Published
- 07:00 am
IMM, the industry’s leading provider of eSignature and eTransaction Management for financial institutions, announced the extension of its popular “Switch Promotion” due to the overwhelming response and continued interest from both banks and credit unions nationwide.
IMM’s “Switch Promotion” was originally scheduled to end Dec. 31, 2016. Continued market interest and customer demand led to the offer’s extension. Institutions moving to IMM’s platform listed IMM’s superior integrations with Core, Lending, Account Opening, and ECM/Imaging systems as key motivators for selecting IMM. Strong customer service, optimum control and end-to-end transaction management capabilities were also reasons to replace existing, legacy systems.
According to IMM’s Executive Vice President, John Levy, the switch program provides financial institutions with a cost-effective migration strategy to replace existing eSiganture systems. “An increasing number of banks and credit unions were disappointed with their current systems. We received an incredible response after launching the switch program. To us, this interest also demonstrates the pivotal role eSignature technology plays in ensuring day-to-day operations are efficient and effective. Extending the campaign gives even more institutions the opportunity to replace dated systems with IMM’s advanced technology platform.”
More than 30 percent of IMM’s client base has been with the company for over a decade, relying on IMM’s technology solutions to grow their businesses. This highlights the long-term value clients find in the company’s suite of eSignature and eTransaction automation solutions. Of IMM’s more than 700 financial institution clients, more than half have used its technology for at least five years. In addition, more than 55 percent of the company’s client base relies on three or more of the company’s eTransaction solutions to drive enhanced banking experiences for consumers, and to transform the financial institutions’ back office operations.
- 07:00 am
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an Order today filing and settling charges against Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (Citigroup) for spoofing — bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution — in U.S. Treasury futures markets and for failing to diligently supervise the activities of its employees and agents in conjunction with the spoofing orders.
The Order requires Citigroup to pay a $25 million civil monetary penalty. The Order also requires Citigroup to cease and desist from violating the Commodity Exchange Act’s (Act’s) prohibition against spoofing and the CFTC regulation governing diligent supervision. In addition, the Order requires Citigroup to comply with undertakings, including providing annual training addressing the Act’s legal requirements with regard to spoofing to its employees who submit orders on U.S. futures markets and their supervisors and maintaining systems and controls reasonably designed to detect spoofing activity by its traders.
CFTC Director of Enforcement Comments
CFTC Director of Enforcement Aitan Goelman commented: “Spoofing is a significant threat to market integrity that the CFTC will continue to vigorously investigate and prosecute. Additionally, as this action shows, registrants with supervisory responsibilities must provide their employees with sufficient training and have in place adequate systems and controls to detect spoofing. Failure to do so will have significant consequences.”
Specifically, the Order finds that Citigroup, by and through five of its traders (who worked on either its U.S. Treasury or U.S. Swaps desks), engaged in spoofing more than 2,500 times in various Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) U.S. Treasury futures products during the Relevant Period. According to the Order, the traders’ spoofing strategy involved placing bids or offers of 1,000 lots or more with the intent to cancel those orders before execution. The spoofing orders were placed in the U.S. Treasury futures markets after another smaller bid or offer was placed on the opposite side of the same or a correlated futures or cash market, the Order finds. The traders placed their spoofing orders to create or exacerbate an imbalance in the order book and cancelled their spoofing orders after either the smaller resting orders had been filled or the traders believed that the spoofing orders were at too great a risk of being executed, the Order finds. In addition to executing the spoofing strategy individually, according to the Order, on at least one occasion, some of Citigroup’s traders coordinated with each other to implement the spoofing strategy, by placing one or more spoofing orders after another trader had placed one or more smaller resting orders in the same or a correlated futures or cash market.
Citigroup’s Supervision Failures
The Order also finds several supervision failures related to Citigroup’s spoofing. First, Citigroup provided insufficient training about spoofing to traders on its U.S. Treasury and U.S. Swaps desk. In fact, for most of the traders through which Citigroup spoofed, the only communication they received about spoofing before or during the Relevant Period consisted of a single compliance alert containing the Act’s anti-spoofing language. Second, the Order finds that Citigroup did not have adequate systems and controls in place to detect spoofing by traders on its U.S. Treasury and U.S. Swaps desks. Third, the Order notes that even when alerted to a spoofing incident involving one of its traders, a supervisor and other members on the U.S. Treasury desk failed to comply with Citigroup’s then-existing policies regarding reporting violations of the Act.
Further, the Order recognizes Citigroup’s cooperation during the investigation of this matter, including Citigroup’s self-reporting of additional potential spoofing orders after the CME had inquired about certain suspicious orders, as well as corrective action taken by Citigroup prior to entry of the Order to improve its supervisory systems, internal controls, and training with respect to spoofing.
The CFTC thanks and acknowledges the assistance of the CME.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this case are Margaret Aisenbrey, Christopher Reed, Allison Sizemore, Jessica Harris (former staff), Jennifer Blakley, Steve Yang, Daniel Jordan, Rick Glaser, and Charles Marvine.
- 04:00 am
TSYS (TSS) announced today that it has signed a long-term renewal of its payments services agreement with BBVA Compass to continue processing the bank’s consumer, commercial and small business credit card portfolios.
“We are very pleased to announce that we have agreed to extend our relationship with BBVA Compass, a valued TSYS client for more than 35 years,” said Pam Joseph, president and chief operating officer of TSYS. “As we have done for many years, we will work closely with the bank on its needs and continue to support future growth and innovation across all of its credit card portfolios.”
Financial terms of the long-term agreement were not disclosed.
- 01:00 am
BMO Harris Bank today announced the release of BMO Harris Bank Masterpass, Android Pay and Samsung Pay digital wallets for select BMO Harris Bank credit and debit cards.
This new digital wallet lineup is just one more way BMO Harris Bank is digitally connecting customers to payments without the need to dig for a wallet or a card. BMO Harris Bank Masterpass, Android Pay and Samsung Pay are available for BMO Harris Bank personal credit cards, personal debit cards and small business debit cards only. More BMO Harris Bank card products will be available for use with digital wallets later this year.
“We are constantly seeking new ways to make the customer experience more enjoyable, seamless and secure, and these new digital wallets are an example of our commitment,” said Patrick Strieck, Managing Director U.S. Retail and Small Business Payments, BMO Harris Bank. “Our partnership with Mastercard allows us to differentiate our product suite in the marketplace, and we are thrilled to debut our new digital wallets and enrich the shopping experience for our customers.”
With BMO Harris Bank Masterpass, purchases are expedited wherever contactless payments are accepted. Transactions are made with a quick tap using the BMO Harris Bank Masterpass app, which pays securely with the user’s digitized debit or credit card number assigned within the app. Shopping experiences are simplified across channels with the option to use at thousands of retailers worldwide. In a similar manner, Android Pay and Samsung Pay users simply hold a Near Field Communications (NFC) enabled device near a participating terminal and the payment is made. Samsung Pay users will also be able to make contactless purchases at merchant point-of-sale swipe terminals.
Digital wallet accounts always remain secure with the fingerprint or PIN security feature, which prompts users to confirm their identity. In addition, digital wallets use uniquely encrypted assigned card numbers, which are not the physical credit or debit card number and can also be quickly and easily suspended in case a device is lost without disabling the physical card.
- 03:00 am
Varo Money, Inc. ("Varo"), a mobile-only banking start-up that will help consumers gain greater control of their financial lives, today announced the launch of consumer lending via its mobile app.
"We are very excited about the suite of lending products we are building and the partnerships we have formed to support Varo's lending capabilities," said Jaime Jerusalmi, Varo's Head of Lending Products. "In addition to cutting-edge functionality, we plan to raise the bar in terms of helping customers borrow responsibly. Our Varo Flexible Credit product will be a great alternative for people who don't want to use their credit card to finance large purchases, to accommodate an unexpected expense or that want to build their credit".
Colin Walsh, Varo's CEO, added, "Almost half of Americans cannot face a $400 unexpected financial emergency. Our mission is to help people be better prepared for these situations. This is a very important milestone for Varo as we begin providing lending and another clear step toward allowing consumers to take control of all their finances in one intuitive app."
The Varo Money app is currently in beta and is expected to launch in the coming months. Varo recently partnered with Kasisto to introduce "Val," a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) bot, designed to assist customers with banking, financial insights, real-time goals, and plans to cover unexpected emergency expenses. In 2016, Varo partnered with The Bancorp Bank to provide private label banking services to support Varo mobile banking products. Varo has also partnered with Galileo Processing, Inc. to provide payment and transaction processing services.
- 04:00 am
Leading Treasury software management firm BELLIN was celebrating this week, having scooped two major category titles in the Business Worldwide Magazine (BWM) Global Corporate Excellence Awards.
As well as being awarded Best Treasury Software and Services Company (2016), CEO and founder Martin Bellin also picked up the title of Financial Services CEO of the Year (2016).
These latest awards are the culmination of an incredibly successful two decades for both Martin Bellin and his company group BELLIN. An IT and treasury specialist organisation, it offers innovative and timely web-based software and services for the industry.
A former corporate treasurer himself who was driven to develop software after understanding first-hand how such a solution could massively benefit the industry, he has turned his one-man venture into a company which today provides employment for 135 individuals. Clients span a variety of sectors and include such multi-national giants and household names as Toshiba, Toyota, Puma, Red Bull, L'Occitane, Triumph and Gazprom.
"We are delighted to have been voted Best Treasury Software and Services Company in these awards," said Bellin. "It's nice to be given recognition but really we are already delighted at how much our software is helping out the industry. And as a company we will continue to innovate along with rapid advances in IT."
Some of BELLIN's success is attributed to the fact that the software is so flexible and accessible that it can be used by both treasurers and non-treasurers alike. But then, even before the internet was but a glimmer in Tim Berners-Lee's eye, Martin Bellin had dreamed of a global platform which could be used by all group companies to input and check data, and which could ultimately have the purpose of consolidating and connecting staff not simply in various locations, but around the world.
A spokesman for BWM said BELLIN and its founder was "an extremely deserving winner."
"This is an award which is always extremely well contested," he said. "It's not easy for our panel to whittle down a short list, never mind choose an outright winner, but BELLIN proved unanimously popular. With his creativity Martin Bellin went on to improve an entire process and make life easier for companies, including multi-national organisations around the globe. That's quite a claim to fame."
Steven Steenhaut
Senior Director, Global Demand Center at Nuance Communications
Consider, if you will, a small irony. see more
- 01:00 am
The Tech Trailblazers Awards, the first independent and dedicated awards program for enterprise information technology startups, has revealed its shortlist of the most innovative entrants and concepts in enterprise technology areas such as cloud, security, IoT, mobile and many more. The shortlists have been selected by a panel of leading IT industry experts and are now open to public vote.
In its fifth year, the scheme continues to focus around the ethos of finding innovation from anywhere in the world, from the smallest startups to more established players. This aim to highlight both up-and-coming and established talent from all regions is reflected in the Firestarter Award for non-VC funded early stage startups. New this year are the Female and Male Tech Trailblazers of the Year awards, celebrating individual success and contribution of men and women in the enterprise tech space.
These categories run alongside the main technology categories of Big Data, Cloud, FinTech, IoT, Mobile, Security, Storage and Virtualization.
In addition to the expert judging panel, the voting public can now help determine who will win in all categories by voting online by 11:59pm Pacific Time on Friday 17th February 2017. To view the shortlist and vote for your favourites, please visit http://www.techtrailblazers.com/shortlist.
Rose Ross, founder of the Tech Trailblazers Awards, said “Year on year, the judges’ task to shortlist becomes more and more difficult. We have again seen exceptional enterprise tech startups enter the awards. Huge thanks to our judges who once again have had this difficult mission. The team wishes the very best of luck to our amazing finalists.”
Tech Trailblazers Awards Fifth Edition Finalists
Big Data
Adavow Ltd. Tunbridge Wells, UK @adavow www.adavow.com
CoHo Data Palo Alto, CA, USA @cohodata www.cohodata.com
Crate.io San Francisco, CA, USA @CrateIO www.crate.io
DriveScale Sunnyvale, CA, USA @DriveScale_Inc www.drivescale.com
Illumr London, UK @illumr www.illumr.com
NGDATA Gent, Belgium @NGDATA_com www.ngdata.com
Cloud
Adavow Ltd. Tunbridge Wells, UK @adavow www.adavow.com
Bioz, Inc. Palo Alto, CA, USA @biozPage www.bioz.com
Cato Networks Tel Aviv, Israel @CatoNetworks www.catonetworks.com
Fedr8 Farnborough, UK @fedr8 www.fedr8.com
GreatHorn Belmont, MA, USA @greathorn www.greathorn.com
Teridion San Francisco, CA, USA @teridionnet www.teridion.com
YellowDog Bristol, UK @yellowdogltd www.yellowdog.co
FinTech
Cashpundit Pune, India @cashpundit www.cashpundit.com
Divido London, UK @DividoUK www.divido.com
Solfyre Limited Worcester Park, UK @solfyreID www.solfyre.com
Solgari Dublin, Ireland @Solgaritweets www.solgari.com
TransferGuru London, UK @_TransferGuru www.transferguru.com
TruValue Labs San Francisco, CA, USA @truvaluelabs www.Insight360.io
IoT
CopSonic Montauban, France @copsonic www.copsonic.com
Crate.io San Francisco, CA, USA @CrateIO www.crate.io
Dashboard Exeter, UK @dashboard_ltd www.dashboard.net
MammothDB Sofia, Bulgaria @mammothdb www.mammothdb.com
Relayr Berlin, Germany @relayr_cloud www.relayr.io
Mobile
Jumio Palo Alto, CA, USA @jumio www.jumio.com
Leanplum San Francisco, CA, USA @leanplum www.leanplum.com
Pyze, Inc. Redwood City, CA, USA @PyzeInc www.pyze.com
SHYN.one Sofia, Bulgaria www.gain.im
Solfyre Limited Worcester Park, UK @solfyreID www.solfyre.com
Security
Attivo Networks Fremont, CA, USA @attivonetworks www.attivonetworks.com
CLT.Re Oslo, Norway @getcltre https://get.clt.re/
Cognetyx Houston, TX, USA @cognetyx www.cognetyx.com
Dispel New York, USA @dispelhq www.dispel.io
Hexadite Boston, MA, USA @Hexadite www.hexadite.com
InvizBox Dublin, Ireland @invizbox www.invizbox.com
Veriflo San Jose, CA, USA @VeriflowSystems www.veriflow.net
Storage
Catalogic Woodcliff Lake, NJ, USA @CatalogicSW www.catalogicsoftware.com
Cohesity Santa Clara, CA, USA @cohesity www.cohesity.com
Hedvig Santa Clara, CA, USA @HedvigInc www.hedviginc.com
Igneous Seattle, WA, USA @IgneousIO www.igneous.io
Rubrik Palo Alto, CA, USA @rubrikInc www.rubrik.com
Virtualization
128 Technology Burlington, MA, USA @128technology www.128technology.com
Cloudhouse Technologies London, UK @cloudhousetech www.cloudhouse.com
Teridion San Francisco, CA, USA @teridionnet www.teridion.com
Versa Networks Santa Clara, CA, USA @versanetworks www.versa-networks.com
Firestarter Award
Adavow Ltd Tunbridge Wells, UK @adavow www.adavow.com
CLT.Re Oslo, Norway @getcltre https://get.clt.re/
CyberSparta Reading, UK @CyberSparta www.cybersparta.com
Fuzz Stati0n Santa Cruz, CA, USA @fuzz_stati0n www.fuzzstati0n.com
Illumr London, UK @illumr www.illumr.com
Lucy Phishing Thalwil, Switzerland @lucysecurity www.phishing-server.com
SHYN.one Sofia, Bulgaria www.gain.im
Solfyre Ltd Worcester Park, UK @solfyreID www.solfyre.com
StorageOS London, UK @Storage_OS www.storageos.com
TransferGuru London, UK @_TransferGuru www.Transferguru.com
YellowDog Bristol, UK @yellowdogltd www.yellowdog.co
Female Tech Trailblazer of the Year Award
Dr. Karin Lachmi, Bioz, Inc. Palo Alto, CA, USA @biozPage www.bioz.com
Joanne Smith, RecordSure London, UK @recordsure www.recordsure.com
Leanne Harvey, Staff Spotlight Hampshire, UK @staffspotlight www.staffspotlight.com
Shreya Hewett, TransferGuru London, UK @transferguru_ www.transferguru.com
Faith Tulloch, TruValue Labs San Francisco, CA, USA @truvaluelabs www.Insight360.io
Male Tech Trailblazer of the Year Award
David Brown, Adavow Tunbridge Wells, UK @adavow www.adavow.com
Gur Shatz, Cato Networks Tel Aviv, Israel @CatoNetworks www.catonetworks.com
Gene Banman, DriveScale Sunnyvale, CA, USA @DriveScale_Inc www.drivescale.com
Tom Lyon, DriveScale Sunnyvale, CA, USA @DriveScale_Inc www.drivescale.com
Rhys Sharp, Fedr8 Farnborough, UK @fedr8 www.fedr8.com
Dickey Singh, Pyze, Inc. Redwood City, CA, USA @PyzeInc www.pyze.com
Kumar Mehta, Versa Networks Santa Clara, CA, USA @versanetworks www.versa-networks.com
- 07:00 am
Small World Money Transfer, a leading provider of cross-border payment services in Europe and North America, is today announcing its partnership with Allied Bank Limited (ABL), one of the leading banks in Pakistan, through its Home Remittance Division.
This partnership is part of Small World’s strategy to expand its presence in Asia and enhance the services available for existing and new Small World customers. With ABL, Small World users will be able to transfer money to Pakistan in a fast and economic manner.
Through ABL’s Home Remittance Division, a reference partner will be added, allowing the bank to strengthen its remittance service, Allied Express. This means that funds sent to Pakistan from any of the 40 countries Small World operate in can be collected by the beneficiaries across the entire ABL network, integrating more than 1,150+ branches in Pakistan. The remittances may also be instantly credited to an ABL bank account or any other bank in Pakistan.
According to World Bank data, remittances are extremely important for Pakistan. In 2014, remitances accounted for 6.9% of the country’s GDP, while the State Bank reported that remittances to Pakistan were around $19.3 billion in 2015.
Nick Day, CEO of Small World Financial Services says:
“We are excited to partner with Allied Bank and expand our services to clients looking to transfer money to Pakistan. It’s great to be able to offer this service to our clients, as well as give them the opportunity to take advantage of the security and guarantees that ABL can offer.
“This partnership will enable our clients to be able to transfer money in an easier, quicker and cost-effective matter. By embarking on this partnership, we hope to demonstrate our commitment to our clients worldwide.
Expanding presence in Asia
Founded in the United Kingdom in 2006 as a result of a merger between different companies specialized in international transactions and money transfer, Small World FS is present across all five continents and has become one of the world’s leaders in digital money transfer. With a payout network of over 250,000 locations worldwide, Small World delivers a safe, fast, economical and totally transparent alternative to send money to any part of the world.
Pakistan is one of the countries in which Small World is placing a lot of focus in expanding its services, both through commercial alliances with key banking entities such as ABL, and through direct presence.
Chris Skinner
Chief Executive Officer at The Finanser Ltd
So Theresa May made clear see more
