Published
- 08:00 am
Diasoft is named as the General Partner of the VI Annual Financial Sphere Award for the section "Banks and Payment Services". The company submitted a large-scale project for implementation of its FLEXTERA BI for automation of regulatory reporting in VTB24. At the award ceremony, which took place on 30 March 2017 in Moscow, VTB24 and Diasoft's project was named one of three best implementations in the category "Reporting Solutions".
The goal of the project for implementation of FLEXTERA BI for regulatory reporting in VTB24 was to establish a new approach to calculation of the credit risk based on internal ratings for evaluation of the capital adequacy and to support regulatory and tax reporting, taking into account implementation of a new IT solution for management of legal entities. Within the project scope, Diasoft implemented more than 20 regulatory report forms, tax accounting registers for income tax, transfer pricing and VAT. The joint efforts of the partners allowed them to achieve significant results: thanks to the implemented solution, the level of data quality reached 99.8%.
Svetlana Yemelyanova, Accountant General, Deputy Head of Financial Department at VTB24, said"For me, as a customer of regulatory and tax reporting, this project means the ability to quicker introduce new products and serve customers, to accelerate the end-of-day process and report generation, and to adapt to changing banking and tax regulations more flexibly. During the project, the Diasoft team demonstrated its high professional level. The receipt of the award in the category "Reporting Solutions" became a well-deserved victory for all of us. We want to thank the expert community for generous appraisal of our work on this important project".
Alexander Gentsis, Member of the Board of Directors at Diasoft, who accepted the award on behalf of Diasoft, commented, "The project at VTB24 was new and important for Diasoft, both from the point of view of its scope and peculiarities of the methodological support. We had to go deep into detail of the bank's processes to ensure the required results. Today, regulatory reporting to the Central bank is an important task of any bank. That is why the professional community marks such projects with prestigious awards in a special category. We are happy to contribute to the development of the banking industry and hope for further successful cooperation with VTB 24".
This award has contributed once again to the list of accolades won by FLEXTERA BI. During the recent years, FLEXTERA BI won a lot of contracts for implementation of IT solutions for reporting in banks from the TOP50, which proves high popularity of the solution at the market of regulatory reporting systems.
- 05:00 am
Our ability to allow users to receive any percentage of their wage in Bitcoin from any company has made us incredibly popular among users in the US and those receiving wages from US companies. Unlike the US, where workers typically have the ability to split their payroll into two accounts at the payroll provider level, workers in the EU receive their entire wage into a single bank account. Last year, we launched the ability to split your payroll directly on our platform, so that you could receive your entire wage through Bitwage and split between digital currencies and local currencies, such as Euro, USD or BRL.
Since receiving a grant from BPIFrance and moving half of our team across the world to Paris as winners of the French Tech Ticket, we have been hard at work looking to expand throughout Europe and improve our European solutions.
This is why we are happy to announce the launch of unique IBAN numbers for all users receiving wages in the EU. Now EU users have the first real option for a direct deposit into any wallet of their choice.
We are able to offer this through a new banking partnership we’ve made over the past few months. What does this mean for our EU users? Two major upgrades:
-Real-Time Transaction Viewing: All users receiving wages from EU companies will be able to see exactly when funds have been received by Bitwage. No longer wait for when Bitwage processes payrolls to know whether funds have been received.
-No Deposit Claims Required: Previously, when Bitwage received wages with ambiguous information on the description of the deposit, the funds would go through a claims process that requires the user to upload information that would prove the funds belonged to them. With our new unique IBANs, users receiving wages for EU companies no longer need to create deposit claims, as payment descriptions are no longer required for these transactions.
All Bitwage Premium will automatically be provided with these unique numbers. All users with monthly transaction volumes over 1,999 Euro may request unique EU IBANs as well.
- 09:00 am
Today Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) announced its progress across a range of far-reaching capital market reforms to enhance efficiency, corporate governance, and transparency. The reforms are part of the Exchange's efforts to further align Saudi capital market with international standards and make it more attractive to both domestic and foreign investors.
"It is vitally important that Tadawul's market participants, both domestic and foreign, have access to a transparent and exceptional trade environment that conforms to the highest international standards," said Khalid Abdullah Al Hussan, Chief Executive Officer of Tadawul. "We have aggressively moved forward with a number of initiatives to strengthen corporate governance, improve investor relations capabilities of Saudi corporates, and bring Saudi Arabia's trade settlement cycle into line with standard practice in a number of developed markets." Tadawul has implemented a number of significant changes, many of which are set to go into effect by the close of Q2 2017.
Adoption of new corporate governance rules issued by the Saudi Capital Markets Authority (CMA) in February. The rules enhance the rights of shareholders and board members and provide greater clarity and more transparency around determining commercial strategic planning, and roles, responsibilities and oversight of corporate entities and third parties.
Adoption of the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) which enhances comparability of corporates across markets and enables easier analysis of sector performance. The standard was formally adopted in January.
Investor relations training for Tadawul's 24 corporates with the most international exposure and liquidity, to be conducted from mid-April through mid-May. The program will enhance transparency and disclosure and enhance investor relations capabilities within Saudi listed companies. Amending the settlement cycle to T+2 for all listed securities to increase the level of asset safety for investors and to unify the settlement duration for all types of listed securities across most international markets. The changes will go into effect on Sunday, April, 23 2017.
Enabling foreign participation in Saudi IPOs. Through the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Qualified Foreign Investor (QFI) program, registered QFIs will be able to participate in domestic IPOs.
Introduction of Nomu, a parallel equity market for Qualified Investors that offers lighter listing requirements and serves as an alternative platform for companies to go public.
Enhancements to the Independent Custody Model which enable custodians to reject the settlement of unconfirmed trades executed by the executing brokers.
Introduction of a Delivery versus Payment Model (DvP) to comply with the principle of DvP, wherein the delivery of securities occurs only if the corresponding payment occurs.
Introduction of securities borrowing and lending and covered short-selling. Dropping the Exchange requirement of cash prefunding for specific investors, and leave the timing of cash availability to the contractual terms between Authorized Person and the investor, which will align trading practice with good international standards, and standardize institutional investors' trading processes especially investment funds.
The reforms undertaken by Tadawul play an important role in the development of the Saudi capital market and reinforce the Exchange's active role in supporting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's (KSA) Vision 2030 plan and efforts to diversify the Kingdom's reliance on oil and make its equity market more attractive to foreign investors. Since opening the markets to QFIs in June 2015 and introducing updates to the program in August of last year, Tadawul has registered a total of 56 international financial institutions.
The reforms and outreach to investors are also helping Tadawul prepare for anticipated inclusion in emerging market indices such as Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI).
Continued Al Hussan: "As part of the Kingdom's efforts to achieve Emerging Markets status and demonstrate genuine engagement with institutions, Tadawul has conducted three roadshows to date in the U.S., Europe and Asia with more than 250 participating investors, which together represent at least USD $18.05 Trillion in investable assets. Based on the positive feedback and interest received to date, we hope to see a continued rise in QFI applications and registrations through year end."
- 06:00 am
Today the Vietnamese mobile operator Mobifone and the mobile payments company Fortumo announced the launch of carrier billing on Google Play. Over 25 million Mobifone subscribers can now purchase apps and in-app content from the app store by charging payments to their phone bill.
Carrier billing significantly increases the amount of people in Vietnam who can make online payments. This is because only 2% of the population has credit cards while carrier billing is available to any phone owner. Today, more than 40% of Vietnamese already own a smartphone with the growth accelerating. Additional information on the Vietnamese mobile ecosystem can be found from Fortumo’s Asia market report.
“Vietnam is one of the leading countries by economic growth in Asia today, which means a huge number of people coming online and consuming content on their smartphones. We are excited to partner with Mobifone in helping them partake in this growth and delivering to them the Google Play billing solution in such a short timeframe,” said Gerri Kodres, Chief Business Officer at Fortumo. Mobifone is the third Vietnamese mobile operator to launch Google Play in Vietnam by using Fortumo as its integration partner, as the company already works together with Viettel and Vietnamobile.
Thanks to partnering with Fortumo, Mobifone will also get access to Fortumo Insight, the company’s sophisticated data analytics platform which helps carriers see the main business KPIs and analyze their revenue from app stores. Fortumo Insight also enables carriers to track subscriber payment behavior and make improvements based on actual results.
In addition to Google Play, Fortumo works with digital media providers including Spotify, Sony, HOOQ, Gaana and gaming companies like EA Mobile, Gameloft, Kinguin and Rovio. Merchants using Fortumo’s platform can collect payments from subscribers of more than 350 mobile operators through one integration.
- 08:00 am
Today Assetz Capital, one of the UK’s largest and fastest growing peer-to-peer finance platforms, revealed it was raising the interest rate on its popular 30 Day Access Account (30DAA) by 0.5% to 4.75% for a limited time. The 30DAA allows peer-to-peer lenders to invest automatically in loans and features automatic diversification to spread risk.
Investors will have until midday on 11 May to take advantage of the new rate and will benefit from a capped return of 4.75% for up to 90 days after an investment is made. After this, the account will return to its original rate of 4.25%. The increase marks the first time one of the major P2P players has raised the interest rate on a core account in 2017.
Stuart Law, CEO of Assetz Capital commented: “The 30 Day Access Account has been very popular since its introduction nearly a year ago. Recently Assetz Capital has experienced particularly strong growth in borrower demand as a business and has flourished whilst many other platforms have struggled, which has led to some of them dropping rates on their key accounts.”
The 30DAA invests in both short and long-term loans and interest is earned and paid monthly. The account always retains substantial cash balances in order to facilitate quick access in normal market conditions for investors who require their investment back on the 30 days’ notice, although access times cannot be guaranteed.
Investors can automatically invest any amount from £1 in a diverse portfolio of secured business loans that have passed Assetz Capital’s strict credit checks.
Stuart Law concluded: “The 30 Day Access Account opens up the world of P2P lending to new investors who want the chance to earn a fair return, but also have a degree of liquidity on their invested capital in normal market conditions. The account is already a hugely popular and competitive choice in the P2P market and we’re expecting to see a sharp increase in lenders who take up this attractive limited time offer.”
- 01:00 am
Mettrr Technologies has become the first company to provide financial returns for its crowd investors through a secondary share sale via a crowdfunding platform. It comes just six months after Crowdcube announced that it would pioneer secondary liquidity on its platform, delivering on its mission to help investors realise their investments.
Investors, who backed the tech startup in 2012 on Crowdcube, received a 9x return on their original investment after angel investors acquired a stake in the company. Following the transaction 10 investors collectively realised £50,000 in Mettrr Technologies, previously GetSiteTracked.com. Two further investors realised £250,000 in an off platform transaction.
Darren Westlake, Crowdcube’s CEO and co-founder, said: “Following successful exits from Camden Town Brewery, E-Car Club and Wool and the Gang, we’re delighted to facilitate a healthy return for investors in Mettrr Technologies, one of Crowdcube’s early success stories, as they realise their equity investment through this pioneering secondary share sale. This liquidity milestone, which comes hot on the heels of the share buy-back by Celixir, is the eighth Crowdcube funded business to deliver returns and brings the total amount now returned to investors to over £5 million, through equity exits and bond interest repayments.”
Since raising £100,000 on Crowdcube in March 2012 from 25 crowd investors, the company has developed a market leading artificial intelligence software that builds DIFM (Do It For Me) websites for small business owners in seconds.
Whether it's through large white label partnerships or using wholly owned brands such as SoleTrader.com, Mettrr Technologies then connects these small business website customers with deals and supplies that they need to complete jobs that are generated from their own site. Recently, the firm partnered with Crazy Domains - Australia’s largest domain provider.
It is this technology IP that has garnered interest from institutional investors and enabled Mettrr Technologies to secure £1 million investment in 2016.
Sebastian Lewis, founder of Mettrr Technologies, said: “Getting the business to where we are today wouldn’t have been possible without our early crowd investors. I’m delighted to give those investors the option of a healthy return on their investment but I’m also pleased that 17 of the original 25 crowd investors want to stay with us for the next part of our journey to global expansion; I look forward to providing further liquidity events in the future.”
Darren Westlake added: “Delivering a return for shareholders is the ultimate goal for any high-growth business and its investors and Crowdcube has led the way in delivering more exits and returns in equity crowdfunded businesses than any other UK platform. We’ll continue to look to facilitate investor returns through secondary trading for businesses that are maturing as well as working with more established and venture backed businesses.”
Paul Hale, a professional investor and an early shareholder in Mettrr Technologies, said: “I invested £45k in two rounds in the start-up because I knew that, as an entrepreneur, Sebastian would have the drive and determination to make a success of it. Mettrr has evolved over time and its value now lies in its technology, widening its opportunities. I am delighted that I have been given the chance to trade some of my shares and make a tidy profit while keeping a portion invested so that I can see the business through the next stage of its development.”
- 07:00 am
Today Starling Bank and Moneybox revealed their partnership providing Starling Bank customers with seamless access to Moneybox’s suite of saving and investing tools. Starling is the first digital challenger to join the list of banks supported by Moneybox for their innovative round ups feature.
The service will be available to Starling customers as early as the end of April. The mobile bank’s customers will be able to link their Starling account to Moneybox, round up their purchases to the nearest pound and invest the spare change.
Made possible through Starling’s open APIs, the integration has two distinct benefits only made possible because of the innovative way Moneybox and Starling work as fintech apps compared to traditional banking products.
Firstly, it allows customer data to be securely shared between the two apps, meaning transactions will appear within the Moneybox app in real time as customers spend.
Secondly, the integration with Starling means that customers will be able to set up round ups from their Starling account in a matter of seconds. The Moneybox app will simply request authorisation from Starling; and once the new user has tapped Agree, the signup process is complete. This will work in a similar way to logging into other apps and services with Facebook and Google.
Both Moneybox and Starling believe in using technology to make money simpler – taking out the hassle and complexity and making it accessible, transparent and clear.
Starling Bank publicly launched it’s API and developer platform to enable external developers and technology companies to integrate with the banking app earlier in April, and Moneybox is the first to launch a live integration on this API.
Megan Caywood, Starling’s Chief Platform Officer, said: “We believe that customers own their data and should be able to use it to better their relationship with their money. This is why we’ve built our Marketplace and why Starling’s APIs enable third party developers, like Moneybox, to build a much wider range of apps and integrations that can help people manage their money more easily and effectively. We’re really excited about this partnership and believe it will be transformational for Starling’s customers. People today want to not only manage their everyday money on their phone but their savings and investments too. Working with Moneybox makes this a possibility.”
Charlie Mortimer, Moneybox Co-Founder, said: “Our goal is to make it easier than ever for our customers to save and invest. As the first challenger bank to offer an open API, we’re very excited to work with Starling to offer real-time round ups for the first time. We’ve found the round ups concept to be a popular way of helping people get started and breaking the inertia surrounding saving and investment. By making it even easier for customers to save money as they spend, we hope our partnership with Starling will be the first of many.”
- 07:00 am
Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed to facilitate compliance with the 2015 updates to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rule. The changes proposed today would help financial institutions comply with the 2015 HMDA Final Rule by clarifying the information they are required to collect and report about their mortgage lending.
“The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act shines a much-needed spotlight on the mortgage market, which is the largest consumer financial market in the world,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Today’s proposal reflects the Bureau’s ongoing and substantive engagement with stakeholders in the marketplace, and will help industry meet its new reporting obligations.”
HMDA, which was originally enacted in 1975, requires many lenders to report information about the home loans for which they receive applications or that they originate or purchase. The public and regulators can use the information to monitor whether financial institutions are serving the housing needs of their communities, to assist in distributing public-sector investment so as to attract private investment to areas where it is needed, and to identify possible discriminatory lending patterns.
As directed by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the CFPB updated the HMDA regulation in 2015 to improve the quality and type of data reported by financial institutions. Most of the updated requirements take effect in January 2018, and the industry is working to bring operations into compliance. Through public outreach and engagement the CFPB has identified opportunities to clarify parts of the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, which would help financial institutions comply.
Today’s proposal contains a number of clarifications, technical corrections, and minor changes to the HMDA regulation. These include clarifying certain key terms, such as “temporary financing” and “automated underwriting system.” The proposal would also, for example, establish transition rules for reporting certain loans purchased by financial institutions. Another proposed change would facilitate reporting the census tract of a property, using a new geocoding tool the CFPB plans to provide online.
The CFPB is committed to well-tailored and effective regulations and has sought to carefully calibrate its efforts to ensure consistency with respect to consumer financial protections across the financial services marketplace. The CFPB seeks input from a wide range of stakeholders and invites the public to submit written comments on the proposal. The proposal will be open for public comment for 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register.
Carlo R.W. De Meijer
Senior Economist at Independent
Recently, I wrote that smaller blockchain consortia are needed (see my Blog: Towards smaller and more focused blockchain consortia, 27 February 2017). see more
- 05:00 am
Fintech start-up Zeta, which offers digital employee benefits for tax optimisation, has tied up with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) payment platform - RuPay. The partnership will widen Zeta’s payment network and push for a more inclusive adoption of digital payments in corporate India. This collaboration makes Zeta’s meal voucher solution the first ever such solution to run on Government of India endorsed RuPay platform.
With RBL Bank as its banking partner, Zeta’s revolutionary pre-paid card called the Zeta Super Card will now also be available on the RuPay platform. The Zeta Super Card, includes robust anti-fraud security measures that lets users make payments across 12 lakh+ outlets across India as well as online stores.
Referring to the partnership with RuPay, Mr. A. P. Hota, MD & CEO, NPCI said, “We are happy to extend RuPay card platform for salaried individuals across sectors through Zeta. This strategic partnership between RBL Bank and Zeta will assist all individuals to spend their salary perquisites through digital means.”
Zeta Co-founder and CTO Ramki Gaddipati said, “The combined offering of Zeta, RBL and RuPay is built with a sharp focus on enhancing user experience, and is aimed at accelerating the cashless movement using technologies made in India, for India. Joining the RuPay platform will further strengthen Zeta’s payment network and will also help us reach corporates as well as PSUs with employees based in remote areas.”
Rajeev Ahuja, Executive Director, RBL Bank said, “RBL Bank has successfully built a strong digital platform business that delivers enhanced services in banking and other domains. We have identified many areas of the economy that, with these technologies, can be made more efficient and also help lower the cost of accessing these services for a larger number of consumers. We believe collaborating with the right partners is an important ingredient towards succeeding in the new era of digital businesses. In Zeta, we have a highly committed partner who is constantly looking to break new ground.”
Taking forward its commitment towards the Digital India movement, the company will also launch payments via UPI, Bharat QR Code and Aadhaar Pay modes, which will be available to a larger section of the salaried population with or without access to smartphones and magnetic stripe card machines.
With these payment modes, Zeta intends to remove the existing barriers to digital payments. Salaried employees across all sectors, including PSUs can now take advantage of receiving and spending tax benefits digitally even in remote locations.
“When it comes to digitising employee benefits, it is essential to consider every employee in the organisation and provide solutions that work for everyone. Several of the PSUs have employees in locations that have limited card network reach,” Mr. Gaddipati added.
“For many of the small merchants who deal in essentials like food and medicines, the card machines may be unaffordable. We can’t ignore those challenges. Therefore, we built Zeta using technologies made in India, made for India and envisaged for digital inclusion of all the people by the Government of India.”
“The Zeta benefits platform is on Rupay uses Aadhaar for eKYC and authentication, supports regional languages and is UPI, Bharat QR Code and Aadhaar pay ready. We will start rolling out these options as we start working with PSUs across the country. By providing such inclusive options, Zeta can ensure that salary benefits reach every eligible employee, no matter their location, language and digital literacy level is,” Mr. Gaddipati further added.
