Published
- 01:00 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.
- 06:00 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.”
- 01:00 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.
- 03:00 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.”
- 04:00 am
Broadway Technology, a leading provider of high-performance software and infrastructure for global financial institutions, announced today that it has closed a $42 million minority investment led by Long Ridge Equity Partners.
The financing will accelerate Broadway’s growth into new global markets and will allow the company to further expand its world-class product and service offering.
Founded in 2003, Broadway provides mission-critical trading solutions for top global, regional, and national banks, brokers, and hedge funds. Leveraging its core technology platform, the TOC, Broadway’s solutions handle over $100 trillion of trading volumes annually within the fixed income and foreign exchange markets.
Broadway’s unique combination of next-generation fintech applications and unifying infrastructure enables its clients to adapt to dynamic competitive and regulatory trends. The TOC, Broadway’s data-oriented architecture, enables seamless integration of legacy software systems, unprecedented visibility into and control over enterprise data, and a wide range of large integrated business applications.
“We are excited to partner with Long Ridge as we enter our next phase of growth,” Broadway CEO, Tyler Moeller, said. “We chose Long Ridge as a partner due to their unparalleled expertise in capital markets technology and strong track record of investing in leading financial technology firms. Long Ridge’s capital and strategic support will enable Broadway to accelerate our global expansion and continue our rapid growth, while delivering powerful new functionality and top-tier services to our existing customers.”
“Broadway provides industry-leading FX, fixed income, enterprise, and regulatory technology solutions to the world’s largest financial institutions” said Kevin Bhatt, Long Ridge Partner. “The company is well positioned to take advantage of a rapidly evolving capital markets landscape with its advanced, flexible solutions and world-class development capabilities. We look forward to working closely with the Broadway team as they continue to penetrate new and existing geographies, customers, and asset classes.”
Long Ridge’s prior experience investing in the capital markets technology space includes Portware, Liquidnet, Currenex, and FXCM. In connection with the investment, Jim Brown and Kevin Bhatt of Long Ridge Equity Partners will join the Broadway Board of Directors.
Signal Hill served as financial advisor and Dentons US LLP served as legal counsel to Broadway. Budd Larner served as legal counsel to Long Ridge.
Karunakar Mohapatra
Market Research Analyst at CustomerXPs
- 02:00 am
Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business has hired Sarfaraz Ahmed as Market Manager, Finance and Risk, for its growing Asia Pacific (APAC) business.
Ahmed joins Wolters Kluwer from Standard Chartered Bank where he contributed to the bank’s various mandates for the past ten years, including those in risk analytics, policies, processes and systems. In his most recent role at Standard Chartered Ahmed was Stream Lead for the delivery of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 9 for the wholesale and private banking businesses. In this role he focused on the methodology and delivery of the models for Expected Credit Loss (ECL) computation while also ensuring data and systems were configured to deliver the required data for IFRS 9, supporting the transformation of the policy and processes impacted by IFRS 9.
Ahmed’s other roles at Standard Chartered included developing risk models in retail and SME businesses and leading the bank’s initiatives in securing internal ratings-based (IRB) accreditation for the bank’s subsidiaries in various countries in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to working at Standard Chartered, Ahmed held business development and analyst positions at FICO and ICICI Bank respectively.
“Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business is experiencing significant growth in the region, with banks turning to us to provide their IFRS 9 solutions in particular,” comments James Stewart, managing director of APAC for Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business. “Sarfaraz brings a wealth of experience to the role and he will be instrumental in ensuring we continue to develop our client centric model across finance and risk.”
Ahmed, who is based in Wolters Kluwer’s Singapore office, holds Masters degrees in Finance from INSEAD and Statistics from The Indian Statistical Institute.
- 02:00 am
Dolfin, the technology-savvy investment firm, has boosted its research offering with the appointment of Olga Tschekassin as an Economist in its Investment Management team.
Based in London and reporting to CIO Vassilis Papaioannou, Tschekassin will focus on producing macroeconomic research to contribute to Dolfin’s unique blend of human macro analysis and software-powered quantitative analysis in order to generate high-conviction ideas and investment strategies.
Tschekassin joins from Barclays Investment Bank, where she focused on macroeconomic coverage of Germany and wider European thematic research. Prior to that, she worked as an Economist in the European Commission and has also completed stints at the Commerzbank AG and Brussels-based international economics think tank, Bruegel.
Bringing her extensive knowledge of the European macroeconomic environment and quantitative studies to the role, Tschekassin is the latest in a string of hires at the investment firm; Dolfin has grown its research team by 50 per cent in the past 12 months.
Vassilis Papaioannou said of Tschekassin’s appointment: “Dolfin’s approach to research is characterised by a winning blend of macro perspectives and quantitative analysis, underpinned by the right technology and infrastructure to maximise returns for clients. Olga’s skill set and experience will significantly bolster our research output and be of great benefit to our growing client base.”
- 02:00 am
Senjō Group, a leading privately-held payments platform operator and FinTech investor headquartered in Singapore, has successfully obtained a Payment Institution (PI) license in Lithuania. The company received permission from the Bank of Lithuania to acquire Lithuanian payment institution Finolita Unio. In doing so, the innovative global investor has gained enhanced access to the European payments system via Lithuania.
Senjō Group’s portfolio of companies gives it a presence in more than 30 countries worldwide, and includes fast-growing companies in global electronic payments and financial technology. These companies benefit from the Group’s global footprint, financial capabilities and operational expertise.
According to Gavin Lock, Senjō Group’s COO, Lithuania’s EU-leading regulatory environment for FinTechs played a decisive role in the Group’s decision to establish a presence in the Baltic country: “Lithuania has made rapid progress in streamlining its regulatory framework for FinTech companies recently. The Bank of Lithuania especially, has a positive attitude towards FinTech, and this was one of the key factors in our decision to choose Lithuania as a gateway for strengthening our presence in the European payments ecosystem.”
“Senjō is a new type of FinTech investor, and we are looking forward to growing our core payments business and build our track record of providing scalable and reliable payments solutions for our customers,” Mr. Lock added.
This latest announcement comes on the back of other significant acquisitions by Senjō Group. At the end of 2016, the Group announced that they were acquiring payments innovator Kalixa Group for a total consideration of €29.0 million. This deal includes a completion accounts adjustment that could take the final tally to as much as €35.5 million.
“For FinTech, Lithuania has all the essential ingredients,” argues Mantas Katinas, General Manager of Invest Lithuania. “Fast, robust IT and banking infrastructure, a wealth of experienced talent, plus great quality of life at a really affordable cost. Moreover, more and more spaces are opening up in Vilnius offering a complete range of services for FinTech companies, from infrastructure and service packages to advice on starting and growing your business, all in a single location,” Mr. Katinas points out.
The Bank of Lithuania provides preliminary advice to financial institution licence enquiries within one week, regarded as one of the fastest turnarounds in the EU. Full authorisation is then issued within 2 to 6 months.
Lithuania has long been considered a recognised global FinTech hub. Payment and electronic money agencies in Lithuania can access the Single European Payments Area (SEPA) through the infrastructure of the Bank of Lithuania, enabling them to avoid the broking services of many commercial banks. Lithuanian regulations now allow the use of non-face-to-face identification systems for FinTech product development, fostering further growth and development.
Colin Bristow
Fraud & Anti-Money Laundering Specialist at SAS UK & Ireland
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations require the identification and reporting of activity representing most risk to the firm. see more
