Published
- 07:00 am
Mahindra Comviva, the global leader in providing mobility solutions, today announced the release of the new version of mobiquity® Wallet which comes with an embedded chatbot to assist wallet consumers through their digital payments journey with their banks. The new and improved mobile application provides an intuitive and intelligent conversational interface that helps banks to deliver an interactive and personalized experience to their customers.
As per eDigitalResearch, live chat shows the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel with 73% compared to 61% for email and 44% for phone. This provides banks with the incentive to leverage digital services like chatbots to provide fast and seamless services to their customers and thus provide higher levels of customer satisfaction. Also, with Gartner predicting that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with a human, a chat-based implementation becomes important now.
Speaking on the occasion Srinivas Nidugondi, SVP and Head, Mobile Financial Solutions, Mahindra Comviva said: “Intelligent payments are the future. Chatbot will make transactions on the digital wallet as simple and seamless as conversing with friends on the social channels, removing complexities in registering for a digital wallet or making payments. Moreover, chatbots will help to improve banking ROIs by automating repeat value transactions as it replaces manned helpdesk.”
“The millennials are already attuned to using chats for almost everything, thanks to the advent of the likes of Google Assistant. Bots are already being used by futuristic banks to drive automation for backend processes. Our intention is to help them extend that to the consumer touch points as well,” he further added.
mobiquity® Wallet 2.4 will provide chatbot based registration and payments services initially, with further plans to expand the services to include context driven interactions as well as integrate artificial intelligence to drive the consumer journey. The combination of artificial intelligence and a customer friendly interface can help to deliver personalized and contextually relevant solutions across various delivery channels.
mobiquity® Wallet offers a feature-rich digital wallet for consumers and a robust and flexible platform for service providers and their partners. It combines innovations in payments with attention to the human factor, behavior-centered experience design, and innovative digital technology. Designed to support a large and complex ecosystem, mobiquity® Wallet enables financial institutions, retailers, telecom operators and other consumer service providers to re-engage and connect directly with their consumers, drive growth, and strengthen their brand by staying abreast of an ever-evolving market and consumer behavior. mobiquity® Wallet brings an evolution in mobile commerce by integrating payments, identity, loyalty, mobile marketing, location and social features. It leverages NFC (HCE), BLE, QR Codes, biometrics, geofencing and sound based payments creating compelling consumer experiences. With lots of new consumers being brought on-board the wallet idea, there is a need to cater to an ever increasing number of new customer segments with unique requirements of their own. mobiquity® Wallet platform provides a unique service creation platform which allows for easy customization of customer experience and quick turnaround to the market with these customizations.
- 08:00 am
Today, Ovum, a leading technology analyst and consulting firm, has announced Backbase as a Market Leader in its latest report, ‘Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting a Digital Banking Platform, 2017-2018’.
Ovum’s report provides guidance for retail and universal banks in their vendor shortlisting process by assessing the top vendors on the market. The Decision Matrix Ovum summarizes of each vendor's digital banking platform’s capabilities based on a quantitative assessment of its market impact in the digital channel platform market globally and the quality and breadth of functionality provided by the platform and underlying technology. Alongside this, the report also assesses of each vendor's execution capabilities.
The digital banking landscape has become more competitive and banks have had to further innovate to retain their customers, achieve a seamless omni-channel experience and maintain their competitive advantage. The Decision Matrix emphasizes that excellent experience in digital channels is increasingly becoming a differentiator in the banking industry, selecting a digital banking platform is a decision that will have a great impact on the competitive capability of a bank for the next three to four years.
The Decision Matrix assesses vendors’ solutions over three dimensions of market impact, technology and execution – across which Backbase scored exceptionally high. This is the second time in a row Backbase has been nominated as a Market Leader by Ovum.
Ovum’s decision to name Backbase as a Market Leader speaks to the platform’s unique ability to empower banks to effectively service the needs of their digital customers, and notes its state-of-the-art technology and rapid digital transformation capabilities.
Jouk Pleiter, CEO of Backbase commented: “We are very proud to be rated market leader the second time in row by Ovum.This truly demonstrates our commitment in constantly evolving and improving our platform and banking in order to meet market needs. We’ve been delivering great mobile apps and complete omni-channel projects for the past few years for the world's leading financial institutions, and it’s wonderful to be recognised and rewarded for this.”
Noora Haapajärvi, author of the Ovum Decision Matrix added: “Backbase's Digital Banking Platform is the leading solution on the digital banking platform market. The solution provides banks with the tools to develop a compelling experience on digital channels. The Backbase Digital Banking Platform is particularly suitable for larger banks and their more complex legacy environments, as well as for banks with a desire to have a leading-edge digital experience. Ovum recommends that banks shortlist Backbase’s Digital Banking Platform when searching for a competitive digital banking platform solution.”
Joanne Marlowe
Chief Executive Officer at UFT Commercial Finance, LLC
For those of you that have succeeded at not growing up while growing older, you may remember the simple joy of playing Pooh Sticks. If you don’t recollect this little game, feel free to click see more
Richard Bennett
Head of Regulatory Reporting, EMEA at Wolters Kluwer Financial Services
For banks operating in the EU there is seemingly an endless supply of regulatory change – effectively forcing banks to constantly monitor their regulatory reporting technology.Just three years see more
- 04:00 am
Today Wirecard AG and Cuscal, one of Australia's leading payment services companies, announced that they will be working together to allow Wirecard’s merchant acquiring services throughout Australia, with Cuscal as acquiring BIN sponsor. That includes the use of Wirecard’s proprietary omnichannel payment processing platform to receive credit and debit card transactions in Australia. The partnership with Cuscal allows Wirecard to offer Australian and global merchants with Australian footprint the efficient method of online payment processing: ranging from e-Commerce to POS, to mPOS solutions. Wirecard’s offer can be adapted to meet the individual requirements of each merchant, improving conversion rates at the checkout. With this, Wirecard enables internet technology to merchants such as airlines, fintechs and the retail sector by helping them to digitalize payments as well as the whole shopping experience.
Following the cooperation with Cuscal on merchant acquiring, the partnership will be shortly extended to the area of card issuing. That means, that Wirecard will be offering the whole payment value chain to its Australian customers, in the near future. This range goes from the issuing of traditional and virtual prepaid cards over payment processing to risk management and mobile payment solutions.
Acting General Manager, Product & Service at Cuscal, Colin Sultana said: “We’re really pleased to be supporting Wirecard in Australia. We’re all about using our expertise and scale to help existing companies grow as well as to support new companies to enter the market. By working with companies like Wirecard we’re driving competition in payments, increasing innovation and giving businesses greater choice which will ultimately benefit everyone.”
Grigoriy Kuznetsov, Executive Vice President Global Financial Services at Wirecard, adds: “We are delighted to expand our cooperation with Cuscal. This enables us to extend our global merchant acquiring solutions to one of the most important payment markets in the world and ensure that our customers can enjoy consistent service and seamless access to payment options worldwide.”
Cuscal and Wirecard have been working together for more than one year. Cuscal, provides payment services to more than 100 financial institutions, airlines and other organisations in Australia. Cuscal processes around 16 percent of EFT transactions in Australia as well as processing transactions for 40% of Australia’s ATMs and managing over 7 million debit, credit and prepaid cards.
- 05:00 am
Following the launch of their iOS app at the end of August, London fintech startup Moneybox today launches its Android app to the Play Store.
The app has gained significant traction since launch, with users investing the change from over 350,000 transactions in November alone.
According to recent figures from Moneybox, users tend to start saving with round ups and quickly supplement this with one-off and weekly deposits, which together account for 75% of total contributions.
The new year will bring some significant new product launches from the Moneybox team. They are in the final stages of building a complementary app that will allow parents to invest their spare change towards their children’s future. This “Junior ISA” app, the first of its kind, is due to launch early in the new year.
The team is also consulting closely with HM Treasury to offer a Lifetime ISA, ready for its launch in April 2017. The Lifetime ISA is a government initiative designed to help 18-40 year olds save towards buying their first house and/or for retirement. The government will award a 25% annual bonus on all savings up to £4,000 per year. Moneybox will be one of the first companies to offer people the chance to open a Lifetime ISA.
Ben Stanway, co-founder of Moneybox said “We’re very excited to launch our Android app and offer a new audience the chance to start investing with Moneybox. We hope that over the coming months we will continue to demystify investing for tens of thousands of people.”
- 08:00 am
FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) (NASDAQ:FDS), a leading provider of integrated financial information and analytical applications, today announced its results for the first quarter of fiscal 2017.
Organic revenues grew 8.4% during the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Adjusted operating income for the first quarter, which excludes $3.8 million of intangible asset amortization and $1.0 million of non-recurring acquisition costs, was $95.0 million, up 4.5% over the prior year quarter. Adjusted net income increased 12.2% over the prior year and excludes $2.8 million (after-tax) from intangible asset amortization and $0.7 million (after-tax) from non-recurring acquisition costs. Adjusted diluted EPS rose 18.2% to $1.75 and excludes the net effect of intangible asset amortization and non-recurring acquisition costs.
Organic revenues exclude the effects of acquisitions and dispositions completed in the last 12 months and foreign currency in all periods presented. Adjusted operating income and margin, adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share exclude both intangible asset amortization and non-recurring items, including acquisition costs. The Company believes that these adjusted financial measures better reflect the underlying economic performance of FactSet. A supplementary schedule reconciling financial results in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) to these adjusted financial measures is presented on page 10 of this earnings release.
“We delivered another solid quarter of revenue and earnings growth in a climate that remains challenging for some segments of the market. FactSet’s resilient business model and partnership with our clients continues to be a winning formula. Our advances in technology and product are opening up more enterprise discussions with our clients and the breadth of solutions we can provide them,” said Phil Snow, FactSet CEO.
Annual Subscription Value (“ASV”)
ASV was $1.17 billion at November 30, 2016, up 7.9% organically from the prior year. Organic ASV, which excludes the effects of acquisitions, dispositions and foreign currency, increased $7.9 million over the last three months. ASV at any given point in time represents the forward-looking revenues for the next 12 months from all services currently being supplied to clients.
Buy-side and sell-side ASV growth rates for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 were 8.3% and 6.3%, respectively. Buy-side clients account for 83.0% of ASV while the remainder is derived from sell-side firms that perform mergers and acquisitions advisory work, capital markets services and equity research. Supplementary tables covering organic buy-side and sell-side ASV growth rates are presented on page 12 of this earnings release.
Financial Highlights - First Quarter of Fiscal 2017
ASV from U.S. operations was $765.3 million, increasing 7.1% organically over the prior year. U.S. revenues were $190.6 million. Excluding the effects of acquisitions and dispositions completed in the last 12 months, the U.S. growth rate was 7.1%.
ASV from international operations grew 9.3% organically to $405.1 million and now represents 34.6% of total ASV, up from 32.6% a year ago. International revenues rose to $97.5 million. Excluding the impact of foreign currency and acquisitions and dispositions completed in the last 12 months, the international revenue growth rate was 11.0%.
The Company’s effective tax rate for the first quarter was 25.9%, a decrease from 31.4% a year ago, primarily due to FactSet’s global operational realignment effective September 1, 2016.
Quarterly free cash flow was $38.6 million.
Operational Highlights - First Quarter of Fiscal 2017
Client count as of November 30, 2016 was 3,116, a net increase of 24 clients in the past three months driven by client additions from the Vermilion and CYMBA acquisitions.
User count grew 1,308 to 66,963.
Annual client retention was greater than 95% of ASV. When expressed as a percentage of clients, annual retention was 93%.
Employee count was 8,713 at November 30, 2016, up 780 people in the past 12 months. Excluding the acquired Vermilion and CYMBA workforces and employees of the sold Market Metrics business, headcount increased 10.7% from a year ago.
Capital expenditures were $12.5 million primarily related to the build out of office space and purchases of computer-related equipment.
On July 1, 2016 FactSet entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement (the “ASR Agreement”) to repurchase $120.0 million of FactSet common stock. The final settlement of the ASR Agreement occurred in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. The Company repurchased 698,523 shares of its common stock under the ASR Agreement.
In addition, FactSet repurchased 505,000 shares for $79.3 million during the first quarter under the Company’s existing share repurchase program. As of November 30, 2016, $117.7 million remained authorized for further repurchases. Over the last 12 months, $473.4 million has been returned to stockholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends, funded by cash generated from operations and the sale of the Market Metrics business.
Common shares outstanding were 39.7 million at November 30, 2016.
In November 2016, FactSet held its 2016 Investment Process Symposium in Southampton, Bermuda, with 228 industry professionals from 105 firms and 70 cities in attendance.
FactSet was named “Best Index Data Provider” at the 2016 Data Management Review Awards in November 2016.
First Quarter Fiscal 2017 Acquisitions
In November 2016, FactSet acquired Vermilion, a premier global provider of client reporting and communications software and services to the financial services industry, for cash consideration of $67 million. Client reporting is a rapidly growing area of the market as regulatory requirements rise and investors grow increasingly sophisticated. The Vermilion Reporting Suite (VRS) creates a workflow around all elements of the client reporting process. At the time of acquisition, Vermilion employed 59 individuals across offices located in the U.K., U.S. and Singapore.
In September 2016, FactSet completed the acquisition of CYMBA, a fast-growing provider of high-performance multi-asset class investment management solutions, for cash consideration of $8 million. A U.K.-based company, CYMBA has a solid foundation of core order management system functionality through its product. CYMBA has 11 employees based in its London office.
“CYMBA and Vermilion are outstanding additions as FactSet strives to more holistically address the portfolio life cycle through both innovation and acquisition,” explained Phil Snow. “Operating alone, each company has developed compelling functionality to meet critical needs of the investment management community; in combination with FactSet’s core strengths and global commercial footprint, we believe we will better meet client needs going forward.”
The Vermilion and CYMBA acquisitions added $15 million in acquired ASV during the quarter. Following the closing of the Vermilion acquisition, FactSet carries $365 million in total debt under its amended revolving credit facility with Bank of America at an interest rate of one-month LIBOR plus 0.75%. The credit facility has a three-year term and may be expanded up to a total of $400 million. Vermilion and CYMBA’s operations did not have an impact on FactSet’s first quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share. For the second quarter of fiscal 2017, these two acquisitions combined are expected to reduce adjusted diluted EPS by $0.01 and reduce GAAP diluted EPS by $0.02. FactSet forecasts that the acquisitions will be breakeven to both adjusted and GAAP diluted EPS by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017.
FactSet Operational Realignment
Effective September 1, 2016, FactSet realigned certain aspects of its global operations from FactSet Research Systems Inc., its U.S. parent company, to FactSet UK Limited, a U.K. operating company, to better position the Company to serve its growing client base outside the U.S. This realignment allows the Company to further implement strategic corporate objectives and helps achieve operational and financial efficiencies, while complementing FactSet’s increasing global growth and reach. As a result of the realignment, the Company’s effective tax rate declined from 28.3% in the fourth quarter of 2016 to 25.9% in the first quarter of 2017.
Business Outlook
The following forward-looking statements reflect FactSet’s expectations as of today’s date. Given the risk factors, uncertainties and assumptions discussed below, actual results may differ materially. FactSet does not intend to update its forward-looking statements until its next quarterly results announcement, other than in publicly available statements.
Second Quarter Fiscal 2017 Expectations:
Revenues are expected to range between $293 million and $298 million.
GAAP operating margin is expected to range between 31% and 32%. Adjusted operating margin is expected to range between 32.5% and 33.5%.
The annual effective tax rate is expected to range between 25.5% and 26.5%.
GAAP diluted EPS is expected to range between $1.70 and $1.74. Adjusted EPS is expected to range between $1.78 and $1.82. The midpoint of the adjusted EPS range represents 13.2% growth over the prior year.
Anders la Cour
Chief Executive at Saxo Payments
“Disruption was the order of the day for 2016 in the payments industry; 2017 is looking to be just as exciting. see more
- 06:00 am
On 12 December 2016, Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. signed a long-term contract with Avaloq for full Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services. By partnering with Avaloq, the bank will benefit from the Avaloq Banking Suite, a state-of-the-art solution that includes a fully integrated component for upcoming legal and regulatory requirements. The migration is expected to be completed by the middle of 2017.
Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. is a private bank based in Geneva that mainly focuses on wealth management, investment advisory and trade finance. For over 50 years, Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. has delivered world-class private banking services to its clients, traditionally from the Middle East. More recently, the bank has expanded its offerings to cater for commodity trading companies out of Switzerland.
The Avaloq BPO solution entirely covers banking processes and back-office services in an integrated way and is fully compliant with legal and regulatory requirements (FIDLEG, MIFID II, etc.). By outsourcing standardised processes, Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. can improve its operational excellence, reduce the efforts spent on legal and regulatory aspects and focus on its core competencies, adding value for its clients.
Nasri V. Malhamé, CEO at Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd comments: “By working with Avaloq, we gain more efficiency and agility. As we can now build on Avaloq’s expertise when it comes to handling the increasing legal and regulatory demand, we can free up resources and focus even more on our clients by concentrating on comprehensive consulting services and high-quality advice”.
Markus Gröninger, Avaloq’s Group Chief Global Processing Network, adds, “I am extremely pleased to welcome Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. in our growing customer community. Our BPO solution enables the bank to access advanced technologies as well as highly efficient processes. We are happy to offer further an innovative digital solution to Arab Bank (Switzerland), namely Digital Suite as a Service, which offers first-class online client experience and will contribute to the bank’s future growth.”
- 08:00 am
The following 24 startups will be competing for their chance at the coveted Best in Show prize of US$10,000 at the Fintech Finals 2017(FF17) pitch competition at PMQ in Hong Kong on January 19, 2017. Each startup will have just 5 minutes to pitch their business in front of industry judges and a live audience. Trophies will also be given out for the following categories: Best Early Stage Startup, Best Growth Stage Startup and Best Mature Stage Startup. Ten of the finalists below (indicated by asterisks) were winners of Regional Semi-Finalist competitions that took place in 10 different cities in Asia and Sao Paulo. Each winner won US$2,000 for travel expenses and the opportunity to compete at FF17 in January.
In addition, the final winning team will be invited for a co-creation engagement with Visa at its Innovation Center in Singapore, to explore and ideate on business solutions and opportunities together with a team of subject matter experts from across Visa’s business.
The complete list of finalists that will be competing at the Fintech Finals 2017 in Hong Kong are:
Early Stage Startups Perpule** – (India) http://perpule.com/ |
Tapview** – (Australia) https://tapview.com/ |
MyCash Online** – (Malaysia) http://www.mycashmy.com/ |
Bluepan** – (Korea) https://www.bluepan.net/ |
Crowd Realty** – (Japan) http://crowd-realty.com/ |
Isbit – (Mexico) https://www.isbit.co/ |
Veridate – (Hong Kong) http://www.veridatefinancial.com/ |
Policypal – (Singapore) http://www.policypal.co/ |
KYC Chain – (Hong Kong) http://kyc-chain.com/ |
Valoot – (Hong Kong) http://www.valoot.com/ |
NSBeyond - (Korea) http://nsbeyond.myfreesites.net/ |
Clare – (UK) https://clare.ai/ |
Boundlss – (Australia) www.boundlss.com |
Bambu – (Singapore) http://www.bambu.life |
Growth Stage Startups |
Dataholics** – (Brazil) http://www.dataholics.io/ |
DarcMatter** – (USA) https://www.darcmatter.com/ |
Bugwolf** – (Australia) https://bugwolf.com/ |
Privemanagers – (Hong Kong) http://en.privemanagers.com/ |
Swipestox – (Germany) https://swipestox.com/ |
MoneyDashboard – (UK) https://www.moneydashboard.com/ |
Blockex – (UK) https://blockex.com/ |
Bugclipper** – (India) http://bugclipper.com/ |
Mature Stage Startups |
Ayannah** – (Philippines) http://www.ayannah.com/#about |
Milvik AB – (Sweden) http://www.bimamobile.com/ |
FF17 is organised by Next Money, and brought to you by Visa, with support from Gold Partner, Oracle Financial Services. Organizational Partners also giving support include InvestHK and Senjō
Group. The FF17 is part of the week long StartmeupHK Festival, and Rob Findlay, Next Money’s founder, comments, “We are absolutely thrilled at the level of innovation, drive and quality amongst all of the startups attending from Asia and beyond, and we are happy to help highlight their excellent work, here at FF17. Our guest judges will be sure to have a difficult time narrowing down the grand prize to just one winner.”
To find out more about the Fintech Finals 2017 and purchase tickets go to ff17.nextmoney.org/.
