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  • 07:00 am

Equifax, the consumer and business insights expert, and Castlight, the leading financial capability company, have formed an alliance with Oakbrook Finance, the owners of consumer loan brand Likely Loans, to develop new products for the 2018 Open Banking initiative.

Under Open Banking, bank transaction data will play a crucial role in lending decisions. Lenders will have access to real-time and historic account and transaction information, boosting transparency when reviewing loan applications. Products currently in the pipeline as part of this collaboration will capture bank transaction data and use this to build characteristics of the individual applying for a financial product, providing a clearer picture of a borrower’s financial position and reducing friction in the customer application process. 

Jake Ranson, Banking and Financial Institutions Expert at Equifax, said: “Open Banking will radically change the way people assess their finance options and financial companies have a responsibility to ensure a smooth transition into this new environment. Since the start of this year, Oakbrook has been utilising the Castlight Affordability Passport tool with Equifax data integrated, and we look forward to building on our relationship with Castlight to develop products that will help the industry use this new data for the benefit of the end customer.” 

Martin Leonard, Chief Operating Officer at Castlight, said: “This alliance is an important step towards offering those with poor or flat credit files the opportunity to access finance. By using information drawn from bank transaction data, lenders such as Oakbrook will have a more accurate view of a person’s financial capabilities and be better placed to assess their risk level, while maintaining a smooth customer experience.” 

Tim Waterman, Chief Analysis Officer at Oakbrook Finance, said: “As 2018 fast approaches, we’re preparing for the opportunities created by the Open Banking Initiative. Equifax and Castlight are ahead of the game in the development of Open Banking products that enable lenders to access transaction level data in a seamless way. This is an important alliance for Oakbrook as we continue to work hard to ensure we’re making the most responsible lending decisions for our customers.”

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  • 03:00 am

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.”

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  • 03:00 am

Torstone Technology, the leading provider of post-trade securities and derivatives processing, today announces plans to expand in Europe with the appointment of Paul Phillips as Head of European Sales, and Paul Mundy as Product Manager, both based at Torstone’s London headquarters.

These senior appointments have been made in response to increased demand among Torstone’s client base who are required to enhance their post-trade processes to meet increasing regulatory requirements in the UK and Europe. 

Paul Phillips joins Torstone Technology with over 20 years’ experience in financial services technology, most recently as Head of Strategic Business Development and Key Account Management, EMEA, at Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). Prior to this, Paul held a number of senior roles globally with SmartStream Technologies and DST Systems.

Paul Mundy joins Torstone Technology from Broadridge Financial Solutions, where he was responsible for managed asset servicing solutions. Prior to this, Paul worked at Barclays Investment Bank overseeing asset services operations and technology solutions, and Smartstream Technologies as a senior consultant on corporate actions and reconciliations.

Commenting on the appointments, Brian Collings, CEO, Torstone Technology said: “Expanding our European team is a key part of Torstone’s global strategy. It will enable us to further strengthen our support for UK clients’ post-trade operations, especially as firms prepare for the MiFID II go-live in less than 8 months’ time. We will benefit greatly from Paul Phillips’ extensive market and regulatory knowledge and his business development experience, as well as Paul Mundy’s technical and operational expertise.”

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  • 03:00 am

Tradeweb Markets, a leading global provider of fixed income, derivatives and ETF marketplaces, announced that BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Societe Generale are among the latest clients to join Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan in selecting its Approved Publication Arrangement (APA) service. 

The Tradeweb APA allows firms to meet pre- and post-trade transparency requirements across all instruments under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II).

“We are pleased to see an increasing number of major banks opting to join the Tradeweb APA service. Their commitment provides further assurances that, as part of the largest portion of the off-venue market, their flow business will be aggregated and therefore blended, resulting in a complete view of the reported market activity. We are also working closely with lead Order Management Systems to ensure that the buy-side clients we are engaged with benefit from a seamless and standardized workflow,” said Simon Maisey, MD, global head of business development at Tradeweb.

Eleven leading banks have so far committed to using the Tradeweb APA. The firm launched its APA-early facility in December last year to enable firms to connect and test well ahead of MiFID II implementation. In addition to post-trade reporting solutions, the facility will offer a robust Tradeweb pre-trade transparency service to help market participants determine if they are subject to reporting requirements, as well as meet the pre-trade SI obligation to make quotes public.

“Regulators are providing more clarity around pre-trade reporting obligations, such as ESMA’s recently published RTS regarding the treatment of package orders. We therefore expect that, despite the delay to the SI regime to September 2018, market demand for a holistic reporting solution will continue to accelerate. This is why we remain flexible and continue to update our pre-trade API specification to meet our clients’ changing needs,” Maisey added.

Nick Lovett, Managing Director and Global Markets, Chief Controls Officer at Credit Suisse, said: “Developing an effective and cost-efficient MiFID II implementation plan is a key regulatory priority this year and using this service is one way that we can help meet our reporting requirements under this directive.”

Bradley Bilgore, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, said: “We identified Tradeweb as our strategic partner from the early stages of our search for an efficient and flexible reporting solution. They have created a production-like environment, which is designed to enable comprehensive testing to ensure our compliance with this landmark regulation, while preventing premature information leakage, for our security and for the security of our clients.”

Frédéric Jeanperrin, Head of Market Regulatory Adaptation & Management at Societe Generale, said:“Societe Generale is pleased to join the Tradeweb APA service. Given Tradeweb’s strong track record in delivering comprehensive regulatory compliant solutions, we are confident that their service will be ready well ahead of the MiFID II deadline enabling Societe Generale to meet its reporting requirements on January the 3rd, 2018.”

Tradeweb submitted its application to the FCA to be authorized as an APA as soon as registration opened on 30th January. The firm is also heavily involved with industry discussions and solutions aimed at addressing the ISIN challenge for OTC derivatives, through membership of the DSB Product Committee.

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  • 02:00 am

Recently, Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay, the world’s top payment solution providers have unveiled a standardized quick response code (QR) for payments in Thailand. This step enables the country’s transition to a cashless society that is aligned with the Bank of Thailand’s cashless agenda driven by innovation. 

In order to pay, holders of MasterCard, Visa, or UnionPay can use a mobile application with a standardized QR code to scan merchant presented QR-code. This solution works on both smartphones and feature phones. Now, citizens of Thailand can enjoy more alternatives to pay electronically, without sacrificing security and convenience.

In addition, the standards are intended to be globally and with the right mobile application consumers will be able to use the same standard QR code to make payments everywhere the standards have been adopted.

Mr. Donald Ong, Country Manager, Thailand and Myanmar, Mastercard commented: “The launch of the Standardized QR Code signals exciting times for Thailand as consumers move quickly to adopt new payments technology. Our own research, for example, shows that 50% of young consumers across South East Asia would use the QR code straightaway, and we believe this reflects the demand in Thailand. This demand will grow further as the technology is rolled out at small shops across the country, and includes bill payments and cash on delivery as well. Developed in line with global standards, this QR code solution means Mastercard users have even more peace of mind, as well as extra convenience when paying for goods and services. This is yet another strong offering as Mastercard supports Thailand’s evolution towards a cashless society.”

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  • 01:00 am

Ancala Partners LLP (‘Ancala’), the independent mid-market infrastructure investment manager, and The Peel Group, one of the UK’s leading private real estate investment and infrastructure companies, today announced a joint venture to establish an independent multi-utility operator to be named Leep Utilities (‘Leep’).

Ancala has acquired a 50% share in part of Peel’s existing utilities business, which owns and operates a range of private and regulated ‘last mile’ electricity, water and district heating utility assets. The new entity will provide a platform offering a complete utilities solution to new residential and commercial developments.

Peel’s current multi-utility platform has over 2,000 connections to homes and businesses, including MediaCityUK, intu Trafford Centre, Liverpool Waters and Liverpool International Business Park.  The business is licensed by Ofgem and Ofwat to own and operate electricity and water networks within the group’s portfolio.  Leep Utilities will build on these foundations by continuing to provide and expand its offering to Peel developments, whilst bringing much-needed competition in the market for utility connections to new UK commercial and domestic schemes. 

Spence Clunie, Managing Partner, Ancala Partners LLP, commented:

“Peel has a high quality utilities team in place that has been backed by The Peel Group, one of the foremost real estate enterprises in the U.K. This team will be augmented by the deep utilities and investment experience that exists in Ancala.  This is another example of how we proactively source platforms that add value for our investors.”

Steven Underwood, Chief Executive, The Peel Group, said:

“We are delighted to have reached agreement with Ancala Partners on the creation of Leep Utilities.  The launch of this exciting new venture is directly aligned with our strategy of securing high-quality partners to invest alongside Peel for long-term growth and to enhance the prospects for our key infrastructure and real estate investments.”

David Glover, Operations Director, The Peel Group, and Chairman of Peel Utilities, added:

“Our utilities team have worked incredibly hard to establish a strong position in the marketplace.  This partnership with Ancala now offers exciting opportunities for the future which will build on our achievements to date.”     

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  • 09:00 am

iMarket Communications, a premier telecommunications provider specializing in trader voice and data solutions for the financial, banking and energy industries, and GreenKey Technologies, creator of an artificial intelligence (AI) and voice-driven collaboration tool for financial market participants, today announced an interconnection partnership. 

The companies have seamlessly integrated their networks and can now provide end-to-end services to their mutual customers. This partnership will provide their financial industry users with access to private wire clients using traditional hardware trading turrets (dealerboards).

Dennis Costello, President of iMarket Communications, said: "iMarket is dedicated to bringing our customers leading-edge voice and data communications connectivity options that will integrate with service platforms available to them today and in the future. Trading firms are faced with financial realities and with technological opportunities such as GreenKey, and we are able to provide our customers with the ability to trade no matter where they currently are on the technology curve.”

Nader Shwayhat, Chief Executive Officer of GreenKey, said: “We are thrilled to be partnering with well-established firms such as iMarket that share a reputation for service excellence. They enhance GreenKey’s ability to deliver our unique voice interface, speech recognition tools and unified collaboration offerings to the broadest possible base of global financial customers. We are particularly excited that this partnership also allows mutual customers to access our new GreenKey Scribe offering by directly translating any voice quote or order captured over an iMarket line into a MiFID II compliant electronic record without any re-keying.”

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  • 07:00 am

Fidor, the innovative provider of digital banking and fintech solutions, further strengthens its leadership team by announcing today the appointment of Brad Whittfield as Global Chief Financial Officer. This is a newly created role within the Fidor Group and will be based in the Dubai, UAE - Fidor Solutions’ central hub for its global expansion. 

Whittfield is a Chartered Accountant and qualified lawyer who brings 15 years of international finance experience to the Fidor Group. He has held senior positions within KPMG and PwC and has operated across Asia-pacific, Europe and, most recently, the Middle East and Africa. 

Whittfield has extensive experience in the financial services sector having advised many of the leading global financial institutions and private equity firms. He has also played a key role in advising on a number of high profile fintech acquisitions including businesses operating in digital banking, mobile wallets and digital payments. Most recently, Whittfieldwas Chief Financial Officer of a recently launched fintech business operating in the digital payments space in the Middle East. 

His focus at Fidor will be to oversee the current global financial operations of the Group which includes Europe, the US, Asia and the Middle East, as well as help execute the Group’s ambitious global expansion plans.

Matthias Kröner, CEO and Founder, Fidor Bank and Fidor Solutions comments, “The appointment of Brad demonstrates the investment of the Fidor Group to further strengthen its executive team in supporting its global expansion strategy. The role of CFO is a key role to any fintech as it focuses on ensuring both growth and sustainability.”

Brad Whittfield newly appointed Global CFO, Fidor added, “Fidor is globally recognised as a leader in the fintech and digital banking space. The Group has experienced some phenomenal growth during the last 12 to 24 months and I am very pleased to be joining this dynamic team as the Group looks to continue its global expansion strategy.”

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  • 05:00 am

Misys has stepped up to the artificial intelligence (AI) plate, today unveiling Misys FusionCapital Detect. The component helps financial institutions spot booking errors, anomalies and unusual activity, accelerating trade validations and reducing exceptions with machine learning.

FusionCapital Detect behaves as a smart personal assistant for validation teams, red flagging probable mistakes that are otherwise time consuming to identify. Users can catch errors that existing tools on the market let through, reducing operational risk and preventing manual mistakes that lead to decisions being made on the wrong profit and loss information and incorrect end-of-day reports.

“This is an exciting first step into the AI world for us,” said Nadeem Syed, CEO at Misys. “We’ve been able to harness these capabilities to build a system which delivers more insight and control in a fast-paced trading environment and we have already seen positive results with an early adopter global bank. This advanced technology boosts efficiency, saving costs, and can also be applied with longer term revenue growth in mind.”

Being able to validate transactions at T+0 has become crucial in today’s pressurised regulatory environment, including under:

•             The European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR): which makes it necessary to identify errors as soon as possible in order to confirm trades within 24 to 48 hours.

•             The Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB): which requires daily risk reports – unidentified trade errors will invalidate these reports, breaching compliance.

Joséphine de Chazournes, Senior Analyst at Celent said, “Manual intervention and pre-coded controls have gone some way to helping reduce errors in the trade processing sphere but neither do enough to reduce the burden, especially as regulatory demands continue to add pressure in capital markets. AI stands to be a strong catalyst in transforming the landscape and Misys is making a smart move with FusionCapital Detect.”

The Misys component thrives on vast quantities of structured data where consistent patterns of trading behaviour can be deduced and then monitored. Machine learning, based on a mix of open source algorithms and proprietary developments, ensures continuous evolution of the tool to follow moving trading patterns. 

FusionCapital Detect is available now. It is built on Misys FusionFabric technology and integrates with all core trade capture and validations systems.

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