Suriname-based Trustbank is taking a big leap after signing a new licensing deal with Islamic software vendor Path Solutions to implement iMAL Islamic Banking & Investment System as its new core banking platform. This is a major breakthrough for the Kuwaiti vendor, as it’s the company’s first Islamic core banking software deal in the Americas. Path Solutions was selected after a comprehensive assessment of leading global solution providers by a senior management team from different business functions at Trustbank. 

Three IT vendors were shortlisted and invited to demo their solutions over the course of two weeks. They were Oracle FS, Temenos and Path Solutions which ultimately won the deal based on Sharia compliance, product functionality and technological superiority.

“This is a significant core banking system deal and a key win for Path Solutions in this new region”, commented Mohammed Kateeb, Path Solutions’ Group Chairman & CEO. “Trustbank was one of the most sought-after deals by all vendors because of the importance of this new market. Our Sharia-based core banking system combined with comprehensive services we offer provide a truly differentiating proposition for the first Islamic bank in South America to empower it to achieve growth and gain market share”. Kateeb continued, “We’ve been having tremendous success across the world”, confirming that Path Solutions remains the absolute world leader in Sharia-based software solutions and services. “Being the first full-fledged Islamic bank in South America, Trustbank is committed to applying true Sharia-based technology to meet the needs of a diverse client base. Working with Path Solutions will help the bank to achieve these goals”, he said.

The new Islamic core banking system will be implemented across Trustbank four branches in Suriname, Path Solutions said in a statement. The implementation of the new system is expected to start immediately and to be completed at the end of September 2017.

“We have announced the conversion of Trustbank to a full-fledged Islamic bank in 2016, and that involves the deployment of a new core banking platform in line with the Sharia guidelines. This project with Path Solutions is key to our strategy and future growth, as it will allow us to launch new Islamic banking products and services to meet the needs of our customers”, said Maureen Badjoeri, Chief Executive Officer of Trustbank. “The new Islamic core banking system is also expected to drive innovation, improve customer service through increased automation, harness the value of the data through analytics and reduce operating costs”, Badjoeri concluded.

The company that has beaten competition to major core banking system deal in Suriname, Path Solutions, was also chosen for its leadership position in the Islamic banking software market, including a well-established client base with a global reach and support network.

Banking executives will gather to discuss the challenges of PSD2 implementation at a Congress in London tomorrow. Early signs point to a battle between financial services institutions and technology firms over the new legislation’s customer data access requirements. 

The financial institutions affected by the new regulations face two challenges. First, they must build agility into their core systems to support the open APIs mandated by PSD2. In addition, complying with PSD2 will require a higher level of innovation at the consumer-facing end of their businesses in order to retain customer loyalty.

Banks need to collaborate rather than compete, says V.S. Raj, Head of Financial Services at leading IT solutions company Syntel, who works with major banks to help them to adapt to the new open banking landscape.

“In the U.S., the popularity of services that allow people to send payments directly from messaging apps has grown quickly,” said Raj. “When the PSD2 initiative comes into force in January next year, there’s no doubt that European banks will have to contend with social banking on a greater scale than ever before.”

“The PSD2 directive will go a long way to levelling the playing field between banks and third-party providers, and with this in mind, the trend towards collaboration with fintech companies is hardly surprising.”

Raj points out that large banking institutions are under pressure to avoid being relegated to the role of data custodians, and now face the same challenge that telcos have been grappling with since they were forced to open up their networks.

“The big question now is how big banks can pivot from merely being a conduit for customer data to becoming a challenger to the innovative fintech companies looking to chip away at their customer base,” said Raj.

He asserts that the main challenge posed by the regulation is that it splits banks’ attention — requiring them to evolve the core systems that support their everyday business processes without losing focus on upgrading their customer-facing front end systems.  

“The future for traditional institutions is not as bleak as some are making it out to be. The smartest banks will achieve what we call ‘two-speed’ operations, where they modernize their core IT operations whilst simultaneously maintaining the mission-critical services that run their business.”

“The main benefit of such a strategy is that it prevents banks from being encumbered by inflexible systems as they continue to adapt to meet the future needs of their customers.”

Al Rajhi Bank, an advanced financial institution in the Middle East, called upon eProseed's expertise to provide assistance in the migration of its mission critical business databases to Oracle Exadata, a platform specially engineered to run Oracle Database. One year after the initiation of the project, the Bank is now reaping the benefits of improved staff productivity and resource utilization.

In January 2016, Al Rajhi Bank (ARB), one of the largest financial institutions in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, took the strategic decision to redeploy its pool of Oracle databases on the Oracle Exadata Engineered Systems platform. ARB has selected eProseed to help implement this ambitious project. Today the Bank benefits from improved applications performance with lower operational cost, while achieving better user productivity and stronger IT resilience.

Substantially improved performance

The main goal of this consolidation was to significantly improve the overall performance of the Bank's business applications. "We have reduced our processing times by an average of 60%", says Abdullah Ali Alkhalifa, Chief Financial Officer, Al Rajhi Bank. "In addition, our files processing for Oracle Financials Accounting Hub has become dramatically more efficient, we can now process multiple source system files in parallel without affecting other ebusiness modules, and all processing restrictions have been removed", he adds. Due to its criticality and size (+50TB), the prime beneficiary of the migration is the core business database.

A strong commitment to success

eProseed's result-driven commitment was a fundamental ingredient in ARB's decision-making process. "This has translated into a fixed-price professional services engagement which includes guarantees both on the migration deadlines and on the resulting performance improvements", underlines Geoffroy de Lamalle, Chief Executive Officer, eProseed. "As a complement of the migration project", he continues, "we have offered ARB our eProseed Concierge Service, a total care service through which we provide the Bank with a fully managed service for their new Exadata platform, including all the database instances running on It".

Increasing the resilience of the data layer

A key component of the Bank's initiative was the consolidation of database operations on a single technical platform. To this end, Oracle Exadata database machines were deployed, in the main datacenter and in a secondary site for Disaster Recovery purposes. Database replication between the datacenters increases the resilience and the availability of the data layer since the choice of a single platform facilitates the implementation of the backup and recovery strategy. Future projects will also benefit from the new architecture.

Oracle Active Data Guard was used to ensure real-time data protection. "The switch from a SAN replication-based DR solution to Oracle Active Data Guard has eliminated the high cost of idle redundancy by allowing reporting applications, ad-hoc queries, and data extracts to be offloaded to read-only copies of the production", affirms Mohammed S. Solaiman, Executive Manager Oracle Technical Support, Al Rajhi Bank.

Managing many databases as one

In addition to improved performance and availability, having all the databases up to date with the most recent version on a specially engineered platform provides new features while reducing licensing costs and freeing up substantial computing and storage resources. This also translates into increased user productivity, helping the Bank operate more efficiently as its employees become more productive.

Thus, for example, one of the benefits of the migration to Oracle Database 12c is the opportunity to take advantage of a new option called Oracle Multitenant. This enables simplified consolidation that requires no changes to existing applications. "With this new architecture, a multitenant container database can hold multiple pluggable databases, allowing administrators to manage and control a rising number of databases as one, yet retaining the isolation and resource prioritization of separate databases", explains Rui Sousa, eProseed's Delivery Manager in charge of the migration project at Al Rajhi Bank. 

The new platform will allow ARB to offer better SLAs to its internal customers, reduce the time to market for new applications and services, and increase its ability to respond rapidly and flexibly to changing market conditions.

Shortly after the launch of their joint centralised solution for Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES), Cryptomathic and SwissSign today announce the completion of a major deployment at UBS, Switzerland’s largest retail bank. 

 A shift in how trusted identities are used across the healthcare continuum is fuelling the demand for advanced smart card technologies and mobile solutions, as healthcare institutions become more connected. The new focus on ID technology is changing how institutions operate, how they manage access to patients, data and equipment, how they protect patient privacy, and how they improve billing accuracy – all without compromising the quality of care. This is according to HID Global, a worldwide leader in trusted identity solutions.

“Healthcare organisations are increasingly seeking to improve the physician, staff and patient experience by employing a combination of strong authentication and new Internet of Things (IoT) applications to address their challenges,” said Sheila Loy, Director, Healthcare Industry with HID Global. “Trusted identities will simplify and connect all aspects of healthcare operations, from opening hospital doors, accessing healthcare records and e-prescribing of controlled substances, to how healthcare professionals interact with patients and log their activities.”

The healthcare industry is embracing new ways to establish, create, manage and use trusted identities, which is redefining the meaning of trust as healthcare organisations embrace the IoT in smarter environments. This will drive a number of key technology trends:

Integrated, compliant systems that are convenient and connected

Multi-factor authentication will incorporate One Time Password (OTP) tokens, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and biometrics. The solutions will be used to protect patient records and data; secure access to facilities; authenticate remotely to VPNs using mobile devices; and enable new IoT use cases. Unified platforms will also add intelligent visitor management systems and automate other manual workflows to provide an access management solution that integrates with access control, IT security and other applications.

Connected environments drive the need to ensure the Internet of Trusted Things (IoTT)

Continued adoption of electronic visit verification (EVV) will help streamline in-home patient visits and eliminate billing fraud using “proof of presence” applications that make it easier to document the time, location and accurate delivery of prescribed care. Healthcare institutions will embrace trusted IDs, predictive analytics and new IoT solutions that use real-time location-based services to effectively connect, monitor and manage patients, mobile clinicians and staff. These solutions will also help quickly locate critical medical equipment, beds, crash trolleys and other medical devices by providing the missing link between physical assets and a trusted ID ecosystem.

Growing role for biometrics in patient and provider authentication

Biometrics will be used to ensure the right patient is receiving the prescribed care, and that providers are authorised to manage confidential patient medical records. Biometric solutions will also be used for e-prescribing to authenticate the issuer, pharmacy staff and/or the patient, with fingerprint biometrics continuing to be one of the most widely used due to its ease of use. Biometrics sensors and modules will continue to deliver improved capabilities for the healthcare environment, including faster finger image capture for a better user experience, and certifications to key industry standards for accuracy and image transfer performance.

HID Global anticipates that the healthcare industry will be impacted by these trends in 2017 and beyond as the shift in the use of identity technology continues to influence product development and the user experience in the coming years.

The wealth management startup Grain has demonstarted its 2.0 version in the iOS app store this week and it is also live on Product Hunt.

Version 2.0 amplifies and advances its “social investing” strategy and service. Specifically, Grain allows users to “play” investing with friends before committing funds to actual investments. The app helps its investors discover investments, but is not an investment advisor. This is also Grain’s first iOS app.

Grain, based in San Francisco, now employs social hooks to help neophyte investors connect with friends, and learn about putting their money to work for them. This is not so much because you want to get investment advice from friends, CEO Joe Mueller told Bank Innovation, but rather that users expressed an interest in sharing with friends what they were thinking about in terms of investing.

Investing has been called millennials’ “money blind spot,” but Grain is one of a few new services tackling that problem by connecting young people to investing via digital channels.

“My team and I built Grain to help new investors take their first steps in building their own portfolio,” Mueller said. “Our vision is to be the place where you go to take complete control of your investments, without feeling overwhelmed by piles of data and confusing reports.”

Of the social aspect, Mueller said Grain customers will “invest with your friends and family (think Venmo-style activity feed). You’re not in this alone, so you shouldn’t feel that way. You can open your own investing account in less than 2 minutes (powered by Third Party Trade LLC, member FINRA & SIPC), or simply link a pre-existing account with a major U.S. broker.”

OpenLedger’s Apptrade, the platform developing “Kickstarter for Apps on the Blockchain”, has received a $100,000 USD boost from OpenLedger ApS, the world's first blockchain powered conglomerate. Supported by the digital token APPX, Apptrade creates portfolios, or groups, of apps, where if one of those apps becomes the next Instagram or Angry Birds, then the value of the portfolio rises.

Raiffeisen Bank, a member of Austrian Raiffeisen Group, has selected Backbase, the omni-channel digital banking market leader, to deliver its new digital omni-channel banking platform. Raiffeisen Bank in Romania serves over 2 million customers, of which 100,000 SMEs, 5,600 corporations and 1.9 million personal banking customers.

Backbase will play an important role in developing Raiffeisen Bank’s next generation digital banking architecture, one which will support a seamless user experience for individuals, SMEs and corporates. A sleek mobile app for private individuals will be the first deliverable, closely followed by the web applications for both retail and corporate customers.

Raiffeisen Bank needed a partner that could take its banking platform to the next level by developing added functionalities and transforming it to become agile and flexible.

Raiffeisen Bank wants to enhance the Customer Experience and deliver faster new innovative functionalities and features for its customers on digital channels, hence Backbase Omnichannel Banking Platform has been selected to support the bank in achieving these objectives. Both the visual editor and the modular widget architecture of Backbase will empower Raiffeisen Bank to make quick changes in a matter of days or weeks. The new platform will significantly increase agility and enable the bank to launch new features to market more rapidly.

“It was important for Raiffeisen Bank to upgrade its online systems in order to provide a seamless user experience for all of their clients, whether they be private individuals or corporates,” said Jouk Pleiter, CEO of Backbase. “The Backbase omni-channel banking platform gives  Raiffeisen Bank the business agility it needs to better serve the digital needs of its customer-base, whilst also empowering the bank with more flexibility and ownership over its platform. We’re committed to make Raiffeisen Bank successful and will continuously expanding our presence in Central and Eastern Europe.”

“Implementing Backbase’s technology onto our platform will enable us to be more agile and adapt to the fast growing and shifting needs of our customers,” says Bogdan Popa, Vicepresident Operations and IT of Raiffeisen Bank. “Our customers are at the forefront of everything we do, so improving both our online and mobile platforms were essential in enhancing their banking experience and customer journey.”

Tieto is introducing a new Forest Hub ecosystem platform that helps wood supply business partners in their operational data transfer regarding wood logistics and mill reception processes. Tieto Forest Hub seeks to improve daily operational planning and follow-up, management of the inventories, and information quality, while also decreasing the amount of manual work required and reducing errors. 

Tieto Forest Hub is open to all actors in the industry, from large forest industry companies to medium size and small businesses, including bioenergy producers. Two major forest products companies Metsä Group and UPM are implementing the Forest Hub this year.

”Efficient and modern two-way data transfer between us and our industrial partners and customers helps us serve them even better and also improves our own operational steering. System open to all actors is cost-efficient and enables predicted growth in data transfer”, says Olli Laitinen, SVP, Development, Metsä Group Wood Supply and Forest Services.

“Tieto Forest Hub improves the forest industry logistics data transfer capabilities by connecting different wood supply business partners into a modern ecosystem. By implementing the Forest Hub we are able to improve the wood supply chain together with our partners,” says Tomi Simola, Director, Business Development, UPM Wood Sourcing and Forestry. 

Tieto sees, also beyond wood sourcing, great potential for similar hubs in the distribution of forest products, as well as in other industries relying on trading partners and logistics ecosystems.

”We are excited to help our customers to boost their business efficiency and provide an environment for new growth opportunities. Tieto Forest Hub offers service packages for actors of all sizes, from small entrepreneurs to large international companies. Because of this, we believe it will grow into an ecosystem platform on which future solutions and applications are developed and applied in wood and fibre sourcing”, says Jaakko Kuusisaari, Director, Wood & Fibre, Tieto.

Tieto’s Forest Hub innovation is based on Business Information Exchange (BIX), which is a cloud service for B2B integration. Tieto BIX currently covers 1,500 direct customers, 26 sales partners, and exchanges close to 500 million transactions annually. By using this large scale B2B integration service as its core, Tieto Forest Hub can provide cost efficient and reliable services that meet the business continuity requirements of mission critical processes.