deploy in the cloud or in an on-premise model—and with support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux/x86, UP Real-Time Payments Solution provides organisations with a lower total cost of ownership. The solution allows banks to quickly launch new real-time payment schemes services, with flexible, scalable options via open APIs and provides full SWIFT functionality, including GPI and direct connectivity to SWIFTNet.
ACI will feature its UP Real-Time Payments Solution at the SWIFT Sibos Conference (Booth K5), October 16-19 in Toronto and at AFP (Booth 521), October 15-18 in San Diego.
- 06:00 am
DBS Bank, Asia’s leading digital bank, today announced the launch of the world’s first online treasury and cash management simulation tool for CFOs and corporate treasurers.
CFOs and corporate treasurers often manage several accounts with different currencies and transaction flows across multiple countries. As a result, they often engage a few different banks to help create an optimal treasury and cash management solution. The process in doing so, called a Request for Proposal, is often time-consuming, unproductive and tedious.
Using a human-centred design approach, DBS uncovered five critical areas to address through in-depth interviews with over 50 CFOs, corporate treasurers and finance professionals. These problems include:
- Too much preparatory work to achieve an optimal solution
- Difficulty in monetising or quantifying the benefits and costs of solutions proposed by different banks
- No time to keep up with the latest regulatory, tax and market changes
- Too much effort to work with stakeholders on a new cash management solution
- Difficulty in implementing new and complex solutions
DBS Treasury Prism was custom-built to address these challenges by giving CFOs and corporate treasurers the ability to independently experiment with cash and liquidity management structures and analyse the relative benefits and costs. The bank-agnostic platform takes into account the regulatory and tax environment in the markets where the company operates in, and offers immediate and contextual insights to help them understand the implications that each solution has on the business.
Users can create simulations of account and liquidity structures across multiple markets and compare each solution through a quantified assessment of its cost and benefits. The combination of digital solutioning and contextual insights results in a value-rich experience for treasurers as they explore potential opportunities and solutions.
John Laurens, DBS’ Head of Global Transaction Services said, “CFOs and corporate treasurers increasingly come to DBS for digital advisory services and to co-create digital business solutions with their financial and commercial operations. The nature of these digital engagements have elevated the partnership between transaction bankers and treasury and finance professionals well beyond the conventional bank-customer interaction. DBS Treasury Prism is a product of innovation and customer-centred digital engagement. Finance and treasury professionals have therefore shaped the platform through ideation, development and beta testing stages and will continue to drive the agile development of DBS Treasury Prism.”
Some of the key features of DBS Treasury Prism include:
Building simulations and quantifying benefits
Treasurers often receive multiple cash management proposals from banks; determining the best solution is challenging as the benefits are not always clearly evident. DBS Treasury Prism empowers treasurers by enabling them to simulate various structures for a range of international currencies, taking into account the tax and regulatory implications in over 20 markets including key financial centres in Asia, Europe and the US. Each simulation features an Optimisation Score derived from a smart algorithm that takes into account the interest yield and debt, tax, bank fees and corporate costs, helping users quantify the benefits of each structure.
The dynamic online platform is equipped with over 30 liquidity and transactional flow management tools, including bank solutions and corporate tools such as interest optimisation, notional pooling, instant payments, and payments and receivables management, all supported by real time insights. In addition, the platform has an 'Optimise' feature that recommends alternative structures for users to explore and consider.
