Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. announced that Jabre Capital Partners, the global multi-strategy asset management company, has chosen Broadridge’s integrated trading, portfolio management, and risk management platform to help manage their front, middle and back-office operations.

Jabre will deploy Broadridge’s investment operations platform to manage its sophisticated, multi-asset funds. Broadridge’s fully integrated solution will enable Jabre to streamline and automate workflow around a complex array of traded instruments. Introducing these capabilities can help Jabre meet its pre- and post-trade compliance requirements while providing seamless connectivity to brokers and EMS platforms, and facilitating effective portfolio management and reporting. In addition, Jabre will have access to market and credit risk analysis through Value at Risk (VAR) and stress testing scenarios.

“We were seeking to replace our existing, locally installed systems with a new robust infrastructure that facilitated order management, portfolio management and risk management in a single platform,” said James Cleary, Chief Operating Officer at Jabre Capital. “It was key for us to have a system that is scalable and flexible to evolve with our business. Having done extensive due diligence in searching for the right solution, we found that the Broadridge service met these criteria and offered a comprehensive set of functions and reporting that we needed through a single platform, while also reducing operational risk and increasing cost efficiency across our business.”

“Broadridge is pleased to be working with such a long established and highly regarded hedge fund as Jabre Capital. Given recent regulatory changes and the challenging markets in which asset managers are now operating, we are increasingly seeing established groups replace their current infrastructure to ensure that they are appropriately equipped with an integrated, scalable and future-proof portfolio management solution,” said Mike Thrower, Managing Director, Head of EMEA Sales for Broadridge.  “Broadridge’s success in serving asset managers in Europe comes from more than just a strong technology offering — it is also due to our mature local hosting and support model, which, in combination with our global reach and scalability, is a powerful differentiator.”

Corvil has developed a cybersecurity solution specifically designed to address the unique security needs of today’s electronic trading businesses looking to solve escalating concerns over cyber attacks while demonstrating compliance with evolving regulations.

Powered by sophisticated machine learning algorithms, Corvil “Cara” acts as a virtual security expert that autonomously identifies vulnerabilities and possible attacks within trading environments that often process trillions of dollars’ worth of transactions daily.

In a backdrop where the US Securities and Exchange Commission recently cited cybersecurity as the biggest risk facing the financial system,¹ Cara is the first and only solution to bridge the gap that traditional security solutions have been unable to fill. Given the highly automated nature of electronic trading businesses today, there is a high sensitivity to performance impact. Cara is deployed with zero compromise to trading system and infrastructure speed, agility or performance, which is so intrinsic to the most successful electronic trading businesses.

Cara works by providing specialized protection for the trading environment in tandem with Corvil’s existing analytics appliances. It applies machine learning algorithms to determine and benchmark the normal behavior of activity seen on the network. It then runs multi-dimensional security analytics that detects patterns of compromise, and pinpoints the most important issues for investigation. Cara’s daily cybersecurity intelligence report includes a cyber risk assessment score consumable by c-level executives and outlines the insights required by CISOs and security teams for detailed forensic investigation and response.

Cara is the only security solution that discovers and makes sense of the specific user and business context of all trading sessions, market data streams and other traffic, thereby continually improving the relevance and quality of detected anomalies. This allows it to reduce the prevalence of false positives and provides contextual information that eliminates much of an analyst’s investigative workload by automatically running assessments that they would otherwise carry out manually. Reducing a security team’s investigation time means the ability to more quickly apply expertise to mitigate risk.

“Corvil is deeply embedded in the financial markets industry as our technology watches over electronic executed transactions with a daily value in excess of $1 trillion. We know data exfiltration, data privacy and mitigation of ransomware attacks remain a top priority for CISOs and c-level executives in the financial markets sector, and we are committed to leveraging our expertise and innovate to support their challenges,” said Corvil CEO, Donal Byrne. “We are confident that Cara’s ability will significantly bolster these businesses’ security posture which in turn will provide important assurances to boards of directors and stakeholders concerned with business continuity and risk management.”

Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, collaborates with Finnish-based financial services provider Enfuce to offer enterprises in the Nordics a rapid and cost-efficient deployment of ​​convenient and strong customer authentication using mobile devices. Enfuce has launched an innovative, cloud-based 'authentication as a service' solution, designed to make it simple for financial institutions, retailers and fintechs to secure their mobile applications. The solution is built on Gemalto's Mobile Protector Software Development Kit (SDK) and Confirm Authentication Server (CAS).  Users can decide to be authenticated for the transactions using a PIN code, fingerprint or facial recognition,

New authentication services deployed in weeks - with no start-up fees
Leveraging the comprehensive capabilities of the Mobile Protector SDK, Enfuce's customers can deploy highly secured mobile applications in a matter of weeks, helping them to comply with banking regulations such as PSD2. No start-up fees or investment in internal infrastructure is required and end users can quickly enjoy the benefits of secure and seamless payment and transaction authentication.

​

User-friendly two factor authentication now within reach of more enterprises
Gemalto Mobile Protector SDK provides Enfuce's customers with APIs, needed to embed security into their mobile applications, without requiring developers to master security principles. Enfuce delivers and hosts a hassle-free, 24/7 service, including white label solutions that can be tailored to individual corporate requirements. As a result, mobile two-factor authentication is now within reach of a wider range of enterprises. Initially targeting the Nordics, where it has already been sold, Enfuce plans to extend the service across Europe.

"The introduction of this ground-breaking 'authentication as a service' solution reflects our commitment to enable profound changes in the payment industry," said Monika Liikamaa, CEO for Enfuce. "By combining our extensive knowledge of the financial sector with Gemalto's authentication capabilities, we can offer a 'plug and play' service that leaves clients free to focus on core activities."

"Enfuce's innovative service is aimed at banks, financial institutions and any player who want to provide rich yet secure mobile applications to their customers without investing in heavy infrastructure. " said Patrick Kleuters, SVP  Banking and Payment Europe for Gemalto. "It offers an off-the-shelf option with the new PSD2 directive in mind relating to two-factor authentication."​

The Open Bank Project, leading API solution for banks, has partnered with Societe Generale Group, one of the largest European financial services groups, to hold an internal hackathon focused on Open Banking. 

The Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) and Bloomberg today announced that real-time foreign exchange rates from CCIL will be made available to India’s interbank participants via the Bloomberg terminal. 

Bank Leumi announced that Martin Droney has joined as Executive Vice President, Chief Operations & Technology Officer, responsible for overseeing the rapidly growing bank's technology infrastructure and operations. 

Kx Systems (Kx), a subsidiary of First Derivatives (FD) plc and provider of the industry-leading kdb+ time series database, and Vexata, the leader in high performance enterprise storage systems, announced record shattering results in independent testing by the Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC®).

With kdb+ running on Intel x86 multi-core processors using the Vexata Array with NVMe Flash SSDs, the solution set new records in 8 of 17 baseline STAC-M3™ benchmarks (the Antuco suite), and 14 of 24 benchmarks in the STAC-M3 scaling suite (Kanaga). The joint solution was able to achieve 36.8 GB/s of effective application-level throughput in bandwidth-intensive year-high bid tests. The solution also shattered existing records for several read-IO intensive queries like volume-weighted average bid, as well as balanced compute and IO workloads like statistical calculations.*

In the era of Big Fast Data analytics, kdb+ has set industry benchmarks for speed and stability in high performance applications. It is widely used in the financial services industry for trading and risk management platforms and across a range of markets such as manufacturing, pharma, the Industrial Internet of Things, utilities and retail which face similarly demanding data challenges. Kx is also at the forefront of the use of predictive analytics, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to drive operational intelligence and provide actionable insights.

The Vexata Array, built on Vexata’s breakthrough Real Time Architecture, enables Enterprises to realize an order of magnitude higher performance and scale from their Database and Analytics platforms. Vexata Arrays can be deployed simply and seamlessly into existing SAN environments and alongside existing storage. The Vexata Array is in production and available in a range of capacities at market leading economics.

Glenn Wright, Systems Architect for Kx added: “These results show the mutual benefits gained by placing the latest technology alongside kdb+. What stood out are the streaming I/O performance results, alongside some very good results for discrete market data set queries. This should be particularly appealing to those customers wishing to consolidate their market data on a single storage device being shared between multiple analytics systems, for example between different business functions or business units of an organization.”

Peter Lankford, Director of STAC, said: "Trading firms designed the STAC-M3 benchmark suite to represent a common set of performance-related challenges in financial time-series analytics. Competition requires capital markets organizations around the world to analyze more data in less time. This combination of Kx software and the Fibre Channel-based Vexata NVMe Flash Array established many new STAC-M3 records while running at large scale. “

Zahid Hussain, CEO of Vexata said: “We are very pleased to be working closely with Kx to provide a compelling high performance solution stack that enterprises can immediately deploy for their stock-ticker Analytics. The STAC-M3 results clearly showcase the unique performance benefits achievable through the Kx-Vexata solution.”

Mark Sykes, COO at Kx said: “Kx’s customers are always looking to increase performance for complex analytics on very large datasets. The approach taken by Vexata allows them to do this without the need for them to invest in a large storage system in order to achieve the results they want, lowering their total cost of ownership.”

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has successfully built and tested its most powerful universal quantum computing processors. The first new prototype processor will be the core for the first IBM Q early-access commercial systems. The first upgraded processor will be available for use by developers, researchers, and programmers to explore quantum computing using a real quantum processor at no cost via the IBM Cloud. The second is a new prototype of a commercial processor, which will be the core for the first IBM Q early-access commercial systems. 

Launched in March 2017, IBM Q is an industry-first initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computing systems for business and science applications. IBM Q systems and services will be delivered via the IBM Cloud platform. IBM first opened public access to its quantum processors one year ago, to serve as an enablement tool for scientific research, a resource for university classrooms, and a catalyst of enthusiasm for the field. To date users have run more than 300,000 quantum experiments on the IBM Cloud. 
  
With the introduction of two new processors today for IBM Q, the company is building the foundation for solving practical problems in business and science that are intractable even with today’s most powerful classical computing systems. The two new IBM-developed processors include:  
  
·  A 16 qubit processor that will allow for more complex experimentation than the previously available 5 qubit processor. It is freely accessible for developers, programmers and researchers to run quantum algorithms and experiments, work with individual quantum bits, and explore tutorials and simulations. Beta access is available today through a new Software Development Kit available on GitHub https://github.com/IBM/qiskit-sdk-py. 
  
·  IBM's first prototype commercial processor with 17 qubits and leverages significant materials, device, and architecture improvements to make it the most powerful quantum processor created to date by IBM. It has been engineered to be at least twice as powerful as what is available today to the public on the IBM Cloud and it will be the basis for the first IBM Q early-access commercial systems.·  A second experimental processor that has 16 qubits and will allow for more complex experimentation than the previously available 5 qubit processor freely accessible for developers, programmers and researchers to run quantum algorithms and experiments, work with individual quantum bits, and explore tutorials and simulations. Beta access is available today through a new Software Development Kit available on GitHub https://github.com/IBM/qiskit-sdk-py. 
  
"The significant engineering improvements announced today will allow IBM to scale future processors to include 50 or more qubits, and demonstrate computational capabilities beyond today’s classical computing systems,” said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president and director of IBM Research and Hybrid Cloud. “These powerful upgrades to our quantum systems, delivered via the IBM Cloud, allow us to imagine new applications and new frontiers for discovery that are virtually unattainable using classical computers alone.”

The inherent computational power of a quantum processor to solve practical problems depends on far more than simply the number of qubits. Due to the fragile nature of quantum information, increasing the computational power requires advances in the quality of the qubits, how the qubits talk to each other and minimizing the quantum errors that can occur. 

IBM has adopted a new metric to characterize the computational power of quantum systems: Quantum Volume. Quantum Volume accounts for the number and quality of qubits, circuit connectivity, and error rates of operations. IBM’s prototype commercial processor offers a significant improvement in the Quantum Volume. Over the next few years, IBM plans to continue to push the technology aggressively and aims to significantly increase the Quantum Volume of future systems by improving all aspects of the processors, including incorporating 50 or more qubits. Experts can learn more here: https://ibm.biz/BdiaQe. 

While technologies that currently run on classical computers, such as Watson, can help find patterns and insights buried in vast amounts of existing data, quantum computers will deliver solutions to important problems where patterns cannot be found because there isn’t enough data and the possibilities that you need to explore to get to the answer are too enormous to ever be processed by classical computers.

Future applications of quantum computing may include:  
-- Business Optimization: Providing improved solutions to complex optimization problems found in supply chains, logistics, modeling financial data, and risk analysis; 
-- Materials and Chemistry: Untangling the complexity of molecular and chemical interactions leading to the discovery of new materials and medicines;
-- Artificial Intelligence: Making facets of artificial intelligence such as machine learning much more powerful; or
-- Cloud Security: Using the laws of quantum physics to enhance the security of private data in the cloud. 
For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/ibmq. 
 

Who Will Be Who in the FinTech World?

Mobile banking and payments appear to be the main focus of the numerous (mainly small) FinTech companies that have raised funds – from a surprisingly diverse variety of backers – over the last three years. 

Welcome to the Financial IT 2016/2017 Pathfinder Ranking

What is happening in the world of FinTech is one thing. What will happen is another. To gain a clearer insight into how the FinTech universe will appear in three years time, we are developing the Financial IT 2016/2017 Pathfinder Ranking, a definitive listing of the 50 most promising new startup companies. Nominations have come from Financial IT’s community of readers, FinTech providers and subscribers. Given the pace of change, we have only accepted nominations for startup companies that came into existence in 2013 or later. Our Expert Panel, consisting of industry veterans, venture capitalists (VCs) and Financial IT’s senior editors and research analysts, will draw up the Financial IT 2016/2017 Pathfinder Ranking on the basis of the information gathered. 

We consider the following criteria:
• Uniqueness of the FinTech solution to a particular challenge
• Differentiating factors/Innovation points
• Stage of Development (early stage, bootstrapped, funded (Seed, A, B, C Rounds), IPO/Exit stage) - Coverage (geographic diversity and size of the market that is being addressed)
• Team, Background, etc. We will draw up a preliminary shortlist, and then engage with the companies on it before we produce the final Financial IT Pathfinder Ranking.

For now, though, we have ranked the 70 companies nominated on the basis of the average score for four main criteria and the quantity of funds raised. We have recognized 50 most promising fintech startups from the list and named them TOP 50. Those companies that didn’t receive the high scores and remained below the line were nominated as Rising Stars.

Over time, we hope that the Financial IT 2016/2017 Pathfinder Ranking will be revised and extended, so that it is seen as a crucial work of reference for the industry. Even at this early stage in the process, a number of clear insights are evident.

Key Takeaways:
• Most of the nominated Pathfinders are relatively small companies, with only 10 of the 70 having raised more than US$10mn. Most have no more than a few dozen employees and associates.
• Funding sources are varied.
• Although the Pathfinders come from a variety of countries, a disproportionately large number are based in the United States or the UK.
• It is not helpful to be categoric about the main area of interest of each of the Pathfinders. This is because there is often an overlap between the major elements of FinTech as Financial IT would see them. Blockchain often plays a key role in security/KYC solutions: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often a key element of mobile banking solutions, and so on.
• Nevertheless, about one-fifth of the Pathfinders have indicated that mobile banking and payments are their most important areas of focus.
• About one-seventh of the Pathfinders have indicated that AI is their most important area.
• Similar numbers are focusing primarily on each of block chain, data management/ core banking and investment/wealth management technology.
• Smaller numbers of the Pathfinders are focusing mainly on (micro)-lending, KYC/ security, and other areas.

Read The Final Report Here 

Top 50 Most Promising Startups

1      TOP50    Atom Bank
2      TOP50    Nubank
3      TOP50    Lemonade
4      TOP50    Monzo
5      TOP50    Beam Wallet
6      TOP50    SETL
7      TOP50    NYMBUS, Inc
8      TOP50    Token
9      TOP50    Yoyo Wallet
10    TOP50    Grow Financial Inc.
11    TOP50    Point
12    TOP50    ComplyAdvantage
13    TOP50    Data Republic
14    TOP50    Smartkarma
15    TOP50    Elliptic
16    TOP50    Mesitis Pte Ltd
17    TOP50    Trunomi
18    TOP50    Prive Services Limited
19    TOP50    Beehive
20    TOP50    Ovamba Solutions ("Ovamba")
21    TOP50    Qumram
22    TOP50    Coinify ApS
23    TOP50    B-Secur
24    TOP50    PensionBee
25    TOP50    Quantstore
26    TOP50    Pushfor
27    TOP50    ThisIsMe
28    TOP50    Earny
29    TOP50    Twisto
30    TOP50    Qonto (Olinda SAS)
31    TOP50    Valoot
32    TOP50    Veridu
33    TOP50    Splittable
34    TOP50    Equitise
35    TOP50    Thinknum
36    TOP50    Plutus.it
37    TOP50    Cendit
38    TOP50    Finimize
39    TOP50    Spotcap Global Services
40    TOP50    Bambu
41    TOP50    KyoLAB Limited
42    TOP50    Enterprise bot
43    TOP50    BlockEx
44    TOP50    bunq
45    TOP50    Ways2Wealth
46    TOP50    Configo
47    TOP50    SecurionPay
48    TOP50    BankEx
49    TOP50    Smartly Pte Ltd
50    TOP50    Everledger

Rising Stars 

     Rising Star    Market EarlyBird
     Rising Star    Abra
     Rising Star    Cashaa
     Rising Star    mergims.com
     Rising Star    Notakey
     Rising Star    Trriple
     Rising Star    Veridate Financial
     Rising Star    Bridg
     Rising Star    Credntia
     Rising Star    SDK.finance
     Rising Star    Cobalt DL
     Rising Star    PAYMAGNET.com
     Rising Star    Metamako
     Rising Star    Yoti
     Rising Star    Bluzelle
     Rising Star    Wala
     Rising Star    BlockApps, Inc
     Rising Star    baningo GmbH
     Rising Star    Card Switch
     Rising Star    MONI Ltd.

If you wish to nominate the company in our Pathfinder Ranking please send us your email request to surveys@financialit.net or call us at +44 (0) 208 819 32 53

Hanse Orga Group, the market leader in financial automation software, today announces that it has found agreement with Tembit Software, a provider of cloud and mobile payment applications for companies in the financial and corporate sectors, to join Hanse Orga Group. Tembit is also recognized for solutions in the areas of customer relationship management and healthcare.

Tembit Software offers strong and ERP-independent cloud-based solutions that enable customers to manage and execute large volumes of payment transactions in a secure and efficient manner. In combination with Hanse Orga Group's existing solutions, the joint FinTech company is able to offer an integrated set of solutions – both in the cloud and on-premise – around accounts receivable, accounts payable, payments, cash and treasury across different enterprise resource planning systems.

"Bringing together Hanse Orga Group and Tembit Software creates a FinTech company with unique secure payment capabilities which are a major benefit for to corporates and banks," said Sven Lindemann, CEO of Hanse Orga Group. He continued, "With solutions based both in the cloud and on-premise, coupled with the ability to work with different ERPs, we will extend our capabilities significantly, becoming the market leader in global cash management solutions."

Tembit Software was founded over 20 years ago, has offices in Berlin and Vienna and works with a multitude of customers including major banks and large corporates. The founders of Tembit will remain active shareholders in the group and the current leadership team remains in place to lead the future development of Tembit within the joint group.

"The acquisition brings clear benefits to both companies.  We will be able to access the Group's broad geographic coverage particularly in the US and EMEA enabling us to better serve the corporate and banking sectors.  And our innovative cloud technology will strongly contribute to building the next generation of cloud-based solutions within Hanse Orga Group," said Ingo Czok, Managing Director and founder of Tembit Software.

Hanse Orga Group has a long tradition of automating and managing global cash flows and payments.  Since last year, Hanse Orga Group has been backed by the private equity growth investor, Waterland, which supports Hanse Orga Group’s ambition to become the leading FinTech company in the financial automation space. Tembit Software joining the Group is a continuation of this strategy and follows the acquisition of SOPLEX Consult, a credit and receivables management solutions provider, in November 2016; Dolphin, a leading provider of process automation and data management solutions for SAP customers; and e5 Solutions, the US market leader for implementation and support services as well as software add-ons for SAP's Treasury Applications, both in May 2017.