Published
Chris Skinner
Chaiman at Finanser
I got a very interesting heads-up yesterday to a campaign the European FinTech start-ups have kicked off to try and stop the big, nasty banks screwing them with their version of PSD2. I’ve previou see more
- 08:00 am
Overbond, the first end-to-end Capital Markets fintech platform for primary bond origination, has unveiled its new Corporate Bond Intelligence Tool (COBI) Swap Pricing calculator with advanced analytics and visualisation.
The digital tool helps treasurers more effectively evaluate funding costs in multiple currencies and markets simultaneously.
Overbond’s COBI Swap, powered by Thomson Reuters data, is the first institutional-grade swap calculator that is offered industry-wide to fixed income capital markets participants.
The proprietary tool has been developed in response to the 40 percent surge in Canadian corporations issuing bonds offshore in the U.S. and Europe, equating to $157 billion in 2016 alone, and then swapping back into Canadian dollars – a trend examined in Overbond’s new “Cross-Border Bond Issuance Dynamics” study.
The COBI Swap enables corporate treasurers to better navigate structural changes in the fixed income market, access offshore bond markets, and achieve lower funding costs, along with natural hedge capabilities and funding diversification.
“Timely and accurate swap pricing is an essential tool that enables treasurers to more opportunistically access international markets to meet their debt funding requirements,” said Vuk Magdelinic, CEO of Overbond. “This app is a continuation of our fresh, innovative, and transparent approach to providing bond market participants with a diverse offering of critical capabilities and insights. We are pleased to offer this new technology industry-wide as an open platform, accessible on a non-subscription basis.”
Advanced features include real-time swapped equivalent rates for prospective new issues, instantaneous computation of CAD and USD single currency interest rate and cross-currency swap rates, and interactive swap curve visualisation for seamless comparison of implied funding costs against different benchmarks and in multiple markets. Overbond’s COBI Swap is unique in enabling a user to price up to five swaps in different tenors and rate types simultaneously. The app also provides the facility to download and export reports.
At launch the COBI swap pricer calculates USD/CAD swaps and will be expanded within weeks to include USD/EUR, a feature which will significantly benefit U.S. corporations.
- 08:00 am
Baker Hill, a leading provider of technology solutions for common loan origination, risk management, relationship management and smart data analytics, announced today that Vancouver, Wash.-based iQ Credit Union has selected its Baker Hill NextGen Business Intelligence solution to gain deeper insights into their products, branches, staff and members to support continued growth.
For several years, iQ Credit Union has experienced consistent growth in membership, loans and assets, currently maintaining just under $1 billion in assets. To sustain its outstanding business performance, the credit union sought to optimize its use of data to strengthen member relationships, increase wallet share and identify additional opportunities for growth. With Baker Hill NextGen™ Business Intelligence, iQ Credit Union will transform data into strategy, giving the credit union a clearer view of their members’ needs, empowering the credit union to drive highly-targeted marketing offers and enhance the member experience.
The Baker Hill NextGen™ Business Intelligence solution integrates all of a financial institution’s data to provide a complete visualization of profitability, delivering critical insight into an organization’s products, services, employees and account holders. This comprehensive perspective enables financial institutions to analyze, present and deploy targeted, strategic marketing and communications to increase profit and reduce risk. The solution helps banks and credit unions expand market share and ultimately, add value to each relationship.
“The more knowledge we have about our members and how they’re using our products, the better we can provide them with the services that best fit their needs, which is our top priority,” said DeWayne Ledbetter, senior vice president and chief financial officer of iQ Credit Union. “The actionable insight this solution provides will be particularly valuable as we expand and enhance the products we provide our members. With Baker Hill NextGen™ Business Intelligence, we are confident in our ability to execute dynamic marketing strategies and uncover opportunities for growth based on data.”
“We developed the Baker Hill NextGen™ Business Intelligence solution to help financial institutions maximize their potential and maintain a competitive advantage by leveraging one of their most valuable assets - data. With a comprehensive, data-driven view of a financial institution’s performance and profitability, executive leadership can make smarter business decisions for strategic planning and growth,” said Naseer Nasim, CEO of Baker Hill. “We believe iQ Credit Union’s strong, organic growth will only be enhanced through the increased visibility our solution delivers.”
- 03:00 am
Unveiling another beautifully-designed, integrated point of sale (POS) solution for small to midsized businesses, Verifone, a world leader in payments and commerce solutions, announces Verifone Carbon 8, an affordable, smaller, and more portable POS solution and newest member of the Carbon family.
“When portability is more important and space is limited, we now have Carbon 8, which we see in the hands of on-the-go merchants for hotel checkout, pay-at-the-table, curbside assistance and other portable and mobile use cases,” said Glen Robson, EVP, Global Head of Solutions, Verifone. “This latest innovation comes after last year’s introduction of our award-winning category killer Carbon 10, which strikes a perfect balance for those merchants who want a large countertop display with portability when they need it.”
“Verifone is working with its partners to deliver on payment security, EMV and mobility so that their retail clients can focus on their businesses and serve their customers,” said Thad Peterson, Senior Analyst, Aite Group. “Carbon 8 is a good example of the way POS is evolving, providing merchants with a multifunctioning and integrated system that can be customized for vertical applications and is adaptable to changing consumer expectations.”
The Verifone Carbon series is powered by the Intel® high-speed chipset for fast processing to run and integrate any POS software and third party applications. Designed with dedicated merchant and consumer facing tablets for optimal business management and consumer engagement, Carbon will have access to the Verifone App Marketplace where merchants will be able to discover, purchase and install commerce apps and customize their device to personalize the customer experience.
Carbon won the 2017 iF DESIGN AWARD which was presented by Hannover-based iF International Forum Design GmbH, Germany’s oldest independent design organization.
- 04:00 am
Today we are thrilled to launch Empower, a new app that allows you to take control of your money and make smarter financial decisions.
Design
Data
Each of us at Empower has felt the frustration of banks doing a poor job of presenting the data or other apps with poor data quality simply getting our data wrong. Inaccurate data leads to bad recommendations. It is that simple. We have worked hard to change this paradigm. We know we will not be perfect from the beginning, but we believe we will be a hell of a lot better than the status quo and we have architected our system to learn as our users interact and structure their own data.
Action
Ultimately, the biggest difference we can make to our users is real change — allowing them to take action based on what they learn from Empower. For this reason, our app doesn’t allow you to just see data, but actually take action within the app. Users can transfer money between >1,000 banking institutions (much faster than would a normal bank) and set up automated savings from each paycheck. Soon, we will be launching an intelligent AutoPay for credit cards and student loans.
As a small team, we are very proud of what we have created and immensely grateful to all our beta testers for helping to shape the product we are launching today.
Empower is now available on the App Store. We are committed to continuing to build out the most powerful app for giving you control of your money. So please join us, don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback, and help us make money pain free.
- 03:00 am
GoldenSource, a leading independent provider of Enterprise Data Management (EDM) and Master Data Management (MDM) solutions for the securities and investment management industry, today announced that Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. (Oppenheimer), a US registered broker-dealer, is using GoldenSource hosted services in connection with its institutional entity data management platform.
“Oppenheimer is committed to administering a robust and effective AML program. Maintaining a comprehensive and accurate view of our institutional clients is a key component to managing an efficient platform.” said Peter Giordano, Managing Director, Oppenheimer.
- 03:00 am
Deloitte Luxembourg has developed KYCstart (pronounced “Kick Start”), a new proof-of-concept to perform customer on-boarding using Distributed Ledger Technology.
In this model, KYC Added-Value Services Providers are regulated entities that are authorized to perform Know-Your-Customer (KYC) procedures for communities of users who want to enter in business relationships with various businesses such as banks, insurance companies, funds, asset servicers, and administrations.
Customers directly control to whom they share their personal information and documents, keeping track of these authorizations in the distributed ledger using smart contracts.
Deloitte Luxembourg has extended the core KYC platform developed by Deloitte’s EMEA Blockchain Lab to demonstrate a comprehensive ecosystem for fund investors based on a DLT platform, which puts new regulated entities in the picture. This PoC demonstrates the power of the Deloitte Labs to build technological and functional bricks that can be reused by other member firms globally to showcase disruptive business and operating models.
The way it works
Thibault Chollet, Blockchain Leader at Deloitte Luxembourg explains: “With this proof of concept and related eco-system, we demonstrate the benefits of using Blockchain and smart contract to considerably reduce the costs of one of the most important burden of our institutional clients: KYC and customer on-boarding.”
While these procedures can already been externalized, they still must be performed each time a customer is willing to enter in a new business relationship with an institution. At the level of a market or an industry, it means that the same checks are repeated several times for the same customer. The responsibility of performing those checks still currently remain at the level of the institution that is required by law to oversee.
“Providers can now rely on specialized entities to delegate and mutualize the KYC and AML/CTF procedures, reducing the cost of both onboarding and ongoing monitoring,” continues Maxime Heckel, Director at Deloitte Luxembourg specializing in KYC services.
He adds that Deloitte will start providing “KYC as-a-Service” to financial institutions as of mid-2017. KYCstart will be one of the proposed counterparty on-boarding channels for the service.
- 02:00 am
nCino, the worldwide leader in cloud banking, today announced that CrossFirst Bank has deployed its Bank Operating System to enhance operational efficiency and the customer experience in the bank’s commercial loan process.
Amy Fauss, chief operating officer at CrossFirst Bank, said, “Leveraging nCino’s Bank Operating System enables us to confidently meet increased loan demand with more speed and productivity by reducing our reliance on paper and empowering employees to close loans more quickly and efficiently than before.”
“As we continue to broaden our presence, we remain focused on providing excellent service to our customers in every part of their financial lives,” added Tom Robinson, chief credit officer at CrossFirst Bank. “With nCino, we’ve found a true partner that enables us to streamline and automate our entire loan process, in addition to providing expanded capabilities that allow us to better know and serve our clients. This equates to elevating the customer experience, even as we take on new business.”
nCino’s Bank Operating System grants CrossFirst Bank visibility into the lending process from beginning to end. By offering a more comprehensive view into the individual loan as well as the broader portfolio, the bank has proper data intelligence across business lines to monitor opportunities and performance.
“Banks cannot afford to sacrifice customer service for the sake of scale, which means investing in technology that is sustainable to both experience and growth,” said Paul Clarkson, senior vice president of community and regional financial institutions at nCino. “With nCino’s Bank Operating System, CrossFirst Bank has realized a level of loan process transparency and efficiency that allows employees to communicate faster and more accurately, while keeping up with the demands of a growing portfolio and customer base.”
- 08:00 am
Financial technology start-up, SamePage, which aims to simplify the entire loan application process for the finance sector by providing an entirely digital customer journey, has officially launched.
The platform is designed to deliver a highly-automated process, reducing costs for lenders while minimising the completion time for the borrower. An on-line self-service portal, supporting fully customised branding, provides the borrower with real-time updates on the progress of their application.
On launching the business, Director of Product, Sales and Marketing, Rob Evans, added: “Our objective at SamePage is to develop solutions that enable financial organisations to simplify processes and transact seamlessly and cost effectively with their customers. The platform is suitable for start-up organisations as well as established financial institutions looking to upgrade their existing systems and improve their customer journey.”
Company Director Gavin Johns added: “We are excited about the benefits SamePage offers this sector. Our model is entirely focused on ease of integration, reducing traditional implementation time, which averages at 3-6 months, to less than a month. The platform will also provide a range of ready integrated third party services, such as credit reference agency, electronic signatures and open banking APIs, allowing our customers immediate access to both traditional and new technologies and service providers.”
Rob Evans has over 25 years of experience in consultancy and proposition development in the lending, investment and insurance sectors and has previously worked with Barclays, Fortis and LV=. Gavin Johns has over 24 years’ experience, spanning both financial and telecoms sectors and has supported blue-chip clients worldwide, including AT&T, O2 Telefonica and Vodafone.
- 08:00 am
A strategic data agreement between Thomson Reuters and S&P Global will deliver the industry’s most comprehensive transcript data service to financial services professionals.
Under the agreement, S&P Global Market Intelligence (a division of S&P Global) will become a major provider of transcript coverage on both public and private companies including complete coverage of companies in the S&P 500® and other leading stock market indices to users of Thomson Reuters desktops platforms including Eikon, Thomson One and Thomson Reuters feeds.
S&P Global Market Intelligence is a leading provider of multi asset class research and data, and Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk provides solutions to the global financial community - delivering critical news, information and analytics, enabling transactions and connecting communities of trading, investing, financial and corporate professionals.
“We are excited to extend S&P Global Market Intelligence’s robust and industry leading transcript data to Thomson Reuters customers,” said Mike Chinn, President of S&P Global Market Intelligence. “This arrangement speaks to the growth and depth of our data, which is critical for customers who rely on the most comprehensive information to meet their business needs.”
As part of this agreement, S&P Global Market Intelligence has increased the company coverage for both Thomson Reuters and S&P customers and added several new tagging fields for transcripts within the Event Driven Alerts (EDA) delivery. This will provide clients with enhanced robust search options, making it easy to identify the information required for analysis.
“Customers of both of our companies will benefit from our agreement with S&P Global Market Intelligence,” said Pradeep Menon, Managing Director, Global Head of Investment and Advisory, Thomson Reuters. “Providing best-in-class services remains our key priority and we are delighted to work with S&P Global Market Intelligence to continue to enhance our transcript, audio, and presentation offerings to better serve our customers.”
S&P Global Market Intelligence will deliver its transcripts and events data to Thomson Reuters in a machine-readable format through its EDA platform. Additionally, final transcript documents and historical events data will be delivered through Xpressfeed, S&P Global’s flagship feed delivery platform. S&P Global Market Intelligence performs extensive quality checks with a high commitment to accuracy and timeliness on all transcript data. The transcript data covers specific earnings conference calls, guidance/update calls, sales/trading calls, special calls, shareholder/analyst days and annual board meetings.
“The industry needs accurate, cost-effective, transparent solutions that enable market participants to conduct global business with the utmost confidence,” said Danielle Tierney, Senior Analyst at Aite Group. “What S&P Global and Thomson Reuters have done here is to create a solution that meets a growing market need. I am excited to see the innovations that will result from this data agreement.”
