OpenLink, the global leader in trading, treasury and risk management solutions for the energy, commodities, corporate and financial services industries, has won the prestigious Central Banking Award 2017 in the ‘Risk Management Services Provider of the Year’ category.

The judging panel recognized OpenLink for its ongoing commitment to support the risk and technology needs of its large and growing central banking client base, its close-knit relationships with the central banking community borne out of a strong user group and the flexibility of OpenLink’s platform to adapt to the changing risk and operational requirements that most central banks are now demanding. Central bank needs are evolving in a still uncertain and fluid macroeconomic environment, and the shift in engagement with the wider market is pushing the boundaries beyond what standard systems can provide.

This award underscores the way OpenLink’s highly experienced teams support a range of central bank and government authorities. The judges highlighted OpenLink’s work with the Bank of Canada and its move to two-way, fully automated credit support annexes, which will enable them to reduce costs and risk exposures.

Christopher Jeffery, Chairman of the Central Banking Awards Committee and Editor-in-Chief of Central Banking, said: “OpenLink has proved it can provide central banks with the technical support needed to navigate their changing risk management needs, particularly in the area of OTC derivatives trading. A case in point is its work with the Bank of Canada, which has benefitted from OpenLink’s systems to move to two-way collateral management, easing its funding burden by ensuring tighter OTC derivatives prices from major dealers.”

Commenting on the award, John O’Malley, CEO of OpenLink, said: “Central banks continue to adapt to evolving regulations and risk management standards in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and the current global market uncertainties. OpenLink’s longstanding commitment to the central banking community has created a strong relationship that keeps us in tune with their unique challenges and opportunities. We are delighted to have been recognized with this award as a testament to how our clients benefit from OpenLink’s market-leading risk management capabilities.”

The award will be presented at the annual Central Banking Awards in London on March 23, 2017.

SETL, the financial blockchain specialist, today announced the opening of its Global Engineering Centre in Ipswich, UK. Ten new staff have been recruited to work in the new office and to support SETL’s international expansion, bringing SETL’s total worldwide workforce to 24. The centre was officially opened by Ben Gummer, Member of Parliament for Ipswich and Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and by Chairman of the SETL board Sir David Walker.

The new team includes blockchain technology architects and specialists for server systems analysis, enterprise storage, web development, integration and project management. SETL operations in Ipswich will be overseen by CTO Nicholas Pennington.SETL joins more than 70 growing technology businesses specialising in areas from financial technology to telecommunications and big data that are based in the Ipswich area and form part of the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership for Norfolk and Suffolk. 

SETL was launched in July 2015 to deploy a multi-asset, multi-currency institutional payment and settlements infrastructure based on blockchain technology. The SETL system will enable market participants to move cash and assets directly between each other, facilitating the immediate and final settlement of market transactions. The SETL system maintains a permissioned, distributed ledger of ownership and transaction records, simplifying the process of matching, settlement, custody, registration and transaction reporting.

Ben Gummer MP commented: “I am delighted to have been invited to open SETL’s new office here in Ipswich. They are the latest of a number of businesses choosing to locate in our tech hub. Suffolk has a thriving ICT sector, with the University of Suffolk ensuring that there is a pipeline of new local talent. Taken together with Norfolk, we have the third highest concentration of science and research parks in the country.”

Peter Randall, CEO of SETL, noted: “Since we launched in 2015, SETL has continued to expand rapidly, with new blockchain products and initiatives. Our new engineering centre will be the powerhouse that supports our growth ambitions as we deploy blockchain projects globally.”

 Xura, a leading provider of secure digital communications services for Communication Service Providers, has a history of innovation, and for some time been delivering security products that utilize machine-learning.  At MWC 2017, Xura will demonstrate how self-learning machines have helped its customers combat grey-route and SIM-box messaging fraud, and how it helps protect revenues and subscribers from threats carried via signaling, such as denial-of-service attacks, fraud, and privacy invasion.

"Machine-learning is a label used for a large variety of artificial intelligence technologies.  We took the decision that we should invest significant R&D resources to determine which specific technologies were best suited for the different classes of telecoms security challenges, and then apply them to our solutions accordingly," said Ilia Abramov, Head of Xura Network Security. "By doing this, we raised the industry performance benchmark for grey-route and SIM-box message detection by an order of magnitude, placing us well ahead of the competition. Our customers now have the most effective solutions to address application-to-person (A2P) messaging fraud."

The R&D initiative extends from the company's messaging spam and fraud solutions to its signaling security portfolio, encompassing protection of 2G, 3G and 4G signaling technologies.

At Mobile World Congress, Xura's demonstrations will enable network operators to see the application of machine learning within a variety of network security and fraud prevention contexts.  Xura security experts will be on hand throughout the event to provide more detail and demonstrations on Xura's Booth 8.1A41, in Hall 8.1. 

TerraPay, a mobile-first international payment network, today announced that it has partnered with MoneyTrans, a leading Money Transfer company established in Europe and Africa as well as Paga, Nigeria’s pioneering payments and financial services company to launch cross-border remittances from Spain to mobile wallets in Nigeria.

Now Nigerians in Spain can send money to any mobile phone number in Nigeria through Paga, just by visiting the nearest MoneyTrans store. The recipient can withdraw money from more than 11,000 Paga agents across Nigeria or make card-less withdrawal from ATMs. The recipient can also use the money to pay bills, buy airtime or send the money to any other phone number or bank account in Nigeria, among other services.

The mobile based cross-border remittance service has been launched in Spain and will be followed by successive launches in Belgium, France and Italy in the coming weeks.

To mark this occasion, Mr. Jeremy De Smet, COO of MoneyTrans said, “We are glad to take another huge step in enabling mobile money services in Africa. TerraPay is well positioned to offer a strong solution building upon and leveraging a major technical infrastructure that has been in place for many years in Africa.”

“Nigeria presents a wide array of opportunities for companies like TerraPay, as it is the biggest remittances receiver in Africa”, said Ambar Sur, Founder and CEO of TerraPay. “This partnership with MoneyTrans and Paga will play a pivotal role in cross border remittances in Nigeria, helping to reduce fees, improve speed and provide convenience for users.”

Commenting on the partnership Jay Alabraba, Co-founder Paga said, “We are happy to collaborate with TerraPay and MoneyTrans in enabling secure transfers between Spain and Nigeria, the first of several important remittance corridors we will be launching together. By combining Paga’s extensive reach with the proven capabilities of TerraPay and MoneyTrans in the international remittance space, we are bringing to market a seamless and easy-to-use facility for Nigerians at home and in the diaspora.”

Nigeria is ranked sixth among the top remittance-receiving countries in the world. In 2015, the World Bank pegged remittances received in Nigeria at $21 billion.

Amdocs, as the major supplier of customer experience solutions, reported that Gartner has ranked Amdocs in the Leaders quadrant in its Integrated Revenue and Customer Management (IRCM) report. The Gartner IRCM Magic Quadrant estimated solutions that provide billing, customer care, rating, charging, pricing, partner relationship management, policy management, mediation, self-service, analytics and other relevant functions.  

According to Gartner, leaders are vendors that would be included on shortlists for IRCM solutions at large and midsize service providers worldwide, and which demonstrate ongoing profitable growth and global presence. Gartner also see leaders as vendors that offer leading-edge and scalable technology and functionality, engage in innovative projects, execute and deliver to their customers’ satisfaction, and which are attuned to market trends and direct R&D investment accordingly.

“Amdocs has been in the leaders quadrant since the inception of Gartner’s IRCM Magic Quadrant report,” said Gary Miles, chief marketing officer at Amdocs. “Over the past year, we’ve made considerable investments in our core IRCM offerings, including the recent introduction of embedded artificial intelligence capabilities from several leading AI platforms such as Amazon’s Alexa and Facebook’s bots within our CES 10.1 Digital Care and Commerce systems.

Bats Global Markets, a progressive worldwide provider of exchanges and services for financial markets, commented that its Bats One Premium market data product is now available for distribution through numerous FactSet products and platforms. FactSet, a global supplier of integrated financial data, analytical software, and industry-leading service, this month became the first distribution partner to reveal the new offer.

Bats One Premium features five levels of real-time quoted depth and trade information across the four Bats U.S. stock exchanges, and is geared towards the sophisticated professional investor.

“We’re excited about bringing our new, premium version of Bats One to market,” said Kevin Carrai, Vice President, Market Data and Access Services, at Bats. “Professional investors are increasingly seeking access to more comprehensive stock market data and we are committed to finding new and unique ways to meet the industry’s needs.”

The four Bats U.S. equities exchanges combine to consistently make Bats the #1 exchange operator by market share for continuous trading as well as a leading destination for exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading in the U.S.

Consistent with the Bats strategy of providing data at a lower cost to the industry, the Bats One Feed is significantly less expensive than similar products on the market. Bats One Summary Feed is 60% less expensive per professional user1, about 85% less expensive for an enterprise license for professional users, and 50% lower for an enterprise license for non-professional users. The Bats One Feed can also be used as a standalone product or as a supplement to other market data products.

Everledger is heading to Tokyo for a competition with ten regional champions to contest for a partnership with NTT DATA. Winning London innovation applies block chain technology to track the provenance of valuable artworks and artefacts.

Everledger has won the London stage of NTT DATA’s Global Open Innovation Business Contest 5.0. Now, the Everledger team is flying to Tokyo, Japan to compete against entrepreneurs from all over the world in the Grand Finale. Participants will be competing for the financial award, worth USD 30,000 to support the development of their new businesses, and a chance to get into the highly innovative Japanese market.

This contest is all about giving start-ups the best opportunity to succeed. Not only do they receive invaluable feedback and guidance on their ideas via direct access to business leaders, but also the chance to create a ‘triple-win’ partnership with NTT DATA and their clients to develop their business,” said Kotaro Zamma, head of section of open innovation and business incubation, NTT DATA.

Everledger uses blockchain technology to create a digital global ledger, which tracks and protects valuable items such as diamonds “from mine to market”. By creating a digital provenance trail, the technology eliminates the need for a large paper trail between owners, insurers and transporters as valuable items change hands around the world.

The concept pitched to NTT DATA married this capability with NTT DATA’s own AMLAD digital archiving technology, which was developed to scan and record, in very high definition, priceless manuscripts from the Vatican Library. The concept product could provide a new way to archive and create an immutable provenance trail for valuable artworks.

This is the first time that NTT DATA has located the competition globally. Having achieved significant success in the company’s native Japan over the last two years, the contest has now expanded to 10 additional locations in 2017, including London.

Winners of other regional heats to date include Legalbot in Sao Paulo, a company planning to democratise regulatory intelligence using machine learning analytic tools, and Paykey in Tel Aviv, which proposed a new peer-to-peer payment solution. Everledger will join these firms in the Grand Finale of the Global Open Innovation Contest 5.0 in Tokyo on the 15^th March 2017.

In addition to the contribution of business support, Grand Finale winners will also receive travel and accommodation for two weeks for two people to join a collaboration project with NTT DATA in Japan, as well as a 6-month pass to a co-working space in Tokyo, presented by NTT DOCOMO Ventures Corp.

• 15.02.2017 -- 11:12 am

Peter Loop, Associate Vice President - Sr. Principal Technology Architect at Infosys speaks with Financial IT about blockchain framework for banks.

PayPal Holdings, Inc. and TIO Networks Corp., a cloud-based multi-channel bill payment processing and receivables management company, today announced a final agreement under which PayPal will acquire TIO for amount of $3.35 CAD ($2.56 USD) per share, in cash or an approximate $304 million CAD ($233 million USD) equity value. The purchase price demonstrates a premium of 25.2% to TIO’s 90-trading day volume-weighted average price as of February 13, 2017, and 22.6% to the 20-trading day volume-weighted average price as of January 9, 2017, the trading day immediately preceding the date TIO entered into exclusive negotiations with PayPal. 

TIO is a leading multi-channel bill payment processor in North America and processed more than $7 billion USD in consumer bill payments in fiscal 2016. TIO serves 14 million consumer bill pay accounts* and offers convenient solutions for expedited bill payment services to financially underserved consumers. The company has more than 10,000 supported billers and numerous direct relationships with billers, which enable TIO to quickly process telecom, wireless, cable and utility bill payments for TIO’s customers. Using TIO’s approximately 900 operated self-service kiosks, approximately 65,000 retail walk-in locations, and mobile and web solutions, customers can conveniently pay their bills while avoiding the service interruptions and financial penalties associated with missed payment deadlines.

Dan Schulman, President and CEO of PayPal, said, “By acquiring TIO and integrating bill payment into our global payments platform, PayPal adds another key service in our efforts to become a part of a consumer’s everyday financial life. Worldwide, more than 2 billion** people do not have affordable access to basic financial services, making it difficult and expensive for consumers to carry out basic financial tasks, including bill payment. TIO’s digital platform, and physical network of agent locations make paying bills simpler, faster, and more affordable. We are excited by the opportunity to extend this valuable service to our existing customers and welcome new billers and customers to PayPal."

Hamed Shahbazi, Chairman and CEO of TIO, remarked, “We founded TIO to make speed and access part of the bill payment experience for the underserved, and we believe that we have created affordable products to serve the needs of all customers. Our mission fits perfectly with PayPal’s vision to democratize money. As part of the PayPal team, we believe we will accelerate our growth through expanded distribution and continue increasing access to more billers and services.”

Expected Strategic Benefits of the TIO Acquisition

• Aligned with PayPal’s Vision: TIO supports PayPal’s vision of democratizing money by giving consumers more convenient and affordable ways to pay their bills.
• Expands Market Opportunity: TIO accelerates PayPal’s entry into bill payments with 14 million consumer bill pay accounts*, approximately 60 million transactions processed in TIO’s fiscal 2016 and a processing network that includes more than 10,000 billers.
• Extends Consumer Value Proposition: PayPal’s intention is to offer TIO’s valuable service to PayPal’s customers within its online and mobile experiences.

Upon closing of the acquisition, TIO will operate as a service within PayPal.

Financial Highlights of Acquisition

PayPal intends to fund the transaction with cash on its balance sheet. There will be no change to PayPal’s previously communicated fiscal 2017 guidance and three-year outlook based on the acquisition of TIO. For the fiscal year ended July 31, 2016, TIO generated $74.7 million CAD in revenue ($57.1 million USD) and $10.6 million CAD in adjusted EBITDA ($8.1 million USD). TIO defines EBITDA as earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization and adjusted EBITDA as EBITDA plus stock-based compensation, non-recurring transaction and restructuring expenses.

Transaction Details

The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2017, and will be completed by way of a plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia).

The completion of the transaction will be subject to the approval of at least two-thirds of the votes cast at a special meeting of TIO shareholders and optionholders present in person or represented by proxy at the meeting, by: (i) TIO shareholders; (ii) by TIO shareholders and optionholders, voting together as a single class; and (iii) a majority of the votes cast by TIO shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at the meeting, excluding for this purpose votes attached to the TIO common shares held by persons described in items (a) through (d) of Section 8.1(2) of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 – Take-Over Bids and Special Transactions.

The meeting of shareholders and optionholders is expected to take place in April, 2017. In addition to TIO securityholder approvals, the transaction is also subject to other closing conditions, including the receipt of approvals relating to TIO’s money transmitter licenses, the expiration or early termination of the applicable pre-merger waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, and court approval in British Columbia, Canada.

The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of each of TIO and PayPal, and the TIO Board recommends that TIO shareholders and optionholders vote in favor of the Arrangement. The recommendation of the TIO Board was based on the recommendation of a special committee of independent directors of TIO. The financial advisor to TIO, Raymond James Ltd., has provided a fairness opinion to the special committee and board of directors of TIO that, subject to the assumptions, limitations and qualifications set out in such fairness opinion, the consideration to be received by TIO shareholders pursuant to the plan of arrangement is fair, from a financial point of view, to the TIO shareholders.

In addition, TIO shareholders, directors and officers, including funds managed by Core Innovation Capital, Napier Park Financial Partners, Edison Partners, Inter-Atlantic Advisors and Inductive Capital, representing approximately 50.4% of the issued and outstanding common shares have agreed to vote their shares in favor of the transaction. The transaction includes customary deal protection provisions, including non-solicitation of an alternative transaction and a termination fee payable to PayPal under certain circumstances.