Principia Partners, a solution provider for derivative and structured finance operations, launched pasVal, an online portfolio valuation, risk, and accounting management service.

The pasVal service is a web-based interface that leverages Principia’s 20+ years of derivatives expertise. Its valuations engine provides complete portfolio reporting to a wide range of derivative specialists who require sophisticated pricing and analytics without the burden of full-scale system ownership.

“We recognized there were many businesses that wanted access to our award-winning pricing capabilities but who also wanted to minimize their systems’ infrastructure, not add to it. With pasVal, we’ve eliminated that concern” said Theresa Adams, President and CEO of Principia. “The monthly subscription service helps portfolio and risk managers quickly value and analyze that most complex, headache-producing subset of their derivative portfolio which usually requires intense manual effort. Consultants, advisors, regulators, and auditors will also discover that pasVal targets their requirements perfectly. With pasVal, they can tap into the sophisticated valuation capabilities they need without also having to take on additional infrastructure costs. We think pasVal is just the kind of service they’ve been waiting for.”

Profile Software, an international financial solutions provider, announced today the effectiveness of its strategic approach to the Swiss Financial market with the addition of new clients and users of its product range as well as new partnerships that aim to reach new business opportunities in the country.

Profile Software Suisse part of the Profile Software Group, has successfully delivered wealth management pertinent solutions to Swiss-based private banks, fund management and wealth management firms. The established partnership has successfully met the company’s business objectives while new partners are being added to the Profile’s network to address the German speaking market and other regions in the country.

With the focus on meeting future client expectations, Profile is developing its local team with knowledgeable industry professionals and specialised integrators to further advance its regional expertise delivering sophisticated, technologically advanced solutions to the financial services sector.

Among the solutions that have successfully been implemented in the Swiss market are: IMSplus, the award-winning investment management platform and Mobius Wealth the mobile wealth management solution, due to their advanced functionality and modularity to successfully meet the client-centric and specialised requirements of wealth management firms and Private Banks alike. Following the recent announcement in the Swiss market, Axia, the web-based, omni-channel application that provides complete flexibility to IAMs and Banks, without the need of internal IT infrastructure, is receiving increased interest. Axia incorporates a powerful client onboarding solution that accelerates the process without comprimising on compliance or business policies’ requirements. It seamlessly integrates with any back-end system, while offering a unique client experience.

To effectively address the market changing needs, Profile invests in industry specific events such as the Finance Summit, which takes place on the 1^st and 2^nd of October at the Beau Rivage Palace, in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Summit, as a key forum for the Swiss financial services sector, aims to connect Banking and Investment Management executives with software experts to discuss new ideas and trends that add value to their business strategy. This is achieved via the arrangement of one-to-one meetings and short industry-focused presentations. Profile’s executives will have the opportunity to present the enhanced and newly developed investment management platforms for the market that focus on delivering flexibility and agility across the business.

Profile Software’s solutions have been succesfully implemented in Swiss financial institutions, to effectively manage their operations, while the company has been awarded for its excellence in delivering cutting edge solutions to the financial services industry.

Path Solutions, a pioneer and worldwide provider of cutting-edge Islamic core banking systems is proud to announce that it has been named “Best Islamic Finance Technology Provider” for a third time at the Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) 2015. 

Launched in 2011 at the ‘First Oman Islamic Economic Forum’ in Muscat, the GIFA awards recognize and celebrate success and contributions of individuals and institutions in the Islamic financial services industry. Their objective is to highlight best practices and key milestones in this extremely competitive sector.

The “Best Islamic Finance Technology Provider 2015” category has been awarded to Path Solutions for maintaining its leading position in the global Islamic financial services sector by continually investing in capacity and technology to stay well ahead of market needs.

“Islamic finance is undergoing huge and exciting changes and Path Solutions is at the center of that”, said Mohammed Kateeb, Group Chairman & CEO of Path Solutions. “To be named GIFA’s “Best Islamic Finance Technology Provider” for the third time is a great honor. This award underscores the growing recognition, on a global scale, of the Sharia-compliant banking technological solutions in order to keep pace with an ever-evolving industry. Vital to our on-going success is the combination of talent, business and technical know-how and the commitment to knowledge sharing. We continue to be impressed with the breadth of impact we leave on Islamic financial institutions - those who are using our advanced software solutions, with many success stories documented to help inspire industry peers”.

“Path Solutions’ Islamic software suite helps Islamic financial institutions become more resilient, more efficient and more competitive, by streamlining their operations and significantly reducing their total cost of ownership”, commented Prof. Humayun Dar, Founding Chairman & CEO of GIFA and Edbiz Consulting. “They have assisted many Islamic financial institutions in achieving their strategic goals of customer retention, enhanced profitability and increased market share. We congratulate Path Solutions on this achievement and wish them further success in the future”.

Since 2011, GIFA has celebrated the world’s most dynamic institutions and highly eminent individuals who contributed in driving the industry forward. Award winners were selected from among hundreds of applicants by a selection committee who bases its decision on criteria including innovation, vision, leadership and industry commitment.

The 2015 GIFA award winners were honored during the GIFA Awards Ceremony in Manama, Bahrain, on September 28, in the presence of HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II, Emir of Kano who received the "Global Leadership in Islamic Finance” award. In addition, the ambassadors of UK, Malaysia and Pakistan in Bahrain also graced the occasion with their presence.

This year sets a new benchmark for Path Solutions as the only IT vendor to be consistently positioned as “Number One Islamic Banking Software Provider” and “Best Selling Islamic Core Banking System Provider Worldwide” for the past 23 years; a position held since its inception in 1992.

For more information on the GIFA’s 2015 awards’ recipients, please visit this page:

http://edbizconsulting.com/index.php/gifa/past-winners

Misys, the global financial software and services company, has been named a National Champion for the United Kingdom in the European Business Awards. The awards is a prestigious competition supported by business leaders, academics, media and political representatives from across Europe. 

Misys was selected for the Award for Customer Focus in recognition of Misys Connect, the client engagement model the company developed in 2014. Misys Connect comprises 18 value-added complimentary programmes designed to help Misys customers drive competitive advantage and maximise the return on their technology investments. Misys has already connected over 800 clients to at least one programme and have numerous examples from around the world of Misys Connect leading to increased levels of customer satisfaction and revenue growth.

Nadeem Syed, Chief Executive Officer, said: “We’re very proud to be selected to represent the UK as a National Champion. The European Business Awards are widely recognised as the showcase for Europe’s most dynamic companies and we are now looking forward to the next round of the judging process where we can explain in more depth how we are achieving business success.”

Adrian Tripp, CEO of the European Business Awards, said: “Congratulations to Misys and all the companies that have been selected to represent their country as National Champions, they play an important part in creating a stronger business community.”

Now in its ninth year, the awards engaged with over 32,000 businesses from 33 European countries this year. There are 678 companies from across Europe that have been named as National Champions, all of whom go through to the second phase of the competition.

For further information about Misys, please visit www.misys.com. For more information about the European Business Awards and RSM, please visit www.businessawardseurope.com or www.rsmi.com.

Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, announced today the launch of its industry leading market data services inside Singapore Exchange’s co-location data centre.  This will help provide local financial firms with access to high-performance, high-quality content while lowering their total cost of ownership.

Financial firms in Singapore, in common with the industry globally, are trying to develop agile business models that allow them to connect to new markets and find new trading opportunities quickly and easily.  Continued growth from regional initiatives like ASEAN Link and increasing global trading volumes make access to high quality, timely market data critical.  However, firms in Singapore often have small infrastructure footprints and the large market data requirements needed to access multiple markets around the world can put excessive strain on their resources.

Through the new Elektron Managed Services offering, customers who have their trading applications in the SGX Co-Location site will be able to access Thomson Reuters Elektron Real Time consolidated market data feed via a simple cross-connect. This lowers the requirements for costly infrastructure and provides Singapore-based firms with low-cost, high-quality, global market data to help power applications and inform their trading strategies.

Thomson Reuters also offers fully managed services for Singapore firms through its own locally-based Elektron Managed Services data centre.  With this complemented by the new service within the SGX data centre and other data delivery options, Thomson Reuters can now support local firms’ market data requirements whatever their operational strategy.

“Elektron Managed Services gives customers the ability to scale their businesses rapidly and access low-latency data and services while lowering the typical costs of deploying and managing equivalent solutions in-house,” said Paras Sidapara, global head of managed services, Financial & Risk, Thomson Reuters.  “By offering real-time market data direct to customers inside the SGX data centre, they have access to the breadth of content needed to make informed trading decisions in a cost-effective and highly flexible way. The launch is a continuation of our efforts to support our customers’ growth strategies throughout the Asia Pacific region.”

Tinku Gupta, Head of Market Data & Access at SGX said “We welcome the addition of Thomson Reuters new Elektron Real Time consolidated market data feed to the suite of offerings and services at SGX Co-Location data centre.  The introduction of the service will enrich and diversify the global market data options available for clients who are co-located with SGX.”

Thomson Reuters offers Elektron Managed Services through a network of its own and exchange data centres across established and developing financial markets, including Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto.

Thomson Reuters Elektron is a suite of propositions that power the enterprise and connect global markets. Elektron delivers low latency feeds from thousands of exchange-traded and OTC markets, along with analytics, a market data platform and transactional connectivity to support financial workflow applications. All of these capabilities can be deployed at a customer location or delivered as a fully managed service from any one of Thomson Reuters co-location and proximity hosting sites around the globe. Elektron also powers the Company’s flagship desktop for financial services professionals, Thomson Reuters Eikon.

ICC today announced it has joined the Nimble Partner Network as a managed services partner. Nimble Storage is a provider of flash storage solutions that enable enterprises to meet performance and capacity requirements for any workload in virtualized datacenters and cloud environments.

Nimble Storage offers high performance flash storage architectures, combining the speed of solid state drives with the cost-effective large capacities of traditional hard drives. In addition, they offer integrated data protection, and predictive support tools which help to stop problems before they happen. The solution is easy to use, with automated cloud-based management and support features which help to keep systems running smoothly while minimizing the burden on administrators. The systems are highly scalable, and the patented Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL™) storage architecture ensures optimum performance for large and small SANs.

ICC has been serving the SAN market since 1998. As a Nimble partner they will be able to broaden their offering to traditional SAN customers. Nimble's CASL architecture is ideal for enterprise markets, and ICC is uniquely qualified to deliver the technology to their user-base.

"Nimble Storage is 100% committed to the channel," said Kristin Carnes, director of channel sales at Nimble Storage. "Nimble Storage believes enterprises should not have to compromise on performance, capacity, ease of use, or price. Therefore, we've built a partner ecosystem with over 900 partners worldwide, to provide enterprises access to our innovative storage technology from their existing trusted partners."

ICC works with many companies that are using legacy systems, and provides onsite maintenance for many of their clients. While there are a wealth of challenges associated with upgrading legacy equipment in a production environment, investing in new hybrid solutions offers long-term benefits in terms of performance and reliability. ICC is excited to be at the forefront of providing this new, disruptive technology to the enterprise marketplace.

ICC is a global IT solutions company specialising in a range of technology solutions, hardware and managed services to the SME, Enterprise & Public sector markets. For more information please visit: https://theicc.group/

Surecomp^®, the leading global provider of trade finance solutions for banks and corporations, announced today that INTRUST Bank, the largest independent bank headquartered in Kansas, has licensed two Surecomp products as part of an end-to-end trade finance solution. INTRUST is implementing allNETT^® the Surecomp front-end solution for banks and their corporate clients. allNETT will seamlessly interface to IBSnet^®, the Surecomp Windows-based back-office trade finance solution.

Originally chartered as the Farmers & Merchants Bank in 1876, and later known as the First National Bank in Wichita, INTRUST ranks amongst the top 150 banks in the Unites States. Privately owned, INTRUST is currently led by C.Q. "Charlie" Chandler IV, the fourth-generation descendant of the bank’s founder, C. Q. Chandler II. As a bank with its roots planted firmly in Kansas, INTRUST puts its faith in the local community.

allNETT is a Java J2E enterprise platform used for both initiating trade finance transactions and extracting wide-ranging inquiries and reports. A 24/7 multi-customer, multi-entity solution, allNETT makes the corporate processing of letters of credit (L/Cs) much more efficient by eliminating all manual activities involved in such transactions. This paperless ‘green’ solution also speeds up critical business reporting required by corporations to remain competitive.

INTRUST is able to react quickly to evolving corporate requirements by offering its clients allNETT. INTRUST uses allNETTto greatly increase productivity and transaction processing throughput while mitigating risk and ensuring compliance to regulatory standards.

Dubbed the “Air Capital of the World”, Wichita enjoys a well-deserved reputation for aviation and aerospace, in addition to being an industrial hub for manufacturing and agriculture. INTRUST has recently completed provisioning its largest (international) corporate client with allNETT to help ensure the manufacturer’s smooth initiation and processing of all products relating to international trade finance.

INTRUST has seamlessly integrated allNETT with IBSnet, the Surecomp back-office system, thus enabling a straight-through processing (STP) trade finance solution. Built on proven Windows-based technology, IBSnet will support INTRUST’s drive to strengthen its trade services for clients in the United States and around the world.

“We have recognized the value of offering a premium trade finance solution to our corporate customers. The combined allNETT/IBSnet solution meets our specific need for a comprehensive front-to-back office solution that helps simplify the administrative workload, optimizes processes, and saves time and money for both our clients and the bank,” said Dina M. Aaby, International Banking Manager at INTRUST. “Integrating smoothly with IBSnet, allNETT is a leading-edge trade finance offering that delivers a robust, real-time solution for our corporate clients."

“With further consolidation, deregulation and diversification of the financial industry, the banking sector will become even more complex. As such, banks of all sizes are working to identify new business niches, develop customized services, and capture new market opportunities,” said Joel Koschitzky, Surecomp Chairman. “As the trade finance market leader, Surecomp invests heavily in developing and supporting state-of-the-art products designed to help our banking and corporate customers thrive under ever-changing market conditions.”

“An integrated allNETT/IBSnet solution provides a market-ready operational environment that enables banks to better manage their trade finance portfolios, achieve greater workflow control, and gain improved visibility of cash flows and risk exposure,” said Dan Watkins, Vice President of North America at Surecomp. “Built on a flexible and scalable platform, such a solution also delivers on-demand reporting across multiple entities and business units, giving INTRUST and its corporate clients far greater insight into their trade finance activities.”

Diasoft, a leading provider of cutting edge financial software solutions, announced today that Khan Bank, one of the largest commercial banks in Mongolia, has selected Diasoft Custody solution to automate its new line of business.

In May, 2014 Mongolian Government has passed the renewed Securities Market Law that introduces the system of custodian banks along with other securities market practices that opens a door for international investors. Khan Bank is licensed, in June 2015, by Financial Regulatory Commission of Mongolia to provide custodian services to both domestic and international investors given its superior position among Mongolian banks with financial strength, enhanced information security management certified by ISO/IEC 27001-2013 and strong corporate governance and transparency.

“Custodian bank operation is crucial for Mongolian capital market development to provide professional and international standard services to investors and allow the country to attract more investments from international market”, - said Norihiko Kato, CEO, Khan Bank and he added “As a leading financial and banking service provider in Mongolia, Khan Bank committed to provide custodian services as a part of the Bank`s strategy and Diasoft is proven to be competent partner by demonstrating itself as a professional, supportive and cooperative partner with an in-depth knowledge and dedication to Mongolian financial market. We’re looking forward to successful cooperation for our custodian operation establishment with Diasoft.”

To successfully automate its custodian operations Khan Bank required strong software solution ensuring provision of the good level of services with the effective and solid operations and control, and allowing for quick move within this business. By results of thorough evaluation process Khan Bank has selected an innovative Diasoft Custody solution that ensures automation of the whole spectrum of custody activities, including processing of custody transactions, calculation of depository commissions, as well as a full integration with back-office modules of financial institutions. Functional modules of Diasoft Custody fulfill primary custody functions and ensure custody accounting and reporting in full compliance with regulatory requirements.

“Diasoft has implemented a great number of custody projects for the leading financial institutions providing its customers with a cutting-edge custody solution proven to handle large volumes of transactions, to address the ever-evolving market requirements and increasing regulations”, - commented Sergey Metelskiy, International Sales Director, Diasoft. “This is a great achievement for Diasoft to be selected by the Khan Bank of Mongolia to help uncover the potential of custody business while shaping the Mongolia’s investment landscape. We are very happy to support the development of such an important operation for the country`s economy by sharing our experience and providing innovative off-the-shelf products”.

Meethaq, the pioneer of Islamic banking in Oman from Bank Muscat, as part of continuous endeavour to provide world class services through the latest technology and innovation, has upgraded its core banking system, resulting in a host of cutting edge and first-of-its-kind Islamic banking services covering ATM/CDM, debit card and mobile banking for Meethaq customers. Meethaq now functions with the new iMAL Islamic core banking system.

Sulaiman Al Harthy, Group General Manager - Islamic Banking, said: “Meethaq is delighted to successfully implement the upgrade to a state-of-the-art Islamic core banking solution incorporating the latest technology to meet the bank’s requirements of Sharia compliance, cost-optimisation, improving profitability and serving customers faster and efficiently. With this upgrade, the bank is able to fulfil numerous new business requirements and customer demands”.

Al Harthy added: “The upgrade stems from Meethaq’s commitment and focus to take the lead role in offering a suite of Sharia based banking products and services. Meethaq has adopted the best practices in Islamic banking and finance worldwide to combine a robust model which protects customers and complements the Islamic banking industry.

The Meethaq strategy is to attract customers through innovative Sharia-based products and services. We thank our customers for their co-operation during the upgrade”.

Mohammed Kateeb, Group Chairman & CEO of Path Solutions, said: “It is exciting to see the results of the partnership between Bank Muscat and Path Solutions, bringing the bank’s Meethaq Islamic operations to a successful upgrade to iMAL core banking. The partnership with the flagship financial services provider and the pioneer of Islamic banking in Oman endorses the leadership position of Path Solutions as the number one provider of Islamic banking IT solutions. I congratulate both organisations on this amazing success”.

iMAL is a Sharia-compliant core banking system certified by the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI). It is an integrated, modular Islamic banking suite with full functionality, including retail, corporate, investment, trade finance, and treasury modules. It supports multi-company and multi-bank environments and is truly global in scope, incorporating both multi-currency and multi-lingual capabilities. In addition, iMAL contains robust risk management and security features that provide a flexible, user-friendly interface while allowing Islamic banks to have complete control over their financial systems.

Payment services specialist allpay is now collecting £1.59 billion per annum in Direct Debit payments, from 12.1 million transactions. With the total BACS Direct Debit transaction volume reaching 3.6 billion each year in the UK, allpay today represents a growing market share of the UK’s total Direct Debit market.

Specialising in the collection of private and public sector bill payments – such as rent, council tax, utility and insurance bills – and working with a wide range of housing associations, government departments, local authorities, energy companies and insurers, allpay provides a fully managed, cloud-based solution to organisations wanting to offer a flexible ‘any day’ direct debit service to their customers, without needing bank sponsorship.

Nick Peplow, Bill Payments Director at allpay, said: “These figures are a real indicator of the trusted reputation allpay now has in the UK private and public sector market. The continuing popularity of Direct Debit as a means of managing household income is reflected by BACS statistics which show that eight-out-of-ten adults in the UK have at least one Direct Debit, and around 71 per cent of household bills are paid in this way.

“The benefits of working with allpay stretch to both our clients and their customers. The digital, paperless service we provide helps reduce the cost of compliance and administration for organisations, making us the ideal solution for SMEs, landlords, utility and insurance companies. At the same time, the streamlined, efficient online service enables our clients to offer full flexibility to their customers on payment dates and frequencies,” he said.

In addition, annual volume figures released by Payments UK shows allpay now processes Direct Debits for one in every five households paying rent for a house or flat by Direct Debit or standing order.

Peplow added: “Our significant presence in the housing rental market is testament to the quality of the service we provide. Despite our successes, we do not believe in resting on our laurels. We are constantly looking to innovate in new ways, and our next generation Direct Debit platform, launched in July 2015, is already enhancing our clients’ experiences even further, providing cutting-edge functionality and additional flexibility for our clients and their customers. Convenience is key for all parties in a transaction, and we see digital innovation as crucial in creating this.”