New FICO solution instantly evaluates millions of alternative offers, then to delivers the best offers to auto lenders, empowering them to aggressively compete for business without compromising risk, growth, or compliance requirements.

• New FICO solution instantly discovers and evaluatesmillions of alternative offers to deliver the best offers to auto lenders, empowering them to aggressively compete for business without compromising risk standards, growth targets, or compliance requirements 
• At the core of the FICO solution is a sophisticated decision engine that leverages prescriptive analytics to improve performance and optimize deal offers in real-time 
• Solution was officially launched at FICO's annual Auto Mastermind event in Silicon Valley, held August 17

FICO, a leading provider of predictive analytics and decision management software, today unveiled an automotive industry-specific loan origination solution.

Leveraging its deep analytic expertise coupled with advanced algorithms and the latest optimization technology, FICO enables auto finance companies to instantly evaluate millions of alternative offers to aggressively compete for business without compromising risk standards, growth targets, or compliance requirements.

"This innovative FICO solution brings advanced analytics in real-time to the origination processes. Lenders can discover thousands or possibly millions of offer alternatives to deliver the most appropriate offers to dealers and customers," said Anil Goyal, senior vice president, Automotive Valuation & Analytics, Black Book. "This solution allows for the integration of vehicle values and depreciation rate forecasts to enable lenders to estimate accurate loss projections and overall profitability while delivering the ultimate in choice to customers."

As the automotive industry and car buying experience dramatically change, auto finance companies need to make data-driven lending decisions in real time. In a recent report by Deloitte on "Financing The Future of Mobility: Auto finance in the evolving transportation ecosystem," the digital disruption to origination and underwriting of auto loans is made clear. "Historically, customers have rarely relished the process of initiating a loan, with its reams of paperwork and long wait times at the dealership. That's already beginning to change, as auto retailers look to adopt customer-centric omnichannel retail models."

"Today's digital-first consumers expect simplicity and instant gratification at every touchpoint of their car buying journey. Given increasingly fierce competition, dealers must be equipped to deliver instant, compelling, profitable, and flexible financing offers across digital channels and in the dealership," said Ken Kertz, senior director of the FICO auto practice. "By enabling finance companies to balance competing priorities with an analytically-driven approach, satisfied customers will be able to actually drive cars off the lot instead of being bogged down by burdensome paperwork or greedy deal terms."

Leveraging the power of the FICO® Xpress Optimization Suite and FICO® Origination Manager, the new auto industry solution is designed to generate multiple optimized deal structures for approved applicants, giving the customer and the finance professional greater flexibility to balance competing business outcomes (such as lowering risk or winning market share), as well as negotiate and instantly adjust the terms of the loan (length, interest rate, or monthly and down payments).

At the core of this offering is a sophisticated decisioning engine that enhances productivity and profitability for lenders by enabling them to respond to loan applicants instantly, eliminate negotiation turnaround times, manage risk, and significantly reduce manual paperwork.

Nasdaq Corporate Solutions, a business of Nasdaq Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ), announced plans for the expansion of its Boardvantage board portal and leadership collaboration software into Canada through access to two data centers in Ontario. 

CBOE Vest Technologies, a software company enabling users to work with target outcome investment strategies, and the Options Industry Council (OIC), a provider of unbiased options education, are working together to educate investors and broaden the appeal of options with a new online tool, The Options Strategy Builders.

BitFlyer USA, Inc. announced today that it will launch its US-based Bitcoin exchange by the Fall of 2017, having already gained regulatory approval to operate in 34 states. bitFlyer’s new office is based in the financial district of San Francisco.

Wolters Kluwer today announced the release of its enhanced Capital Changes 871M Automated Compliance Tool. The solution helps banks, brokers and other financial services firms comply with IRS rules already in place, in addition to new, complex regulatory changes that will go into effect January 1, 2019, based on IRS Notice 2017-42 relating to certain equity-linked financial derivatives.

Brokers and other U.S. withholding agents generally must already comply with a set of rules that went into effect January 1, 2017, relating to payments for certain equity-linked financial derivatives. However, the IRS released additional regulatory requirements regarding these financial instruments in January 2017 and again in August, adding important guidance. The financial consequences of failing to comply with these new requirements could be severe.

“Complying with the complicated new U.S. withholding tax rules on non-cash changes in value to financial derivatives can be a difficult challenge for financial institutions,” said Stevie Conlon, Vice President, Tax and Regulatory Counsel, with Wolters Kluwer’s Investment Compliance business. “Our Capital Changes 871M Automated Compliance Tool is an industrial-strength solution designed to help financial institutions avoid costly errors in applying difficult new withholding tax rules. This is a capability that is especially crucial for firms, given the daily processing, batch file transfers, and high volumes of their customers’ activities.”                                                                                                              

The Capital Changes 871M Automated Compliance Tool manages compliance with U.S. withholding and other reporting requirements regarding dividend equivalents on U.S. source derivative financial instruments sold to non-U.S. persons. Additionally, the tool solves challenging aspects of broker compliance for option contracts, as well as for certain similar contracts and thousands of tax lots by automatically:

• Determining whether the rules apply to a particular contract;
• Computing each dividend equivalent amount by tax lot for contracts subject to withholding; and
• Finalizing the date and amount on which the withholding must occur for all dividend equivalent amounts determined for a particular tax lot.

The new version of Wolters Kluwer’s 871M Compliance Tool includes several important updates designed to help withholding agents comply with difficult aspects of the regulations that will be applicable in 2019, including:

• Applying the dividend payment date election;
• Applying the rules for omnibus accounts;
• Applying the rules to additional asset classes; and
• Applying the combination ordering rule within accounts

More information about Wolters Kluwer’s Capital Changes 871M Automated Compliance Tool is available here.

Hampleton Partners, an international mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate advisory firm for technology companies, today issued 11 technology M&A market reports for 2H 2017 in the key business segments of artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), automotive technology, cybersecurity, digital marketing, e-commerce, enterprise software, financial technology, internet of things (IoT), IT services, and SaaS & cloud services. 

“Overall, our research shows that technology M&A cooled down in the first half of 2017,” says Miro Parizek, Principal Partner of Hampleton Partners. “However, it is critical to be more nuanced and to look deeper into specific sectors and the related data when assessing deal activity and planning strategy.” 
Parizek adds “M&A and funding is accelerating in select sectors, as more ‘non-technology’ or traditional companies and private equity firms move to acquire and invest in technology and innovation. Artificial intelligence, augmented reality/virtual reality, and cybersecurity are three of the most promising sectors for technology M&A right now.”

Key findings in the technology M&A market reports for 2H 2017 include the following:

• Artificial Intelligence: Acquisitions of AI related targets speeds up dramatically as deal volume increases 179% versus the previous year. Total M&A relating to artificial intelligence now exceeds 100 transactions in the last 24 months to June 2017, in concert with the growing media attention dedicated to the sector.
   
• AR/VR: Investment in augmented reality and virtual reality has shot up in recent years, with a majority of related M&A activity occurring in the US. In the last 12 months, nearly 80% of the $620+ million worth of deals in AR/VR were related to hardware development. 
   
• Cybersecurity: Headline grabbing data thefts, government and corporate breaches underpin high growth in spending on cybersecurity driving investment and M&A activity in the sector.  Deal volumes remain high with 80 security related acquisitions tracked in 1H 2017. Valuations maintain a healthy level as well with EV/S (i.e. revenue multiples) clocking in at 4.7x on disclosed transactions for the period 2015 through 1H 2017.
   
• Automotive Technology: European investors are setting the pace in automotive technology, with 59% of automotive technology companies acquired by European buyers compared with 37% purchased by North American investors.          
   
• Digital Marketing: Deal sizes in marketing application software M&A grew at the start of the year, with total transaction values for 1H 2017 up 20% to $1.7 billion versus the previous half-year period. 
   
• E-Commerce: The global e-commerce industry is rapidly evolving as European investors dominated another half-year period of regional dealmaking. In the last 30 months, European buyers acquired 63% of regional targets compared to 32% of targets from North American investors.
   
• Enterprise Software: Global M&A volume increased 12% in 1H 2017 versus the previous half-year period with earnings based valuation metrics (EV/EBITDA) remaining stable at 14.5x. Political uncertainty in Britain had little impact on deal flow in enterprise software as the number of UK deals grew by a modest 5% from the previous half year and accounted for 35% of all deals in Europe.
   
• Financial Technology: M&A deal activity in Fintech is up 8% in 1H 2017 and beginning to recover from its sharp drop in 2H 2016, however, still not at the levels registered from mid-2014 to mid-2016. Within the Fintech sub-sector, Online Financial Services, valuations are increasing as private equity purchasers focus on purchasing payment providers. 
   
• Internet of Things: Intel, Verizon and ARM head up the list of Top Acquirers in IoT.  198 buyers were active snapping up 239 IoT assets from 2015 through 1H 2017. While the median revenues paid on disclosed transactions has come in at 3.5x during that period, some deals were inked with EV/S ratios as high as 21x.
   
• IT Services: Of the top 50 highest valued deal during 1H 2017, more than half were cross border deals, building on from the second half of 2016 where 40% of the top 50 transactions crossed national borders. Additionally, global private equity deal flow showed a marked turnaround. There were 48 private equity deals announced in 1H 2017, doubling the number of deals private equity buyers closed during the previous six months. 
   
• SaaS & Cloud: SaaS and Cloud sector picked up in 1H 2017 as deal flow in the information management and enterprise applications/networking sub sectors increased this year by 7%, as interest from buyout funds drove to the total value of $5.22 billion across the SaaS & Cloud sector.​

Hampleton’s research team publishes semi-annual technology M&A market reports by sector with data on transaction multiples, analysis of deal drivers, and informed discussions of current trends and what to expect in the near- to mid-term future. The series of reports, empowers technology business owners, sellers, acquirers and investors to evaluate sector specific valuations, as well as timing for their own M&A activity or exit planning.

 Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the software company empowering customer engagement at the world’s leading enterprises, has announced that leading risk technology analyst firm Chartis Research has named Pega as the top category leader in Know Your Customer (KYC) systems in its latest RiskTech Quadrant® report. 

Chartis ranked Pega® KYC and Pega® CLM the highest out of 18 competing vendor solutions based on completeness of offering and market potential across 14 criteria. Chartis describes category leaders as “combining deep domain knowledge in various risk topics with deep technology assets and capabilities” that address the needs both large and small clients. In particular, Chartis noted Pega ranked highly in “KYC risk scores, its capabilities for enriching customers’ profiles, its support for additional due diligence, and its Customer Lifecycle Management (CLM) capabilities.”

Pega KYC and Pega CLM are the only globally scalable applications for large complex financial institutions to manage end-to-end CLM and KYC from institutional onboarding to retail banking. The applications provide industry-leading inherit robotics, remediation, rules, case management, and a smart target operating model that can be deployed in as little as three months while speeding time to revenue with new and existing clients. Pega provides deep in-house industry KYC and customer due diligence (CDD) regulatory and onboarding expertise coupled with best-in-class partnerships and regulatory rules engine, which stay up to date on the latest changes to regulations such as AML, FATCA, CRS, MiFID II, Dodd-Frank, and EMIR. Pega’s global team of experts have deployed onboarding and KYC solutions for more than 10 years at more than 25 of the world’s largest financial institutions.

UK CEOs feel that investment in cyber security is a revenue opportunity rather than an expensive burden, according to a report by KPMG.

As a part of KPMG’s CEO Outlook 2017, 150 UK CEOs were asked about their investment plans for the future and the issues affecting their business. It found that 70 per cent of leaders see investment in cyber security as an opportunity to find new revenue streams and innovate, rather than as an overhead cost.

The report also found that cyber security is now firmly a part of CEOs’ agenda rather than one that previously only sat with the CIO or the CISO. 77 per cent of CEOs agreed with the statement: ‘I am personally comfortable with the degree to which mitigating cyber risk is now part of my leadership role’.

Paul Taylor, UK head of cyber security at KPMG, said: “It’s great that business leaders are finally seeing cyber security investment as a positive figure on the balance sheet rather than a negative one. However more needs to be done to make sure their businesses are prepared in the event of a cyberattack, whether it’s from external sources or even insiders.”

However, business leaders warned that they are not fully prepared for a cyber event like an employee-led data breach or business data theft.  Only 52 per cent said that they are ‘fully prepared’ for both eventualities. 

“With recent high profiles attacks like Wannacry hitting the press, cyber security should be on every CEO’s radar. Businesses now need to match their investment in innovative technology with their investment into cyber security, in order to stay one step ahead of cyber criminals,” concluded Taylor.