Published
Haydn Lightfoot
Senior Director at Synechron Business Consulting
To see over a quarter of financial services firms making clear their intention to move either jobs or activity from London to another city in Europe is not a surprise. see more
- 02:00 am
SmartStream Technologies, the Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) specialist, today announced the release of Corona Retail Payments Control, its reconciliations and exceptions management product, capable of supporting a wide-range of retail payments to significantly improve operational efficiency for customers.
Managing retail payments remains challenging as many financial institutions are hampered by a lack of automation, relying on a mixture of spreadsheets, databases and paper processes. Corona Retail Payments Control automates reconciliations processing and exceptions handling, which will help clients reduce cost, mitigate risks, improve client value and deliver operational control across the entire retail payments transaction lifecycle.
The retail payments ecosystem has gone through a dramatic change in recent years, with wide-ranging payment methods that range from bank transfers, credit, debit and charge cards, as well as innovations such as e- and m-wallets, P2P payment, alternative payments, and digital currencies. As new technologies emerge, further disruption seems likely, whilst retail payment participants are striving to differentiate their offerings and to retain clients.
Christian Schiebl, Head of the Corona Business Unit at SmartStream, states: “The climate in which players are competing is exceptional while revenue per transaction is declining. Pressure from financial regulators is increasing all while card schemes, consumer protection bodies and fraud prevention agencies are all adding to the complexity and expense of doing business. Our solution provides full monitoring of the entire transaction lifecycle during the settlement of funds, charges incurred for services delivered, as well as inter and intrabank transactions – a total end-to-end solution, something the market truly needs at this crucial time”.
Dean Curtis
Managing Director at LexisNexis
Financial services firms are growing increasingly concerned over the mounting costs and reduced effectiveness associated with customer due diligence. see more
- 08:00 am
Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, is partnering with Veridos, a German company specializing in Identity Solutions, to supply contactless electronic identity cards (eIDs) to the Macao Special Administrative Region Government (Macao SAR Government). Under the collaboration, Gemalto is the subcontractor responsible for providing the physical cards, enhanced with security features and seamlessly incorporating Veridos' operating system software solution. The partnership will ensure a steady and consistent supply of smart eID cards to the government.
The new Macao eID cards are effective at mitigating fraud and counterfeiting activities. They are made from tamper-proof polycarbonate material, and incorporate two innovative security ID features from Gemalto: Window Lock and True Vision. These allow the authorities to verify the cards' authenticity with the naked eye and under a UV light – significantly enhancing regional security for the Identification Services Bureau of the Macao SAR Government, while offering Macao citizens' unparalleled convenience when accessing e-government services.
Macao is one of the world's top 20[1] tourist destinations. In addition to its own population of 600,000[2], Macao attracts an average of 2.5 million[3] international visitors on a monthly basis. This places a greater emphasis on identity management and enforcement, which has become a major challenge for all governments. With the widespread proliferation of internet connectivity and mobile devices globally, identity fraud and theft have been on the rise and need addressing urgently.
"We originally started a strong partnership with Veridos and Trüb back in 2013. Since Gemalto incorporated Trüb, this cooperation has been extended accordingly," said Elsie U Ao Ieong, Director of the Identification Services Bureau of the Macao SAR Government. "We are confident that our concerted expertise and efforts will give Macao the technological edge in identity card security."
"Using the contactless eID cards, Macao citizens can now enjoy a secure and hassle-free "tap and go" experience, thanks to the high security features, tamper-proof ID design, and contactless capability," said Fernando Dal Zotto, Senior Vice President of Government Programs at Gemalto.
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
- 07:00 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.”
- 05:00 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.
- 09:00 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.
- 05:00 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.
