Published
- 02:00 am
Paysafe, a leading global payments provider, announces it has teamed with Google to be one of the first Payment Service Providers (PSP) to launch in-app Android Pay capabilities to its merchants in Canada.
Android Pay offers a fast, simple and secure way for shoppers to use their Android phones with the use of a digital card for purchases in-app and in-store without pulling out a physical wallet.
Android Pay was built as an open platform for developers to add to mobile commerce apps. Paysafe will offer its Canadian merchants the ability to process in-app payments using Android Pay by providing them with required Application Programming interfaces (API) and a Software Development Kit (SDK) to support this function.
Google’s VP of Payments, Pali Bhat commented: “We’re excited to bring the simplicity and security of mobile payments to Android users in Canada with the help of companies like Paysafe. Starting today, Paysafe’s Canadian merchants will be able to provide their shoppers with the option of checking out with Android Pay through their mobile apps.”
- 05:00 am
Kuwait-based Path Solutions, an international core banking system provider for Islamic banks and financial institutions, has announced it has received the GoodAccredited Standard for the seventh consecutive year.
The GoodAccredited Standard is awarded each year to solutions and services that meet a high quality standard. Commenting on the accreditation, Mohammed Kateeb, Group Chairman & CEO of Path Solutions, said, “We are thrilled to have achieved the GoodAcredited Standard for the seventh year in a row, as the only Arab company to feature on this prestigious list since 2011. With 100% focus on the Islamic finance sector, particularly retail and investment banks and microfinance institutions, we have invested deeply in the iMAL suite spanning digital and Omnichannel solutions, portfolio and fund management, and trade finance solutions. iMAL plays a large part in the bank’s future growth, enabling it to improve its operational efficiency and, together with an integrated architecture and cutting-edge technology, demonstrates its value as a trusted core banking system to support the strategic alignment of goals as well as innovation and increasing market share”.
The world’s leading Islamic banking system designed for the new banking landscape - iMAL supports various Islamic instruments while offering the following features:
• Compliance with Sharia and IAS
• 360-degree customer view
• Complete transaction lifecycle support
• Innovation and development of new Islamic products
• Fully parameterized and flexible profit calculation to manage multiple pools and products
• Enterprise-wide information relating to regulatory reporting and risk management
• Multi-currency, multi-branch enabled accounting backbone
• Support for Islamic accounting and complete traceability for audit
• Single-layer integration for all data-sources and service repositories
• Platform flexibility, unmatched scalability and cost efficiency.
This announcement follows Path Solutions’ double-award win at ACQ5 Global Awards 2017 for ‘Core Banking System Provider of the Year - Islamic Finance’, while its cutting-edge iSHRAQ*Microfinance was selected as ‘Sharia-Compliant Microfinance Solution of the Year’ for the third year running.
The GoodAccredited Standard is organized by Systems in the City, a single source of reference for UK-based regulated companies researching computer services, data feeds and third party clearing. Systems in the City is maintained by Goodacre, the leading specialist consultancy firm operating within the financial services sector.
Path Solutions is now nominated for the Systems in the City Awards which will be announced during a Recognition & Celebration Luncheon at the Merchant Taylors Hall on Thursday 13th July.
- 02:00 am
Numerix, the leader in risk technology today is proud to announce it’s been recognized with two prestigious honors in this year’s Global Capital Americas Derivatives awards. Jim Jockle, CMO of Numerix accepted the awards for Analytics Vendor of the Year and Best Risk Management, Pricing and Valuation solution on behalf of the company at the gala dinner hosted by Global Capital on May 25th in New York City.
Over the past year, Numerix introduced a more robust UI and application framework built on top of its real-time platform for pricing and risk analysis, Numerix Oneview. As many institutions have unique workflow operations in terms of how they tackle business requirements, software solutions must be designed to expose different elements of a technology architecture specific to the use case an end user wants to define, or the business challenge they wanted to solve. This prompted Numerix to embrace more of a microservices approach where elements of the Numerix Oneview architecture have been decoupled to give greater flexibility. This has opened a range of new opportunities for the Numerix client base.
“As we’ve grown from our origins as a pricing library company, we’ve never forgotten our analytics foundation, which remains our key differentiator. Today, we’ve solidified our place amongst the most dynamic trading platform technology providers. This is not only because of our analytics DNA, but due to the new technologies and flexible tools we’ve leveraged that enable clients to utilize different elements of our technology stack in unique ways specific to their business needs,” said Steve O’Hanlon, Chief Executive Officer of Numerix. “This has introduced new functionality to our clients both through the application level and through the direct interaction with elements of the architecture.”
Numerix has also embraced market standard domain scripting languages like Python to be able to provide interfaces and empower end users to interact with the analytics in very specific, bespoke ways. This has enabled users to leverage the defined user experience of Numerix Oneview alongside their customized workflow, in addition to the greater flexibility and diverse applicability of Python extensions.
O’Hanlon concludes: “Our goal is to help financial services users solve business problems, and our overall business services focus – with business user workflow and standardized UI technologies, has enabled us to quickly adapt our technology to end user workflows for their own business needs. We’re very proud of this award and thank Global Capital for selecting us as the vendor solution that has most demonstrated innovation in analytics and technology developments.”
Lee Murphy
CEO at Pandle
Starting a small business is tough. Establishing and maintaining that business is tougher. see more
- 01:00 am
Flywire, a leading provider of international payment solutions, today announced that it has acquired PACE Invoice, a multi-currency invoicing platform provider based in London. With the acquisition, Flywire adds international invoicing to its cross-border payments and receivables services, enabling its business, education and healthcare clients to more easily link invoices to cross-border receivables, saving time and costs in invoice preparation and payment reconciliation.
The move comes on the heels of Flywire’s recent expansion into the cross-border payment market for businesses. PACE Invoice CEO James Shattock will join the company and lead expansion efforts in the UK and Europe for that new business segment.
“This acquisition fills a growing need for clients across all our industry sectors – business, education and healthcare,” said Mike Massaro, CEO of Flywire. “Cross-border invoicing is challenging and by enabling these capabilities within our platform, we will further enhance our already industry-leading cross-border payment solution in the market. We’re also very pleased to be able to say that James Shattock and the entire PACE team will join us to capitalize fully on this great opportunity.”
“This is a great move for us – joining a dynamic, fast-growing company like Flywire where our offering is highly complementary and will be quickly integrated into the international payment and receivables platform Flywire has built,” said Shattock. “Our invoicing capability meets an important cross-border business need for their customers and can help accelerate Flywire’s expansion, especially in the B2B market. We’re really excited to be part of that.”
Flywire provides educational institutions, healthcare providers, and businesses with the ability to offer customers a highly-tailored, international payment experience – customized by country, currency and vertical. It also provides businesses with the ability to manage international receivables, while ensuring robust compliance and anti-money laundering controls are applied to every transaction.
PACE enables businesses to issue invoices to their international customers which can be paid in ways that are convenient and familiar to the customer, making prompt, accurate payments easier while reducing currency exposure. The PACE Invoice platform integrates with existing enterprise accounting systems and offers a white-label web interface for client branding. Flywire will offer the invoicing capability as an option with its cross-border payments and receivables platform – providing end-to-end management from invoice delivery through payment reconciliation.
Pace Invoice is an alumni of Startupbootcamp FinTech London, an accelerator program supporting early-stage tech companies with direct access to an international network of the most relevant mentors, partners, and investors in the FinTech industry.
- 07:00 am
Intellect Design Arena Ltd, a digital technology product provider across Banking and Insurance, announced the successful rollout of Intellect’s Quantum Collateral Management Solution at Sveriges Riksbank, the oldest Central Bank in the World.
Sub optimal collateral utilisation and liquidity management have been serious challenges in the credit and open market operations of Central banks.
Counterparties in various countries should have flexibility to seamlessly mobilise a wide range of collateral held with multiple custodians to secure multiple credit operations and intraday liquidity in LVPS (RTGS) system. Central bankers encounter several challenges in managing this. They need sophisticated systems that not only take care of the checks and controls, but also the exceptions management as well as self-correction capability so that liquidity management is efficient.
The second set of challenges arises in terms of the risk of exposure and covering the exposures derived from various credit facilities extended by Central Banks. Fast changing global economy and markets forces Central Banks to implement changes to existing policies or craft new policies fairly quickly in order to cover such exposures or to support the financial system.
The third challenge is that liquidity arrangements for real time credit/settlement are not fully integrated with the depository, collateral systems and market data providers. Oversight officers are usually unable to get the enterprise-view of credit and collateral positions of financial institutions.
Given the above, Central Banks land up making investments into manual reconciliations and risky manual processes.
Riksbank chose Intellect’s Quantum Collateral Management Solution (QCMS) for its sophisticated functionality to cover the exposures resulting from various credit facilities efficiently. QCMS comprises of multi dimensional collateral management using multiple collateral pools and comprehensive security eligibility controls to maintain securities of multiple currencies held in multiple depositories. The solution provides flexible integration of domestic CSDs, Cross Border and International CSDs as well as Tri party and Agency Arrangements. This superior collateral solution has inbuilt automated collateral registry, risk management framework, eligibility check, mobilisation, revaluation, reporting & margin calls. Thus, QCMS has been able to facilitate real time reassessment of the pool, generation of margin call and security release for Riksbank.
- 02:00 am
Since announcing the new Business Intelligence FX Performance Insights tool at Sibos 2016, SWIFT has extended the offering beyond G16 broker-dealers to now provide this service to the wider financial community.
Designed primarily to support major market players, the FX Performance Insights service is now available to any FX Market participant. With over 8,000 financial institutions, such as global and regional banks, central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and more than 2,000 investment managers and corporates handling confirmation messages, there is a growing market need for fact-based FX market data. Each day more than 800,000 (MT 300) messages are sent across SWIFT to confirm FX Spot and Forward trades. SWIFT is also the de facto platform used for FX Option confirmations with over 1,000 institutions sending MT 305 messages.
Market data within FX Performance Insights reports is derived from SWIFT messaging that supports the legal confirmation process for global FX markets. The FX transactions confirmed over SWIFT cover more than 133 currencies across 219 countries and territories, representing a broad and comprehensive view of FX market activity worldwide.
“The golden copy of FX global market data is very difficult to acquire,” says Fabian Vandenreydt, Global Head of Securities Markets, Innotribe & The SWIFT Institute at SWIFT. “Most information is based on surveys and local data from an institution’s proprietary trading sources. SWIFT has access to a unique set of FX data points based on message traffic flows. When this raw data is aggregated and packaged together with our analysis and insights, it becomes an invaluable tool for FX players, globally.”
In September 2016 HSBC became the first customer to use the service, and since then customer demand for this type of information provided by SWIFT has grown exponentially.
- 08:00 am
FinTech Hive at DIFC, the region’s first FinTech accelerator launched by Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) earlier this year, has received over 100 applications from more than 32 countries for its inaugural programme.
The accelerator programme, launched in partnership with Accenture, brings together the next generation of technology leaders and entrepreneurs to address the needs of the region’s financial services industry. An intensive evaluation and shortlisting process will start now. DIFC, Accenture, and partnering financial institutions will assess the applications based on whether the proposed innovation is unique, fills a gap in the market and meets industry needs. The top applicants will be shortlisted and interviewed, from which up to 10 finalists will be selected on 11 July 2017. The programme then formally begins on 21 August 2017. Following 12 weeks of mentorship and co-working sessions with leading local and international financial institutions, successful applicants will get to present their work in the form of a demo day among potential investors.
Raja Al Mazrouei, Acting Executive Vice President of FinTech Hive at DIFC, said: “We are delighted that Fintech Hive at DIFC has attracted applications from startups in the UAE and across the world. With more than $23.2 billion invested in global FinTech deals in 2016, the programme is filling a considerable gap in the market by linking innovative tech thinkers to financial industry leaders in an ecosystem that accommodates the full supply chain. We are encouraged by the high calibre of applications, and we are confident that FinTech Hive at DIFC will accelerate innovation in the region and will put us on par with other FinTech hubs around the world.”
From the financial services industry, the successfully shortlisted applicants will have the opportunity to be mentored by leading executives from Citi, Emirates NBD, Emirates Islamic, HSBC, Mashreq, RAKBANK, Standard Chartered, and Visa, as well as senior representatives from DIFC Authority and Accenture. Technology mentorship will also be available from Facebook and Envestnet | Yodlee. In addition, the finalists will be able to move around Dubai with ease, with Careem, the region’s leading app-based car booking service, participating as a transportation partner.
Speaking on the importance of partnerships, Sushil Saluja, Senior Managing Director for Financial Services in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Latin America at Accenture said, “Given the significant interest that this programme has garnered, it is evident that innovative thinkers and established industry leaders are eager to create strong ties. Both have recognised that mutual collaboration is the key to unlocking a world of cutting-edge solutions, which may otherwise not have been possible without critical mentorship. With the potential to create game changing technologies for the financial services industry in areas such as big data, blockchain, and wireless payments - this is an exciting space.”
- 04:00 am
In the Nordic region, both businesses and consumers have inadequate IT security.
Danes have the least secure passwords, Norwegians know the least about IT security, Swedes have the most risky behaviour on the internet, and fewer than a third of Finns read the fine print when they sign an agreement on the internet.
These are some of the results of a large new survey of IT habits among the populations in the four Nordic countries. More than 8,000 people from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland took part in the survey.
“There is actually great interest in IT security in the Nordic region,” says Poul Otto Schousboe, Head of IT Security at Danske Bank, “but unfortunately, it has not made our behaviour on the internet safe enough - far from it.”
With “Keep it safe”, Danske Bank will give everyone the opportunity to test the quality of their IT security, among other things. Danske Bank will also provide a great deal of concrete advice about how you can increase the odds of keeping criminals out of your digital home. For example, you can see how to construct a password and whether it is appropriate to re-use it on multiple websites.
“We are aware that many people want to tell us how we should behave on the internet in the battle against cybercrime,” continues Poul Otto Schousboe. “Unfortunately, this effort has not succeeded well enough yet, since we can see that cybercrime is a rapidly growing problem and knowledge about IT security in the Nordic region is hardly good enough.
“Because we can see in this survey that there is great interest in IT security, we believe that with the ‘Keep it safe’ programme, we can cut through the noise and really help people raise the level of their IT security. We use humour, tests and a familiar approach to communications to make the subject more relevant.”
- 04:00 am
CSD Working Group on DLT, an association of Central Securities Depositories working on developing reference products using Distributed Ledger Technology, has released product requirements for the proxy voting business case during the International Securities Services Association (ISSA) Operational Committee meeting in London on April 24, 2017.
1. Functional requirements for the process, described as a minimal viable product aimed at a generic market, and extension functionality that covers specific local needs of the markets in Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Chile, Nordic and Baltic countries.
2. Non-functional requirements.
3. Trust requirements, enabling to provide the value typically associated with DLT-based solutions.
4. Baseline data entities, roles and their access rights.
The document aims to provide a complete description of a reference product for proxy voting - one that can be used by business in most markets worldwide. The priorities of the working group were to capture the business value of using DLT in the field of proxy voting without completely reworking established business practices.
The document has been produced by the working group during the period between October 2016 and April 2017 and involved collaboration between NSD, Strate (South African CSD), SIX Securities Services (European ICSD based in Switzerland), Nasdaq (CSD in Nordic and Baltic region) and DCV (CSD of Chile). The presentation to the ISSA Operational Committee in London on April 24th was the first public reveal of the document.
The group is continuing to work on the business case of proxy voting on DLT. Future updates of the document will be focused on:
• business value distillation for infrastructure operators and market participants,
• standardization and formal alignment with the existing market practices and ISO20022 standard,
• extensions for more markets worldwide.
