ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, will be demonstrating the next-generation of eCommerce payments with the UP eCommerce Payments solution at the Merchant Payments Ecosystem conference in Berlin, February 14-16. The platform solution empowers merchants and the payment service providers (PSPs) that serve them to embrace payments innovation and maximize checkout conversion rates.

ACI will also showcase its UP Immediate Payments solution and Proactive Risk Manager (PRM), highlighting real-time payments and fraud management capabilities for financial intermediaries and central infrastructures.

Company executives will take the stage to share their insights into how the payments ecosystem is evolving and is being driven by regulatory changes, open payment technology and expectations around customer experience.

• Silvia Mensdorff-Pouilly, general manager EMEA, ACI Worldwide, will share insights into how PSD2 and other regulations are impacting alternative, mobile and instant payments. Tuesday, February 14, 11:30am.
• Paul Thomalla, senior vice president, Corporate Relations & Development, ACI Worldwide, will participate in a C-level Club discussion on what is coming next in the acquiring and processing space. Tuesday, February 14, 12:30pm.
• Falk Schubert, head of sales Europe, ACI Worldwide, will moderate a panel on ‘The New Payments Ecosystem,’ addressing emerging mobile payments technology, growth strategies for payment intermediaries, and local versus pan-European initiatives. Tuesday, February 14, 2:00pm.
• Wolfgang Berner, director, global eCommerce, ACI Worldwide, will deliver a keynote on the API-ization of payments and what it means for innovation at the POS and for eCommerce payments, as the IoT looms on the horizon. Wednesday, February 15, 1:40pm.

Ancoa, provider of contextual surveillance and insightful analytics for exchanges, regulators, and buy & sell-side firms, today announced that Convergex, an agency-focused global brokerage and trading related services provider, has deployed Ancoa’s market surveillance platform to monitor all trading activity across its domestic (U.S.) and international cash equities and options brokerage businesses. The deployment monitors trading activity of all lit and dark venues including Millennium, Convergex’s proprietary ATS.

Convergex delivers comprehensive solutions that include its award winning ETF Direct® platform and algorithms, global high-touch and electronic trading, options trading and technologies, prime brokerage services, global clearing, commission management, corporate access and more, to nearly 3,000 clients accessing over 100 global market centers. Convergex has international coverage of options and cash equities in approximately 6,500 symbols.

Preventing market abuse by timely detecting manipulation attempts and other potentially improper trading activity has become a regulatory requirement for market participants across all major jurisdictions.  Global regulatory efforts to uphold the integrity of the markets and protect end investors have seen the introduction of stricter market abuse rules and regulations.  Trading firms in the U.S., as well as internationally, need to demonstrate to their regulators that they have the surveillance capabilities necessary to prevent inappropriate trading activity and take the necessary steps to investigate these abuses.

Convergex has chosen to deploy Ancoa’s market surveillance platform across its U.S. and international operations following a rigorous due diligence and vendor review process. Ancoa’s surveillance capabilities and strong visualization tools enable Convergex’s global management team to carry out its oversight functions in a coordinated and efficient way.  Furthermore, Convergex’s global compliance team can now further comply with U.S. and international market abuse regulations and better monitor the ATS market participants via one central platform.  

Convergex’s cloud based deployment running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) is certificated to ISO 27001 information security standards.  AWS provides a managed and secured infrastructure environment while the deployment ensures cyber security is managed at every level in a secure, efficient and cost effective way.

Ann Neidenbach, Chief Information Officer of Convergex, said: “We chose Ancoa because of its leading edge technology and robust trading surveillance capabilities to support our global multi-asset requirements. Furthermore, Convergex is ahead of the curve by migrating to Ancoa’s cloud based solution to address our surveillance needs in the most comprehensive and cost efficient way.”

Niko Mykkanen, Partner Lead, AWS EMEA, added: “AWS helps financial organizations to build secure and compliant applications. We are excited to see customers such as Convergex working with AWS Technology Partner Ancoa to realize the benefits of the cloud.”

Stefan Hendrickx, Founder and Executive Director, Ancoa, concluded: “We are thrilled to work with the Convergex compliance and management teams both in London and New York.  We understand the regulatory pressures to prevent market abuse and uphold market integrity, and we tailored our platform to suit Convergex’s surveillance needs.  We are confident that Ancoa’s monitoring capabilities will enable compliance teams to fulfil their regulatory and surveillance obligations with confidence and also provide valuable insights to the Convergex management team.”

Following the announcement in December 2016 that affiliates of Xura entered into definitive agreements to acquire Mitel Mobility, Inc. ("Mitel Mobile"), a division of Mitel Networks Corporation ("Mitel") (Nasdaq:MITL) (TSX:MNW), and Ranzure Networks, Inc. ("Ranzure"), today Xura announces that upon completion of the transactions the new combined company name will be Mavenir Systems, Inc. ("Mavenir Systems" or "Mavenir").  Affiliates of Xura completed the previously announced acquisition of Ranzure Networks on February 1, 2017. The acquisition of Mitel Mobile by affiliates of Xura remains subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017.

Xura's CEO, Pardeep Kohli, formerly CEO of Mitel Mobile's predecessor (also named Mavenir Systems) and Co-Founder and CEO of Ranzure Networks, will lead the new company under the reactivated Mavenir name.

Mavenir Systems, which was acquired by Mitel in 2015 and rebranded to Mitel Mobile, established its industry leadership in 4G LTE mobile solutions that helped define the market with a series of industry firsts, including the world's first live network deployments of Voice over LTE ("VoLTE") and RCS5 with MetroPCS (now T-Mobile), and the first mobile network deployment of IMS-based Voice over WiFi ("VoWi-Fi") with T-Mobile US.

The new Mavenir, to be formed by the combination of Xura, Mitel Mobile and Ranzure, will establish a leading player in fully-virtualized, 5G ready software solutions across every layer of the network infrastructure stack, helping Communications Service Providers ("CSPs") drive revenues, efficiencies, flexibility and scalability as they adopt the cloud and virtualize their networks.  The new solution set will enable customers to drive service innovation, deliver optimization and handle exponential traffic growth from Internet of Things ("IoT") and 5G applications.

Xura's CEO, Pardeep Kohli, commented: "Mavenir's strong global brand reputation and proven track record of market-leading innovation across its product set made the name a natural choice for us. Mavenir has led multiple industry-first innovations, including the first at-scale deployments of virtualization and software defined networking to mobile core networks. Moving ahead, we will build on this success, offering evolved, cloud-proven networking solutions, from radio access and packet core to 5G applications and services. We will drive innovation and new experiences for our customers and their end users. In anticipation of the completion of the acquisition and the Mavenir Systems brand re-launch, Mitel Mobile will attend Mobile World Congress 2017 as Mavenir."

Delphix, the market leader in data virtualisation, has announced that the UK’s leading challenger bank, Metro Bank, has dramatically accelerated project delivery, cutting data provisioning time by 80 per cent, following the deployment of the Delphix Data Virtualization platform. In an industry where time to market pressures matter, the Delphix solution delivered a record breaking speed of ROI within six weeks of deployment.

“Working with Delphix has enabled us to provision environments in a single day, saving the team a significant amount of time,” said David Young, Chief Technology Officer at Metro Bank.

In order to support its ambitious growth plans, the bank began working with Delphix, helping it to boost its change delivery programme and enabling it to deliver data to teams seamlessly and efficiently.

“It’s challenging enough integrating enterprise software into an existing IT stack let alone realising any ROI,” said John Meldrum Regional Sales Manager for Northern Europe at Delphix. “Metro Bank really impressed achieving payback in six weeks, pretty much unaided. We are delighted that Delphix delivered so much value so quickly.”

“The fact that deployment took only two weeks, with little additional support, is testament to Delphix’s customer-focussed approach,” said Young.

Metro Bank, the UK’s first new high street bank in more than 100 years, is committed to providing customers with unparalleled levels of service and convenience, through whichever channel they choose. Its focus on using state-of-the-art IT has enabled Metro Bank to provide industry-first innovations, such as 20-minute paperless account opening and temporary card freezing.

ICS Financial Systems Limited (ICSFS), the global software and services provider for banks and financial institutions, announced that Al-Arabiya Islamic Bank, a newly established Bank located in Iraq, selected the multi-awards winning system ICS BANKS ISLAMIC System.

The signing ceremony took place in Amman Jordan Attending the ceremony were the General Manager of Al-Arabiya Islamic Bank; Mr. Duraid Yaseen Hamdan and the Executive Director for Business Development of ICSFS; Mr. Wael Malkawi.

Following the signing ceremony, the General Manager of Al-Arabiya Islamic Bank Mr. Duraid Yaseen Hamdan stated: “We chose ICS BANKS ISLAMIC System for its successful and dynamic accomplishments around the world, especially in the Iraqi market. We understand that the challenges we are facing today are quite difficult considering the growth of the Islamic banking in the region.” Yaseen added; “We  are looking forward to this significant partnership where ICSFS will support us in achieving our desired growth targets, on all aspects and levels.”   

Al-Arabiya Islamic Bank (AIB) will enjoy many offerings and advantages, by implementing ICS BANKS ISLAMIC Core Banking and Credit Facilities & Risk Groups (Murabaha, Musharaka, Istisn’a, Ijara, Mudaraba, Qard Hasan), Trade Finance, Remittances, Investment Accounts & Profit Distribution, Time Deposit, and from ICS BANKS DS (Delivery Channels); ICS BANKS IBS (Internet Banking System) and Credit Cards and ATMS Management System.

On this occasion, the Executive Director of Business Development at ICSFS; Mr. Wael Malkawi commented: “We are very optimistic towards this partnership where Al-Arabiya Islamic Bank joins our flourishing community in Iraq. At ICSFS, we provide innovative products by using the latest technologies to cover all financial services’ sectors from Universal, Islamic, Corporate, Investment and Retail banking solutions to Commercial, Finance Lease and Microfinance banking solutions and activities.” Malkawi added; “The project is planned to go live in a record time of two months, where Al-Arabiya Islamic Bank will be deploying the latest version of ICS BANKS ISLAMIC and enjoy its new look and feel unlimited benefits and our system’s unlimited offerings and advantages.”    
 
ICS BANKS provides a complete suite of banking business modules with a rich sweep of functionality and features, addressing business needs and automating accounting processes, as needed, to improve a bank’s business performance. ICS BANKS has always been a pioneer in utilizing the latest technology to serve financial institutions. In addition to its embedded Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA), the system is deployed in a multi-tiered setup that runs on a web thin client.

Kofax^®, a leading provider of software to simplify and transform the First Mile™ of business, and TR Process, a Kofax authorised partner in Latin America, announced that Kofax TotalAgility^® has been deployed at Caruana Financeira, an innovative financial services company in Brazil, to automate a “hybrid” debit /credit card application, approval and delivery process.

The “hybrid” card can be used as a prepaid debit card for mass transit, utility and other payment purposes and as credit card for purchases of goods and services. Individuals can apply for the card at Caruana Financeira branches located in mass transit terminals in Brazil.

Kofax worked with TR Process to digitally transform the entire account opening and new customer on boarding process in only six months. The solution allows individuals to manually enter data into an electronic application form using tablet computers with touchscreens, and Caruana Financeira employees to take pictures of or scan identification documents used to initiate the credit review and approval process. The solution then automates the extraction and validation of data, verifies the authenticity of the identification documents and is integrated with a credit scoring engine that approves or denies the issuance, embossing and delivery of a new “hybrid” card.

The time to issue the “hybrid” cards was cut from three weeks to under 10 minutes realising 80 percent cost savings and enabling immediate card delivery and usage, which results in faster and greater transaction fee revenue for Caruana Financeira.

Kofax TotalAgility automates and manages 80 percent of the entire application, approval and delivery process.

Today at Finovate, Meniga introduced its new Challenges module, a digital offering to support banks in helping their customers manage their finances by using fun and social incentives.

Meniga Challenges improves people’s financial health by making it possible to save money in small attainable increments. It does this by combining proven community-reinforcement and gamification techniques, such as those popularised in consumer fitness trackers and health apps (e.g. Fitbit and Strava), letting users share and compare their weekly or monthly goals and achievements with peers.

Based on Meniga’s extensive research on how to engage users with any financial personality type, the Meniga Challenges user interface applies proven logic that short term goals drive long term gain. With only 20-30% of the population “conscientious” about financial planning, early testing of Meniga Challenges shows high levels of engagement from people who struggle financially while also keeping the motivated groups engaged.

The unique new product offers a variety of habit-forming challenges. Examples include category-based spending challenges e.g. “no fast-food for a week”; one-off challenges such as “the Chopping Block” shows users their subscriptions so that they can unsubscribe from redundant ones; and The Meniga Money Monster that “steals” variable, random amounts from a user’s current account and puts it into savings. This is useful for anyone who is trying to manage their finances including the least motivated people who find it difficult to save. (See “Notes to editors, below, for details.)
 
Finnur Magnússon, Chief Product Owner: “We developed Challenges to help people with any financial personality type gain financial independence. By combining social online fun with techniques that drive positive daily lifestyle changes, we applied an approach to finance already proven in other areas like health. Small everyday changes can make a huge impact on the customer’s long term saving and spending pattern.”
 
The result: Meniga Challenges supports personalised, better financial habits for end users, and a new way for banks to engage and retain customers.

Georg Ludviksson, CEO and Cofounder Meniga: “Digital banking should be both personal and inspiring: by offering a single compelling app that appeals to all types of customers banks can finally provide value beyond simple financial transactions. Ever-changing regulatory hurdles such as PSD2 and the threat of a rapidly evolving fintech industry are forcing retail banks to innovate to maintain meaningful relationships with customers and their role in society.”

Meniga’s suite of services enables banks to remain compliant to regulatory changes, apply data for targeted marketing, and truly engage all of their customers with relevant activities and content.

Meniga Challenges will be available from February 2017 as part of the company’s Digital Banking Solutions package that also includes the activity feed and personalised insights for banks and their customers.

Atos today announces its global partnership agreement with omni-channel banking software company ebankIT. Atos will now offer ebankIT’s omni-channel offering as part of its “Now Banking” Digital Banking leadership programme, thus supporting banks in their journey towards digital transformation.

Together driving omni-channel Digital Transformation in Banking

The evolution of Banking continues to accelerate at cruising speed. Customers want fast and consistent transactions and expect to be able to access and control their finances using any device and any channel, at any time. Financial institutions have often been held back by cumbrous, inflexible legacy systems. Omni-channel banking enables banks to deliver a seamless and consistent customer experience, whether customers are accessing their bank via a mobile, tablet or visiting a branch in person.

“Digital Banking requires a willingness to think differently, develop collaboratively and move fast. To test, learn and improve. These are the traits that characterize the success of a digital transformation” said RemcoNeuteboom, Global Chief Digital Officer, Financial Services at Atos. “Our partnership with ebankIT perfectly fits our ambition to support our clients in their digital transformation journey, and enable them to make the most of every customer contact to drive long-term competitive advantage.”

Carlos Oliveira, CEO at ebankIT said: “We are happy to work with Atos who has long-standing relationships within the financial services industry globally and the technical implementation expertise our customers are looking for. Their Digital Banking vision on the future of financial services is strongly aligned with our thinking.”

This partnership between Atos and ebankIT enables banks to design and deliver the services demanded by today’s and tomorrow’s customers, and offer an improved customer experience with real-time, speed, agility and security.

EbankIT and Atos are both at Finovate Europe 7-8 February 2017 in London. Come and discover our WL Connected Piggy Bank demo enabling smart savings for kids at Atos’ subsidiary Worldline on stand 89.

GFT, the global provider of advisory, business consulting, IT and software services to the financial sector, has announced an award win, alongside their client Banco Original in Brazil for “the most innovative business model of the financial industry”, according to the Executivos Financeiros, eFinance Awards 2016.

The service, developed by GFT, offers the world’s first 100% digital process for account opening, providing a strong competitive advantage for Banco Original, with their Seja Original application. Launched in 2016, the App enables users to open a new current account, with the possibility of adding all additional products using the digital channel, resulting in the top eFinance Award in the category ‘Innovation in the business model.’

The App is available in both the Apple and Google stores. The Seja Original application is used by people who are interested in opening a new current account. Users are able to send personal data, images and documents directly to the bank, with the convenience and flexibility of doing all of this online, using a mobile device.

Behind the intuitive front-end, there is an efficient system integration solution, the automation of business processes, outsourced services orchestration and advanced analytics that receive and process the multi-structured information coming from the application. The analytics engine enriches the information and evaluates the individual risk, taking into account the policies of the bank.

If an exception arises from the analytical processing of information from potential new customers, the negotiations are carried out through automated processes, within ‘back office decision cells’ which perform the data analysis. All analytical enrichment of the data is made available to back office professionals, so that the decision making process is of the highest possible quality.

This analytical intelligence within the App allows refinement, from the perspectives of both marketing and risk, regarding the demographic segments being targeted by the bank for the development of its customer base. The operational efficiencies achieved with the integration and automated processing of such data means Banco Original now sets the global benchmark for best practice client onboarding.

Christian Ball, Head of Retail Banking for GFT’s Atlantic Region commented: "The innovative and efficient App provides a fantastic competitive advantage for Banco Original in the market. Its disruptive innovation is already being recognised by domestic and international competitors alike, and has been widely adopted by new prospects seeking a seamless account opening experience".

Wanderley Baccalá Junior, CIO at Banco Original commented: “Without the multidisciplinary approach and collaboration of GFT professionals, it would not have been possible to achieve the results we have today. The flexibility and commitment of all the GFT team involved, who applied their multidisciplinary expertise in banking, architecture, systems development, testing and management led to the successful delivery", adds Baccalá.

The industry expectation is that the Seja Original App will be a key driver helping the bank to achieve their business goals, even with the economic crisis that is sweeping the country. This is a pioneering and successful project in Brazil, and its performance will certainly influence the strategic positioning of all existing financial institutions in the market.