According to senior financial services professionals polled by valuation and corporate finance advisor, Duff & Phelps, financial regulation has done little to improve stability in the financial services market. The survey of nearly 200 professionals commissioned by Duff & Phelps demonstrates that 35% of respondents – believe recent regulation has had little or no impact on financial stability, with 17% stating that regulation has actually made the financial services world less stable.  

Kinetic Partners, now the Compliance and Regulatory Consulting Division of Duff & Phelps, has been publishing the Global Regulatory Outlook report since 2012. The fifth annual Global Regulatory Outlook report also revealed that, a decade on from the financial crisis of 2007/8, just 10% of senior executives surveyed say they believe changes to regulation have fully addressed the risk of a future crash.

55% of respondents agree that the risk has been partly addressed by new regulations – but 33% don’t believe the regulatory framework has adequately created safeguards to prevent a future crisis. With President Trump committed to reviewing Dodd-Frank and the future regulatory framework of the London market uncertain due to Brexit, financial regulation may be about shift once more for banks and fund managers.

Julian Korek, Global Head of Compliance and Regulatory Consulting at Duff & Phelps, comments on the findings:

“More needs to be done to build stability in financial services and ensure the system is resilient in future, for both banks and the alternative investment industry. Even now, a decade on, most people in the financial services sector are not confident that the risks that caused the crisis have really been managed. The major regulatory bodies have been very clear about future areas of focus and concern, but the fact that so many still think there is potential for another crash is worrying – even without Trump or Brexit potentially taking the market down a quite different regulatory path.”

Despite these challenges, the survey revealed that the industry believes financial regulation is having a positive effect on the investment community – only 6% believe financial regulation has reduced investor confidence, whilst 42% believe regulations have helped cement investor confidence.

However, only 23% of the executives surveyed believe that regulators have created effective global regulatory frameworks, although 57% do believe that regulators are better at collaborating and coordinating across borders.

Effective cross-broader collaboration will be essential for fund managers in particular post-Brexit, especially for those based in non-EU jurisdictions looking to be assessed as equivalent under the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD). The European Commission is currently reviewing recommendations issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority on the application of the (AIFMD) marketing passport for non-EU markets, meaning the future of the financial passport is still unclear.

As such, the 2017 Global Regulatory Outlook report shows most firms (62%) agree that Brexit will have an impact on their compliance arrangements, though it is not clear whether this will be felt in the short or long term. More than a third (35%) believe that Brexit will have a short term impact on compliance arrangements, whilst a quarter (27%) expect the impact to be felt in over 18 months.

The Italian region of Puglia has granted FINCONS GROUP approval to invest in a ‘smart manufacturing’ project. It is to be run from its smart-shore delivery center, providing services to clients across Europe. The region has granted access financing available exclusively to businesses that propose highly innovative projects.

Partnering with the region, the Group will invest in R&D of ICT solutions for the sustainable manufacturing industry in Europe. The products will be developed in Fincons’ Bari offices and will leverage Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in order to respond to the increasing demands of the manufacturing market and to help manufacturers become ‘Smart Factories’ through the adoption of digital solutions. 

The project, led by Fincons Group’s Innovation Team also calls on the Manufacturing Business Unit to innovate once again its ICT system integration and development solutions specifically designed for the manufacturing sector. Key objective is to develop a new “Fincons Smart Manufacturing Platform”. This platform package will include innovative products and practices combined with integration, software customisation and consulting services. IoT technologies will help increase productivity and improve integration of different supply chain phases thanks to the collection, analysis and transmission of data on production lines. Fincons Group is already trialling this model of smart manufacturing via its InnovationLab in partnership with other businesses, universities, and research institutes in Europe.

“The partnership with the region of Puglia and the opportunity to invest in innovation – comments Michele Moretti, Fincons Group CEO – allows us to strengthen our position and role as innovators throughout the digital transformation journey, trademark of our organisation. The Bari Delivery Center, that is a smart-shore hub for IT service for our European clients, represents a key asset in our internationalisation strategy. More and more European businesses are selecting us as provider of choice on the basis of our ability to innovate and long-sighted approach towards continuous investments in order to offer the market solutions that really stand out from the crowd.”

eVestment continues its successful European expansion strategies, headed by Gabriel Gilarranz a new Vice President of Business Development in the company’s London office.   

“Bringing seasoned business development executives like Gabriel to our team is an important step in continuing our European and international growth,” said Christophe Frerebeau, eVestment’s head of Europe, Middle East and Africa operations. “Gabriel’s experience and contacts in the financial services and data industries will be crucial to our continued growth in this region of the world.”

Gilarranz will initially focus on asset managers in the United Kingdom and brings a wealth of financial industry experience to eVestment. Most recently, he served as sales director with Thomson Reuters, where he worked since 2012. He’s also held sales executive positions with IHS Markit, Bloomberg and Banco Santander covering clients in Germany, Switzerland and Spain.

“I’m excited to join eVestment and help the company grow even more in the United Kingdom and Europe,” said Gilarranz. “Asset managers, pensions, insurance companies, institutional investment consultants and others in the industry are increasingly embracing eVestment solutions to understand key metrics and trends in the global institutional investment world and make smarter decisions. I look forward to exposing more firms to our company’s solutions.”

eVestment has been ranked as one of the fastest growing fintech firms in its home country of the United States, appearing on the Inc. 500/5000 list of fastest growing companies in the United States for 10 consecutive years.

In addition to being among the top global institutional investment fintech companies, eVestment is also a globally recognized top workplace. Great Place to Work® and Fortune magazine have ranked eVestment the No. 15 mid-sized company overall to work for in the United States and the No. 5 mid-sized technology company to work for in the country. eVestment has also ranked as a top employer in the United Kingdom, earning a silver accreditation from the UK’s Investors in People organization.

Mahindra Comviva, the global provider of mobility solutions, today announced the launch of  MobiLytix^TM Customer Engagement for Digital Payments . This solution is meant to drive higher level of customer engagement in the realm of digital payments. MobiLytix^TM Customer Engagement for Digital Payments, which is a world-class marketing engagement automation platform for digital payments, revives existing mobile money life cycle that leads to topline, as well as bottom-line growth.      

MobiLytix^TM Customer Engagement for Digital Payments takes a data centric and analytics approach to search for new opportunities at each and every stage of the mobile money lifecycle. The aim is to drive higher levels of usage and retention, through highly contextual offers and promotions that are embedded with a deeper understanding of customer’s behavior and wants. It serves to put the right enablers in place for onboarding more subscribers and building a bigger mobile ecosystem by encouraging more usage of mobile money, developing subscriber, as well as agent engagement level, creating long term relationship with subscribers and thus improving customer stickiness.

Speaking on the occasion of the launch at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Amit Sanyal, Business Head, Consumer Value Solutions at Mahindra Comviva said, “Increasing mobile money usage remains an important challenge, with the global customer active rate standing at a measly 32.6%. The key to reducing the chasm between mobile money registration and the actual usage is personal and timely communication to decrease uninstall rate and increasing retention rates in the long term. Our new offering defines mobile money service as a set of experiences, through timely, relevant and contextual messaging, and thus reinforces the need for a development approach that emphasizes customer needs and experience, helping in driving usage and retention in the long term.”

Mahindra Comviva’s Customer Value Solutions has over 40 deployments in 25 countries across the globe and empowers over 250 million customers. Its MobiLytix^TM Suite provides marketers with data-driven marketing tool that helps them to deliver highly contextual marketing across multiple channels and on any device. Using MobiLytix^TM suite marketers can acquire, analyze, and apply information about customer context to orchestrate personalized, real-time interactions to drive revenue performance and gain competitive advantage. It delivers 800 million digital marketing messages per day and provides over 60% accuracy for churn prediction.       

Timico , cloud service provider in partnership with Datto , a business continuity solutions provider, reveals research findings that the effects of Ransomware attacks on finance companies cause substantial financial cost and immeasurable data loss. However, there is an alarming lack of awareness when it comes to being prepared, with over half of UK banking and insurance firms having no official Ransomware policy, to guide employees on what to do in the event of an attack.  

Ransomware is malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid. It is the biggest global cyber threat to business with reported incidents increasing in frequency and complexity and the financial demands escalating. The National Cyber Security Centre weekly threat report predicts that new innovations in Ransomware are already happening, such as targeting internet-connected devices to create a “Ransomware of Things.”  

60 seconds or less to shutdown

The research report entitled ‘The Reality of Ransomware,’ surveyed 1,000 UK organizations including 250 in the banking and insurance sectors. All those polled have been a victim of Ransomware and many had been attacked within the last 12 months.

Nearly two thirds (62%) of finance firms said that the effects of an attack were almost instant with data systems going from fully functional to essentially useless within seconds and minutes. A quarter (25%) reported lockdown within a few minutes, with 17% saying it took just one minute and 20%, just a few seconds.

The drastic effect on business

The Timico and Datto research found that, for the majority (89%) of banks and insurance companies that have been victim to Ransomware, systems were down for a week or more, causing £1,000s in financial damage a day to most businesses. 

Nearly half (43%) had to endure their data down for more than a month, with 19% reporting their data as ‘unrecoverable.’ 

But retrieving data is becoming increasingly more difficult for organizations. The ransom fees, demanded by cybercriminals before they will unlock the victim’s computer system, are rapidly rising. More than a quarter (26%) of finance firms paid over £5,000 to retrieve their data. 

The true cost of Ransomware is a financial abyss

Knowing the extent of the cost of the attack on the business is often unknown. A third (33%) of banks and insurance firms could not even estimate the overall financial cost to the business of the Ransomware attack, deeming it ‘unquantifiable’. Over half (56%) of respondents in the finance sector estimated that the attack had cost the business between £1,000 to £2,000 per day in lost revenue, due to its data systems being down.

Lack of guidance leaving organizations vulnerable to loss 

Despite Ransomware being well reported as one of the biggest, evolving threats to companies world-wide, many staff within UK finance organizations would have no idea what to do in the event of an attack.  Timico and Datto found that over half (55%) have no official Ransomware policy in place to guide staff on what to do when an attack occurs, leaving them vulnerable to huge and unquantifiable financial and data loss.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), world’s leading IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, has broken into the list of the Top 3 most valuable brands in the IT Services industry. Brand Finance, the world’s leading brand valuation firm, held the assessment.

“Just five years ago the TCS brand had achieved a major milestone, emerging as one of the Big 4 brands in the IT Services sector. Through sustained growth in their brand value, they have now moved up one spot and consolidated their place along with IBM and Accenture at the top of the sector’s food chain.” said David Haigh, CEO, Brand Finance. He added “This represents an absolutely stellar performance, adding an annual average of nearly a billion dollars in brand value across the seven-year tenure of their previous CEO N. Chandrasekaran.”

TCS was also rated as the Industry’s highest brand strength rating of AA+ and contributes to 69% of the value of the larger Tata Brand, which remains the #1 ranked brand originating from India. Over the past year, TCS has also been recognized for running one of the most innovative marketing programmes in Europe and featured as a top 100 brand in the United States.

“The foremost driver of our brand has always been the strong talent we have in the company along with a culture of customer centricity, innovation and consistent business performance. We will continue to invest in strategic initiatives towards all these areas, to further strengthen our brand position.” said Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and MD, TCS.

In 2016, TCS strengthened its portfolio of brand partnerships by being appointed as the Official Technology Partner to the Virgin Money London Marathon and as title partner to the world’s largest cross country race, which has been renamed to the TCS Lidingöloppet run. Association with major marathons such as the TCS New York Marthon and TCS Amsterdam Marathon have significantly boosted TCS’ brand in its key markets. In a recent survey, 98.6% of its clients stated that the TCS Amsterdam marathon has significantly strengthened the company’s brand in the Netherlands.

Two giants with a long history in infrastructure and communications technology collaborate to accelerate the digital era of urban development. AT&T and Current, powered by GE, have announced an exclusive partnership to connect cities across the United States and Mexico to the Internet of Things (IoT). Together, the companies will disclose a realm of possibilities to improve the way cities operate, communicate, and meet the needs of citizens.

Since launching its Smart Cities organization in 2015, AT&T has been using its resources and IoT expertise to create impactful solutions for cities. With its smart cities framework as the foundation, for the past year AT&T has been helping cities develop and implement a holistic smart cities strategy to address their current and future needs. The agreement with Current significantly extends AT&T's smart city services, plus opens new revenue opportunities for the company. By introducing GE's Predix-powered IoT platform, AT&T can use outdoor LED lighting in a city to create a digital infrastructure that helps address issues like traffic flow and parking optimization, gunshot detection on city streets, air quality monitoring and weather emergency alerts.

"Intelligent lighting plays a huge role in a smart city," said Chris Penrose, president, Internet of Things Solutions, AT&T. "Our collaboration with Current will enable us to use a city's existing lighting infrastructure to more securely connect sensor-enabled networks. This will put them on the path to becoming a smarter, more sustainable city."

The two companies have collaborated before. Current, GE's digital industrial startup business, recently announced a deal with the City of San Diego to upgrade thousands of the city's outdoor light fixtures to sensor-enabled LED technology, making it the world's largest smart city IoT platform. AT&T will act as the data carrier and provide highly secure connectivity for the San Diego deployment, which is expected to save the city approximately $2.4 million in annual energy costs. In addition, the deal builds on AT&T's membership in GE's Digital Alliance program, where it serves as a connectivity-as-a-service collaborator for GE's Predix platform.

"We are thrilled to expand Current's relationship with AT&T to help cities redefine the civic engagement model—our digital network is based on an open platform, which allows entrepreneurs, incubators and students to get involved in the future development smart city applications," said John Gordon, Chief Digital Officer of Current, powered by GE. "AT&T has a long history of working commercially with municipalities, and our technology will be a perfect fit toward helping more cities unleash the limitless potential of the Industrial Internet."

For more than 100 years, AT&T has formed strong relationships with cities across the United States. The company's Smart Cities initiative is bringing connectivity to spotlight cities across the nation—helping these cities become cleaner, safer and more efficient. And secure AT&T network connectivity and IoT platforms like AT&T M2X and AT&T Flow Designer continue to foster IoT innovation around the globe. 

"Innovation is at the core of who we are—and what we do," said Mike Zeto, general manager, AT&T Smart Cities. "AT&T and GE are the companies that modernized the telephone and light bulb. Together, we will usher in a new digital frontier, giving cities and citizens alike the benefits of a connected city."

• Product Reviews
• 27.02.2017 09:04 am

The Islamic financial services industry is expanding and experiencing tremendous growth day by day that drives new challenges and trends. As an industry leader, Path Solutions offers Islamic financial institutions and microfinance companies cutting-edge software solutions that meet functional requirements in accordance with the Islamic principles of Sharia Law.

What Does the System Do?

Path Solutions’ flagship iMAL Enterprise Islamic Banking & Investment System is a powerful core banking system explicitly built from the ground up to support Sharia banking operations. iMAL is rightly geared to address country and region-specific Islamic banking requirements.

iMAL provides a powerful and service-oriented banking infrastructure without constraints and with minimum disruption to banking operations. iMAL is the only 100% Islamic banking solution as certified by AAOIFI (Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions) in 2008.

All iMAL modules are based on the Islamic law and are in full compliance with IAS (International Accounting Standards). The system is built on the Sharia guidelines for the purpose of financing related to Murabaha, Mudaraba, Ijara, Istisnaa, Salam, project financing, real estate and others.

Who needs the System?

iMAL Enterprise Islamic Banking & Investment System is a trusted core banking system used by major Islamic banks across the globe. iMAL instantaneously meets the needs of Islamic banks based on a cutting-edge open and flexible architecture.

iMAL is ideal for high-end Islamic banking, investment and financing institutions that have an urgent demand for solutions with built-in Sharia-compliant workflows.

What other features are relevant?

iMAL combines comprehensive business functionality with an advanced, secure, scalable and modular architecture proven to meet the market toughest challenges of today and tomorrow.

The following points illustrate iMAL’s key strengths and features:

• Supports all known Islamic banking instruments
• Web interface, N-Tier Java based, SOA architecture
• With high parameterization capabilities; greater process efficiency, better risk mitigation
• Multi-currency, multi-branch, multi-company enabled accounting backbone
• With strong product definition features
• Fully integrated yet modularized, with Model Bank
• Highly automated and flexible system
• Ensures quick time to market products
• Employs multi-tier architecture using the latest JAVA technology with either Oracle or SAP Sybase as core database servers
• Provides sophisticated data protection and high-speed access to information
• Cloud-ready and deployable on a fully scalable, multi-server n-tier architecture
• Fully integrated front, middle and back office Islamic core banking system
• Runs 24/7 in real-time
• 360° view
• Runs on all the main platforms and operating systems
• Compliance with Basel II/III & AML.

More benefits of the solution are listed below:

iMAL enables Islamic financial institutions to achieve the following:

• Built-in Islamic operations standard compliant workflows and system controls
• Various delivery channels
• Faster time to market
• Exact fit to business requirements
• Phased migration and implementation approach
• Running businesses in real-time mode
• Higher operational efficiency:

- Single integrated platform for all banking activities

- Flexibility to meet change and growth requirements

- Cost reduction by implementing STP

- Optimized business performance

• Superior customer service
• Efficient speed of service
• Precision of documentary cycle
• Electronic reconciliation (quick notices)
• Prompt dispute resolution: Legal, collection, valuation, procedures, etc.

What are the reporting capabilities?

One of the vital features of iMAL is flexibility in reporting. iMAL is based on Jasper Reports for web modules that provide variety of reports formats (HTML, PDF, WORD, EXCEL, TEXT, etc.). It is important to emphasize that reports are independent from iMAL modules and can be imported to iMAL easily via iMAL*Reporting modules. For Business Intelligence (BI) Microsoft Objects is used for advanced reports.

What is the pricing model?

The pricing model of the solution is based on the modular capability available in iMAL core banking system. Correspondingly, each module is priced separately providing a flexible costing structure to accomplish the goals of financial institutions. Financial institutions can tap pricing options according to their preference: 

• Full suite of modules
• Product based configuration of core modules
• Development of a flexible branch deployment strategy
• Embedded quantity discount brackets.