Vantage Markets, an award-winning multi-asset broker for Contracts for Difference (CFDs), has today announced the appointment of Jeffrey Triganza as the new Head of Market Analysis for Australia. Drawing on his extensive experience and industry expertise, he will help traders on the Vantage platform build strategic trading approaches and manage risk.

Jeffrey Triganza brings over 15 years’ experience as a leading trader and market analyst, having held key leadership positions at renowned institutions. Having spent 11 years of his career at Thomson Reuters, Jeffrey went on to appointments as Head of Margin FX at Goldmate Group, Managing Director at Northpoint Financial and Director and Sales Asia Pacific Director of Royal Financial Trading.

In his new role as Head of Market Analysis, Vantage Australia, Jeffrey will be responsible for developing and implementing strategic initiatives that enhance client engagement, foster long-term partnerships, and drive business growth. His expertise in currency trading, interest rate differentials, and his strong interest in gold, renewable energy, and oil prices will enable him to offer comprehensive solutions that address clients' diverse investment needs.

Jeffrey Triganza, Head of Market Analysis, Vantage Australia,  said: “I was attracted to working at Vantage due to the development of the company and the focus on client success. The Vantage team truly bends over backwards to provide a great client experience and with my background in building trading strategies and risk mitigation, I believe I can bring a lot of value to traders using the Vantage platform. 

“Vantage Markets has over 1,000 products to offer to clients, which means that investors can build their investment portfolio diversification with us.. I believe that CFDs are a vehicle for taking advantage of volatility and leverage in markets.”

Commenting on the appointment, Jack Kelly, Head of Sales at Vantage Australia, said “Jeffrey has superb experience and expertise, particularly in currency trading, gold, renewable energy, and oil, which will provide our clients with unique insights and tailored strategies. With Jeffrey's leadership, we are confident that Vantage Markets will continue to exceed client expectations and deliver innovative solutions.”

This license, roughly equivalent to the European e-money issuer license, allows dLocal to accept deposits from the public, manage e-wallets, and participate directly in Brazil’s payments systems including Pix. Additionally, dLocal becomes a “Payments Transactions Initiator”, enabling it to access Brazil’s new Open Banking Initiative as well as initiating third-party Pix payments.

At the same time, dLocal has also become an authorized eFX provider, allowing it to perform a wide range of cross-border currency operations, without amount restrictions.

Becoming a Payments Institution carries with it a higher level of scrutiny by Brazil’s Central Bank.

“We welcome this license, which is the product of an effort of many years. Being a Payments Institution will allow us a greater level of flexibility when serving our customers. We consider compliance and regulations a key competitive advantage, and we welcome the increased level of scrutiny that it brings, which will give our customers an even higher level of confidence in our internal processes, our compliance systems and the safeguarding of the funds”.

Participants in the Sell-Side Fixed Income Expert Network continue to see deepening electronification of fixed-income markets, according to the latest report produced by Acuiti in association with valantic FSA.

This secular trend that has been taking place for many years continues to gain momentum as clients demand greater efficiency in their operations. More and more firms are connecting to electronic platforms and looking to how much of their workflow they can automate. The report examines how this is taking form, exploring the adoption of portfolio trading, electronification of repo markets as well as the effects a growing move towards cross-products sales is having on fixed-income teams.

“Sell-side providers mainly attribute client interest in portfolio trading to a desire for efficiency, as the buy-side seeks to create, execute and optimize portfolios faster and with less headcount and reduced transaction costs” observed Andy Browning, Head of Electronic Trading, at valantic FSA. Over 70% of respondents have seen an increase in demand for greater portfolio trading functionality in recent years.

Repo Rising

Market participants are increasingly using repo to navigate fixed-income markets in 2023. ICMA’s most recent survey of the European market, conducted in December 2022, showed a new high in activity, with the total value of outstanding repo contracts on the books of the 61 firms that participated in the survey reaching €10.374bn.

This was borne out in the respondent results.

• 67% are seeing clients make more use of repo markets.
• 66% are seeing customers predominantly access repo markets using both voice execution and electronic platforms, but 86% indicate that more of repo volume is shifting toward electronic platforms. 

“It is clear that momentum is growing, with 86% of the network reporting a growing amount of repo volume moving to electronic platforms and the increase in electronic platforms becoming available to participants” noted Will Mitting, Managing Director of Acuiti.

The report also explores attitudes to artificial intelligence, tech vendor relationships, cross-product sales approaches and the outlook for the rest of the year.

For more insights and detail, the full report is available to download here https://www.valantic.com/fsa/insights/.  

Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced advancements to Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP) on Microsoft Azure, including new consumption models and clustering features. JBoss EAP on Microsoft Azure enables customers to modernize and deliver existing Jakarta EE applications and build new ones with greater speed and efficiency on a fully-managed cloud platform. With multiple ways to use JBoss EAP on Azure, customers have the ability to choose what level of control and assistance they need.

Streamlining Java consumption on Azure 

As organizations look to shift workloads to the cloud, they can now take advantage of the benefits of Red Hat OpenShift through JBoss EAP on Azure Red Hat OpenShift. As a fully-managed Red Hat OpenShift service jointly-developed, operated and supported by both Red Hat and Microsoft, Azure Red Hat OpenShift enables customers to more quickly create a cluster and deploy JBoss EAP in minutes, increasing operational efficiency and application velocity. 

Additionally, JBoss EAP is now available as the first fully pay-as-you-go Red Hat offering for application services publicly available in Azure Marketplace. IT organizations can use this offering to more easily procure Red Hat solutions through Azure Marketplace, without an existing Red Hat subscription. This helps to reduce costs and expand capabilities while maximizing existing investments. This consumption model provides customers with a simpler way to move existing applications to the cloud while retaining support from Red Hat for product updates, upgrades and servicing. The applications deployed will be able to utilize other Azure services, such as Azure Database for PostgreSQL, enabling customers to tap into existing offerings in a more flexible and cost-efficient manner while building a stronger security footprint.

New clustering features 

JBoss EAP on Azure App Service can now automatically start as a clustered service using virtual networking for node-to-node communication. It is also enabled for auto-scaling operations through Azure App Service, a fully-managed platform for creating web applications. This enables the cluster size to dynamically grow or shrink depending on service load or other customizable factors. Applications that use stateful session beans, distributed transactions or require high availability can run more efficiently on Azure App Service, while benefiting from Azure App Service acting as the central management plane for deploying code, scaling up or down and updating application configuration.

The addition of clustering to JBoss EAP on Azure App Service is designed to increase performance and the availability for shared loads, making Red Hat solutions more easily consumable on the cloud with an integrated support model. In addition, this model creates flexibility for organizations when planning their committed spend. 

Red Hat and Microsoft have deep roots in Java and these advancements illustrate a continued commitment to support JBoss EAP on Azure, further enabling choice and flexibility for customers in their efforts to bring Java to the cloud.

Red Hat JBoss EAP on Azure App Service is available through the Azure console as an Azure service. Customers can also deploy JBoss EAP on Azure VMs through the Azure Marketplace. 

Supporting Quotes

Blake Shiver, vice president, Cloud Partners, Red Hat 

“Customers are continuing to seek simpler ways to enhance application performance and operate at scale in any cloud environment. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform on Azure offers just that – flexible, more secure options, on a managed platform. We remain committed to investing in and growing our partnership with Microsoft to deliver cost-effective solutions that support our customers throughout their cloud journeys.”

Scott Hunter, vice president of product, Azure Developer, Microsoft 

“Many organizations have shifted to a cloud first approach to simplify overhead and enable faster innovation while improving the bottom line. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is a modern solution built to drive business value, that when combined with Microsoft Azure’s Infrastructure and managed offerings like App Service, empowers customers to take advantage of the cloud and optimize their technology investments in a way that best fits their needs.” 

Profile, a leading financial solutions provider, has announced the extension of the term of its contract with Allica Bank, which has been based on the strong relationship and fruitful collaboration between the two parties.

Since obtaining its banking license in September 2019, Allica Bank – the financial technology (fintech) challenger bank aimed at established SMEs – has successfully launched and scaled its core deposits and commercial lending on Profile’s core banking platform.

Allica Bank has recently exceeded £2 billion in deposits alongside more than £1 billion in lending on the platform, becoming one of the fastest-growing UK fintechs to also achieve profitability in the summer of 2022.

Finuevo Core enables Allica Bank to benefit from a highly modular component-based architecture that allows easy implementation for banking operations, offering an end-to-end banking experience. The easily configurable and scalable environment provides an instant, multi-level overview of operations, built around the bank.

The extension of the bank’s collaboration with Profile shall provide extra flexibility and enable the bank to proactively meet the market’s evolving demands.

The adaptation to Allica’s evolving needs has been a top priority for Profile in order to meet the bank’s expectations and support their growth plans.

Profile’s software solutions are becoming the preferred choice for financial institutions around the world. Through continuous evolution and rich functionality, they offer a unique experience, creating unparalleled client value.

Today, Sumsub, a full-cycle verification platform to secure the whole user journey, announced that it now supports 14K+ identity document types from all over the world, more than doubling its previous ability (6,5K).

Unlike many of its competitors, Sumsub is able to process documents with handwritten texts as well as rare languages and scripts like Sinhalese (used in Sri Lanka).  Sumsub can also process documents in dozens of different formats (depending on year of issue, region, etc.), such as the Indian Aadhaar (national ID card), Israeli or Finnish ID cards. 

Digital verification platforms should be capable of handling a wide range of document formats and scripts. Otherwise, they risk excluding certain users and groups from online services. That’s why Sumsub cares so much about enlarging its supported document database.

Apart from handling 14K+ types of identity documents, Sumsub is a proven leader in Proof of Address (PoA) checks, which are essential in crypto, trading, gambling, and other prominent digital industries. The platform’s PoA verification feature is constantly enhanced, and now has the ability to process over 140K PoA documents per day.

The challenge with PoA is that there are multiple document types that can verify residence in just one country–from tax or utility bills to lease agreements and credit card statements. So, global address verification implies the solution’s ability to process thousands of PoA subtypes together with document integrity detection and strong anti-fraud checks. Among competition, Sumsub offers maximum coverage for PoA documents along with best-in-class average PoA verification time (59 seconds). In addition, the platform provides options for instant geo-based verification as well as address check via global government databases.

“Sumsub’s platform has processed over 200 million documents since the company was founded, so we are quite familiar with all document types in any part of the world,” comments Vyacheslav Zholudev, co-founder and CTO at Sumsub. “The more types of ID cards, passports, residence proof, and other documents we are able to deal with, the higher the pass rates our global clients reach. Our key priorities are user satisfaction, bulletproof fraud protection, and compliance with local AML/KYC regulations.”

Hashdex, a leading global crypto-focused asset manager, today announced that Brian Brooks has joined Hashdex’s Board of Directors (the “Board”), expanding the firm’s Board from four to five members. As a director and representative of Hashdex investor Valor Capital Group, Brooks will serve as a strategic advisor to Hashdex, providing counsel on global regulation to accelerate Hashdex’s continued growth in global markets and further its efforts to offer institutional investors secure and accessible exposure to the crypto ecosystem.

Often referred to as the “first fintech Comptroller,” Brooks is recognized as one of the most visionary global leaders in financial services, fintech and cryptocurrency. Throughout his distinguished career, Brooks has served as a vanguard for the fintech and cryptocurrency industries and is noted for his historic achievements on bank charters, granting the first fintech and crypto charters, respectively, as well as for his work promoting bank-fintech partnerships. As a member of Hashdex’s Board, Brooks is joining the council representing Valor and will enhance the firm’s efforts to bridge the gap between the crypto ecosystem and traditional finance, accelerating institutional adoption and scaling key partnerships with financial organizations and policymakers around the world.

“Brian’s extensive experience as a leader in financial regulation and the crypto industry will help Hashdex meet our core mission of giving investors simple and secure access to the developing crypto ecosystem,” said Marcelo Sampaio, Co-Founder and CEO of Hashdex. “His proven ability to push forward thoughtful, innovation-driven public policy is much needed at this time, and we are thrilled to have him as a partner and advisor.”

Brooks currently serves as a Managing Partner at Valor Capital Group, where he leads the sourcing and execution of investment opportunities and supports growth initiatives across the firm’s portfolio, especially in the intersection of crypto and traditional finance. Valor led Hashdex's Series A round and has been supporting the company with strategic, business development and regulatory initiatives in Brazil and abroad.

Before joining Valor, Brooks served as CEO of two blockchain-focused companies, and also served as chief legal officer of global crypto exchange Coinbase. Previously, Brooks was acting U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, heading the U.S. government agency that charters and supervises the national banking system. He also served as a member of the FDIC board of directors and as a voting member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

“Crypto assets are changing the economics of nearly every industry across the globe, allowing individuals to have an ownership stake in the networks in which they participate,” said Brooks. “Hashdex has been at the forefront of giving global investors regulated access to this market, whether in Latin America, Europe, or the U.S., and I look forward to helping them deliver on their vision of bridging the divide between traditional financial markets and the crypto economy.”

Earlier in his career, Brooks served as general counsel of Fannie Mae; vice chairman of OneWest Bank, N.A.; and managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. He has served on a number of public and private company boards and has been an advisor to such technology innovators as Wander, Curve, Huski.ai, EarnUp, LoanSnap, TextIQ, HyperDraft, and others. Brooks is an honors graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School.

Bankjoy, an end-to-end digital banking provider, today announced its partnership with Plaid, the leading open finance provider powering the digital financial ecosystem. Institutions on the Bankjoy platform will now be able to offer their customers API access to Plaid’s network of more than 8,000 fintech apps and services.

Through the partnership, businesses can now securely and seamlessly add accounts from other financial institutions and fintechs to Bankjoy’s platform with Plaid’s account connectivity tool, giving business account holders a centralized place to view and manage their finances.

Bankjoy’s Business Banking platform is designed to deliver a superior digital banking experience for business and commercial account holders. By partnering with Plaid, financial institutions using Bankjoy’s Business Banking platform make it easier and more secure for businesses to connect multiple accounts from different financial institutions and third-party apps within Bankjoy’s digital platform.

Business account holders can also manage user permissions and securely add new users directly through the digital banking platform. Bankjoy’s partnership with Plaid transforms the way financial institutions engage the businesses within their local communities by giving account holders one place to access multiple accounts and manage their entire financial footprint via online and mobile banking. With Plaid’s account connectivity capabilities, Bankjoy empowers banks and credit unions to position their organization as the preferred financial service provider for the business and commercial account holders they serve.

“Amid the economic uncertainty, 95% of Americans say they feel some type of economic stress, according to Plaid’s 2022 Fintech Effect Report. Consumers and businesses alike are looking for financial institutions that provide them with the tools necessary to support them through this time,” said Michael Duncan, CEO of Bankjoy. “At the same time, today’s account holders often use multiple apps and financial institutions to manage their finances, which makes enabling multi-account connectivity crucial. Bankjoy’s partnership with Plaid supports this and we look forward to helping more financial institutions enhance the digital banking experience for their business customers and members.”

Engineered by credit union executives, Bankjoy’s modern banking technology includes mobile and online banking, e-statements, online account opening, online loan origination, as well as other features, such as conversational AI. Bankjoy continues to evolve its digital product offerings, rolling out several new features, functionalities, and integrations in the last 12 months, such as its new, standalone online account opening solution and its upgraded Business Banking platform. The partnership with Plaid will further enhance Bankjoy’s Business Banking platform, making it easier and more cost-effective to deliver truly feature-rich digital banking technology for business and commercial account holders.