Today, Coincover, the global leader in digital asset protection, announces its new partnership with BitGo, the leader in custody, wallet, and security solutions, enabling clients to benefit from wallet access failure by holding recovery data with a trusted third party.

Coincover and BitGo have collaborated since 2019, bringing an industry standard of protection to the digital asset economy by offering secure business continuity features to their institutional clients. BitGo clients are able to recover their wallets in a secure manner working with Coincover in case they lose access to their keys.

As the crypto market matures, security and risk management is becoming increasingly important consideration for customers and regulators alike. The partnership intends to apply lessons learned from recent events to create an industry standard of digital asset protection. This will help inform BitGo’s clients, enabling them to understand the security risks of digital assets while building trust to encourage mass adoption. Once a business has decided what kind of wallet set-up is optimal, Coincover can provide a trusted back-up and recovery solution to alleviate the risks of the business having to determine that for themselves.

By collaborating with Coincover, BitGo and its clients can manage all security risks simply and effectively.

Gavin Kip, Senior Security Product Manager BitGo, said, “As a pioneer of blockchain infrastructure, security has always been critical to us, but we are constantly looking for ways to improve. There is no such thing as too secure. That’s why we have elevated our relationship with Coincover, to integrate the option of storing backup keys with Coincover for all BitGo’s coin offerings. Their technology is unparalleled when it comes to security and acts as a failsafe against disaster situations in case we – or one of our clients – fail in some way. It is a valuable additional layer to our security and will ensure we maintain our reputation as the best and safest place to store digital assets.”  

Oliver Cummings, Strategic Partnerships Director at Coincover, said, “This is another big step forward in our mission to make crypto accessible to everyone, by making it safe to hold and use. BitGo is one of the most respected names in the market and this further establishes us as the industry standard for safeguarding digital assets. We are delighted to be working with BitGo as we continue our mission to bring safety and protection to the crypto market.” 

Encompass Corporation, the provider of the leading Know Your Customer (KYC) automation platform, has unveiled its perpetual Know Your Customer (pKYC) maturity model, setting a new benchmark for regulatory compliance to support the fight against financial crime

The model, which has been devised by the pKYC Advisory Board - comprised of representatives from leading global banks and a selected group of trusted data, technology and consulting partners – is designed to place financial systems into a pKYC framework to evaluate their maturity and readiness to more effectively identify and prevent financial crime.

pKYC is considered a “dream state” for many big players in the banking industry, using automation technology to detect risk faster and more accurately. It also increases operational efficiency by removing the need for increased headcount or time commitment.

Currently, it is most common for financial institutions to re-assess customer data at intervals of one year for high-risk customers, three years for medium-risk, and five years for those considered low-risk, opening the door for activity to go undetected for long periods of time.

The framework evaluates financial institutions on five core areas: Policy, People, Process, Data, and Technology. These factors are then broken down into subcategories and attributed a necessity against the four stages of KYC: Manual KYC, Early Automation, Mature Automation, or pKYC, to benchmark readiness for pKYC.

With this model, Encompass is helping banks consider preparedness for pKYC, facilitate stakeholder discussions and evaluate the progress of transformation journeys, offering advice and technology solutions to fast-track the process. 

Howard Wimpory, KYC Transformation Director for Encompass, said: “Against the backdrop of a more stringent regulatory landscape, and increasing fines and enforcement actions, it is more important than ever for financial institutions to know where they stand regarding compliance.

“Manual processes allow financial risks to go undetected for weeks, months and even years, so a review of processes, and the adoption of automation technology, is critical.

“Speed of identification is the main goal for banks, which should realistically aim to check changes to customer risk data in near real-time to swiftly and accurately identify financial crime. Achieving a state of true pKYC isn’t an overnight process, so institutions must constantly build their technology infrastructure to support the automation of core processes.

“Those at an advanced stage of digital transformation are best equipped to keep pace with the evolving regulatory landscape, ensuring robust compliance processes, and protect themselves and society against financial crime.”

Alongside the pKYC maturity model, Encompass has released a Planning your journey to perpetual KYC industry whitepaper, providing a deep dive into pKYC and unpacking the core components required to achieve this “dream state”.

Bank ABC, one of MENA’s leading international banks, has signed agreements with Temenos and NdcTech to replace its core banking systems for its retail, corporate and wholesale businesses and power its subsidiary, ila Bank, the MENA region’s fast growing digital mobile-only bank, with Temenos’ core banking platform on the Cloud.

With this transformation project, to be implemented by NdcTech (a Systems Limited Company), Bank ABC will replace its legacy core banking systems for its network of operations serving customers in twenty-five markets from fifteen countries worldwide with a single instance of the Temenos platform. NdcTech will also be providing end-to-end managed services to enable Bank ABC to run its operations seamlessly on the cloud.

Consolidating multiple back-end systems on the Temenos platform in the Cloud will enable Bank ABC to drive scalable efficiency, with a single dashboard and complete 360- degree customer view across business lines and geographies. The first phase of the project is the implementation of Temenos retail core banking solution and origination on Infinity for ila Bank. This will replace current systems for the digital mobile-only offering in Bahrain and provide the agile core for planned greenfield expansion. Subsequently, Bank ABC will leverage Temenos’ cloud-native solutions and its open and API-first architecture for easy extensibility and open banking integration to enhance the experience and the services delivered to its customers.

The project will see the gradual transformation of the Group-wide core banking infrastructure, enabling Bank ABC to benefit from Temenos’ broad set of banking functionality and lower operational cost across its retail and wholesale banking operations. NdcTech will provide its country model bank accelerators combined with a wealth of knowledge and experience to drive value as part of Bank ABC's transformation journey. Banks are increasingly realizing the benefits of the cloud to remain agile and meet the demands of a constantly evolving industry, and NdcTech’s end-to-end Managed Service on the cloud will fulfill that promise.

During the signing ceremony, Sael Al Waary, Acting Group CEO, Bank ABC, commented: “Today, marks a momentous milestone in our journey to build our bank of the future. Consolidating our banking systems on a single platform will give us a robust foundation to accelerate growth and create significant value for our stakeholders. Temenos offers an ideal Cloud-native solution with the breadth of banking functionality needed to support all spectrums of our wholesale and retail businesses. I am confident that this next-generation core banking system will drive further operational efficiencies for the Group, enabling us to become even more responsive and adaptive to our clients’ ever-evolving needs.”

Ismail Mokhtar, Group Chief Operating Officer, Bank ABC added: “Achieving operational agility is crucial for the future success of Bank ABC. We are continuously exploring leading-edge technologies to enable our ambitious expansion and digital transformation aspirations. Temenos’ platform will enable us to efficiently scale our services. In addition, hosting our core banking system on the Cloud will significantly increase our levels of security and resilience. We look forward to working with Temenos and NdcTech teams during the implementation phase and reaping the benefits of this investment.”

William Moroney, Managing Director – Middle East & Africa, Temenos, said: “We are delighted to have been selected by Bank ABC to transform its core banking systems and power the MENA region’s fast-growing digital mobile-only ila Bank on a single platform in the Cloud. Temenos gives customers the freedom to implement on the public Cloud of their choice and is the trusted platform for thousands of banks worldwide. Our proven expertise taking banks live on the Cloud, including many in the Middle East region, gave Bank ABC full confidence in Temenos to successfully deliver this complex project with NdcTech.”

Ammara Masood, CEO and President, NdcTech, said: “We are pleased to be putting our combined strengths to work, allowing Bank ABC to innovate faster using Cloud capabilities to grow their business while meeting sustainability commitments. What sets NdcTech apart is our accelerators, hands-on experience within global markets and how we keep the end-user experience in mind while driving digital transformations. NdcTech services and country model on the Cloud platform paves the way for banks to deliver mission-driven products and services that delight their customers.”

GTreasury, a treasury and risk management platform provider, today announced the launch of ClearConnect Gateway, a uniquely-comprehensive, out-of-the-box global bank API connectivity suite. ClearConnect Gateway offers GTreasury customers a giant step forward from the expensive, slow, and time-intensive connections commonly found in corporations today.

ClearConnect Gateway is a significant expansion of GTreasury’s popular ClearConnect connectivity suite, which launched in 2022 to ensure the fidelity of data essential to treasurers and CFOs. With ClearConnect Gateway, organizations now have instant API connectivity and data integrations into their preferred banking partners.

“CFOs and treasurers understand that modern banking technologies are transforming the industry,” said German Karaivanov, VP Product Management, GTreasury. “Legacy connectivity to business-critical banking data slows productivity, blocks access to banking innovation, and is expensive. Early users of GTreasury’s banking API connections are already saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in connectivity fees. They are excited about our new API integrations, which will be fast to implement and provide significant and lasting cost reductions. ClearConnect Gateway will also enable more organizations to immediately access all balance and transaction information, and tap into the newest bank payment types—all with little to no burden to supporting IT teams.”

The launch of ClearConnect Gateway will provide treasury teams and the office of the CFO with:

• Modern architecture without maintenance: ClearConnect Gateway’s architecture is built for API connection speed and breadth. The API connectivity suite works smoothly from day one; once an API is set up, it does not need to be changed.

• Balance and transaction reporting: ClearConnect Gateway delivers current- and prior-day balance and transaction reporting in real-time.

• Payments: ClearConnect Gateway enables the most modern payment technologies to be quickly set up and leveraged—including RTP, FedNow, and new B2C payment types.

• Pre-built, out-of-the-box APIs: GTreasury has developed many out-of-the-box APIs with leading banks and will continue to expand its API ecosystem.

• Industry-leading onboarding speed: ClearConnect Gateway enables the fastest API onboarding for additional banks of any treasury and risk management system—drastically reducing implementation time and complexity compared to older systems.

• Reduced costs: ClearConnect Gateway can save hundreds of thousands of dollars over many alternative and legacy systems, in part by reducing expensive file costs.

“GTreasury continues to evolve the quickly-moving treasury technology landscape, with solutions that enable our customers to focus on the highest-value priorities,” said Victoria Blake, Chief Product Officer, GTreasury. “The launch of ClearConnect Gateway is the latest example of how GTreasury has revolutionized treasury and risk management system connectivity by increasing treasury and finance team efficiencies, lowering operational costs, and enabling customers to take full advantage of their banking partners’ balance reporting data and new payment technologies. With ClearConnect Gateway, we are reducing organizations' banking fees, increasing data visibility, and delivering critical real-time reporting that directly impacts business decisions.”

Obligate, a Zürich-based investment platform that enables companies to issue on-chain bonds and commercial paper to receive funding, recently opened onboarding for issuers and investors. Built on Polygon, the leading L2 blockchain for institutional finance, the platform enables the management of corporate debt financing in a decentralized and fully regulated environment, and opens access to the bond market for digital asset investors. 

In advance of the public launch of the Obligate marketplace on March 27th, MUFF TRADING AG issued the first bond on the Obligate platform for an undisclosed amount. MUFF TRADING is a Swiss commodity trading boutique focused on the sourcing of non-ferrous and precious metal concentrates and minerals. The issuance was conducted entirely on-chain, without any banks involved. Luca Muff, CEO MUFF TRADING commented: “We are glad to open a new and alternative way to finance our physical commodity business. We are proud to issue our first secured corporate bond through Obligate and we look forward to increasing the partnership further in the months to come.” 

The transaction was secured with receivables held by Obligate partner Apex Group. As opposed to the bond recently issued by Siemens on Polygon, the issuance was entirely funded in USDC, and did not rely on FIAT rails for payment and settlement. The issuance is a major step forward in the adoption of blockchain-based borrowing and lending infrastructure by traditional companies and demonstrates that Obligate’s bond platform is mature and market ready for a wide range of participants.

Benedikt Schuppli, Co-founder and CEO of Obligate commented: “The successful issuance of a bond by a traditional Swiss SME taking place fully on-chain, funded with USDC, is a huge milestone for us and the entire RWA space. Combining DeFi rails with the proven regulatory framework for bonds, we are contributing to the transformation of SME financing to increase access to finance on a global scale.”

By bringing bonds on-chain, Obligate enables all digital asset investors to access the bond market directly from their wallets. The platform also makes it easier for businesses to raise capital and issue their own bonds, by leveraging smart contracts on the Polygon blockchain to reduce existing transaction costs. Smart contracts replace the role of the issuer and paying agent in the settlement layer of traditional bond issuance, while the blockchain serves as both an asset register and trading venue, challenging existing financial market infrastructure. The platform is built on Polygon, one of the most developed crypto ecosystems, across both traditional finance and DeFi, which offers high scalability, speed and security. 

“Access is the key word here. The Obligate platform is a huge step forward for not only bond issuers and investors, but also the greater understanding that practical applications of blockchain will make a marked difference in the fabric of our financial future – democratizing access to borrowing and lending,” stated Colin Butler, Global Head of Institutional Capital at Polygon. “Our job at Polygon Labs is making these asset classes accessible, secure, and scalable, and as such, the Polygon blockchain is ideally structured to be the home of global financial markets, starting with the Obligate bond platform.”

Obligate is also developing additional capabilities with fully licensed partners such as Apex Group, a global financial services provider, with around $200bn in assets under depositary.

Bruce Jackson, Chief of Digital Asset Funds and Business at Apex Group commented: “We are excited to unlock the benefits of DeFi for the real economy by supporting Obligate’s innovative blockchain-based bond platform and issuance with our solutions. With traditional sources of lending restricted by current market conditions, this issuance enables investors to access on-chain bonds and commercial paper at a fraction of the cost and time, within the same secure and regulated framework they are familiar with from the traditional financial markets.”

Obligate (previously branded FQX) recently closed an $8.5 million funding round with investors Blockchange Ventures, Circle Ventures, Earlybird Venture Capital and SIX Fintech Ventures.

Malte Huffmann, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Mondu, said, “The time is right for Mondu to launch in the UK. UK B2B commerce is the second largest in Europe, and there's a real need for BNPL as we've seen through a growing demand from UK businesses for our solutions, since our initial launch. Our payment solutions can help both online and offline companies across Britain provide their business customers with a consumer-like, best-in-class payment experience.”

• MonduOnline B2B Buy Now Pay Later for e-commerce checkout 

• MonduSell B2B Buy Now Pay Later for multichannel sales - including field, telesales, on-site, and order via email

• Flexible payment options (30, 45, 60, 90 days) 

Eric Weijman, CRO of Mondu, said, “After having a great time in a corporate environment, I felt committed to joining an entrepreneurial organisation. Mondu’s founders and C-suite see risk management as a growth lever for the business, and its sustainable execution strategy convinced me of its world-winning potential. Based on my experience in asset-based working capital financing, I recognised a growing need for SMEs to have B2B payment and working capital solutions, which stem from the current digital age. I strongly believe Mondu has a right to win in this exciting and enormous market.”

emma, the first end-to-end, no-code multi-cloud management application platform, today announces that it has raised $6 million in Seed funding in a round led by RTP Global, with participation from AltaIR Capital and CircleRock Capital.

The investment will be used to develop the emma platform further and increase the size of emma’s team allowing it to serve customers on both sides of the Atlantic.

According to Gartner, 75% of midsize and large organisations have adopted a multi-cloud strategy as part of their digital transformation initiatives, with the typical company using two or more cloud providers. Private or public cloud environments - or a combination of both – offer a range of benefits, such as greater flexibility, higher availability, and minimal latency and load times. 

Organisations are moving towards multi-cloud operations to help them meet their business objectives due to its reliability and scalability, and to support their digital transformation efforts. But there are lots of complexities associated with managing multi-cloud, and operational risks can prevent organisations from realising the true benefits of multi-cloud environments.

A recent study from Forrester, which was commissioned by HashiCorp, cited that skills shortage was the most significant factor impacting multi-cloud operations. Supporting all major cloud providers, a low/no code application like the emma platform simplifies multi-cloud management, enabling enterprises to run multi-cloud environments effectively and cost-efficiently without the need for additional skilled professionals or coding.

Dmitry Panenkov, CEO and founder of emma, comments: “Unlike other multi-cloud management applications, emma provides a range of features including microservices, security, and network management in a single platform. And that’s not our only point of difference. For example, our recently released machine learning algorithm analyses the behaviour of a company’s workloads and applications, predicts future cloud spending, and recommends actions to reduce this. In fact, the average saving has risen from between 25 and 30 percent to 45 percent since its launch.

“What’s more,” he continues, “when companies build their own network over the internet, providers will charge for incoming and outgoing traffic, for the gateways deployed on the edge of every cloud provider, and for the routers needed to host their data. But with emma’s own multi-cloud networking backbone – the network that physically connects different cloud providers – companies can save three times more than using their own or a provider’s network.”

Since its launch in November 2021, emma has doubled the size of its team to 40, most recently the addition of Dirk Alshuth, CMO, who joins from UiPath, and Garegin Margaryan as Head of Engineering, who was previously the VP of Software Development at INNOVA.

The company will use the funding to grow its engineering team and speed up its development pipeline. It plans to launch several new automation-related features this year, including infrastructure as code, agnostic transfers and autoscaling for managed services across different cloud service providers. emma is also planning to improve the existing native connectors to its customers’ private clouds, allowing them to seamlessly scale workloads from private to public clouds, and avoid overheads in their hardware environments.

Another key focus for 2023 is the company’s expansion into the US. Panenkov explains: “Companies in the US are struggling to manage their cloud environments, with many using six or seven tools to manage just two cloud providers. And we can help them streamline this down to just one application. We’ll be expanding our team in the States over the coming months as we look to scale across the country.”

Jelmer de Jong, Partner at RTP Global, says: "Most businesses today are turning to multi-cloud to optimise performance and reduce the risk of service disruption. But it's not without its complications. Cloud is rapidly becoming one of the highest spend categories for most companies, especially when you consider the number of different tools required to manage multi-cloud deployments. And there is typically little room to negotiate or reduce those costs. emma gives the power back to the buyer by increasing platform independence, reducing vendor lock-in, and achieving significant cost saving for its customers. We were so impressed by what Dmitry and his team have already achieved and we look forward to partnering with them on their journey to help more companies enjoy the benefits of multi-cloud, without the complexity."

A global banking solution for businesses, Banxe, announced the launch of a new interest-yielding product, Crypto Earn. With Crypto Earn, customers are rewarded with an average of up to 10% APY on crypto assets.

Crypto-curious customers and enthusiasts can now do more with Banxe; their account allows buying, selling, exchanging, storing cryptocurrency, and now, earning interest through an automated yield generation strategy using smart contracts.

Banxe customers simply top up Crypto Earn with as low as $10 of fiat or cryptocurrency, choose an earning strategy, and watch the value steadily increase. Initially, a more conservative earning strategy will be available, focusing on stablecoins, such as USDC and USDT, which are backed by the traditional US dollar. However, other strategies with higher rates will launch soon after. The earnings can be redeemed at any time while the interest payments are added to the balance every 24 hours.

The technology behind Banxe’s Crypto Earn includes smart contract and smart contract security audits to ensure a comprehensive assessment to avoid vulnerabilities. This technology allows customers to optimise their returns and reduce fees. Crypto Earn will automatically allocate the customer's funds among the best DeFi protocols to maximise profit and minimise risk. For customers, this means no time and energy wasted on learning all about DeFi and constantly keeping track of their portfolio to ensure their assets are transferred between different pools - Crypto Earn does the work while customers sit back and receive the best yield.  

“In my opinion, creating a well-balanced portfolio starts with diversifying,” says Alex Guts, CEO of Banxe, “and with the help of Banxe’s enhanced product suite, Crypto Earn, a new interest-bearing account, customers can do just that. It is the perfect passive income alternative.” Alex adds, “besides a range of additional perks on Banxe, clients can manage their portfolio, depending on risk tolerance, with interest rates higher than the rate of inflation, which is nearly impossible to find nowadays.”

Banxe’s goal is to upgrade, reimagine, and revolutionise the banking experience for start-ups, entrepreneurs, individuals, and Web3-related companies by providing flexible payment services and convenient crypto solutions across the globe. The crypto-friendly banking solution, launched in February 2022, gives its clients faster, more flexible, and convenient financial opportunities with one simple app. Since the launch, Banxe has continued working on releasing new features and functionalities, with a focus on providing a secure and stable ecosystem. Each account is equipped with dedicated IBAN and SEPA/SWIFT/FPS/CHAPS transfer capabilities, a crypto wallet with over 500 cryptocurrencies, and the ability to buy and sell, send on-chain or off-chain transfers, and exchange crypto.  

In the wake of the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank—and subsequent banking industry developments in the U.S. and elsewhere—markets and the public should be reassured by the response of federal regulators to cover depositors and to help maintain confidence and stability in the resilient U.S. banking system amid challenging economic times. That’s according to a senior regulatory compliance expert at Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions.

“Identifying the root causes leading to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank is still very much a work in progress. Significant, meaningful efforts are underway in the federal government to comprehensively investigate and review these failures and help avert additional problems,” said Timothy Burniston, Senior Advisor, Regulatory Strategy for Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions. “However, what we can point to in the early days of these developments is that regulators and major banks are collectively working to stem further losses and instil confidence.”

Federal regulators moved promptly following the failures of SVB and Signature to ensure that customers were able to access all of their deposits, beyond the $250,000 insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. First Republic Bank, meanwhile,  received $30 billion in deposits from 11 major banks as part of an effort to support that institution.

“This past weekend, we saw further mitigation efforts by the Federal Reserve and five central banks across the globe with the announcement of a coordinated expansion in the frequency of dollar swap line arrangements to help boost liquidity as part of a growing response to the banking industry turmoil. We also saw UBS announce its acquisition of  Credit Suisse to help shore up global markets,” he noted. “And we expect more positive measures by regulators and the industry to address and calm the current turbulence in the industry in the days to come.”

Burniston cites economic factors that may have played a role in these collapses, reinforced by Wolters Kluwer’s most recent Regulatory & Risk Management Indicator survey, the results of which indicated that 73% of respondents were highly concerned about interest rate increases.

He emphasized that for each failed institution, resolution and review processes should be allowed to play out and that close attention should be paid to the lessons learned to help others avoid the same fate.

“Although there are many open questions that will be answered in the coming weeks, we should be encouraged by the regulators and industry leaders that stepped forward assertively and decisively to help prevent far greater detrimental effects to the banking industry,” said Burniston. 

Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions is a market leader and trusted provider of risk management and regulatory compliance solutions and services to U.S. banks, credit unions, insurers and securities firms. The business, which sits within Wolters Kluwer’s Financial & Corporate Compliance (FCC) division, helps these financial institutions efficiently manage risk and regulatory compliance obligations, and gain the insights needed to focus on better serving their customers and growing their business.

GoHenry, the prepaid debit card and financial education app for kids aged 6-18, has teamed up with environmental organisation the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to launch a special range of Wild Card designs, with £1 from each card sale being donated to WWF and its huge efforts to protect animals and bring our world back to life.

The collaboration will see the launch of five new card designs, featuring pictures of animals including a koala, leopard, lion cub, panda, and snow leopard. All cards can be personalised with the child's name and will be available for one year, with additional designs planned for later in 2023.

Louise Hill, Co-Founder and COO of GoHenry said: “We’re all about helping kids make smart choices with money and now they can help protect wildlife at the same time. We know our young members are passionate about the environment and our new collaboration with WWF can support them in giving to the causes they care about the most.” 

Rob Wood, Head of Partnership Communication at WWF-UK said “Our collaboration with GoHenry is a great way to harness children’s natural affinity for wildlife. We hope these cards will help children learn more about nature and inspire a passion for protecting it.”

All GoHenry cards, including customised cards, are printed on compostable polylactic acid (PLA). Producing cards with PLA, which is derived from field corn waste, uses 65% less energy and 68% fewer greenhouse gases than conventional plastic.