FIME is pleased to announce that its Japanese laboratory has achieved AMEX Enabled accreditation* for functional testing on contactless payment terminal kernels, in line with American Express’ Expresspay specifications. FIME has also been accredited by EMVCo for EMVCo’s Book C-4 specification, which defines the mandatory and optional functionality required when implementing terminal kernel 4. These latest accreditations enable contactless payment terminal and mobile point of sale (mPOS) manufacturers, as well as kernel developers, to validate their products in any of FIME’s French, Japanese and Taiwanese laboratories.

The separate accreditations from AMEX and EMVCo ensure the effective operation and market interoperability of contactless payment terminals by outlining the minimum software functionality required to operate effectively.

“Ongoing EMV migration and the upcoming 2020 Olympics in Tokyo are driving an increase in EMV chip deployments and the adoption of contactless payment technology across Japan,” comments Arnaud Peninon, VP Global Laboratories at FIME. “These latest accreditations are part of FIME’s ongoing strategy to support local terminal manufacturers and kernel developers with the widest test and consultancy portfolio available on the market. These certification processes foster stability and security across the region’s expanding contactless infrastructure.”

The Japanese laboratory will use FIME’s qualified test tool, EVAL, to perform formal certification testing. The tool is available to purchase for in-house pre-certification testing to help identify issues that can lead to delays later in the process.

Intellect iGTB, the organisation behind the world’s first comprehensive global transaction banking solution announced that its client CIBC has implemented phase 1 of the bank's next generation payments infrastructure for business clients. CIBC's goal is to drive growth by leading with innovation while helping to simplify how clients manage their business.

Phil Griffiths, SVP & Head of Global Transaction Banking, CIBC said, "CIBC is focused on innovation that makes a difference for our clients, and leveraging this new platform enhances our ability to deliver new capabilities, support emerging technologies such as blockchain, and positions us well to lead in the rapidly evolving payments market in Canada and the United States as they move towards real time payments and transmitting enhanced remittance data.”

Al Carpetto, EVP & Head of America's, at Intellect iGTB said, “We are thrilled to support CIBC's innovative agenda in the Transaction Banking and payments space. Helping banks and their customers to manage payments, automate receivables, while also optimizing liquidity is all part of our end goal. iGTB has invested in the right technology and believes that our Payment solutions will help CIBC and our customers in their journey of digital transformation.”

Intellect Design Arena Ltd, a specialist in applying true digital technologies, is the world’s first full spectrum Banking and Insurance technology products company, across Global Consumer Banking (iGCB), Central Banking, Global Transaction Banking (iGTB), Risk, Treasury and Markets (iRTM), and Insurance (Intellect SEEC). With over 25 years of deep domain expertise, Intellect is the brand that progressive financial institutions rely on for digital transformation initiatives. Intellect pioneered Design Thinking for cutting-edge products and solutions for Banking and Insurance, with design being the company’s key differentiator in enabling digital transformation. FT8012, the world’s first design centre for Financial Technology, reflects Intellect’s commitment to continuous and impactful innovation to address the growing need for digital transformation. Intellect generates annual revenues of more than USD 124 million, serving more than 200 customers through offices in 40+ countries and with a diverse workforce of more than 4,000 solution architects, domain and technology experts in major global financial hubs around the world. 

Together toward the future of digital banking. Effective immediately, Fidor AG and GFT Technologies SE have reinforced their cooperation and signed a strategic partnership agreement to focus on developing mobile financial and banking apps, as well as the related sales and marketing. It’s an initial step to shape the next generation of digital banking within a strong network. One main pillar will be GFT’s Digital Innovation Labs, where both parties will combine their expertise to develop ideas, innovations and prototypes. The team will employ agile development to make the prototypes market-ready, and the resulting products will be put on the market quickly as possible. GFT and Fidor have already developed the new O2 Banking’ solution together, which will be Germany's first mobile-only, full-service bank account. Since last week, the app is available within the Apple Store.

The partnership also includes the sales and marketing of Fidor Operating Systems (fOS). “Both parties had very positive experiences together during our first cooperation, O2 banking. It’s simply a matter of logic to continue working together. Our cooperation with GFT will allow us to be even more efficient in developing new offerings for the future of mobile banking", says Matthias Kröner, CEO of Fidor AG. “We’ll be pursuing new paths together primarily in the areas of prototyping and international sales". After the recently announced acquisition by the second-largest banking group in France, BPCE, the Fidor Group plans to not only develop domestic markets and expand internationally, but continue focusing on technological advancement as well. “We’re well-positioned for the future and we want to be the leaders in innovation so that we can continue to spearhead contemporary banking”, adds Kröner.

GFT is a renowned industry specialist in the financial sector that operates worldwide. A team of 4,500 employees in 12 countries supports leading banks and insurance companies with advisory, creative and technology capabilities. “The market for IT digitalisation solutions continues to grow – particularly in the financial sector. GFT has almost 30 years of experience in implementing complex IT projects. Fidor will ideally complement our solution portfolio in the digital banking area. It’s set out to be the perfect match”,  says Marika Lulay, COO of GFT Technologies SE. GFT’s Innovation Labs are already a proving ground for today and tomorrow’s digital banking environment. “Everything revolves around co-innovation, ensuring all key stakeholders are included in the design of the customer experience right from the very start. We’ve got a lot of plans to shape the digital future of banks!”

Customer needs are changing as the possibilities of digitalisation continue to grow – and it’s more than a matter of keeping pace; it’s about shaping new developments for the long term.

VocaLink, the global payment partner to banks, corporates and governments, today announced that Don Chow has joined the firm as Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific. Based in Singapore, Don will be responsible for business development throughout Asia Pacific, working across the full range of VocaLink products.

Don has spent nearly two decades working in the global payments sector in Asia Pacific, driving business development and sales. Don joins from NTT Data, where he was Partner in Global Payment Consulting. Prior to that, Don was Vice President of North Asia at ACI Worldwide, leading cross-functional global teams through the planning and execution of business strategies.

Kris Kubiena, International Sales Director at VocaLink, commented, “Don has joined VocaLink at a very exciting time for the business, particularly in the Asian market, where we have agreed to deliver proxy payment services in Singapore and we continue our ongoing implementation in Thailand, supporting the PromptPay programme.

“Since our landmark Immediate Payments Solution (IPS) project in Singapore, we have launched exciting new overlay services linked to Immediate Payments. These include, PayPort, our suite of access solutions that provide banks and corporates with gateway connectivity to the Immediate Payments infrastructure and Accura, our insights business that leverages transactional data to solve issues for businesses, policymakers and the consumer. Don’s regional experience and expertise will be invaluable in introducing these solutions to the Asia Pacific region as we continue our international expansion.”

Since launching Singapore’s FAST project in March 2014, VocaLink has empowered customers of the 14 participating banks to make instant and secure interbank transfers via online and mobile channels, progressing from the standard three working days. 

Don Chow added, “VocaLink has transformed Singapore’s payments infrastructure and I’m very much looking forward to working with the team to roll-out further projects in the wider Asia Pacific market, starting with Thailand later this year. Our focus is to continue to respond to industry demand for faster payments in more countries, which in turn supports our broader objective to be the leading real-time payment infrastructure provider globally.”

 Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the software company empowering the world’s leading enterprises with strategic applications for customer engagement, today announced enhancements to its industry leading Pega® Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) and Pega® Know Your Customer (KYC) applications that provide the industry’s first unified solution for managing both corporate and personal banking customer journeys. No other solution allows banks to reduce the massive cost, regulation, and complexity they face from onboarding and offboarding clients across all lines of business on a global scale.

The growing list of complex onboarding and Know Your Customer regulations makes it difficult and expensive for banks to efficiently manage customers across their historically siloed lines of business and legacy systems. By extending the proven Pega CLM capabilities to personal banking channels, banks can drive these processes with a single master view of the client and all related parties, re-using data as they engage across the organization – from buy side and sell side to wealth and personal banking. This combined approach not only reduces costs and streamlines compliance but also provides faster and more consistent customer experiences that reduce the risk of abandonment.

New capabilities for both corporate and personal banking clients further simplify the massive complexity of driving client lifecycles across lines of business, including:

·         More efficient fund onboarding – Pega’s CLM capabilities for corporate and investment banking have been further extended to include bulk fund onboarding, making it the only application that allows for automated bulk onboarding of funds instead of manually rekeying fund information. Banks can instantly upload these fund details when onboarding a fund manager and add the related products for all or a subset of the funds. This automatically creates cases and related cases and dependencies, applying the right due diligence rules, dependencies, and processes.

·         Integration with industry leading data providers – Pega has partnered with leading service providers such as Thomson Reuters (i.e. World-Check), OutsideIQ, Equifax, NominoData, and Dunn & Bradstreet to develop and deliver APIs for leading sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEPs), high risk customer screening, and adverse media services. Additional partnerships with Kyckr and DTCC (Avox, Omgeo) will complement existing integrations with leading KYC utilities such as kyc.com (powered by Markit and Genpact) and Clarient. These integrations can be fully utilized across personal banking and Pega’s KYC application.

·         Expanded and updated KYC rules – Pega CLM offers full integration with the Pega KYC regulatory rules application. By partnering with leading regulatory advisor and global law firm DLA Piper, Pega KYC provides automated updates to more than 3,500 pre-built due diligence requirements and more than 3,000 pre-configured logic rules for regulations. This enables banks to be in step with changing regulatory requirements, including AML/CTF, FATCA, CRS, Dodd-Frank, EMIR, and MiFID. This also includes recent changes such as the new Fourth EU Money Laundering Directive and FinCEN’s new due diligence and ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) rules.

·         Improved customer experience – Pega CLM provides new omnichannel capabilities that enhance the customer experience and drive higher customer satisfaction. Banks can guide clients through pre-defined, intent-led digital journeys with complete transparency across all channels, including mobile, online self-service, and branch.  

Pega CLM is the only globally scalable application for large complex financial institutions to manage end-to-end CLM – from client adoption, enrichment, and KYC due diligence to credit, legal, and risk assessment through to fulfillment – while allowing for multi-jurisdictional, multiproduct onboarding with pre-defined industry best practices. This industry-leading application can be deployed at the world’s largest institutions in as little as three months while speeding time to revenue with new and existing clients. Pega provides deep in-house industry KYC and customer due diligence (CDD) regulatory and onboarding expertise coupled with best-in-class partnerships. Pega’s global team of experts have deployed and built onboarding and KYC solutions for more than 10 years at more than 25 of the world’s largest financial institutions.

Available today the latest version of Pega CLM and Pega KYC will demonstrated at Sibos 2016 in Geneva from September 26-29, at stand E40. For more information, visit http://www.pegaonboarding.com

Intellect Design Arena Limited, the world's first full-spectrum banking and financial products company for the digital age, today announced that Capital Small Finance Bank Limited, India's first Small Finance Bank, has selected Intellect as its technology partner to drive its Digital Technology Transformation program.

Backbase, the omni-channel banking solution provider launched their new 60-second onboarding at FinovateFall 2016, the leading fintech conference in New York, United States. The demo showcased a streamlined, omni-channel on-boarding process and was voted 'Best of Show' by the audience of banking professionals.

It has become a necessity for banks to address their customers’ need for a real time, effective process that enables them to engage with the bank in the way they choose, and across multi-channels, to initiate requests. Banks need to realise the importance of being able to obtain the customer’s information at the first step of the customer journey and the customer lifecycle, regardless of the channel used.

The old manual, and paper-based onboarding processes during a typical customer onboarding process can cost up to 20 times more than computer-assisted, electronic document processing. However, the current computer-assisted onboarding processes are merely an online form, not a real engaging customer experience.

60-second onboarding leverages the latest modern mobile technology for simplified Know Your Customer (KYC) and seamless data-gathering technologies such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for scanning passports or credit cards combined with facial recognition. Powered by the Backbase Platform, the new solution will introduce true omni-channel onboarding across mobile, tablet and desktop. Banks will now be able to leverage these generic patterns and adopt the Backbase best-practice for fast, simple, seamless omni-channel onboarding.

"We are extremely excited to have been awarded ‘Best of Show’”, commented Jouk Pleiter, CEO of Backbase, “this award stands as recognition of our commitment to innovation and we have launched the right capabilities for financial institutions to leverage new technologies, reduce friction, and make onboarding a simple, seamless customer journey." He continued, “‘You never get a second chance to make a good first impression’ - this is also valid to customer onboarding. Onboarding is the first step to prove the kind of experience banks will offer to their customers. If not done right, it can kill the customer’s trust and ultimately, acquisition.”

 Kantox is blazing a trail again with Dynamic Hedging, a unique product that allows companies to fully automate the management of their multi-currency operations. Having enjoyed exponential growth in its first six months, in which more than $100 million were traded through the product, it represents a game-changer for companies' management of FX risk.

“Transparency, pricing and improving the user experience (UX) are essential to keep competing in the finance sector, but they are not enough. The launch of Dynamic Hedging positions us at the forefront of the latest trends in an increasingly mature fintech industry, where success depends on the creation of products that are truly innovative and sophisticated, in which cutting-edge technology is at the fore,” explained Philippe Gelis, Kantox's co-founder and CEO.

Dynamic Hedging delivers added value by monitoring currency risk in real time and enabling firms to hedge this risk dynamically and automatically. It therefore spares companies that handle high volumes of currency transactions from having to manually complete operations on an individual basis in order to protect against FX risk. The result is an improvement in their currency management and internal efficiency.

“For a travel firm operating on the global market, currency fluctuation makes daily planning more complicated. With Kantox's Dynamic Hedging product, we are able to fully monitor the risk related to exchange rate fluctuations and to execute hedging operations automatically. This way, we can optimise cross-border transactions with minimum effort,” said Jasmin Taylor, the Managing Director of JT Touristik. 

“Dynamic Hedging has seen exponential growth, so we expect to be managing $1 billion through this solution in 2017,” added Gelis.

What is Kantox Dynamic Hedging?

Kantox Dynamic Hedging is a solution geared towards companies that regularly make transactions in multiple currencies, allowing them to both automate and centralise the management of their multi-currency exposure. It is the ideal fit for such firms operating in sectors like travel and e-commerce, among others. 

Dynamic Hedging offers continuous, real-time monitoring of the exchange rate in every currency and execution of transactions in order to take advantage of market movements. Further benefits include time savings and increased security, because transactions, while automatically completed, are made according to clearly defined rules and with total visibility.

Saxo Bank, the online trading and investment specialist, announces today that it is transforming fixed income trading with the launch of the first truly digital trading solution for corporate and government bonds. As part of the launch, Saxo Bank will offer its clients access to trading opportunities in over 5,000 investment grade and high yield corporate and government bonds from all over the world and in 20 different currencies. The solution will be rolled out in October on SaxoTraderGO, the bank’s multi-asset trading platform.

Saxo Bank will combine its technological prowess and its relationship with 40 of the largest liquidity providers in the bond markets to offer both retail and institutional clients more transparent, cheaper and more efficient access to fixed income trading opportunities. The move is set to revolutionise the way investors trade bonds – a process which currently involves a manual “request for quote” from a very small number of banks, and in some instances a single bank. The current process is inefficient as it does not explore the depth of the liquidity and range of prices available in the marketplace.

Saxo Bank’s digital bond trading is connecting each client with the entire global bond market, in a direct, competitive, transparent, and efficient manner. Each bond order is directed to an optimized dealer auction which comprises up to 40 of largest bond liquidity providers. Thanks to technology, most trades are done within seconds, but, most importantly, clients will experience huge cost savings due to the competitive nature of the multi dealer environment. Saxo Bank’s ability to offer its clients a fully digital trading solution which has high scalability will allow it to offer, on average, a price improvement of 30 basis points for corporate bonds and 5-10 basis points for government bonds, according to the bank’s observations.

Large institutional investors have had access to electronic trading in liquid government and corporate bonds for a while, however, electronic bond trading has to date not been available to a large part of the investor base. Saxo Bank’s aim is to change that and democratise access to efficient bond trading.

Commenting on the launch Kim Fournais CEO and co-founder of Saxo Bank, said:

“It is hard to imagine a market which is more ripe for disruption than the bond market. Watching a bond trader trade over the phone, at a time when the internet has touched almost every area of financial markets, not to mention our lives, is a clear call for disruption. Investors need to ask themselves if they want to continue to trade based on an indicative price from a single bank or if they want to get the best price available from more than 40 global bonds providers, including some of the largest global banks.”

“Enabling our clients to trade bonds much more efficiently is an extension of our mission and history of democratizing investment and trading and levelling the playing field between institutions and retail investors when it comes to accessing financial markets“

Simon Fasdal, Head of Fixed Income Trading at Saxo Bank, commented:

“I am proud that the next step in Saxo Bank’s history of democratizing trading and investment is to truly digitize bond trading. Many providers who have attempted to address the issue of electronic bond trading have failed because they took the wrong approach by trying to copy equity style trading into a fragmented market and ignoring issues with liquidity and indicative prices. Others have stuck to a manual work stream, despite a digital frontend, and not really taken the step to a full digital value chain. We have engineered a front end that will present clients with a trading experience which is similar to that which they are accustomed to in equity trading, offering speed of execution and transparency, and the technology to cope with the much more complex nature of fragmented bond markets in a simple manner.”

“Client demand and regulatory pressure makes transparency absolutely key and with our new offering we will charge a commission, offering full transparency to clients, in contrast to the industry standard of a spread based system, which is not always a transparent way of pricing clients.”

As the SEPA scheme becomes applicable for non-Euro countries as well, EximBank, a Romanian state-owned bank dedicated to corporate financing,chooses to partner with Allevo in order to ensure the smooth alignment of bank operations to the SEPA standard.

By implementing the open-source transactions processing solution offered by Allevo,the bank nowprocessesits low-value payment instructions denominated in Euro according to the industry requirements.

Moreover, EximBank benefits ofa SWIFT validated solution for its conformity with SEPA (FinTP received the SWIFTReady SEPA label in 2008 and 2009) and of a practice proven open source solution, live with other banking customers both in Romania and abroad.

The successful collaboration between EximBank and Allevo started one year ago, when the bank chose to implementFinTP, the open source application for financial transactions processing developed by Allevo.

EximBank now takes one step further with the implementation of the feature dedicated to SEPA compliance. FinTP offers a technology that drives cost reduction and conveys full control over the source code of the application, thus eliminating the common vendor lock-in dependence, while gaining access to a transparentproduct development process and transparent product audit.

“EximBank is constantly concerned with upgrading its IT infrastructure aiming at supporting an improvement in services’ quality. We opted for Allevo’s solution dedicated to ensuring SEPA compliance after working closely with the company for automating the bank’s operations flows in relation with the external networks, but also considering the company’s expertise”,said Traian Halalai, Executive President  of EximBank.

Sorina Bera, CEO Allevo, commented, “Allevo is constantly working to ensure our customersimplementcompetitive solutions for their financial transaction processing in accordance with industryrequirements, standards compliance included. Weare recognized as one of the software vendorsthat allow our customersto remain competitive and improve their infrastructure for a long time now.”