ThetaRay, a leading provider of AI-powered transaction monitoring technology, today announced that Tudi, enabling a digital financial community through its mobile app, has chosen ThetaRay’s cloud-based AML solution to monitor its transactions in Mexico for financial crime. 

A Stella Tech technology company, Tudi is helping the Mexican payment market move to cashless services in a one-stop application that solves the end-user transactional needs, including paying bills, money transfers, top-ups, entertainment services, and government fees. The app also promotes community brand engagement with consumers at merchant point-of-purchase.

Through the agreement, ThetaRay will provide Tudi its SONAR SaaS solution for AI-powered transaction monitoring that can detect the earliest signs of sophisticated financial crimes, including money laundering, narco-trafficking, terrorist financing, and human trafficking, including known and unknown crime patterns.  This will enable Tudi to provide a compliant service under the new Mexican law that regulates fintechs (LRITF) and grow its business with a trusted and safe payment service. 

“Mexican regulators are requiring non-bank payment providers to operate sophisticated AML systems that can prevent money laundering. We were searching for a proven solution that would enable us to be compliant and stay one step ahead of developing AML scenarios in the country that challenge and risk our operations,” said Andrés Adame Guajardo, VP Product at Tudi. “ThetaRay’s technology will help us realize our vision to serve the unbanked in Mexico with low-cost and convenient digital financial services. The younger generations are not deterred by technology, and digital platforms will enable them to become stronger financial players, reduce the cash-based economy, and increase economic prosperity through the use of modern financial services.”

According to the World Bank, in Mexico only 37 per cent of adults in Mexico have accounts, and just 32 per cent have made or received digital payments, both significantly below numbers in countries with similar levels of development.

“Tudi is a digital financial services leader that is helping promote financial inclusion by bringing innovative services to underserved economic players.  With ThetaRay’s advanced and effective AI-driven AML technology these services can also be trusted by financial partners and regulators,” said Mark Gazit, CEO of ThetaRay. “The ThetaRay AI solution also makes the entire process of transaction monitoring efficient and effective, while improving customer satisfaction, reducing compliance costs, and increasing risk coverage with safe and secure payments.”

ThetaRay’s award-winning SONAR solution is based on a proprietary form of AI, artificial intelligence intuition, that replaces human bias, giving the system the power to recognize anomalies and find unknowns outside of normal behaviour, including completely new typologies. It enables fintechs and banks to implement a risk-based approach to effectively identify truly suspicious activity and create a full picture of customer identities, including across complex, cross-border transaction paths. This allows the rapid discovery of both known and unknown money laundering threats.

Metaco announces today its cooperation with DZ BANK AG, the central institution to the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken cooperative financial network, one of the largest banking groups in Germany. As a central institution, DZ BANK provides a multitude of services, particularly asset management services, being one of the largest German custodians, with €297 billion assets under custody at the end of 2022.

DZ BANK, a BaFin-regulated financial institution and custody provider, places the foremost importance on regulatory compliance and security. Metaco’s custody and orchestration platform, Harmonize™, was selected by DZ BANK through an extensive proof-of-concept and diligence process. Harmonize™ has proven to be a powerful solution, helping DZ BANK to build an attractive and secure offering to institutional clients in the space of crypto securities (German eWpG) and digital currencies – fully integrated into its current asset management services.

Metaco’s agnostic model enables different deployment methods, as well as a hardware-enforced key management infrastructure, securing multiple types of digital assets – including tokenized securities like bonds and equities. Harmonize™ offers a versatile governance framework with customizable risk and compliance controls, with full segregation of multiple business units and clients, guaranteeing isolation of policies, users, accounts, and assets

Nils Christopeit, Lead Solution Design Digital Custody at DZ BANK, commented: “In terms of our security, scalability, and future requirements of our digital asset custody initiative for institutional clients, starting with crypto securities as per the German eWpG, Metaco Harmonize has proven to be a powerful solution that is fit for purpose and can support our intended operating model. With the offering we can build by using this technology, we trust to create a durable and fast-growing business cooperation as well as an attractive solution for our clients that can also meet the requirements of digital currencies and decentralized financial instruments."

Craig Perrin, Chief Sales Officer at Metaco, commented: “Metaco’s digital asset technology infrastructure is purposely designed to support financial institutions to capitalize on the digital asset economy. We are excited to announce this cooperation as it further establishes Metaco as a market leader in Germany, trusted by some of the country’s largest banks and exchanges.”

Nils Christopeit, Lead Solution Design Digital Custody at DZ BANK, commented: “In terms of our security, scalability, and future requirements of our digital asset custody initiative for institutional clients, starting with crypto securities as per the German eWpG, Metaco Harmonize has proven to be a powerful solution that is fit for purpose and can support our intended operating model. With the offering we can build by using this technology, we trust to create a durable and fast-growing business cooperation as well as an attractive solution for our clients that can also meet the requirements of digital currencies and decentralized financial instruments."

Craig Perrin, Chief Sales Officer at Metaco, commented: “Metaco’s digital asset technology infrastructure is purposely designed to support financial institutions to capitalize on the digital asset economy. We are excited to announce this cooperation as it further establishes Metaco as a market leader in Germany, trusted by some of the country’s largest banks and exchanges.”

In 2022, the countries of South & Southeast Asia saw a YoY decline of 83% in new fintechs, with only 349 startups emerging in the region. However, the volume of investments has not decreased so dramatically, with investors choosing less risky strategies, as revealed by the analytical centre of Robocash Group.

The newly formed fintechs were able to raise about USD 153 M via various financing rounds. This is 1.4% of the total attracted investments in fintech in this region.

The Payments & Transfers sector accounted for the largest number of new companies in SEA & SA - 72 (20.6% of the total), mostly concentrated in India. Meanwhile, Blockchain & Crypto and Exchange-traded assets featured 47 companies each (13.5%), most of which were based in Singapore. Finally, there were 38 new alternative lending companies (10.9%).
 

However, the total amount raised by all fintech companies in the region decreased to USD 12.7 Bn (-38.6% compared to 2021). Robocash Group analysts cite the lack of public information, as investment aggregators are still adding new company profiles. Still, the missing data is unlikely to make a significant difference in the total showing for 2022, especially compared to the previous year.

“The decline in the number of new fintechs greatly exceeds the reduction in the volume of investment attraction. Investors are opting for less risky strategies, wary of the incoming worldwide recession. The market is "cleansing", leaving room for only the most sustainable fintech companies”, comment the analysts at Robocash Group.
 

Assuming the current decade-long trend holds, the number of new companies may grow by 21.6% in 2023 from the current 349 to 425. At the same time, the attraction of funds for all fintech companies may reach USD 13.2 Bn.

Temenos has been awarded AnchorGold Class distinction in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook for 2023 with the highest score (80/100) for the Software industry.

The Yearbook is based on the S&P 2022 Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) of 7,822 of the world's largest companies using an extensive set of criteria that includes climate strategy and operational eco-efficiency, talent attraction and retention and corporate governance.

Based on this evaluation, Temenos was awarded a Top 1% S&P Global ESG Score and ranked joint-first among 244 companies assessed in the Software category.

This latest recognition reinforces Temenos' position as a leader in sustainability. In 2022, Temenos was also awarded a triple-A rating in the Morgan Stanley Capital Investment’s (MSCI)  ESG rating, the highest possible score, and stays a constituent of the FTSE4Good Index Series, created by the global index provider FTSE Russell. Temenos has also been awarded an A- rating by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for the second year running.

Kalliopi Chioti, Chief Marketing & ESG Officer at Temenos, said: “We are proud to once again join the world’s best-performing businesses in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook. To be placed at the top in our industry shows our strong commitment to sustainability and transparent disclosure, having set ambitious targets validated by the Science Based Target Initiative and integrating ESG into our operations and product offerings.”

Last year, Temenos launched the Temenos carbon emissions calculator to give customers deeper insight into carbon emissions data associated with their consumption of Temenos Banking Cloud services. It also announced a new ESG Investing as-a-service, helping banks and wealth managers meet the growing demand for sustainable investing.

This latest accolade further reflects Temenos’ commitment to ESG disclosure and transparency. The company has endorsed the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), it supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and communicates its non-financial performance annually in the Sustainability Report within its Annual Report following Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards.

Temenos is included in the SXI Switzerland Sustainability 25® Index, among the 25 Swiss stocks from the SMI® Expanded Index with the best sustainability scores. In addition to its S&P ESG and FTSE4Good index ratings, Temenos has also been awarded an A- rating by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and obtained platinum recognition, placing Temenos among the top 1% performers assessed by EcoVadis.

As an industry first, Wagepay, the earned-wages access fintech based in Brisbane, has switched on  PayTo for real-time customer payments. This has been done in partnership with Monoova, the award-winning Sydney-based payment service provider. 

Spearheaded by the Reserve Bank of Australia, PayTo is a fast and data-rich service suitable for both one-off and recurring payments. Over time, it is expected that PayTo will replace several current payment methods such as traditional direct debits and online card payments. 

Built on the New Payments Platform’s real-time infrastructure, PayTo debits are actioned and cleared instantly, which means that merchants do not have to wait days before money arrives, as is currently the case with direct debits. The immediacy and transparency of the experience also delivers confidence to consumers that they have paid their bills in the right amount at the right time.  

Already, existing customers of Wagepay are being encouraged to create a PayTo mandate. In the first three weeks of going live, more than 3,000 PayTo agreements were issued by Monoova to  Wagepay customers.  

Wagepay’s Founder and CEO Tony Chan said: “Our customers are jumping straight in. They are moving away from direct debits. Now we really just need more banks to enable PayTo.” 

Additional features of PayTo include stronger consumer controls and visibility of their active PayTo agreements/mandates, automated and versatile payment agreements, and more data, creating a  better experience for both consumers and merchants. 

“We see clear benefits in moving our customers onto PayTo so they can enjoy better visibility and control over their money. For us as a business, reconciliations are easier too, so PayTo is a much better user experience for everyone,” said Mr Chan. 

Increasingly sophisticated payments options like PayTo have the potential to revolutionise how merchants, lenders and other businesses handle large volumes of payments.  

Monoova’s CEO Christian Westerlind Wigstrom said: “For businesses, PayTo improves cash flow with real-time transactions and funds verification. Receiving cleared funds straight away is a big change to the way we think of debits in Australia. It also offers an interesting alternative to card schemes.”  

Today, Coincover, the leading digital asset protection company, announces a new partnership with Cobo, the largest digital asset custodian and blockchain infrastructure provider in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. This news comes shortly after Coincover’s recent successful $30 million funding round.  

Cobo is a pioneer of blockchain technology and is therefore constantly looking for innovative ways to improve the industry's security standard, with security becoming increasingly imperative. The partnership gives all of Cobo’s customers, including asset managers and exchanges, access to the market-leading protection against disaster situations, such as hacking, downtime, or loss through human error. Coincover’s position as a secure third-party can prevent Cobo’s clients from losing access to wallets should they fail to back up private keys independently.  

The partnership supports growth for both parties, ensuring Cobo’s offering is unbeatable and supporting Coincover’s expansion into APAC, while also giving wallet owners’ peace of mind in knowing their digital assets are protected to the highest standard available.  

Dr Changhao Jiang, Co-Founder & CTO at Cobo said, “This partnership is an important part of our strategy. We are taking digital asset infrastructure to the next level, which means we also need to provide our clients with the best protection standard. It soon became clear that Coincover was a service we needed to tap into. Coincover’s technology adds an essential layer of security in protecting our customer’s digital assets. This partnership also gives us a competitive edge on top of our recently announced SuperLoop, an off-exchange custody and settlement network, which helps reduce the risks of centralised exchanges. We are the first major infrastructure provider in Asia to partner with Coincover, meaning we are ahead of the curve on protection and are uniquely positioned to provide the most secure crypto wallets to financial institutions across Asia, and beyond.” 

Oliver Cummings, Strategy & Partnerships Director at Coincover said, “This marks a significant expansion of our technology into Asia. We are rapidly becoming the industry standard for security and are now well-established in the US and EMEA. But to succeed in our mission to make crypto as safe as possible, we must build our presence in Asia, which has a booming crypto market. The good news is we are in a very strong position to do so. It’s gradually becoming essential for crypto firms all over the world to have disaster recovery technology or they risk giving their competitors an edge. We want people to be asking ‘Do you have Coincover?’ when speaking to custodians. Eventually, it will be detrimental if you don’t, which is exactly what we want if we are going to transform attitudes to security in digital assets.” 

Kepler Cheuvreux, the leading independent European financial services company, is the first financial institution to adopt Opensee's cloud service for trade management and execution analytics. Kepler Cheuvreux, through its Execution activity KCX, will deploy the solution developed and tailored to its needs by Opensee, the leading platform providing financial institutions with multi-dimensional, real-time access to their data. 

The solution enables users to conduct an unlimited independent analysis of all their internal and third-party trading data, with tools to identify the drivers of performance and how to achieve optimal trade execution at lower costs. Kepler Cheuvreux intends to offer the service to its clients after an initial phase of internal use.  

Chris McConville, Global Head of Execution Services & Trading at Kepler Cheuvreux, said: “KCX is constantly on the hunt for technology that delivers a competitive edge. We were among the first to identify the massive potential Opensee’s platform offered in taking trade analytics to the next level. Our clients will gain fast, actionable intelligence without relying on us to intermediate. This solution brings full transparency, adds value to our service and allows us to forge better client relationships.”

The technology partnership on trade analytics confirms Opensee’s product roadmap, outlined in December, as the company branches out from implementing its solutions on-premise or on clients’ Private Clouds by offering a full SaaS deployment for a large variety of use cases. The strategy is to give banks, asset managers, hedge funds and brokers access to data at scale with embedded analytics for use cases including market and credit risks, liquidity management, trading analytics, and ESG.

Stephane Rio, Founder and CEO of Opensee, said: “Our long-standing cooperation with Kepler Cheuvreux is an important step in enabling all financial institutions to manage their trading data stack challenges as their volumes of data grow exponentially. We want to provide high performance tools that allow users to source valuable business intelligence for more informed decision-making, to identify opportunities for a competitive advantage or to respond better to client needs.”

While many financial institutions are constrained by legacy data architecture, Opensee’s platform gives users the ability to explore 100% of their data at the push of a button, without limiting the size, history or granular detail. For legacy systems this can typically take at least a day and users are obliged to compromise on the dimensions of the data they require. 

The Opensee platform’s sophisticated calculators and embedded analytics complement full data access, enabling Front Office, Risk and Finance managers to manipulate the harnessed data for intelligence in a variety of use cases. Tier 1 banks currently use the Opensee platform for analysis and the production chain of regulatory reporting in capital markets, liquidity and capital reporting by finance departments. Asset managers, hedge funds and brokers use it for analysing and enhancing trade execution.                                                                                                                    

Anvar Karimson, Kepler Cheuvreux’s Chief Technology Officer, said: “Through our partnership with Opensee, we have developed a tailored solution that meets the needs of KCX and our clients, delivering granular visibility into trade performance with real-time actionable insights. Opensee and KCX are fully committed to continuously improving the performance of our Execution Analytics solution, ensuring that we meet the high expectations of our clients and providing them with the insights they need in a continuously evolving market landscape.” 

DirectID, a UK-based, global fintech specializing in credit risk, risk analytics and predictive modelling, using bank transaction data, today announced that Ingka Investments, the investments arm of Ingka Group, has made a EUR 9m minority investment in the company.

With a mission to promote financial inclusion through its global credit risk score, DirectID provides advanced data to optimize credit & risk decisions in a growing number of countries. The company gives risk managers a real-time dataset to drive efficiencies, optimize decisions and drive lifetime value across the credit life cycle. With DirectID’s insights, decision-makers can better assess risk regardless of age, location, and past credit performance.

James Varga, CEO and Founder of DirectID, said:

We're proud to join Ingka Investments' portfolio of market-leading firms. We are excited to be shaping a new global standard in credit scoring that enhances people’s lives by enabling access to products they need in an affordable way. Our coverage, advanced insights and predictive models provide a unique opportunity to achieve this by creating the world's first real-time, inclusive, credit score based on open finance data.

The funding provided will accelerate the market launch of the most advanced predictive models for credit & risk, built from open banking data. In addition, DirectID will expand their credit risk offering into new markets and accelerate the development of models for each stage of the credit life cycle, from originations through portfolio management to collections.

Peter van der Poel, Managing Director of Ingka Investments, said:

We are pleased to have made this investment in DirectID and are confident of their continued growth in the open banking market. They have developed an innovative solution with the potential to complement and disrupt the traditional credit and risk market and help drive financial inclusion for more people. Open Banking-enabled credit and risk insights is an area we believe can add value to Ingka’s financial services proposition in the future.

The investment is the latest in a series of investments made by Ingka Investments. The aim is to strengthen Ingka Group’s core retail business by investing in innovative companies in areas such as digitalization, customer fulfilment, fintech and sustainability, that support its ongoing transformation to become ever more affordable, accessible, and sustainable. 

Nethone, the challenger machine learning-based fraud prevention company that enables eCommerce merchants and financial institutions to holistically understand their end-users, has been awarded ISO 27001 certification by the International Organisation for Standardization.

The certification demonstrates Nethone's commitment to protecting the confidential information of its clients, employees, and business partners and enhancing the security of its fraud detection and prevention products. ISO 27001, the most widely recognized information security management standard, provides a systematic and risk-based approach to managing sensitive information. The certification process involved a rigorous audit of Nethone's information security management system, including its policies, procedures, and controls.

Founded in 2016 by a group of security experts, financial business executives, and data scientists, Nethone now solves fraud challenges for over 100 global eCommerce and financial industries players, such as BlaBlaCar, Azul, Grover, Ramp, Grupo Boticário, Wema Bank, and many more. In 2022, Nethone joined MangoPay Group, a pan-European provider of platform payment & wallet infrastructure, to offer enhanced anti-fraud capabilities catered to marketplaces and platforms.

Mark Burton, Chief Technology Officer at Nethone, comments: “Obtaining ISO27001 demonstrates Nethone’s commitment to best practices in information security and will give our customers increased confidence in our platform. Nethone is a well-established and fast-growing company and certification was the next logical step in our information security programme to validate our operational excellence and we will continue to build further during 2023.“

Nethone has introduced on the market a modular Know Your User™ solution, enabling all online businesses to thrive without risk-related friction across channels, and is successfully addressing a wide spectrum of fraud types, such as bot attacks, ATO, CNP fraud, or chargeback fraud, while providing financial services companies and merchants with real-time actionable recommendations.

Thanks to its unique profiling solution that analyses unique hardware, software, device, network, and behavioural data on both web and native mobile app channels, and advanced ML technologies, Nethone brings out to the payments industry a modularized approach that offers end-to-end protection at every step of the user journey from login to post-payment. With the addition of the ISO 27001 certification, Nethone's clients and partners can have peace of mind that their sensitive information is protected to the highest standards.

In related news, Nethone also received SOC2 Type 1 certification, which confirms their security setup is compliant with the standard. This marks the first step to full SOC2 standard compliance. This achievement ensures the company’s controls operate effectively to meet trust.