AccessPay, the leading corporate-to-bank integration provider, is pleased to announce the release of its new fraud and error identification tool, Detect. The launch of Detect marks the first in a series of anti-fraud and error prevention tools that AccessPay will be releasing over the coming months to support the UK’s corporates in proactively managing fraud and building operational resilience, as required by the new “UK SOx” corporate governance reforms.

Fraud is an increasingly serious issue for UK corporates. Data from KPMG shows the total value of fraud cases over £100k reaching the UK’s courts stood at £1.12bn in 2022, an uplift of 151% on 2021. In light of this, there is a growing regulatory focus on corporations to proactively manage fraud. Under new corporate governance reforms, unofficially dubbed UK SOx, large corporates will be required to produce fraud statements in their annual reports, which set out how they are detecting and preventing fraud. The same reforms also have a strong focus on operational risk and large corporates will need to demonstrate they have robust controls in place to mitigate the risk of errors in their finance and payment processes.

“Standards and expectations in relation to how corporates manage operational resilience and fraud risk are increasing,” states Anish Kapoor, CEO, AccessPay. “We have already experienced this in the financial services sector, where regulated firms are subject to new operational resilience rules and now there is UK SOx for large corporates. Yet, regardless of size, the risk of fraud and error is a very real concern for all businesses and can have a significant financial impact. The new additions to AccessPay’s product roadmap will help businesses of all sizes to take a multifaceted approach to managing fraud and preventing errors, as well as helping them to be audit-ready and able to demonstrate the impact of controls to regulators.”

The first tool to be launched as part of this roadmap is fraud and error identification tool, Detect. Detect adds an extra layer of control into corporate payment workflows, whereby the payment file is scanned and checked against several customisable rules, flagging any potential errors and issues, such as duplicate payments or potentially fraudulent transactions. This allows finance teams to promptly investigate any potential issues before payment runs are executed. While other detection technologies exist for UK BACs payments, Detect is noteworthy as it can handle all payment types, both domestic and cross-border. It is also fully integrated into the payments platform, making the detection of erroneous transactions a core step of the payment submission process and enabling faster responses by finance teams, if something does go awry.

Upcoming additions to AccessPay’s Fraud & Error Prevention Suite will focus on helping corporates take a more proactive approach to fraud and risk management, enabling them to catch potential issues before they become a problem.

“For corporates managing multiple banking partners and several bank accounts, it is astonishingly easy for potential issues with transactions to slip through the cracks. One of the biggest challenges for customers is that they only become aware of payment issues after the event,” says Kapoor. “AccessPay has long helped corporates in consolidating their payments data and automating processes, which helps reduce manual errors. Now we are taking this to another level, thanks to our new fraud and error prevention suite, which has been designed to alert finance teams to payment issues before making a transaction. Foresight is always better than hindsight.”

Branchspace, a leading provider of innovative data-driven dynamic retailing solutions and services for the airline industry, and CellPoint Digital, a pioneer in the development of Payment Orchestration Platforms, have announced a strategic partnership to enhance the digital customer experience for airlines. With this collaboration, airlines can leverage the full suite of Branchspace and CellPoint Digital solutions to optimise their digital strategies, improve customer engagement and increase conversion rates.

This unique partnership brings together the expertise of two industry leaders to deliver impactful digital solutions to support the growing demands from 90% of airlines that want streamlined technology to drive end-to-end customer focus and business growth. Customers will get access to an airline-specific payments eco-system with numerous new payment providers, which will lead to cost reductions in payment processing and access to a global suite of alternative payment methods. The combined solution will also increase commercial agility and grant airlines full control over a new customisable website and mobile app to help improve customer engagement, personalisation, and conversion optimisation.

Commenting on the announcement, Kristian Gjerding, CEO at CellPoint Digital said "This partnership with Branchspace connecting to its e-commerce platform will provide opportunities to optimise and personalise the whole digital customer experience including payments as a critical element of the journey. We’re delighted to launch the partnership with the implementation project for a prominent customer (soon to be disclosed) and are looking forward to welcoming many more airlines to benefit from this partnership.”

Ursula Silling, CEO at Branchspace added "We are excited to collaborate with CellPoint Digital and offer a comprehensive suite of solutions to airlines worldwide, enabling airlines to make customer experiences seamless across the journey. This turns airlines into true retailers and ensures that they will stay ahead in the highly dynamic market environment."

Sezzle, a leader in digital payments, today shares the advancement of its Canadian operations. In just four years, the Company has amassed over 500,000 consumers in Canada and the Sezzle app has consistently been the highest-rated BNPL app on the Canadian App Store. 

More than three-quarters of Canadians (78 per cent) say their personal finances have worsened due to inflation, and just over half (54 per cent) say they're living paycheck to paycheck, according to a survey released by BDO Canada. Sezzle believes that providing a Responsible Way to Pay™ is now more important than ever - and Canadian shoppers are flocking to the flexibility and credit autonomy that Sezzle’s financing solution brings. 

“Everything Sezzle does involves working with our team to help achieve our goals. We love partnering with the Sezzle team to deliver - whether that’s acquiring new customers, tapping into Sezzle's marketing capabilities, driving conversions, or just increasing our brand equity through the partnership,“ said Sherdeep Singh, CEO, at Parts Avatar, Canada’s largest online auto parts store. “We have been working with Sezzle since 2020, and our customers have been clamoring to their interest-free financing option since day one.”

Sezzle’s core financing product provides an interest-free solution for Canadians to pay over time and simultaneously provides the opportunity to build credit via Sezzle Up. In a recent global survey completed by TransUnion, data showed that over 9 million Canadians are either credit unserved or underserved. The lack of a credit score and any history of credit activity creates barriers for these unserved consumers to get their first credit product, as many lenders are hesitant to extend credit to consumers without any credit history or score. Consumers face a catch-22 situation –– unable to get that first credit product when they lack a credit history. Sezzle Up gives consumers the opportunity to build their credit score if they choose to do so, bridging the gap between the credit underserved and the ability to use and build credit wisely.

With over 500,000 consumers in Canada having used Sezzle at least once, and nearly 300,000 using Sezzle to complete a purchase more than once - Sezzle’s growth in the Canadian market is evident. Further, over four thousand merchant retailers throughout Canada, spanning a wide array of sectors, offer Sezzle’s interest-free, pay-in-four solution. This significant milestone exhibits the rapid adoption of Sezzle’s payment solution, given its still-recent entrance into the Canadian market. As consumer loyalty continues to grow for Sezzle within Canada and its retail partners, the top 10% of Canadian shoppers who use Sezzle are transacting using Sezzle 23 times per year, on average.

“Since the beginning of operations in Canada four years ago, shoppers have clamored to use Sezzle’s Buy Now, Pay Later solution. Inflation is affecting Canada just as much as the rest of the world - and with that, for many comes the financial distress of living paycheck to paycheck. Sezzle eases the burden of this cycle,” said Sezzle Canada GM, Patrick Chan. “We have seen consistent growth from merchants and shoppers alike in Canada, and we look forward to continue providing  financial empowerment to those that need it most.”

BOSS Money, the money remittance service of IDT Corporation, today announced the introduction of naira currency remittances for its customers sending cash to friends and family through direct deposit payout at commercial banks throughout Nigeria.

“BOSS Money customers sending money for direct deposit in Nigeria can now choose between the naira and U.S. dollar,” said Alfredo O’Hagan, IDT’s SVP for Consumer Payments. “Our naira direct deposit option enables Nigerians to quickly and securely receive and use the money sent by friends and family in the United States.”

The new naira payout option supplements BOSS Money’s robust U.S. dollar payout network in Nigeria. Its launch follows the Central Bank of Nigeria’s decision, announced earlier this month, to allow overseas remittances to be paid out in naira.

Through the popular BOSS Money and BOSS Revolution Calling apps, customers in the United States can now send up to $2999 to Nigerian bank accounts for payout in naira for a $0 fee through August 31, 2023 when using their debit card.

The highly rated BOSS apps are free on the App Store and on Google Play. Senders utilizing either BOSS app or the bossrevolution.com website for the first time pay no fees on transfers up to $2999.

Customers can also send from licensed Boss Revolution retailers across the United States.

Among the 26 Nigerian banks accepting BOSS Money remittances are Access Bank, Ecobank, Fidelity Bank, First Bank, First City Monument Bank, GT Bank, Polaris Bank, Stanbic IBTC Bank, United Bank for Africa, Union Bank and Zenith Bank. The complete list of participating Nigerian banks is provided in the BOSS apps.

BOSS Money now offers remittances from the United States to Nigeria and 46 other countries at over 280,000 cash pick-up locations in addition to mobile money and direct deposit services.

Prelios, a leading alternative asset management specialist, has announced a new partnership with end-to-end platform builder Mia-Platform to accelerate the delivery of specialist tools for digitised real estate valuations.  
 
The partnership will also incorporate Prelios’ wider services onto the Mia-Platform marketplace, including solutions for asset management, credit servicing and integrated real estate services. The Mia-Platform marketplace provides a catalogue of ready-to-use, reusable and modular software components for businesses to build new digital services and applications, and this partnership extends its capabilities further in the FinTech and PropTech sectors.  
 
Customers of both Mia-Platform and its specialist digital financial services arm, Mia-FinTech, will now have access to Prelios Group’s data analytics tools for valuations of real estate assets and guarantees. These services support the entire credit process for both performing and impaired loans, allowing individual real-estate units to be valued as entire portfolios through a statistical approach. It also performs an accurate analysis of the territory in which real estate units under examination are located, returning their value. 

Mauro Cavagna, Chief Technology & Processes Officer of the Prelios Group and CEO of Prelios Valuations, said: “The collaboration with Mia-Platform and Mia-FinTech represents for Prelios a first contribution to the creation of a cloud platform of services for financial institutions, which we think can lead to a significant transformation in the way service providers and client companies work together.” 

CEO of Mia-FinTech, Bruno Natoli, said: “Thanks to our complementary skills and synergetic approach, Prelios and Mia-FinTech are ready to develop solutions that optimise performance, mitigate risk and generate sustainable long-term value for our clients. By combining our market knowledge and advanced technological solutions, we can create a smooth and simple user experience that allows clients to create new digital services and products quickly and efficiently.” 

As of 2022, the UK has an estimated £11 trillion worth of assets under management, with 37% of all European assets managed within the British Isles. The partnership agreement will see Mia-Platform and Prelios develop a range of services to aid digital transformation within the sector. 

Cavagna finished: “Working with Mia-Platform has already brought us some new benefits. We have been able to redesign the way we deliver our services, introducing more self-service capabilities and strengthening the entire development and operations process. 
 
We’ll be taking this approach forward as we continue to enhance our customer journey. We’re looking forward to more collaboration with Mia-Platform.” 

Thredd, a fast-growing ‘next-gen’ payments platform, has today announced the appointment of Ava Kelly as Chief Product Officer (CPO).

Ava brings over 25 years of global experience in the payments industry having worked primarily at Visa and American Express. She has successfully delivered and implemented groundbreaking products, including the US VISA Signature premium product platform, propelling it to a market leader position. Ava also led Visa’s global premium product platform strategy, resulting in successful market launches in North America, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. Ava joins Thredd from i2c and will help to accelerate Thredd’s global market expansion while driving innovation across product lines.

“I’m incredibly excited to join the passionate and dynamic Thredd team,” said Ava Kelly. “The issuer processing space is ripe for disruption, and Thredd’s bold vision and product roadmap has the potential to completely change the landscape. I’m looking forward to collaborating with the team in delivering it.”

“I’m thrilled to welcome Ava to Thredd,” said Jim McCarthy, EVP – Global Product and Sales. “We continue to invest strongly in world class talent who share our vision for the future of payments. We see enormous opportunities to modernise the payments tech stack to support money movement worldwide and are investing in Thredd’s global platform for the long term. We look forward to unveiling our new future-focused products and solutions as they start to spin off the conveyer belt.”

This appointment follows hot on the heels of Thredd’s recent rebranding from GPS in April 2023 and reports of record sales growth in the Asia-Pacific region. In the last quarter, Thredd has won new business in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Singapore, further strengthening its dominant position in the next-gen B2B corporate expense management and marketplace segments. Thredd serves its Asia-Pacific-based clients from its offices in Singapore and Australia.

The rebranding to Thredd reflects the company’s pivotal role in weaving together the different ‘threads’ of the next-gen global payments ecosystem to drive the growth of electronic payments. With a new leadership team comprising industry veterans who understand the importance of balancing innovation with risk and compliance, combined with the backing of future-focused investors, this rebranding marks the next phase of the customer partnership and product innovation, bringing the aspirations of innovative payments visionaries to life.

Bob Kaufman, Founder and CEO at ConnexPay, said: “After five years building our solution to great success in North America, we’re excited to launch native currencies in Europe knowing that our solution is fit for purpose, global in scope and simply connects payments. We have worked closely with our key partners to ensure that what we are delivering is exactly what the market needs. ConnexPay is the only company in the world that provides an end-to-end payments solution all inside a single platform.”

He added: “We have shown our international customers that having both card issuing and acceptance as a single solution can significantly increase efficiencies and lower the costs of both accepting incoming payments and making cross-border payments. I’m thrilled to already have some innovative customers on board with the ability to issue in more currencies, helping these companies scale, as we scale, and continuing to work with them to bring their services to customers across the globe.”

Wolters Kluwer, a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services, has been named among the leading global providers of ESG Software in the inaugural and prestigious “Green Quadrant: ESG Reporting and Data Management Software 2023” report from Verdantix, an independent research firm.

The respected industry barometer provides a comprehensive, research-based comparison of the twenty most prominent Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) platform vendors in the world. Performances are assessed using Verdantix’s proprietary Green Quadrant methodology. The rigorous assessment comprises a two-hour live demonstration, with platforms tackling pre-set ESG scenarios in addition to the completion of a comprehensive 115-point questionnaire made up of 15 capability and 11 market momentum categories.

In addition to finding that Wolters Kluwer has the strongest market momentum among all vendors featured in the Green Quadrant report, Verdantix also attributed high scores to Wolters Kluwer in a number of categories including ESG and sustainability performance management, voluntary reporting, regulated and mandated frameworks and financial resources.

“Detailed, data-driven performance analysis, derived from our customers, is an important yardstick by which we measure our performance, and I am grateful to Verdantix analysts for their work on this detailed report,” says Karen Abramson, CEO of Wolters Kluwer’s Corporate Performance & ESG (CP & ESG) division. “This result indicates that we are uniquely positioned to empower change and deliver transformative data solutions which drive up standards of corporate responsibility. Our solutions improve workplace safety, enable global sustainability, fuel commerce, and ease regulatory compliance.”

“Corporates are facing an increasing amount of regulation and pressure from stakeholders. Reporting on ESG and sustainability metrics for environmental topics as well as social and governance issues is an absolute necessity,” according to Jessica Pranksy, ESG & Sustainability principal analyst, Verdantix. “Furthermore, ESG data management is more and more critical for corporates to make decisions on how they drive sustainability performances across their businesses and value chains. As a result, ESG reporting, and data management software has shifted from being ‘nice to have’ to ‘must have’ for many corporates.”

Wolters Kluwer CP & ESG, created in March 2023, harnesses four award-winning global, cloud-based software businesses whose combined reach provides industry-leading solutions. The division brings together CCH Tagetik, OneSumX, TeamMate, and Enablon, in a family of solutions which are driving up standards of corporate responsibility, workplace safety, global sustainability and regulatory compliance across multiple industry sectors. Wolters Kluwer’s CP & ESG’s award-winning Enablon EHS Software has also been frequently recognized as a world-leading solution, including featuring favorably in earlier Verdantix Green Quadrant research reports.

The new international acceleration program "Metaverse 4 Finance" – promoted by Sella and implemented by its Venture Incubator dpixel with the support of OGR Torino – has started. It identifies and supports international startups able to develop innovative solutions and technologies in the field of metaverse-applied finance.

The goal of the program is to accelerate startups with decentralized-native technologies based on blockchain protocols and hybrid applications to bring the benefits of web3 to enterprises, thus optimizing infrastructure and user experiences, as well as "as-a-service" solutions to redesign legacy applications based on the principles of web3 and blockchain.

"Metaverse 4 Finance" has four areas of application:

Technology – focused on technological solutions and decentralized infrastructures based on "low coding", digital identity, security by design, interoperability and artificial intelligence;

Legal & Data – targeting on-chain data analysis, tax reporting and compliance;

Products and Services – dedicated to AI solutions for the aggregate management of portfolios, augmented and virtual reality in B2B and retail, "blockchain as-a-service" solutions and business models focused on NFT and tokenomics systems;

Banking – aimed at solutions supporting web2 to web3 transition overcoming technological complexity to boost the user experience of the end customer.

For Whom

"Metaverse 4 Finance" is aimed at startups operating in the web3, with a defined core team, a clear value proposition, a prototype ready for market launch within 6-10 months and a TRL (Technology Readiness Level) greater than or equal to 6.

The stages and investment

The initiative develops into 4 phases over a period of 6 months: a first scouting & selection stage, during which the best startups will be selected, followed by a second moment of business acceleration to support the business plan and identify the 10 best entities.

Then the technical validation of the products and solutions of the selected startups will take place before moving on to matchmaking to provide the possibility of integrating the developed innovations in the processes of companies operating in the sector. The 5 best-accelerated startups will receive an investment worth €100,000 each from dpixel.

The novelty of the 2nd edition "Metaverse 4 Finance" concerns the involvement of international partners - such as metaverse factories, law and compliance firms, web3 communities, and tech companies specialized in decentralized finance solutions based on layer 2 protocols - providing startups with the needed tools, skills and support to accelerate their go-to-market.

The first edition of the recently concluded initiative recorded 117 applications from 26 countries and the final investment in 4 startups from the USA, United Kingdom, Romania and Switzerland.