• While the metaverse and distributed ledger technology (DLT) remain talking points, there are mixed signals from respondents, indicating that these two propositions have faded from strategic plans of action. Around 45% of respondents state they had chosen not to implement blockchain solutions, while 24% flatly declare that the metaverse won’t take off.
• Despite its transformative potential, Banking-as-a-Service has only been adopted by 16% of respondents, evidence that it is a technology that’s still at the margins of fintechs’ offerings.
• Strikingly, financial crime and fraud command significant attention, ranking in the same priority slot as generative AI. With cyber threats on the rise, organisations are committed to safeguarding customer data and mitigating risks, as evident in the strong 32% response.
• Cybersecurity remains a core priority, with 61% of institutions having implemented an adaptable cybersecurity strategy.
• Furthermore, data privacy and third-party risk weigh in at 29%, showcasing the industry's commitment to maintaining trust and resilience in the face of evolving regulations and digital vulnerabilities.
• Notably, financial inclusion emerges as a crucial priority, garnering 29% of responses. Fintech aims to bridge the gap and provide access to financial services for underserved populations, fostering economic empowerment and inclusion.

Aminah Hanif, Senior Content Director of Fintech Connect NA 2023, [AH2] says: “So far, as our benchmark report starkly illustrates, 2023 has ushered in unprecedented market conditions, and disruptive technology innovations like ChatGPT that have caused many fintechs to frantically re-evaluate their growth strategies. But amid such flux, one thing is constant – providing a great customer experience will be key to winning market share and strengthening revenue streams.

 

“We can expect more investment and focus on delivering exceptional user experiences, with many fintechs weaving ChatGPT into their offerings to provide more intuitive and responsive customer experiences. A mixed approach is being taken towards payments innovation, with third-party collaboration, as-a-service solutions, and in-house development all featuring in efforts to upgrade the payments experience. Fuelled by personalisation, transformative technologies, robust security measures, and a commitment to financial inclusion, the fintech industry is poised for both a bold and inclusive future in 2023 and beyond.”

• The metaverse, web 3.0 and DeFi – how are they changing the face of the financial ecosystem and how are they tangibly being implemented? 
• ChatGPT - Is this the start of a new era? 
• The challenges and successes of leveraging AI across your business 
• Building a robust and resilient cybersecurity strategy to protect your organisation. 
• The next frontier for payments – what does the landscape look like for 2023 and beyond? 

Defaqto, the UK’s most trusted source of financial product and market intelligence, today announced that it is building a full two-way integration with new fintech challenger, Plannr.

The integration will see its proprietary financial advice software, Defaqto Engage, integrated with the Plannr CRM system for the benefit of advisers who use the fintech platform. 

Defaqto Engage helps advisers to make smarter financial decisions through unified financial planning and advice workflows and is used by more than 4,300 advice firms. The integration will help advisers to operate more efficiently by offering a single, seamless customer journey with a consistent interface and methodology. This will eliminate data re-entry, which is time-consuming and can lead to inaccuracies. It will launch later this year and further marks Defaqto’s commitment to enabling more choice for advisers wanting to access industry-leading software.

The new integration represents a significant improvement in a market where advisers typically use multiple different pieces of software. It follows recent expansions to the Engage platform including the launch of an integrated cashflow modelling tool last year and a pensions switching tool. 

John Milliken, Defaqto CEO commented: ‘’This integration is part of a journey towards delivering a seamless, compliant journey for the intermediary financial advice market. Plannr’s CRM capability delivers powerful efficiencies for advisers throughout the journey, whilst the application of a consistent dataset and methodology will also reduce compliance risk and improve suitability. Plannr has built a beautifully intuitive CRM system that is easy to use, modern and infinitely scalable and we are confident that this partnership will further strengthen both businesses.

“Access to quality financial planning technologies is essential in helping everyone to make smarter financial decisions, enabling financial intermediaries and product providers to improve suitability and deliver better consumer outcomes.’’  

Gareth Thompson, CTO at Plannr commented: “Defaqto’s ethos of delivering time-saving efficiencies through innovative tech very much resonates with what we're building at Plannr. Our solution has been created and tested by a dedicated cohort of advisers and crafted by a team of skilled, modern, developers. As part of this process, our users identified Defaqto Engage as a key integration partner and we are delighted to build this integration for the benefit of the users of Plannr and Engage. We look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the Defaqto team on future enhancements.’’

The US market is currently in favour with younger investors, according to the latest investor report from smart money app Plum.

19% of inflows by 18-24-year-olds and 16% of those by 25-34-year-olds went to American Dream, Plum’s fund focusing on the US S&P Total Market Index, in March 2023. This continues a stable level of investment in US stocks and shares by this age group since the start of 2023.  

Older investors have taken a different approach this quarter. While inflows into American companies remain substantial, at 10% of the overall investment for those aged 45 and over, this fund is seeing a downward trend from 12% among this age cohort in December 2022. 

Instead, older investors are exploring shores a little closer to home with their investments. Inflows to UK companies via Plum’s Best of British fund, which tracks the FTSE All Share Index, more than doubled in March among those aged 55 and over. Its share of inflows now stands at 7% for this age group in March compared with just 3% at the end of 2022. The Best of British fund has seen a small but steady increase among all investors, from 2.5% to 3.5% of total inflows over the past year.

Meanwhile, Tech Giants fund which tracks the largest global technology firms like Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet, has boosted its share of money invested after a dip in popularity in the latter part of 2022. It took 37% of the investment share in March, up from a low of 33% in January, which takes it much closer to the 43% share it enjoyed 12 months ago.

While Tech Giants remains the most popular fund among all age groups, the oldest cohort of Plum investors, aged 55 and over, seem to have had their faith in tech shaken for the long-term. Only 28% of investments were allocated to Tech Giants in March 2023, compared with 41% a year before.  

Victor Trokoudes, Plum’s founder and CEO, comments: “2023 has so far been a challenging one for investors to navigate, with interest rate expectations continuing to move wildly. Tech stocks have been doing much better in this first quarter after a difficult 2022. This is driven by a mix of expectations of interest rate cuts coming by the end of the year and some investors ‘buying the dip’.” 

“In the USA, core inflation has remained sticky while wages have continued to increase, so more interest rate rises are likely. There are fears that further rises could hasten further financial instability or recession, or in the worst case, both. While this may on the surface appear to be good news for tech stocks as central banks may be forced to cut rates in such a scenario, it’s difficult to see how an economic slowdown is positive for the market.” 

“In times like these it’s interesting to see older investors look to British companies for their investments. Inflation is certainly still painfully high here in the UK, but the composition of the FTSE100, with its banks and energy companies, make it a resilient and appealing choice in the current environment. The UK is also enjoying a welcome period of relative Government stability right now, with the economy proving more resilient than many had suggested.”

As the Tech Giants fund grows its share of inflows once more, defensive options are in turn becoming less popular. The Medic, Plum’s health and pharmaceuticals fund, saw a sizable uplift in popularity as Tech Giants shrunk at the end of 2023, but it has decreased this quarter, down to 9% in March from 12% of share in December 2022. 

Younger investors are even less keen overall to put their money in health. The youngest cohort of Plum customers, aged 18-24, only put 7% of inflows into The Medic in March, down from 11% in December. 

Other notable changes include increased inflows to Global Gold, as investors reacted to turbulence in the banking industry in February and March. Inflows to gold have more than tripled since the end of December. In contrast, Plum’s natural resources fund continued a decline in popularity, halving its allocation between December 2022 and March 2023 as oil prices decreased against the backdrop of fears over a global economic slowdown. 

Trokoudes adds: “Younger investors, unsurprisingly, are more cosmopolitan in their approach to investing. They have a longer investment horizon and therefore tend to take a more aggressive approach to risk. They also are perhaps less patient with defensive options, as seen with their limited interest in The Medic.”

“Banking turmoil has clearly led to a clamour for gold as an asset, with the spike in gold investing supported by a weaker dollar. But now the banking sector has calmed, it remains to be seen if this mini gold rush is anything more than a flash in the pan.”    

Fingerprint Cards AB (Fingerprints) has been selected to join the World Economic Forum´s (WEF) New Champions Community as its first biometrics company member. Recognized as a market leader in the development of biometric solutions in smartphones, payments, PC and access control, Fingerprints will utilize its membership to share knowledge about how biometric technology can help implement intuitive solutions to make users’ authentication more convenient and more secure as well as to improve social inclusion in the digital world.

The WEF New Champions Community consists of a group of purpose-driven, high-growth, mid-size companies from across the world who pioneer new business models, emerging technologies, and sustainable growth strategies to create a better future.

Charles Burgeat, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Fingerprints, comments: “As a proud member of the WEF New Champions Community program, we want to be recognized as a purpose-driven company that contributes positively to the changes needed to operate in the new digitalized world. By joining this Community, we look forward to brainstorming and exchanging ideas with peers, and bring our expertise of the biometrics industry.”

Julia Devos, Head of New Champions Community program at the World Economic Forum, adds: "We extend a warm welcome to Fingerprints as they join our New Champions program at the World Economic Forum and the other mission-driven mid-size companies who are part of this group. We believe that purposeful businesses can be a catalyst for positive change and that Fingerprints has a role to play. Together with the rest of the community, they will ignite a powerful wave of change, collaborating and inspiring others to create meaningful impact within their industry and beyond. We look forward to the incredible possibilities that lie ahead as Fingerprints becomes an integral part of our dynamic ecosystem."

Opensee, which provides complete data access and real-time analytics to financial institutions, has appointed Anne-Laure Delaplace to the new role of Chief Operating Officer as it deepens its senior leadership team to drive the company on its growth trajectory.

Stephane Rio, Founder and CEO of Opensee, said: “Anne-Laure’s experience in finance, capital markets and the innovative world of fintechs will be extremely valuable to the Opensee team at this critical stage in the company’s development. Our client base is growing rapidly so we are scaling up our capabilities to ensure our game-changing solutions integrate with clients’ systems smoothly, seamlessly and at low cost for their IT departments. Anne-Laure’s Customer Success experience will ensure that, as Opensee grows, our primary focus remains addressing all of our clients’ needs.”

Anne-Laure brings 15 years of experience working in finance and capital markets, having started her career in investment banking and asset management. 

She joins Opensee from SlimPay, the recurring payments fintech, where she oversaw Customer Success and was a member of its Management Committee. Previously, she held various customer-centric roles in the capital markets, finance and risk data businesses of Refinitiv and Thomson Reuters. Anne-Laure is a Chartered Financial Analyst and has a Masters in International Finance from the HEC Paris Business School. 

Opensee helps financial institutions unlock the valuable business and risk intelligence hidden within the vast quantities of data they collect and store. Its solutions enable users to manipulate data for simple or complex calculations with embedded analytics for a wide range of use cases, ranging from risk management and regulatory reporting, to trading decisions and ESG analysis.

Anne-Laure Delaplace said: “I am delighted to be joining Opensee in its mission to help clients in banking and other financial services to extract the potential value from their data. Common sense and collaboration are how I go about managing teams and it’s how I’ll approach optimising Opensee’s operational processes. I’m very much looking forward to supporting the development of the team at such an exciting time for the company.” 

We are delighted to announce that BMLL has won ‘Best Managed Services Solution for Market Data’ at the TradingTech Insight USA Awards 2023. These awards recognise excellence in trading solutions and services for capital markets, and focus on vendors providing exceptional and innovative trading infrastructure, technology, and data solutions dedicated to the challenges faced by firms operating in the US trading environment.

BMLL was awarded “Best Managed Services Solution for Market Data” for providing its Level 3 data and advanced pre and post-trade analytics to banks, brokers, asset managers, hedge funds, global exchange groups, academic institutions and regulators. BMLL gives them the ability to understand market behaviour, accelerate research, optimise trading strategies and generate alpha more predictably.

BMLL’s data is available via BMLL Data Lab - which allows users to perform scalable research without the burden of data engineering; BMLL Data Feed - which gives users actionable insights into venue or trading performance; and BMLL Vantage - the intuitive, no-code data visualisation tool covering European and US Equity and ETF venues. 

With a few clicks, BMLL Vantage users can look at daily, monthly or annually aggregated data sets and correlations between them; compare how stocks performed on different markets; and sort and explore the data via simple and easy-to-use dashboards without requiring a quant analyst, data science or cloud computing resource. 

BMLL data and analytics are delivered as Data Science as a Service; BMLL takes care of data engineering to improve research and analysis performance while enabling users to focus on their business.

Paul Humphrey, CEO of BMLL, said: “We are delighted to have been recognised for the “Best Managed Services Solution for Market Data” at the TradingTech Insight USA Awards 2023. This is only possible due to our excellent data science and technology teams. They work tirelessly to enhance our data and analytics capabilities to the benefit of our global customer base.”

ZuluTrade, a world-leading social trading and wealth management platform provider part of Finvasia Group, has announced its participation in SiGMA Americas, Brazil. The company will showcase its updated Affiliate Program at the São Paulo edition of the iGaming conference. ZuluTrade’s representatives will be available at the Transamerica Expo Centre from June 15 to 17, 2023, at Stand Number C150.

SiGMA Americas is one of the biggest events in the rapidly growing Latin American region for iGaming, emerging technology, digital health and affiliate marketing, attended by industry leaders and C-level executives. The event provides the right platform for ZuluTrade to demonstrate the new and valuable benefits it offers for affiliate marketers in the LATAM region.

Meet ZuluTrade

The ZuluTrade team looks forward to meeting website and blog owners, vloggers, YouTubers, social media influencers, trading academy operators and professional traders to demonstrate how its affiliate program can help them connect investors to its innovative social trading platform and diverse ecosystem.

The SiGMA Americas event in São Paulo offers an ideal environment for networking, knowledge sharing, and collaboration. To engage the audience, ZuluTrade has planned some exciting activities, such as slots for content creators to film sessions with the company’s representatives for their own social media channels. Slots are filling up fast! To secure a spot, interested marketers are encouraged to email the Affiliates Team.

The team will also organise an exciting raffle for all attendees to participate in, with not one but two winners. Other incentives include attractive partnership deals and customised payout plans. 

“SiGMA Americas offers an excellent opportunity for us to demonstrate the value we add for affiliates. Our improved Affiliate Program offers both institutions and individual marketers new avenues to capitalise on their outreach and engagement within the fintech and iGaming space. We have also augmented our pioneering platform with innovative and intuitive features, and an intelligent UX design,” said Tajinder Virk, CEO of ZuluTrade.

Establishing itself as a leading social trading community of Investors, Leaders, Brokers and Affiliates, ZuluTrade enables users to effortlessly link their broker account to its ecosystem and receive free signals across MT4, MT5, ActTrader, X Open Hub and Match-Trader platforms, without any restriction as to the broker or trading infrastructure they use. This is possible thanks to ZuluTrade’s platform and broker-agnostic feature, which, in turn, opens a new land of opportunity for marketers operating in the fintech and wealth management space.

By joining ZuluTrade, affiliates can expand their offering substantially as they provide their audience with a greater choice of trading platforms and a plethora of financial instruments available with different ZuluTrade partner broker partners, alongside ready-made strategies to copy from 90,000+ Leaders.

Akurateco, a leading global provider of white-label payment software, has announced its direct strategic integration with Skrill, a prominent digital payment solutions provider within the EU and part of the renowned Paysafe Group. With operations spanning over 200 countries, Skrill offers a wide range of popular payment methods, delivering a seamless and secure online payment experience for customers worldwide.

Through this collaboration, Akurateco aims to further enhance the payment experiences of its customers by leveraging Skrill's extensive capabilities. The partnership enables Akurateco to expand its cutting-edge customizable software provision and extend its global presence. By combining forces with Skrill, Akurateco strengthens its position in the FinTech industry and enhances its ability to serve a diverse clientele on a global scale.

The collaboration with Skrill empowers Akurateco to provide an even more comprehensive suite of services, catering to the evolving needs of businesses worldwide. This partnership reinforces Akurateco's commitment to delivering innovative and reliable payment solutions that drive business growth and customer satisfaction.

The British Business Bank has appointed Chantal Geall as its new Chief Risk Officer (CRO), effective from September 2023.

Chantal Geall joins the British Business Bank from Lumon Pay, a private equity-backed firm that provides payment services and foreign exchange to private individuals, small businesses and institutions.

As part of her role, Chantal built their risk function from scratch and established the firm’s enterprise risk management framework, focusing her attention on embedding a strong risk awareness culture throughout the firm.

Prior to Lumon, Chantal was CRO for Homes England and has held senior roles at The Co-Operative Bank plc and Royal Bank of Scotland where she was Chief Credit Officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Chantal Geall commented: “I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead the Risk function at the British Business Bank and partner with the CEO and Executive team to enhance its strong risk culture and robust risk management framework. I look forward to the Risk team working with the business to optimise support for smaller businesses and deliver the Bank’s goals of driving sustainable growth, backing innovation and unlocking potential, whilst working to build the modern, green economy.”

Louis Taylor, Chief Executive Officer, British Business Bank said: “I’m very pleased to welcome Chantal as our new Chief Risk Officer, at a time of renewed focus for the Bank on risk assessment and mitigation, including countering fraud and financial crime. Chantal brings a wealth of experience from across the private sector and banking institutions and I look forward to working with her as a key member of our Senior Leadership Team and Executive Committee.”

Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT), a global capital markets technology platform provider, announced that its TT platform was named Best Solution for Futures Trading at the TradingTech Insight USA Awards 2023 last evening in New York. Last year, the platform won for Best Sell-Side Execution Management System (EMS).

TradingTech Insight is a publication of A-Team Group. A-Team editors worked closely with an Advisory Board to select the shortlist in each award category, and members of the capital markets community voted to determine the winners.

Angela Wilbraham, CEO at A-Team Group and host of the TradingTech Insight Awards USA 2023, said: “Our awards recognize leading providers of trading technology solutions, services and consultancy to capital markets in North America, and Trading Technologies has proven themselves to be worthy winners of this prestigious title. We congratulate them on winning Best Solution for Futures Trading in recognition of their contribution to the financial trading technology industry.”

TT CEO Keith Todd said: “It’s truly an honour for TT to be singled out as the leading platform for futures trading. This is an exciting time for us as we are building on our decades-long leadership in listed derivatives to expand our footprint into new asset classes and service offerings. Thank you to TradingTech Insight and the professional trading community for this recognition.”

The TT platform is a global financial ecosystem for institutions and professional traders that offers end-to-end, cross-asset solutions in a growing number of asset classes. The ultra-low-latency platform – accessible from anywhere – streamlines trade order, execution and workflow, enabling users to execute high-volume, real-time trades. Handling two billion transactions in 2022, the broker-neutral Software-as-as-Service (SaaS) solution provides connectivity to approximately 60 global derivatives exchanges. The breadth of the platform allows institutions to meet a full range of needs, from order and execution management and algorithmic trading through to surveillance and risk management, analytics and data, infrastructure and hosting, and post-trade allocation and clearing.

Now in its fifth year, the annual TradingTech Insight USA Awards recognize excellence in trading solutions and services for capital markets, and focus on vendors providing exceptional and innovative trading infrastructure, technology and data solutions dedicated to the challenges faced by firms operating in the U.S. trading environment.