Published
- 08:00 am
Moneymailme has appointed Mark Bolsom as Business Development Director. Mark joins Moneymailme from Western Union, where he led a 50-strong FX services team for five years. Before Western Union, Mark spent five years at Travelex as Head of Corporate Dealing.
Mark’s appointment comes as Moneymailme prepares to launch a new product for the B2B market, which will help SMEs with international payments by charging low and explicit fees. The product will help automate a range of payments and currency exchanges in order to deliver simple, transparent and fast transactions for SMEs globally.
This follows Moneymailme’s recent Merchant Payment launch, designed to let small retailers avoid big transaction fees and offer a convenient e-payment solution for customers.
Mihai Ivascu, Moneymailme CEO, said: “Mark’s addition to the team will be instrumental in Moneymailme’s growth and his experience will help us expand rapidly in the UK and across Europe. We see the money transfer market continuing to evolve on a global scale and it is important for us that our proposition is able to attract the highest calibre of talent in the industry. Mark comes to Moneymailme at an exciting time as we increase our presence in London and look to capitalise on the wealth of opportunities that the UK has to offer for businesses like ours.”
Mark Bolsom, Business Development Director at Moneymailme said: “I was ready to leave the murky opaque world of the money transfer incumbents to join an exciting payments startup. Moneymailme’s proposition for both consumers and businesses meant the company stood out for me against its competition. I believe that efficient consumer-centric financial tools are the future of the payments industry and it is the new, fast and inexpensive customer experience that I want to help drive forward by helping grow Moneymailme.”
- 01:00 am
Today Nasdaq is launching an innovative new market feature, Auction on Demand – designed to fulfill MiFID II transparency requirements.
During the spring, the service has been extensively tested and the reception among members has been very good.
“We are happy to support Nasdaq on the launch of Auction on Demand,” says Sven Andersson, Head of Electronic Execution at SEB. “We believe that the service will help us handle large orders in a better and more efficient way. With MiFID II just around the corner, the need for trading services compliant with the new regulatory landscape is strong, and we believe that Auction in Demand is one of the better ways to be prepared.”
Some product highlights include an innovative price discovery mechanism, unique internal (broker)/size/time priority and multiple safety features.
“After several months of hard work by the Nasdaq team, I am proud to finally hit the launch button for Auction on Demand,” says Henrik Husman, Vice President, European Cash Equities at Nasdaq. “We believe that there is a demand for a trading service that incorporates internal priority and other innovative features into an periodic auction model ready for a post MiFID II trading landscape. The strong group of members and ISV’s supporting the service from launch is a strong indication that we have made the right assessment.”
Auction on Demand will be available for trading in shares on Nasdaq Stockholm (including Norwegian shares), Nasdaq Copenhagen, Nasdaq Helsinki and Nasdaq Iceland as well as ETF’s and investment funds on Nasdaq Copenhagen.
- 07:00 am
Ebury, one of the fastest growing fintechs for corporate cross-border payments and growth lending, today announced four new hires across its’ European offices; an office opening in Athens and the completion of moves to larger offices in Paris and Warsaw in June this year.
The four new hires will provide local support to corporate clients in each region. This includes specialised services for lending, payments and foreign exchange risk management. All new hires will report to the CEO in London, Juan Lobato.
Gianluca Carfagnini, Italy Country Manager, will be responsible for overseeing the Italian team in London, the opening of the Milan office, as well as expansion in the region. He has over 15 years of experience in financial services, including various management roles at Banca Imi, BNL bank, Uni Credit and Banca Intesa.
Nils Hennemann, Commercial Director for Germany, will manage teams in Hamburg and the opening of the Dusseldorf office. Nils has over 14 years of experience in financial services. Prior to this Nils was at HSBC in Germany and previous to this at Deutsche bank, working in corporate FX management roles in both organisations. He is also currently a lecturer at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
Menne Mennes, Managing Director for Benelux, will oversee the sales teams for Belgium and the Netherlands, managing client expansion in the two regions. He will also be responsible for moving into larger premises in the centre of Amsterdam and will manage the opening of a new Brussels office, later this year. Prior to this role, Menne was at McKinsey, in a management role, previous to this he was a dealer with the Ministry of Finance, Dutch State Treasury Agency.
Celso Fernandez, Director of Corporate Development. Celso has spent 12 years in financial services, including working for SegurCaixa Adeslas and McKinsey both in Madrid, including various corporate management roles in each organisation. He also has an MBA from Harvard in strategy, technology and operations innovation.
Juan Lobato, CEO and co- founder of Ebury, says: “We have an excellent group of individuals that make the team; it is our people that make the business right. All of the new country managers have outstanding capabilities and will help us execute our rollout plans for Ebury. The new European offices will bring Ebury’s innovative solutions to businesses that trade internationally, empowering them to expand even further globally. Our vision for the company is exciting, with new markets, new countries, new capabilities and the best people to serve corporate customers with a high level of quality and professionalism”.
- 07:00 am
MFS Africa and Paga announced today the launch of their partnership connecting Paga users and Nigerian bank account holders to remittance senders from around the world. Thanks to this collaboration, anyone with a Paga wallet can receive transfers from millions of other mobile money users across Africa, or from any money transfer operator connected to the MFS Hub.
“Together with MFS Africa, Paga is linking millions of mobile wallet users and bank account holders for seamless transactions across networks and across borders.” said Jay Alabraba, co-founder and Director of Business Development of Paga. “People typically think of remittances into Nigeria in terms of flows from Europe and the Americas, but there’s over $3 billion USD a year coming in just from the Nigerian communities in Benin, Niger and Cameroon - countries that are right next door to Nigeria. By joining the MFS Hub, we make it easier for Nigerians in the diaspora to send money back home and we also enable them to pay directly for utility bills, goods and services in Nigeria. We look forward to growing our relationship with MFS Africa in the years to come. This is an important partnership for enabling seamless digital payment for Nigerians at home and abroad.”
Paga has made waves in Nigeria and headlines around the world for its innovative and disruptive payments scheme. In Nigeria, unlike most African markets, mobile network operators are not permitted to offer financial services. And although banking penetration is over 20%, there is still a strong need for alternative, simpler payment services and financial inclusion. Paga today has over 6.4 million users and a network of nearly 12,000 agents across Nigeria. The Paga wallet is available to any Nigerian with a phone through Paga’s *242# USSD code, and it is integrated into the country’s financial services infrastructure so that users can instantly send to or receive money from other phone numbers or bank accounts.
“For the last few years, everyone has been looking to the Nigerian market, wondering when and how mobile money would take off,” said Dare Okoudjou, founder and CEO of MFS Africa. “There’s an obvious opportunity here and Paga’s commitment to the market and innovative approach to execution will guarantee we make the most of it. They’ve built an impressive agent network, merchant ecosystem, and user base. We’re excited to finally welcome Nigeria onto the MFS Hub with Paga, and to connect more and more of our mobile network and money transfer operator partners to Paga’s users.”
- 06:00 am
What can banks do to dramatically increase new credit cards issued or the number of mobile banking users?
Banks worldwide seem to be struggling with this challenge. Even though online banking penetration is growing, only 7 to 11% of customers use specific bank’s products. An average bank has about 30-50 particular products, but only 2 to 3 of them are used by clients – meaning that up to 90 percent of bank products can remain unused.
However, one European bank, OTP banka Hrvatska, was able to achieve impressive customer engagement and conversion results within four months: number of clients using prepaid Mastercard increased by 12.8%, while the number of Visa Web Prepaid cards increased by 9.5%. 16.1% more clients signed up for mobile banking services in addition to current desktop-only usage.
Over 30% of clients linked their Facebook accounts to the program, and over a half updated their contact information (email and phone).
Despite the common opinion that gamification works only for the young segment, the largest group of participants was in 30-40-year-old category. 87% of participants engaged in and completed at least one challenge with an average 13.3 challenges per participant.
“We started using Challenger platform,” said Dražen Božić, director of Retail Banking in OTP banka Hrvatska. “It’s a new system that was able to motivate our customers to overcome various subjective barriers so they can start using our products. The reasons for client reluctance to use specific products include lack of product awareness or simply the lack of motivation. While some products are indeed not a good fit to certain clients, the majority of customers simply have no information, or have doubts, fears or certain habits. With Challenger, we started to change that.”
While banks use traditional promotional methods to engage their customers - such as e-mail, text messages, product discounts and personal calls - Challenger Platform by Enga Systems engages clients to learn about company’s products through gamification, as well as direct communication and social networking.
The bank’s OTPetica Program based on Challenger platform led clients step by step, motivating them to inquire and learn. This strategy worked to stimulate their curiosity – as opposed to current market practices to simply offer something to clients, such as “get a new card and earn points.”
A participant could be rewarded with points and instant prizes after each challenge completion, and could exchange earned points to real-world rewards provided through OTP bank’s partners.
Basically, OTP banka Hrvatska used prizes to stimulate learning and product knowledge.
“We are especially proud that we are not promoting client consumption increase, but behavior change through learning about possibilities of our products and even getting client's feedback on topics important to us. We believe this teaching process will create stronger bond between us and the clients - and not just because of rewards. What is challenging for us now, after production, is how to stay fresh, interesting and fun for future days, which will be in focus for our team in the upcoming period,“ said Dražen Božić, director of Retail Banking in OTP banka Hrvatska.
The goals set for the Challenger program include increase of product penetration, digital channel usage, customer loyalty and financial literacy as well as the engagement of customers to discover more bank services.
- 01:00 am
NEX Regulatory Reporting, a NEX Group business which provides regulatory reporting services across worldwide regulatory regimes, and Duco, the global provider of self-service data normalisation and reconciliation services, today announce that NEX Regulatory Reporting is to use Duco’s technology to provide MiFID II reconciliation to their clients.
Collin Coleman, CEO of NEX Regulatory Reporting, said: “What sets us apart in the market is our understanding of both regulation and technology and our strong focus on the end-to-end experience. By working with Duco, we will be able to scale fast and provide our rapidly growing client base with strong independent verification based on best-of-breed technology - all up and running long before the January 2018 deadline for MiFID II.”
Christian Nentwich, CEO of Duco, said, “Duco Cube is particularly suited to the high volume, high complexity requirements imposed by MiFID II. Many of our clients rely on Duco Cube for regulatory reporting reconciliations under EMIR and MiFID today, and we are pleased to bring this technology to a wider audience in partnership with NEX Regulatory Reporting. This collaboration is a good example of the modern API economy and the rapid time to market provided by combinations of Software as a Service offerings.”
- 02:00 am
Cardtek, a leading global payment technologies provider, today announced that it is collaborating with NXP Semiconductors to deliver the first nationally sanctioned mobile wallet solution for the United Arab Emirates.
Cardtek will provide the payment infrastructure, mobile industry knowledge, operational services and product enhancements to support the empay platform. NXP will manufacture and provide the NFC controller and secure element (SE) necessary to allow UAE consumers to utilize the service on wearable devices.
“empay will stand as a significant benchmark in the marriage between payments and wearables, and offer a blueprint for how an entire nation can securely modernize its payment processes - from retail and transit, to ticketing and government services,” said Ayşe Sarıgöllü, Executive Chairwoman of Cardtek. “For the first time, consumers will have an integrated platform that offers quick access to number of retail and service options directly from a wearable device, without being tethered to a particular phone manufacturer, telephone company, or third-party provider.”
As a part of the Dubai Government Smart initiative, empay will bring together a number of service providers - including banks, government departments, retailers, educational institutions, and transportation companies - into a common platform where consumers are easily able to access and pay for services from a single mobile wallet. empay will ultimately enable UAE consumers to make retail payments, initiate money transfers, and pay for government utilities - like telecommunication and school fees - all from a single mobile wallet using either an “active” wearable or another multifunctional mobile device.
“Active” wearables include a battery and a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connection, in addition to a NFC interface. This allows communication to the cloud via a mobile phone or “companion device” - enabling multiple applications to be dynamically and Over The Air (OTA) provisioned on the wearable device. This technology results in the richest possible user experience, where the consumer is able to virtualize all of their personal contactless cards on their wearable device.
“As co-founder of NFC technology and expert in security solutions, NXP is committed to providing secure, convenient and scalable solutions to enable tap-to-pay experiences for mobile devices and wearables alike,” said Jean-Claude Denniel, Marketing Manager for the Secure Transactions and Identification business at NXP. “empay is a fantastic example of multi-service implementation on a wearable device platform that is easy to implement and service for the provider and most intuitive to use for the consumer.”
"We are extremely excited about this partnership with NXP semiconductors and Cardtek for payments through wearables,” said Muna Al Qassab, the CEO of Emcredit Limited. “Through the empay initiative, we aim to offer UAE citizens a radically improved payment experience. This turn key solution will allow empayconsumers to enjoy the convenience of accessing their mobile wallet on the go - simplifying the entire payment journey with hands-free convenience.”
- 08:00 am
AxeTrading, a provider of fixed income trading technology, has announced a strategic investment of €2 million from Illuminate Financial Management LLP, a venture capital firm backed by Deutsche Börse Group and IHS Markit amongst others with a specific focus on capital markets financial technology.
The strategic investment will enable AxeTrading to continue to expand its global client base for fixed income liquidity aggregation - as concern over market fragmentation continues to rise. According to a 2016 Greenwich Associates Survey of more than 400 credit investors in the U.S. and Europe in 2016, over 80% felt that reduced market liquidity is impacting their ability to implement their investment strategy.
The capital injection will also bolster AxeTrading’s buy-side offering at a time when buy-side requirements in fixed income markets are growing significantly. A recent State Street poll of asset managers found that 49% agreed that the role of non-bank institutions as providers of liquidity will continue to grow - highlighting the need among these institutions for more advanced trading technology solutions.
As part of the investment, Mark Whitcroft, Partner at Illuminate Financial has joined the Board of Directors.
AxeTrading was co-Founded by Ralf Henke, CEO, who has over 15 of years of experience building fixed income electronic trading solutions for companies such as at JP Morgan whilst he was managing director of iCubic; Dinos Daborn, who has over 25 years in financial markets including roles at Citi and Bloomberg; and Mark Watters, who worked at Bloomberg for 17 years, including two years running the buy-side fixed income trading sales group for Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Mark Whitcroft, Partner at Illuminate Financial Management LLP comments: “With a strong and highly experienced leadership team, AxeTrading are well placed to solve key challenges for fixed income market participants today; Liquidity fragmentation, regulatory compliance around MiFID II and the growing need to drive greater efficiencies across trading workflows. The investment aligns well with our vision of investing in firms with a developed product offering and a clear, validated use case”
Dinos Daborn, Co-Founder and COO of AxeTrading comments: “The partnership with Illuminate Financial positions us well to capitalise on the ongoing fixed income market structure disruption, as a result of which we are seeing significant demand for trading solutions that effectively aggregate market information and support best execution,”
- 04:00 am
Applications invited by July 17 on www.fintech71.com
British entrepreneurs are being offered the chance to develop financial services ideas in one of the top financial regions in the US, with a $100,000 (£77,000) equity-based grant and a package of support for growing businesses.
The initiative aims to bring up to twelve of the most promising emerging financial companies in the world to Ohio and help them boost their growth beyond the start-up stage. Equity-based grants of $100,000 per firm plus coaching, office space, visa support and a strong business network are all being provided through the accelerator Fintech71.
Valentina Isakina, Managing Director for Financial Services and Select HQ Operations at JobsOhio, said: “Ohio looks ahead to the future by investing in technologies of the next generation. Our financial services sector is one of the strongest in the world, and it is always actively seeking innovative ideas and partnerships. Here people are more approachable and doing business is easier, so these innovative companies will have a better chance to blossom into the financial stars of tomorrow. JobsOhio is happy to support this innovative industry effort.
“Getting beyond the start-up phase is always difficult even when entrepreneurs have a great idea and have managed to get their business going, so the financial services industry wants to give them a helping hand by creating Fintech71. By bringing them here to enjoy Ohio’s support and hospitality, they will make contacts that will last a lifetime and benefit everyone.”
Fintech71 is aimed at start-up and scale-up businesses from all over the world which have matured enough to present a well-thought-out concept to test with a corporate partner or a market-ready business model. The application deadline is July 17 via www.fintech71.com.
The accelerator has a not-for-profit model and will negotiate a customised, entrepreneur-friendly equity-based participation in exchange for a grant of US $100,000 and access to the accelerator program for each of the selected companies. The finalists will be invited to the state capital Columbus to receive coaching from leading experts of the industry from mid-September to mid-November, in order to further develop their business ideas.
Additionally, the selected start-ups will get the opportunity to build relationships with the sponsor businesses, which are well established in Ohio and throughout the USA, and to network with mentors, partners, and customers. The selected start-ups will have access to free office space in the city centre of Columbus, with foreign businesses will be supported with their visa application.
Some 270.000 people, nearly the size of NYC’s workforce, work in the financial industry in Ohio, one of the largest in the USA. Ohio is also an innovative and successful hub for a large number of other industries, including automotive, aerospace, mechanical engineering, and chemicals. The state is among the top five US states for Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 headquarters.
Fintech71, named as a nod to the cross-state highway I-71 connecting Ohio via its three largest cities, is backed by leading enterprises, banks and insurers from Ohio, like KeyBank, Huntington Bank, Grange Insurance, Progressive Insurance and Kroger, the largest food chain in the USA. JPMChase is also supporting the program, leveraging its large technology presence in Ohio. JobsOhio, the innovative non-profit economic development corporation, is supporting Fintech71’s operations along with its industry expertise, state and national contacts.
“Fintech71 and Ohio are ready to compete on a global scale given the alignment of the state, the private sector and its entrepreneurial ecosystem”, added Matt Armstead, the executive director for the accelerator.
- 01:00 am
MeaWallet today announced that it has signed a License Agreement with a large Tier 1 Card Issuer. MeaWallet will be responsible for installing and setting up the solution in the customer’s local datacenter. Through this agreement, the Card Issuer can provide digital- and mobile wallet services to their four million card holders, supporting four card schemes – local scheme, Mastercard, Visa and American Express, as well as the converged wallet service Masterpass.
This is the first project where MeaWallet will be delivering digital cards running on the American Express network, positioning the MeaWallet as one of the most complete Token Hubs in this industry.
This new partnership confirms MeaWallet’s market position as one of the world leaders in providing flexible mobile payment solutions – offering both a managed service solution as well as in-house software-based solutions. MeaWallet will continue to develop and grow its innovative solutions to support all major Card schemes and mobile payment solutions to meet issuer and business needs of today and well into the future.
Lars Sandtorv, CEO at MeaWallet, explains how MeaWallet has achieved this unique position: “MeaWallet is paid for its focus on technology, product, and our agility and ability to adapt to changes in the market. We have evolved with the market.” Furthermore, MeaWallet is one of very few companies supporting both tokenization and digitization for the following three major card networks, namely: Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
MeaWallet was selected as vendor after a thorough selection process; a five-month process that included more than ten vendors. Lars Sandtorv, the CEO of MeaWallet: “We are proud to be selected, this is a big case for MeaWallet. Due to this opportunity, we can prove our capabilities and attraction to Tier 1 players.”
The expectation is to go live with the first phase late this year, the following phases of the project will be delivered in 2018.
MeaWallet’s solution will maintain certification with Mastercard and Visa, and will be American Express certified during 2017.
