The Finovate conference, described as the ‘Super Bowl’ of online personal finance, is taking place on 7 – 8 February 2017 and will bring together an international cohort of FinTech innovators. Firms will showcase their work in live demonstrations of the latest technologies which are shaking up the sector. A wide range of financial areas will be covered at the event such as peer-to-peer lending, payments, mortgages and how technology is being leveraged to boost efficiencies and streamline the customer experience.

The mortgages sector in particular has seen a great wave of change in recent years as automated technology handles more and more mortgage processes from approvals to underwriting. Lengthy waiting periods for approvals tend to be a cause for complaint from consumers, but new technology is being introduced to reduce these delays. Recently it has been demonstrated that this period can be reduced from 11 days to approximately 48 hours. 

The modern customer still expects traditional banking services in-person, with 86 percent of customers in a recent survey expressing they will use a physical branch in the near future. However a range of digital services are being leveraged to blend the customer journey and create a hybrid experience where human interaction is assisted, instead of being phased out by automation.  New innovators are increasingly putting pressure on traditional financial institutions, as mortgage lending from non-banks has doubled since 2007.

Bhupender Singh, CEO of Intelenet Global Services®, commented: “Mortgage providers find themselves in a highly competitive market as smaller players seek to disrupt and undercut traditional banks. New technology in the form of automated approval and processing systems, can streamline mortgage transactions resulting in a win-win for companies and customers.

He continues: “Analytic technology that can intelligently examine speech and customer behaviour is revolutionising the sector. We are going to see smaller providers bring new software and algorithms to free up precious resources within banks, and this will allow them to provide better care for their customers. The rise of automation in the mortgage sector is an opportunity for banks to get closer to their clients and give them a more personalised service.”

OpenLink, the global leader in trading, treasury and risk management solutions for the energy, commodities, corporate and financial services industries, has been named as the number one technology vendor for both Commodities Trading Systems and Commodities Pricing and Analytics in the 2016 Risk Technology Rankings.

This is the fifth straight year that OpenLink has topped the Risk Magazine rankings, which are assembled via a poll of derivatives and risk management technology users who rate systems based on functionality, usability, performance, return on investment and reliability.

Ken Knowles, Executive Vice President of Enterprise Strategy and Business Development for OpenLink, said: “This year's Risk Technology Rankings highlight the importance of integrated and flexible solutions that drive greater value, efficiency and performance for clients while adapting to their changing technology landscapes. OpenLink’s continued position at the top of the rankings underlines the sustained quality of our platform: a single, integrated solution across trade capture, position management, valuation and risk analytics, accounting, collateral and cash management.”

Bernard Delahaye, Senior Vice President at OpenLink EMEA, received the awards on behalf of OpenLink at the ceremony in London and said: "We would like to thank our clients and partners for voting us top once again in commodities trading and risk solutions. It was a fantastic awards evening, surrounded by specialists in their fields, and we were delighted to host important clients at our table.”

The new recognition builds on continued success for OpenLink, which recently advanced its position in the Leader’s Quadrant of Gartner’s 2016 Magic Quadrant for Trading Platforms, was named as the category leader for energy trading risk in the 2017 Chartis RiskTech 100 rankings, and received a 2016 FTF News Technology Innovation Award as the best derivatives operation solution.

Gresham, the leading software and services company that specialises in providing real-time transaction control and enterprise data integrity solutions, is pleased to announce a strategic win in the European banking sector.

One of the largest financial service providers in Central and Eastern Europe has selected Clareti Transaction Control (CTC) to provide greater control and integrity within their treasury function and capital markets business, covering foreign exchange (FX), over-the-counter (OTC) trading, exchange traded derivatives (ETD) and inter-company transactions.

Ian Manocha, CEO, Gresham says, “This is the first customer win for our new continental Europe sales office which we opened in September 2016, and is an indication of the potential we see for our technology in Europe’s regional banks.

Irrespective of whether you are a global, regional or niche financial markets player, being in control of your data is a business imperative. It is a time of unprecedented change and uncertainty in global markets and firms cannot afford to be constrained by inflexible monolithic systems or by spreadsheets and other manual intensive processes. The Clareti platform gives firms confidence in the integrity of their data and helps them be more agile.”

Infosys Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infosys (NYSE: INFY), along with its partner Let’s Talk Payments (LTP), today released a global survey report - “Blockchain Technology: From Hype to Reality”. According to the report, over 80 percent of bankers surveyed expect to see commercial adoption of the technology by 2020, with nearly half (50 percent) of the financial institutions already investing or planning to invest during 2017. This announcement builds on the recent announcement by Emirates NBD and ICICI Bank on the deployment of blockchain technology in international remittances and trade finance.

The aim of the study, which included a survey of more than 100 financial services professionals, was to understand the sentiment of blockchain technology in the following areas:

·         The technology’s current understanding in the banking industry

·         Adoption strategies and investments being pursued

·         The opportunities and challenges that the industry is dealing with

Sanat Rao, Chief Business Officer and Global Head, Finacle, said, “This research reaffirms our belief that the blockchain technology has potential to help banks reimagine banking processes. The technology can help banks automate inter-organization processes, significantly improve transparency and reset existing operational benchmarks. Several progressive organizations have already executed pilots to validate these propositions. We believe, in the coming quarters, the industry will experience greater momentum towards rolling out lab-pilots to real-life use cases.”  

Survey methodology

LTP surveyed 100 business and technology leaders from 75 institutions ranging from regional banks to multinational banks on behalf of Infosys Finacle.

About Infosys Finacle

Finacle is the industry-leading universal banking solution from EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys. The solution helps financial institutions develop deeper connections with stakeholders, power continuous innovation and accelerate growth in the digital world. Today, Finacle is the choice of banks across 94 countries and serves over 848 million customers – estimated to be nearly 16.5 percent of the world’s adult banked population.

Finacle solutions address the core banking, e-banking, mobile banking, CRM, payments, treasury, origination, liquidity management, Islamic banking, wealth management, and analytics needs of financial institutions worldwide. Assessment of the top 1000 world banks reveals that banks powered by Finacle enjoy 50 percent higher returns on assets, 30 percent higher returns on capital, and 8.1 percent points lesser costs to income than others. 

To know more, visit www.finacle.com

On 27th January, Bolero International, the leading trade finance digitisation platform, was named as one of the recipients of Corporate Treasurer 2016 Asia's Best Treasury and Finance Strategy awards.

The annual awards honour those with proven vision, but also those who have endeavoured to share their ideas and broaden the treasury knowledge base within Asia, covering a wide range of categories including “Best Trade Finance Strategy” for which Bolero was a joint recipient alongside HSBC and Reliance Industries.

The award recognises the collective efforts of Bolero, HSBC and Reliance Industries in facilitating an electronic letter of credit (LC) for an export deal in a single day, rather than the standard 15 days it would take to exchange a physical LC. This is the first document exchange of its kind to take place in India.

Bolero welcomes the award win as it continues to strengthen its expansion into Asian markets. Late last year, Bank of China (BOC) became the first of the “Big Four” banks in China to offer exporters the multiple benefits of using the Bolero electronic trade document platform.

Prompted by increased requests from BOC’s extensive global customer-base, Bolero’s straight-through ePresentation processing technology will dramatically reduce turnaround times for all parties involved in export deals between China, Europe, Singapore and South East Asia.

“We’re honoured to have been recognized for our part in facilitating this transaction,” Ian Kerr, CEO of Bolero, said. “It’s immensely gratifying to receive this award which validates the global demand for a more efficient, cost-effective and secure method in successfully completing trade transactions between global organisations”.

Ross Wilkinson, Head of Global Accounts for Bolero, added: “Facilitating these significant transactions between organisations such as HSBC and Reliance Industries proves there is a growing requirement for ePresentation solutions in key global industries. Bolero is poised to instigate the revolution in ePresentation and digital transactions with the speed, ease-of-handling and security for which we are known.”

The Freelancer and Contractor Services Association (FCSA), the UK’s leading trade association for professional employment services, has agreed a partnership with Modulr, which specialises in providing flexible payments technology to businesses, enabling faster, cheaper and easier payments.

CloudMargin, the multi-award winning creator of the world’s first web-based collateral and margin management solution, today announced it is continuing its rapid expansion in London with the appointment of Filipe Rodriguez as the firm’s new Chief Technology Officer.

Industry veteran Rodriguez will be based in the firm’s London headquarters, where he will lead the global technology advances for the FinTech firm, reporting directly to Steve Husk, CEO of CloudMargin.

Rodriguez joins CloudMargin with more than 15 years of experience in development and technology innovation across various business sectors.

Husk said: “Collateral Management is now a key function within financial firms as they attempt to navigate through an industry saturated in uncertainty. I have no doubt that Filipe’s knowledge and extensive experience will have a positive impact on CloudMargin’s continued product and technological innovation, as increased regulatory constraints upon market participants demand the need for highly automated, robust market solutions.”

Rodriguez said: “I am honoured to serve as CTO for CloudMargin and extremely excited to be a part of the company’s journey. The collateral management tool has made it possible for firms of any size to easily access and afford sophisticated technology that has become ever more important in this global regulatory environment. I look forward to building further upon the firm’s strong technological foundation as we seek to leverage this software that has captured the attention of the financial services industry.” 

Rodriguez has developed innovative web applications for the London Symphony Orchestra as well as global applications for major corporations including DHL, the world’s leading logistics company, Bacardi Limited and healthcare pioneer Roche. He also led several development teams at ASOS.com to deliver high-impact customer experience changes and generate revenue across the business.

Most recently, Rodriguez led the tech team at WeSwap into rapid expansion and introduced a wide range of improvements in processes and delivery life cycle.

Winton, the global investment management business, today announced that the second cohort from the Winton Labs accelerator will pitch at a Demo Day on 9^th February. Featuring five of Europe’s most innovative startups focussed on AI, machine learning and data science, the second Winton Lab programme has been run in collaboration with The Alan Turing Institute, whose academics have provided the startups with technical mentorship.

Unlike other accelerators, Winton takes no equity from the companies who participate in the programme, instead offering each selected business a cash injection to help further their development. The intense programme involves companies meeting potential customers and over seventy leading industry experts, including, investors, advisors and members of Winton’s extensive network. It culminates with a demo day where participants are invited to present their companies to attendees, comprising some of Europe’s best-known investors.

Matt Ridley from Winton Ventures says: “London is home to world-class academics, start-ups, data scientists and innovators. By bringing these ingredients together into an organised acceleration programme, Winton Labs is helping entrepreneurs to build new, value-generating companies that are able to compete on a global scale.”

Sir Alan Wilson FBA FRSE, Chief Executive of The Alan Turing Institute, added: “The SME landscape is a hotbed of innovation when it comes to algorithms, big data and artificial intelligence. As the national centre for data science, part of our role is to nurture the next generation of data science leaders and entrepreneurs and it is fantastic to see this work coming to life through the collaboration with Winton Labs. I look forward to seeing what these five start-ups go on to achieve, and I would like to thank my colleagues at The Alan Turing Institute for offering their support and expert advice throughout the process.”

Startups from Winton Labs’ first cohort have enjoyed subsequent success and have grown significantly. IntelligentX, a machine learning application for making AI beer, is currently raising a seed round of funding in New York and Cognism closed a $500K seed round in January 2017 from investors including FINTECH Circle and South Central Ventures. Meanwhile CheckRecipient, which received a £300K investment from Winton in July 2016, has now signed up its first FTSE 100 customer.

Tim Sadler, Co-founder & CEO at CheckRecipient says: “Since being part of the first Winton Labs cohort in 2016, the Winton team have continued to offer invaluable advice which has helped us to more than double in size. We have increased our client base by over 300% and have won a number of awards and accolades including being named ‘Best UK Security Startup’ by WIRED UK and ‘Best Machine Intelligence Startup’ by LegalGeek."

The second cohort of Winton Labs comprises:

Cognitiv+, an artificial intelligence platform that automates knowledge extraction from legal data, have recently won a major Grant with InnovateUK on the open-programme; one of the most competitive calls in 2016. Since starting on Winton Labs they have started five pilots in Q1 2017 alone. They have also been named Export Champion as part of the CommonwealthFirst programme.

SMAP Energy, who use energy consumption data collected via smart meters to innovate the energy sector, now manages data from 30,000 smart meters in Japan and will be starting engagement with a Middle Eastern client in March. The team launched AIswitch recently, a free smart energy switching service for UK customers, while co-founder Yohei Kiguchi was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list.

Warwick Analytics, who automate predictive analytics even with heterogeneous data, have seen strong commercial progress with key enterprise companies, and will be moving from Winton Labs to the IAG accelerator: Hangar 51. Warwick have recently opened their US office, and current tech development will see a new release in Spark in under a month.

Terrabotics: Transform terabytes of satellite and aerial imagery into very high precision true 3D terrain data to model the Earth. This period of acceleration has brought in clients including a major mining company, a Private Equity fund and an investment research firm, as well as increasing business with existing customers in global Oil & Gas.

Alterest, a cloud platform providing institutional debt investors an efficient way to access the growing non-bank lending market, have seen further product developments, expansion of the team, and officially signed up institutional investors as engagement clients during the programme.

European banks can now see first-hand how they can use PSD2 to generate massive revenues and dominate the market for digital transactions, following today’s launch of a ‘live demo’ iOS app from Token.

“Unlike other PSD2 solution providers, Token does not just offer compliance, it gives banks uncontested control over the post-PSD2 market for digital transactions,” comments Marten Nelson, co-founder, Token. “With Token, gone are today’s payment networks, clearing houses and other intermediaries that take a piece of the bank’s payment revenue. In their place, the bank launches its own Token digital transaction network, allowing it to set its own fees. Thanks to the new direct interface that Token enables, the bank can increase its margins, lower the costs of transacting for merchants, and introduce a fee structure for Account Information Service Providers and Payment Initiation Service Providers mandated by PSD2.

“This is a big change and it can be a lot to take in, so we’ve create a mobile app to help convey the power of the opportunity and enable banks to see first-hand how the system works. It also lets us demonstrate how fast and convenient the user experience is.

“Our app isn’t a first audition either; it’s more like a final dress rehearsal,” adds Nelson. “It uses the live Token network and has been fully integrated with Fidor OS. In short, we’re ready to deploy today and can do so in a fraction of the cost and time it would take a bank to manage themselves.”

Combining Token’s payment network with Fidor OS took a total of ten days, including testing. Customer account data is securely aggregated in a single place, and payments can be made from multiple sources instantly and securely from within a single environment.

“We are glad to unveil the availability of Token on Fidor’s open banking platform FidorOS at Finovate Europe, to support banks that use our platform to easily adopt future payment scenarios, such as the upcoming PSD2 standard,” comments Ge Drossaert, Member of the Board of Fidor. “The synergies between Token and Fidor’s technologies greatly strengthen banks’ role in the new payment landscape. Not only do they reinforce data and payment security in an open environment, they also pave the way for new revenue streams for banks that want to play a key role and strive to innovate.”

To show how an account information aggregator might pool customer data from multiple banks the app also includes a fictional link to Game of Thrones’ Iron Bank of Braavos. Imitation merchants and products have also been generated to enable users of the app to experience the full transaction flow.

Chargebacks911™, a Global Risk Technologies company and an internationally-renowned leader for risk mitigation, has today announced a new collaboration with ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions. This alliance will enable more merchants to access the services they need to successfully fight illegitimate chargebacks.

Responding to the needs of its dynamic customer base, ACI Worldwide sought to deliver a solution that would more effectively mitigate chargeback risks. Chargebacks911 will assist these merchants as they take a proactive approach to chargeback management.

Recent industry trends reveal this is an opportune time for such a collaboration. According to JP Morgan Chase, the frequency of chargeback issuances is growing at an alarming rate of 20 percent annually, compared to transaction growth of just 7 percent in the same time period. According to industry research, fraud causes £80 billion in losses annually--and chargebacks account for most of that. This is a pivotal moment for merchants that have been searching for a truly effective chargeback management solution.

Monica Eaton-Cardone, CIO of Global Risk Technologies, parent company of Chargebacks911, said: “We’re extremely pleased to team up with ACI and bring our unrivalled chargeback solutions to its merchants. Merchants worldwide want a tactical approach to revenue recovery; one that achieves sustainable growth. We’re honoured the company has recognised our strength in this area, and we look forward to helping these merchants better manage their chargeback issues.”  

“We are excited to work alongside Chargebacks911 to offer ACI ReD Shield customers the best tools and capabilities to prevent fraud,” said Jackie Barwell, director of fraud product management, ACI Worldwide. “Merchants today are aiming to be more proactive with chargeback management, no longer accepting chargebacks, but successfully fighting them to protect their bottom line. We’re pleased to expand our merchant offering through this collaboration with a leader in chargeback mitigation.”

Chargebacks911 and ACI Worldwide will bolster stability and growth of traditional, more secure consumer payment methods across Europe and the United States, providing ACI Worldwide merchants and their consumers with a sensible, accountable, and standardised solution that can halt the rising tide of card-not-present chargebacks.