iMeta Technologies Ltd., a leader in Client Onboarding and Entity Data Management technology for financial institutions, today announced that industry veteran Mark Bands has been appointed to the role of Head of Product Strategy and Regulatory Intelligence. In this capacity he will be responsible for leading the development strategy and continuous improvement of iMeta’s Assassin platform. Bands will support the firm’s strategic agenda of delivering best of breed client onboarding and end-to-end lifecycle management capability; by combining his breadth of data management experience with his deep understanding of financial services regulation.

With over seventeen years of information management experience in the financial services sector, Bands has worked for a number of banks; including Credit Suisse, DBS Bank Singapore, Macquarie Securities and most recently ANZ Institutional Bank as data management lead for the OTC reform programme.

“iMeta is committed to the ongoing development of our Assassin platform to provide financial institutions with a best of breed end-to-end onboarding and entity data management solution,” said Ben Marsh, CEO of iMeta Technologies. “I am thrilled to welcome Mark to this new role, and confident that his deep comprehension of customer requirements, regulation and industry acumen will help to enhance our proposition even further.”  

“iMeta’s suite of proven capability places it amongst the front-runners in the client onboarding software market,” said Bands. “Client lifecycle management; with its diversity, and the scale of operational complexity and required levels of compliance, makes it the most compelling drama currently being played out in financial data management. I am looking forward to working with Ben and the team to further consolidate and strengthen iMeta’s position during these innovative times.” 

Emerald Advisers, Inc. Rapidly Implements INDATA’S iPM Cloud Technology Platform for Elessar Investment Management following acquisition

INDATA, a leading industry provider of software and services for buy-side firms, today announced that Emerald Advisers, Inc., an INDATA client since 2013, has fully transitioned Elessar Investment Management onto INDATA’s iPM Cloud platform.

Emerald Advisers, Inc, based in Leola, PA with more than $3.6 Billion in assets under management, announced its intention to acquire the assets and hire the senior staff of Elessar in January of this year.  Elessar is a boutique investment firm that employs a value-driven, research-based investment process that includes a rigorous and disciplined bottom-up fundamental research analysis. The Elessar team is based in Cleveland, OH.

After the transaction formally closed, Emerald began the process of migrating the firm’s portfolio data and end users onto the INDATA iPM Cloud technology platform already used by Emerald.  Cloud computing provides a number of advantages for money management firms. iPM Cloud offers the full security benefits of a dedicated hosted environment but with the flexibility of a SaaS Model (Software as a Service).  With iPM Cloud, each INDATA client has a private environment with hardware security and physical infrastructure security built in.  In addition, with INDATA’s proprietary model, data and infrastructure delivered via iPM Cloud can be accessed from anywhere.

“Choosing iPM Cloud has proven essential to our growth strategy, since it removes the technical obstacles and IT expenditures that firms like ours would typically experience in trying to get remote sites up and running,” commented Scott Rehr, Chief Operating Officer, Emerald Advisers, Inc. “This combined with the fact that iPM is very easy to use and seamlessly integrates the automated trading platform with the portfolio management system has helped tremendously in moving the Elessar end users off of their old system and getting them up and running with iPM quickly, delivering noticeable benefits and speed to the investment process” he added

“We are very fortunate to have many client success stories like Emerald Advisers, and are always gratified to see our clients expand, giving us the opportunity to work with new end users and different investment processes,” added David J. Csiki, President of INDATA. “We wish Emerald continued success in their growth ambitions and look forward to continuing to serve as their technology partner in the future,” he added.

Profile Software, an international banking and investment management solutions provider, announced today the launch of its new website and new brand logo to reflect the innovative approach inherent in its product line and celebrate its 25 years of successful operations.

Profile Software’s new brand logo reflects the interaction of all the elements in the company in order to provide an integrated solution to its clientele. The 'motion' of the logo represents the flexibility and adaptability of the company’s solutions, as well as the global interaction between the company and its clientele.

The company’s new website offers a modern navigation environment with responsive design. The focus is on the presentation of key solutions’ range with easy links on the same page to help visitors effectively find the information needed. The completion of a quarter of a century in the software industry developing solutions for the financial institutions, along with the changes happening in this ever evolving sector, are incorporated in the company’s new branding and mark a new era focused on delivering innovative, differentiated and customer-centric solutions that can effectively cover the needs of the financial services organisations, end-to-end. In addition, taking advantage of the unique modularity of the systems, each solution can be implemented as stand-alone while seamlessly integrating to the business’s ecosystem or as a complete platform.

Both these brand changes (logo and website) are a big step forward for the company to match its “appearance” to the era’s modern and flexible platforms utilising cutting edge technologies such as mobile and cloud, all bundled in a secure environment offering a unique user experience (both to the organisation and its clients)

The new logo is presented in the modern looking website which is live at www.profilesw.com. The website is designed to offer an optimum view via modern devices e.g. smartphone, tablets and web browsers.

“The objective of this branding exercise was not only to celebrate the 25 years mark of servicing the financial industry, but most importantly to denote a truly international approach to our presence and effectively meet our existing and potential customers’ needs. Both the logo and website show the “fresh” and flexible approach of the business to understand market trends and deliver reliable solutions as needed” states Mr. Babis Stasinopoulos, CEO at Profile Software.

Surecomp^®, the leading global provider of trade finance solutions for banks and corporations, announced today that IMEX^®, its high-volume back-office trade finance solution for banks, has been award the “SWIFT Certified Application – Trade Finance” label for a 17^th consecutive year.

The SWIFT Certified program provides accreditation to companies that provide various SWIFT-related services and solutions to end customers. SWIFT checks compliance with relevant quality criteria and standards, and awards SWIFT Certified labels for qualifying applications and specialists. SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a member-owned cooperative through which the financial world conducts its business operations with speed, certainty and confidence.

“We are proud that IMEX – for 17 years running – has once again received SWIFT accreditation following a rigorous evaluation process. SWIFT certification confirms our ongoing commitment to meeting industry standards and keeping IMEX at the forefront of trade finance processing,” said Joel Koschitzky, Surecomp Chairman. “We will continue to work hard to ensure that IMEX remains the number one trade finance system for discerning banks with high volumes of trade finance transactions.”

CSC, which currently serves over 100 banking and financial services clients in 15 countries, will provide its core banking, cards, payments and default management industry software and product development expertise to the venture. HCL, which draws 25% of its revenue from the banking sector, will provide capital investment, experience in product engineering and application implementation services, as well as banking sales and client engagement expertise.

“The banking industry is taking bold steps toward cloud deployments and digital integration with surrounding applications and platforms,” says Anant Gupta, president & CEO, HCL Technologies. “Many of our banking clients are looking for modernization of their legacy platforms while simultaneously managing the increasing demands for data analytics services, multi-channel deployments, and increasing regulatory compliance requirements. The joint entity with CSC is designed to meet those critical demands with new and innovative solutions and to expedite the modernization transformation journey of our banking clients.”

CSC is likely to be the lead partner in the venture, drawing on its experience in the market with its Hogan core banking platform and CAMS card management suite. 

The company is led by Mike Lawrie, who spent five years turning around Misys before quitting to join CSC as the UK core banking supplier company entered an - ultimately aborted - merger agreement with Swiss rival Temenos.

Path Solutions announces today that Sudanese Egyptian Bank (SEB) has successfully completed the implementation of iMAL Islamic core banking system across its operations in 7 retail branches.

The iMAL solution, which was chosen to replace SEB’s legacy outsourced system, will now accelerate the growth of its retail banking business and further enhance its customer experience.

SEB’s management wanted to maintain its competitive edge in the Sudanese market and ensure that it is using a true Sharia-compliant core banking system. The bank selected iMAL Islamic Banking & Investment System over a number of international core banking systems. This selection granted SEB a rapid implementation of less than 6 months covering the following business areas; Branch Automation, Financing Application Management, Retail Financing, Corporate Financing, Trade Financing, Provisioning, Treasury operations, Central Bank Reporting, along with data migration and interfaces with Credit Bureau and ATM.

“The very fast and successful project completion is testament to Path Solutions’ breadth of knowledge and experience in this segment”, stated Sami Hussein Alrakha, Head of Information Technology at SEB. “We are confident that using iMAL, we will be able to launch innovative Islamic banking products and services to market quickly - something that used to take months of development with the previous core banking system. We will also be able to tailor and modify business processes to our exact requirements, significantly improving operational efficiency”.

Path Solutions was chosen for its proven project management and deployment methodology, rapid implementation successes and the experience of working closely with other Islamic financial institutions in Sudan such as Bank of Khartoum, United Capital Bank, Financial Investment Bank, Arab Sudanese Bank and Al Baraka Bank Sudan.   

Jacob Zachariah Karuvelil, Executive Vice President, Global Professional Services & Global Support, Path Solutions, commented, “It was a particularly delicate situation whereby we had to replace SEB’s old outsourced system within a short timeframe. For an existing full-fledged Islamic bank operating with 7 retail branches, failing to overcome this challenge would be disastrous. Our team managed to deploy the new core banking system seamlessly, with no interruption to daily operations”. He then explained, “Despite a major delay in receiving the data extracted from a third party, we managed to alter our migration approach and tools in order to accommodate this delay and succeeded in migrating all the needed data to our core banking system. We look forward to continuing to work closely alongside SEB as they expand their business rapidly and stay ahead of the market”.

Path Solutions has a well-defined migration path to its iMAL clients and it prioritizes quality and delivery which enables Islamic financial institutions to give true value-added services to their clientele in a relatively short time.

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Surecomp^®, the leading global provider of trade finance solutions for banks and corporations, announced today that DOKA 5^®, its configurable bank back-office solution for documentary trade finance, hasbeen awarded the “SWIFT Certified Application – Trade Finance” label for a 15th consecutive year.

The SWIFT Certified program provides accreditation to companies that provide various SWIFT-related services and solutions to end customers. SWIFT checks compliance with relevant quality criteria and standards, and awards SWIFT Certified labels for qualifying applications and specialists. SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a member-owned cooperative through which the financial world conducts its business operations with speed, certainty and confidence.

“This latest accreditation by SWIFT reaffirms the status of DOKA 5 as a cutting-edge back-office solution for banks that need to improve trade finance throughput while cutting costs,” said Joel Koschitzky, Surecomp Chairman. “We are pleased that DOKA 5 has earned SWIFT certification for 15 years in a row, and will continue to invest in DOKA 5 for the benefit of our banking customers in the years ahead.”