Tortoise Index Solutions, being part of the Tortoise family group, today declared the launch of the Tortoise Water Fund (TBLU). TBLU is an ETF, designed to control the overall return of the Tortoise Water Index. It consists of organizations that are originally involved in the water infrastructure and water management businesses. 

“Water is critical for economic growth and social stability. We believe that there is a tremendous need in the market for a quality index that accurately represents the water industry,” said Jeremy Goff, Tortoise director. “Creating this product is a natural extension of our strategy to provide essential asset solutions in wrappers that are desired by advisors and investors.”

TBLU will employ a passive approach to provide exposure to water infrastructure, management and treatment companies that appear poised to benefit from the expected and much needed investment to rebuild existing infrastructure, construct new infrastructure and better manage and enhance the sustainability of this vital, but finite resource.

“We believe that our fund offers the purest exposure to the water industry by tracking an index that incorporates fundamental weighting factors that recognize and adjust for the fragmented nature of the water space,” said Matthew Weglarz, portfolio manager for the fund. “The urgent need for investment in this essential asset, and the infrastructure that supports it, is becoming increasingly recognized and our fund provides a more direct way for investors to access the opportunity.”

Cohesity, the pioneer of hyperconverged secondary storage, today unleashed the release of Cohesity DataPlatform Virtual Edition (VE) and Cohesity C2100 Hyperconverged Node products for distant branch offices. Together with Cohesity DataProtect, the new DataPlatform, VE product conveys an integrated software-only backup solution that deploys on virtual machines ideal for remote or branch office locations. Currently, data can be accumulated and replicated to a central data centre for disaster recovery and long-term retention with Cohesity’s intelligent, web-scale storage system, saving companies time and money. Along with the introduction of Cohesity DataPlatform VE, it provides the first integrated data protection solution that deploys from the edge to the data centre to the cloud, with a common feature-set and management interface.

Enterprises are grappling with exponential data growth that includes both on-premises data centers and cloud storage, as well as remote offices and devices on the edge. Deployed on VMware vSphere, Cohesity DataPlatform VE extends the capabilities of the company’s hyperconverged secondary storage platform by providing consistent management of data protection and backup workloads across all sizes and types of locations, including remote offices, regional data centers, core data centers and public clouds. 

“With the addition of DataPlatform Virtual Edition for remote sites, along with the previously announced DataPlatform Cloud Edition for public clouds, Cohesity can now provide a unified, end-to-end data protection experience that spans from the edge of the enterprise to on-premises data center to public clouds,” said Taneja Group Founder and Consulting Analyst Arun Taneja. “This demonstrates the power of software-defined secondary storage to provide seamless data protection solutions across all forms of IT infrastructure that exist in the modern enterprise.”

Cohesity DataPlatform VE eliminates the need to provision any new hardware in the remote or branch offices and can be remotely installed and administered without requiring on-site support, which is often in short supply at remote offices. Cohesity also released an entry-level hardware configuration that extends the reach of its data protection coverage for branch office or regional data center deployments. The C2100 entry-level hyperconverged node with Cohesity DataPlatform Standard Edition provides a dedicated data protection solution designed for environments with multiple server hosts and storage. With the addition of these products, enterprises are able to simplify the management of remote office backups, increasing efficiency and reducing costs.

“Cohesity Virtual Edition provides the benefits of seamless hyperconverged secondary storage on a global scale,” said Cohesity Head of Product Management and Marketing Patrick Rogers. “With the growing amount of enterprises distributing across the globe, protecting data from the edge of the data centre to the cloud is a challenge. Cohesity Virtual Edition provides a highly-efficient and infinitely scalable storage architecture that addresses these changes.”

“This is a perfect use case for hyper-converged infrastructure,” said ESG Founder and Senior Analyst Steve Duplessie. “The benefits of centralised data protection with the simplicity and ease of a software only solution and the economics of the cloud make this incredibly attractive.”

Milestone Group, the global provider of investment technology and processing solutions for institutional investors, today announced that SEI (NASDAQ:SEIC) has selected its pControl multi-asset software platform to support the growth of its Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) business.

pControl will initially administer the automated allocation of daily cash flows and rebalancing of complex portfolios for SEI’s Institutional Group. This will ensure the scalable implementation and delivery of SEI’s most sophisticated solutions. The solution helps OCIOs by leveraging the globally proven pControl multi-asset investment platform and has capabilities spanning front, middle and back office functions.

Kevin Matthews, Vice President and Managing Director, Solutions Team, SEI Institutional Group, said: “As one of the largest OCIOs, SEI is always looking for ways to improve how we deliver services to our clients. We reviewed a number of options, but pControl stood out as the solution that best supports our business and the complex multi-asset structures that we manage. pControl brings flexibility, efficiency and scalability to this operation, allowing SEI to focus on client delivery, and developing sophisticated products and strategies and getting them to market quickly.”

John Herlihy, Director of Business Development for Milestone Group in North America added: “The OCIO market in North America is growing rapidly, and organizations are looking to get the technology infrastructure right for now and the future. Our pControl OCIO Solution represents a fresh approach and has been described as the most complete solution available to OCIOs seeking to scale their business. We are excited to be partnering with SEI on this project.”

Jack Henry & Associates, Inc., a major provider of digital solutions and payment transactions, primarily for the financial services industry, announced the launch of the newly redesigned www.banno.com. 

• Product Reviews
• 15.02.2017 08:49 am

What does the product do?

Fiorano ESB is a microservices-based middleware solution which helps in integrating heterogeneous applications through its codeless configuration based tools. In simple words, it enables different software to talk to each other reliably and effortlessly.

It allows you to tie your existing islands of IT systems together for real-time data sharing, cross-system business process management, faster transaction automation and complete visibility across the enterprise. Fiorano provides a secure, scalable platform for a "real-time information network" which forms the first step towards going digital.

Although the integration solution is vertical agnostic, Fiorano has been very popular among banks for providing a core banking integration solution. Banks around the world have deployed Fiorano to integrate their core banking system (T24, Finacle, Flexcube, Bancs, and more) with channel applications like mobile banking, internet banking, ATMs, Payment gateways, Swift integration and more.

Who are the customers?

All the institutions who have embarked on a digital transformation journey require the product. In layman’s language, any institution that requires integration and real-time information sharing between multiple systems/applications need the product.

Financial organizations who require a fast, reliable and scalable messaging platform to perform straight-through processing can leverage Fiorano’s technology to support their business.

Banking institutions have a growing demand for a standard-based middleware that helps them to become more agile in onboarding new applications to their existing IT landscape.
Fiorano ESB is trusted by banks worldwide, especially for core banking integration with satellite applications.

What are the main features of the product?

Fiorano provides a microservices oriented, codeless platform for integrating applications with each other. The Fiorano ESB implements a brokered, peer-to-peer (often referred to as super peer) system architecture, which combines the management benefits of centralized hub-and-spoke systems with the performance benefits of fully distributed peer-to-peer systems, while avoiding the particular disadvantages of both of these individual approaches.

Unlike other solutions, in case of Fiorano users visually assemble instantly running solutions by drawing application and service nodes on a canvas through drag-and-drop of active service components. The lines between nodes comprise event flows via active message pipelines, collectively representing a user-defined event driven architecture. The visual model is the ready-to-run, fully implemented application, with no additional programming required. In case of other solutions, the visual model requires additional programming once again adding to the complexity and cost of implementation and service enablement.

More feature of the product are listed below:

Distributed Services Architecture

• Message-Driven Microservice Model
• Distributed, Dynamic Deployment and Management
• Event-Process Orchestration
• Lifecycle Management and Versioning
• Support for multiple protocols and transports

Enterprise-Class, Peer-to-Peer Communications Backbone

• Unbounded Performance and Scalability
• Service-Level Failover and 24x7x Forever Availability
• Guaranteed message delivery
• REST and Web Services Support
• Comprehensive Security

ESB Generic Services, Tools and Adapters

• Distributed Intelligent Routing
• Monitoring, Logging and Auditing
• Multi-Language Support
• XML Transformations
• Adapters and Pre-built Microservices

What is special about Fiorano ESB?

Fiorano’s primary advantage as compared to large stacks vendors has been “Half the programmers – Half the time”, reflecting the lower learning curve and the cohesiveness and uniqueness of the product architecture.  Large stack solutions like Oracle or IBM can be expected to have not only higher licensing costs but importantly, often, require extended use of consulting services to deal with the complexity of the stack which in itself often involves a combination of products developed in isolation of each other. Whereas with Fiorano an average resource can come up to speed in a few weeks; programmer productivity for larger stacks can mean several months or may require expensive integration specialists. 

With Fiorano projects have gone live in a few weeks’ time, saving tremendous amounts of resources, whereas the competition quoted 4-6 months of time for delivery.

Other background features are:

1. Integration, Choreography and Service Creation Environment
2. Powerful Service-Deployment and Runtime Control
3. Best-in-Class Performance, Scalability and Reliability via a distributed, Peer-to-Peer architecture
4. Comprehensive Security, Governance, Lifecycle Management and Versioning
5. Standards-based Heterogeneous SOA

Pricing model:

Fiorano has 2 licensing options: Perpetual and Subscription based.

The Fiorano eStudio provides a graphical interface to compose, deploy and monitor event processes. Fiorano microservices palette is a wide range of pre-built components, each performing a simple business task. There is no coding involved and the visual drag and drop method for creating integration flows makes it very easy for citizen integrators to start connecting different applications.

Fiorano ESB can be downloaded for a 30-day trial from www.fiorano.com. Additionally, there is an open source version launched last year.

What are the reporting capabilities?

The Fiorano Dashboard provides a web-based monitoring tool for the Fiorano ESB Network. It additionally provides support for launching, stopping and restarting an application using a web interface, while also enabling administrators to monitor a wide range of system parameters across the network. Furthermore, it allows administrators to add users/groups and setup Access Control Lists in the Fiorano ESB.

Moreover, Fiorano can easily integrate with any 3^rd party reporting tools to enhance and customize your reports.

Rival products are the following:

• IBM Websphere ESB
• Oracle Fusion Middleware/ Oracle Service Bus
• TIBCO
• Mulesoft
• Miscrosoft Biztalk
• Informatica
• RedHat JBoss ESB

Larry Rosenberger, former CEO of Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) and current research fellow, has joined Austin-based Data as a Service (DaaS) provider XOR Data Exchange as an investor and board observer. Rosenberger’s experience and expertise in implementing data and analytical models for the financial services industry is expected to help the FinTech startup continue rapid growth, development and adoption of fraud risk models to protect consumers and businesses from identity theft and data misuse.

The addition comes as part of XOR’s latest funding round, a $2 million extension of its Series A investment, which closed at the start of February. In a press statement, XOR Founder and CEO Mike Cook stated the funding will be used to expand XOR’s fraud and credit risk models nationally. While the majority of the funding round was raised by existing Series A investors, new funds were contributed by Rosenberger and Chicago-based Corazon Capital.

“Larry’s investment in XOR, both in funding and in expertise, reflect on the potential of our technologies to revolutionize the financial services industry,” stated Cook. “His leadership at FICO changed the way banks and mortgage providers evaluate credit risk; and now his leadership at XOR will help do the same for fraud. I couldn’t be more excited to work with him.”

Rosenberger is well known across the FinTech and financial services industries for his leadership of FICO between 1991 and 1999, during which time FICO credit scores were made available to all three major U.S. credit reporting agencies and adopted as standards by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for mortgage lending evaluation. Those scores remain the gold standard in credit risk used by banks, lenders and service providers nationally and abroad. Since his tenure as CEO, Rosenberger led FICO’s research and development efforts for another eight-year stint before taking on his current role as research fellow.

On his strategic role with XOR, Rosenberger commented, “Mike and his team have created technologies that truly have the potential to reshape the fraud landscape for financial institutions and consumers. My career continues to focus on creating new ways to use data and domain expertise to improve decisions for both people and their providers. I'm excited to work with XOR to continue that innovation focus.”

In his new role as board observer, Rosenberger will lend guidance and expertise in the continued development of data-driven fraud and credit risk mitigation platforms. The startup’s technologies have introduced revolutionary approaches to fraud mitigation made possible by its unique data sharing model, which is designed to protect the privacy and security of consumers and businesses. As a result, XOR is currently under consideration for “Innovator of the Year” at the first annual LendIt Industry Awards. The startup will compete for top honors this March in New York City at LendIt, the world’s largest FinTech and lending trade event.

DBS, Singapore’s biggest and Asia-Pacific’s fifth largest private bank, continues digital transformation of its wealth management business, with the latest enhancement to its wealth platform, "DBS iWealth". The novel and elaborated wealth management app empowers clients to direct their banking operations, control their wealth and also trade on a single platform – the first in Singapore.

Now also available to wealth management clients (DBS Treasures, DBS Treasures Private Client, DBS Private Bank) via a mobile app, the latest enhancements made to the wealth management app DBS iWealth were implemented after a number of intensive client immersion sessions. The bank adopted usability testing, human-centred design and “Uber-like” ratings to solicit constant feedback from its wealth clients.

The enhanced wealth management app empowers clients with quick and intuitive access to services, product information and research. For example, clients can personalise their profiles and customise quick links. Insights and analysis can be customised according to clients’ preferences and holdings, allowing them to manage their wealth and stay updated on market trends while on the go. Equity trading and funds investment have also been incorporated into the wealth management platform, enhancing the range of customer investment needs that can be instantly fulfilled.

On the user-friendly "DBS iWealth" wealth management app, clients can easily access their banking, trading and wealth management portfolios with a few simple clicks – without having to log in and out of different banking apps to conduct their transactions. For example, clients can toggle between conducting their banking transactions (like money transfers or bill payments) with managing their wealth portfolio, all within the same environment. With the "Peek Balance" function, they can also view their account balances or profit and loss statements with a simple swipe on their mobile devices or Apple Watch. This function does not require any pre-login and clients can choose to "peek" at their designated accounts.

Some of the other key features of the wealth management app DBS iWealth include:
• Single dashboard for up-to-date view of a client’s banking, trading and wealth management portfolio
• Clients can trade stocks in seven key markets and stay on top of trends with customised charting tools, market analysis, stock search and filters
• "Online Funds Trading" provides clients with quick access to over 400 funds, as well as fund information, research data and expert analysis
• Insights from research based on clients’ preferences and holdings
• Timely notifications and price alerts for clients to keep track of their portfolio

Said Tan Su Shan, Group Head of Consumer Banking & Wealth Management, DBS Bank, “Everything that we design and build begins and ends with our clients in mind. Whether it’s integrating their banking accounts and wealth portfolios in one single dashboard, keeping track of the markets or learning about opportunities, we are putting the bank in the palm of their hands.”

“By leveraging Big Data, biometrics and intuitive design, we are focused on delivering relevant advice in a timely manner. For the new ‘DBS iWealth’ mobile app, we tested it with over 3,000 clients before rolling it out to all clients, and we believe it will give them a faster, smarter and more personalised way to manage their wealth.”

Currently, more than 70% of DBS’ wealth clients are already online and mobile banking users with the bank and are actively managing their wealth on these digital channels. In 2016, around 25% of wealth clients were acquired online via “DBS iWealth”.

DBS has the largest number of online banking and mobile banking customers in Singapore with over 2.6 million and 1.5 million users respectively, who account for over 1.6 million transactions daily across its digital platforms. The bank’s customer mobile activity continues to lead the industry in Singapore and mobile banking accounts for over 60% of the bank’s more than 500,000 daily logins.

DBS has been deeply immersed in furthering its digital transformation agenda. In 2014, the bank made a commitment to investing SGD 200 million over three years in digital banking and has since rolled out initiatives such as RM Mobility, which provides relationship managers with an integrated mobile platform used to engage customers from the very beginning of their banking experience with DBS.

In 2015, DBS Private Bank was named the world’s ‘Most Innovative Private Bank’ by three of the industry’s leading journals. Most recently, DBS was named ‘Best Asian Private Bank’ by FinanceAsia and ‘Best Wealth Manager, Asia’ by The Asset, and more notably, as the ‘World’s Best Digital Bank’ by Euromoney, the first time an Asian bank has won an award in a global category by this publication.

Worldcore, an online based financial services provider and cloud biometrics developer BioID, revealed a joint project, in which BioID’s facial recognition technology will be used to secure Worldcore system, adding a second form of biometric authentication, named FaceKey.

“From the earliest days of banking, security has always been key to the financial services world, but it has, unfortunately, been associated with an increasingly painful user experience,” says Worldcore CEO Alex Nasonov. “Delivering a simple, intuitive experience for online financial services has always been central to our mission. With our new FaceKey authentication, based on BioID’s advanced face recognition technology, we can extend this philosophy to user authentication.”

“With its broad and flexible offering, Worldcore is a true innovator in the online financial services market, and we are pleased to help them continue to improve their services,” said BioID CEO Ho Chang. “Facial recognition represents an excellent combination of security and convenience that is ideally suited to online payments, providing the virtual-world equivalent of face-to-face transactions.”

Worldcore has rolled out a new payment option that allows payments to be instantly sent to a mobile phone account holder’s balance. Mobile phone recharge is available for 150+ countries with a 0% fee.

Worldcore website is now localized in four additional languages. “Localization of our website to the French, German, Spanish, and Polish communities will enable us to reach our growth plans for 2017. More languages will be also added every 1-2 months,” comments CEO Nasonov.

Worldcore global payment platform offers a wide range of payment solutions for individuals, e-commerce, and most business verticals, including execution of SWIFT/SEPA bank transfers, prepaid debit cards, mass payments, and international money transfers to any Visa/MasterCard/UnionPay payment cards around the world. Worldcore and VoiceKey are registered trademarks, owned by EUPSProvider s.r.o., a Czech Republic-licensed payment institution regulated by Czech National Bank.

BioID is a cloud biometrics company with advanced solutions for both public and private clouds. The company makes strong, convenient, privacy-assured face, iris, and voice recognition available to everyone, on any device, anytime, anywhere so people can be protected in the cyber world and forget about passwords. Privately held with R&D based in Germany, BioID has offices in Switzerland and the US, and its technology has been proven through many years of use at enterprises, banks, and government institutions.­