8.6 million people in the UK have used fake, fraudulent or someone else’s identity in person or online to gain access to goods, services or credit, according to independent research by GBG, the digital identity experts.

The findings have been released following the return to Parliament of the delayed Online Safety Bill, a new set of laws to protect children and adults online, including the enforcement of age limits and age-checking measures to help prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content.

GBG’s research asked 2,000 UK consumers if they have ever used fake, fraudulent or someone else’s identity, including claiming they are older than they really are to access websites, using fake ID and giving false information such as a fake address.

GBG found:

• 8.6 million people in the UK (16%) have used fake, fraudulent or someone else’s identity
• 33% of young people in the UK (16-24) have used fake, fraudulent or someone else’s identity to gain access to goods, services or credit compared to 16% of the general population
• 23% of UK males have used fake, fraudulent or someone else’s identity compared to only 8% of females
• Higher earners and those who work full-time (22%) are more likely to have used fake, fraudulent or someone’s else’s identity to access goods or services with 26% of people earning £45,001-£50,000 and people earning £55,001 plus saying they have used fake ID compared to 13% of people earning £15,000 or less.

Gus Tomlinson, Chief Product Officer, EMEA at GBG, said: “The use of fake, fraudulent or someone else’s identity is not a harmless crime, it is illegal and hugely damaging to individuals and the economy. Underage kids are getting access to gambling, alcohol and porn sites, and also running up huge debts without fully understanding the consequences and, very often at the expense of their parents. There has been an increase in crimes of convenience as a result of the cost-of-living crisis with people using false information and fraudulent identities to apply for goods, credit and services. Criminals are also taking advantage of the economic slowdown to increasingly scam people by, stealing information and the identities of unsuspecting people, especially those in financial difficulty. More sophisticated fraud such as synthetic identity fraud is also on the increase – imported from the US.

“With the majority of identity fraud taking place online, social media platforms and businesses are putting themselves at huge risk of being closed down, fined as well as incurring financial and reputational damage, if they don’t have appropriate identity verification and fraud measures in place. Shockingly, not enough businesses are taking this risk seriously and are not sufficiently protecting themselves or keeping young people and their customers safe.”

The research by GBG also found 94% of business leaders confirmed that businesses are cutting corners and opening the door to identity fraud by not having sufficient measures in place to check and verify identities online. 87% of business leaders confirmed that identity fraud costs are passed onto consumers in the form of increased prices with UK consumers.

Gus Tomlinson concludes: “The technology is here, and with the introduction of the Online Safety Bill and more robust regulation, there is no excuse for businesses not to have identity verification checks in place. The use of fake, fraudulent or someone else’s identity is not a victimless crime, and people need to be much more aware and protective of their own identity to ensure it doesn’t get into unsafe or fraudulent hands.”  

The global AI-powered fraud prevention and identity verification startup iDenfy, announced a new partnership with Finora Bank, the Lithuania-based financial service provider for small and medium-sized businesses. With iDenfy’s IDV and AML solutions, Finora Bank will automate compliance and secure the customer onboarding process. 

Over the years, financial institutions struggled with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance issues. As a result, a stricter regulatory landscape and modern technology have pushed many financial players to rethink their fraud prevention strategy and implement efficient digital solutions. 

iDenfy agreed with this strategic mindset explaining that even though banks are pressured to increase their security budgets, investing in AI-enabled tools helps them achieve sustainable growth while significantly decreasing financial crime numbers. To ensure effective fraud prevention and better understand its clients, Finora Bank started to look for digital solutions and chose iDenfy’s identity verification. 

According to the bank, it’s vital to protect clients and guarantee complete transparency when providing financial services. Recently, Finora Bank obtained its banking license from the European Central Bank, enabling the financial service provider to expand operations throughout Europe. According to the bank, faster scaling required more robust security measures.

As Finora Bank aims to provide the highest levels of AML and Terrorist Financing compliance measures to our clients and partners, the company decided to establish long-term business relationships with a well-known remote ID verification provider. iDenfy now assists Finora Bank in automating customer due diligence. The new partnership will help Finora Bank manage fraud risks more responsibly and gain detailed real-time insights into their financial operations. 

iDenfy’s four-step identity verification solution uses selfie biometrics. Liveness detection adds another layer of security, eliminating criminals trying to pass the verification using fraudulent methods: deepfake technology, masks, fake pictures, etc. It takes less than a minute to complete the four-step biometric verification. Users are asked to select the document issuing country and type. After they upload their passport or ID card, customers snap a quick selfie so the algorithms can match the face against the document and multiple AML databases. 

The KYC service provider ensures accuracy by powering its in-house expert team, who double-checks verification results 24/7, making sure to prevent fraudulent users from accessing Finora Bank’s network. By leveraging iDenfy’s solutions, Finora Bank can also conduct AML checks and continue with ongoing data monitoring, which consists of constantly scanning global sanctions lists, PEP, and adverse media sources.

The newly implemented verification and AML Screening process will ensure Finora Bank’s compliance with the latest EU regulations, which of course, played an essential role in the bank’s decision to choose iDenfy as its customers’ data protection partner. It’s worth mentioning that the startup is a certified-ISO fraud prevention service provider. iDenfy has its solutions protected by Technology Errors & Omissions Cyber insurance from Lloyd’s. 

“The new identity verification solution supports our efforts to provide our clients with an expedited and fully compliant onboarding process. We’re happy to partner with iDenfy. With their assistance, our customers can verify their identities in a few clicks,” — said Aurelijus Sveikauskas, the CEO of Finora Bank. 

Domantas Ciulde, the CEO of iDenfy, added: “We’re happy to join forces with Finora Bank and help them expand into new markets with an enhanced, fully digitized onboarding experience.” 

Kneip, a leader in fund data management and reporting solutions for the asset management industry, has become the sole provider of fund data and documents for Clearstream Fund Centre.

Clearstream Fund Centre is a centre of excellence for global fund distribution support with over EUR 400 billion assets under administration. More than 450 fund distributors use Clearstream Fund Centre to gain access to 550 fund providers with a single legal agreement. Clearstream Fund Centre’s covered investment universe is continuously growing and currently offers over 76,000 products, including funds from the major ETF providers.

As Kneip becomes its designated data provider, all fund information (fund data and legal documents) is now supplied to Clearstream Fund Centre via Kneip. Kneip commits to providing the highest level of consistency for the data published across destinations, as its clients can publish consistent fund data and documents to all the right destinations. By combining Kneip’s data management solution with Fund Centre’s distribution capability, clients increase the quality and availability of the data and documents that are published, which ultimately leads to more exposure, more investments and better ratings.

In addition to publishing data to Clearstream Fund Centre, Kneip can also simplify the collection of 3^rd party data. Fund distributors have a regulatory obligation to collect data and documents from asset managers so that they can determine if the investors are suitable for the product they want to invest in. Kneip works between asset managers and distributors to offer a single source of data and documents clients can trust.

Bernard Tancré, CEO of Clearstream Fund Centre, said: “We are delighted to grow our portfolio of high-quality data services and products for our clients together with Kneip. Their advanced technology is unique in the fund industry today, and it is how we ensure the highest data consistency on the market. Clients of Clearstream Fund Centre will profit from increased efficiency and safety in the investment funds sector.”

Enrique Sacau, CEO of Kneip, said: “In today’s market, data quality has become critical to success in fund distribution. Through this collaboration, we support Clearstream Fund Centre in enhancing its data and document portfolio, whilst also offering distributors a single accurate feed for all data and documents to be collected.”

Tixee, an award-winning broker offering a diverse range of trading instruments, decided to cooperate with Match-Prime, Forex and CFD Liquidity Provider, authorised and regulated by CySEC.

Tixee has entered the Match-Prime liquidity pool, which consists of over 2000 trading instruments and 9 asset classes, thus responding to the growing needs of its clientele. This is another step for the brand to emphasise its customer-centric approach, a factor that helped establish its position in the market. 

Commenting on the info, Andreas Kapsos, CEO of Match-Prime Liquidity, said, “I am very happy that we can work with such a dynamically developing company as Tixee. We share the same values for constant improvement of our offer or individual approach to each client. The fact that we have been trusted always motivates us to do more. I'm proud of our bespoke technical and trading conditions, which I believe will meet the expectations of even the most demanding traders; therefore, I believe that our cooperation will be very fruitful”.

Todor Georgiev, the COO of Tixee, added, “As an entity regulated by several authorised institutions, our main goal is to provide services as securely as possible. We were looking for a Liquidity Provider that could meet our expectations for a long time, and Match-Prime turned out to be such a company. For our customers, we are more than just a trading platform, we try to create trends and set new standards in the industry. I'm glad we now have a partner of whom I can say the same. Their offer is very extensive, the onboarding process swift, and I am very pleased with how our cooperation is going so far”.

The UK’s largest cloud-based mortgage and savings technology provider, finova, today announces the launch of Intermediary Manager – a data management application that helps lenders better onboard and manages broker relationships.

For lenders, onboarding brokers can be a messy process using spreadsheets and disparate tools to run various due diligence checks. The manual process is prone to human error, often leading to delays and frustration for brokers who want to submit mortgage applications quickly. For brokers, onboarding with each lender can be a repetitive process, often needing to be repeated if they move firms.

Intermediary Manager resolves these issues, providing a configurable workflow to streamline the onboarding process for both lenders and brokers. The system can automatically share welcome packs or request necessary ID and due diligence documents at relevant times for a smooth process with all data held in one place.

To help lenders better manage broker relationships, the system offers Business Development Managers (BDMs) an out-of-the-box, but deeply flexible, system to store details of their key account, notes from visits, and create tasks or schedule appointments through an integrated calendar. The platform provides performance data and KPI tracking, and even allows the capture of softer facts such as brokers’ favourite cuisine or football team, to further enhance engagement.

Key highlights of the platform include:

·         Automation – lenders can automate key communication, such as bulk emails and SMSs, to communicate regular announcements such as criteria changes, product withdrawals and product launches

·         Due diligence – lenders can use the integrated FCA search, companies house, ICO, fraud, Peps & Sanctions and other common checks to access all due diligence data in one place

·         Flexibility – lenders can tailor the platform to align with their business objectives, whether that’s targeting either high value or high potential brokerages

·         Improves broker engagement – incoming BDMs can use Intermediary Manager to source existing knowledge and data on individual brokers, in order to maintain productive intermediary relationships

Intermediary Manager will also support marketing efforts by helping to capture broker attention and communicate what they stand for and the type of business they accept. It provides the tools to effectively communicate new product launches, product withdrawals, criteria changes and other such regular announcements easily.

David Bennett, Commercial Director at finova, comments:

“Our goal is to boost business submission to lenders by helping them prioritise, onboard, and engage with brokers.

“We noticed the opportunity when a major high street lender came knocking, looking for software to solve their problems with poor broker management. We are delighted to readily offer a solution, which we have now trialled with a number of lenders.

“The early impact of streamlining onboarding and improving broker engagement has been great to see, and we are looking forward to working with many more lenders and helping them up their game in broker management.”

Kathy Bowes, Intermediary Manager at The Cambridge Building Society said:

“Intermediary Manager has allowed us to have a joined-up approach to manage ongoing relationships with intermediaries from initial registration. Real-time data adds another layer enabling business levels to be viewed at individual, firm or network level which supports conversations about future potential business. The project team were there all the way to support the implementation and provided training to ensure we were fully aware of how the system worked and could be used.”

Digital Asset Research (DAR), an industry-leader in cryptocurrency exchange vetting, today is sharing its reflections on FTX warning signs, missed opportunities to identify issues, and ways to strengthen diligence moving forward. Since 2017, DAR has conducted diligence on centralized crypto exchanges, including FTX, for its institutional clients.

“FTX's failure offers a rare opportunity for the digital asset industry to redefine and enhance diligence standards for exchanges and other counterparties,” said Doug Schwenk, DAR’s CEO. “In its aftermath, we evaluated what went right in our diligence, what we overlooked, and how we can lead the industry toward stronger standards.”

Each quarter, DAR’s Exchange Vetting for Price Quality process identifies Vetted Exchanges that meet institutional standards and Watchlist Exchanges that may qualify for future inclusion. Prior to the collapse, FTX.com was a Watchlist Exchange, while FTX US and Liquid were classified as Vetted Exchanges after communication with insiders indicated they operated as independent entities with appropriate policies and transparency.

As part of its vetting, DAR flagged a number of warnings regarding FTX.com, including:

1. Loose KYC and AML policies.
2. Alameda Research as an affiliate without any disclosure as to how conflicts of interest were addressed.
3. FTT token and its risks.
4. Unwillingness by FTX and its entities to provide confirmation of certain public diligence information.
5. Lack of transparency and tone of FTX.com as a counterparty.

With hindsight, DAR identified some missed opportunities related to the evaluation of FTX:

1. Attributing FTX.com and FTX US unwillingness to respond to diligence questions to immaturity rather than an attempt to avoid scrutiny.
2. A delayed reaction to Brett Harrison’s departure as CEO of FTX US, rather than a key leadership change prompting an immediate reassessment.
3. A slow response to the freezing of client withdrawals because of a presumption that a deal with Binance would restore order.
4. Underestimated the risk of the FTX.com and FTX US affiliation.
5. Overweighted the importance of FTX’s market share and strength of market presence.

Moving forward, DAR is using the information discovered in its reevaluation of the FTX situation to evolve and improve its frameworks for assessing price risk, reputational risk, and counterparty risk associated with crypto exchange. DAR remains independent and unbiased throughout the diligence process.

More in-depth information on DAR and “FTX Diligence: What We Got Right, What We Missed, What’s Next” is available.

Yooz, a leading purchase-to-pay (P2P) automation provider, is accelerating into 2023 with a growing list of key clients, growing loyal customer base, internal growth, global recognition and prestigious industry and workplace awards – further positioning the company as a top solution in the FinTech industry.

Customer Wins

New key clients helped propel the company into 2023, including Paula’s Choice, a popular worldwide skincare brand and FREE NOW a mobility app with more than 56 million users across 16 countries and over 170 cities 
At FREE NOW, the implementation process started with Austria, the country that had at that time the smallest number of invoices. Once the teams felt comfortable with Yooz and the new processes, other entities followed with the same logic: countries with smaller volumes of invoices first - such as Poland, France, UK, Ireland, Spain Portugal, Italy, Austria and Romania - and the biggest one, Germany, at the end.

In total FREE NOW onboarded 10 subsidiaries in 6 months! “The accounting team used to spend one to two weeks processing an invoice as they had to juggle with different systems. Getting approval could take a long time as well. Now the whole process only takes 3 to 4 days,” says Mira Karp, subledger accountant at FREE NOW.

Growth and Strategic Changes

Alongside Yooz’s external accomplishments, the company announced earlier this year that former COO/CIO Laurent Charpentier was appointed global CEO of Yooz. The move supported the unparalleled international growth the company has seen over the last year, a trend predicted to continue in 2023.
Yooz also announced a slate of new product features this year, including goods reception, in-app chat, enhanced search capabilities and invoice attachment management – a feature unique to Yooz that was created to make faster, better-informed decisions easier than previously possible.

“Our unrivalled growth this year and latest features further speak to how Yooz truly listens to our client’s needs and is leading the charge to anticipate the rest of the market’s needs as well,” said Charpentier. “Looking ahead, Yooz is planning to home in on helping our global customer base cushion the blow of inflation and support initiatives for more efficient and cost-effective processes – helping spur both Yooz and our customers toward sustainable innovation and prosperity into next year and beyond.”

Awards and Recognitions

Spend Matters, a research-based publication dedicated to examining procurement and supply chain issues, released its annual 50 Providers to Know and 50 Providers to Watch for in 2022. Yooz has consistently caught the eye of the publication’s team of technology analysts as an up-and-coming procurement player and was named one of the Top 50 Providers to Watch for the fifth time. This award is given to recipients following a 12-month assessment conducted by the publication’s analysts to determine the best-in-class, high-momentum players in the industry.

Along with this distinction, Yooz was awarded both high user adoption and a high mid-market performer G2 badge, based solely on favourable customer reviews – further highlighting Yooz’s growing prominence in the marketplace and their commitment to their customers.

In November, Yooz was announced as the Document Manager Awards 2022 winner of the Accounts Payable/Invoicing Product of the Year, the outcome of exceptional work and collaboration of every member of the Yooz team as well as the research and innovation implemented in the slate of new product features released in 2022.

Yooz also garnered recognition from Great Place to Work® for the second consecutive year, an award given based on anonymous employee feedback.

This year, 93% of Yoozers said Yooz is a great place to work compared to 57% of employees at a typical company – highlighting Yooz’s continual dedication to fostering an upbeat working environment.

“Our entire team has been working so hard to provide the best solutions and user experience for our customers,” said Laurent Charpentier, Yooz CEO. “It’s always an honour to receive recognition for our efforts, especially one that coincides with our own internal initiative to cultivate a positive and inclusive workplace.”

Mollie, one of Europe’s fastest-growing financial services providers, has announced that it intends to appoint Koen Köppen as its new CEO. Köppen, previously the CTO of Klarna for five years, joined Mollie as CTO in May to support its expansion into world-class financial services. In his new role he will drive Mollie’s mission to simplify complex financial services and level the playing field for small- and medium-sized e-commerce companies taking on larger competitors. Köppen's appointment is conditional on approval by the Dutch Central Bank and on the advice of Mollie’s Works Council. Shane Happach, Mollie’s current CEO, is leaving the company to take up a leadership role in Asia.

In September 2022 Mollie launched Mollie Capital, a fast and flexible way for Mollie’s customers to access funding. It was a pivotal move into the financial services industry for Mollie and improved access to cash for SMEs. An important part of Köppen’s role will be to increase the pace of product development and delivery, having previously turned Klarna into a product delivery machine.

“We’re delighted to be welcoming Koen into a new and elevated role. We’ve been very impressed by Koen’s achievements and drive over the last eight months. His promotion is richly deserved and we are confident in his ability to lead Mollie’s further growth and evolution,” says Eli Leenaars, Chair of Mollie. “Shane can be proud of the company he leaves behind, leading our Series C funding round and our move into financial services. We wish him the very best in his new role.”

Solvo Finance, an EU-based cryptocurrency startup, has announced that their forthcoming crypto investing app will integrate Fireblocks, an easy-to-use platform to create new blockchain-based products and manage day-to-day digital asset operations. With the support of Fireblocks’ battle-tested technology, Solvo will be able to provide world-class security for customers’ digital assets. 

“Solvo is focused on being an accessible entry point to empower the crypto-curious to become crypto-capable investors by providing an easy-to-use, trusted and transparent platform,” said Ayelen Denovitzer, Co-founder and CEO of Solvo. “Too often, opaque and complicated apps and platforms are barriers to new investors by requiring heavy user involvement and thereby undermining trust in the platform. Solvo is focused on providing the best of the best of crypto to our users. With the support of Fireblocks, Solvo is providing our users with real-time transparency of where their assets are at any given time. We fundamentally believe that transparency will build trust in crypto-curious investors.”

Solvo believes a key barrier to entry for the crypto-curious investor is lack of trust. A 2022 survey by TMT Analysis found that only 9% of respondents believe that crypto services on offer are safe and secure. By utilizing Fireblocks’ enterprise-grade technology for its users’ retail wallets, treasury management, direct custody and offering its users staking rewards via Fireblocks’ Figment integration, users can be confident in the security and control of their digital assets when using the Solvo app. 

“We are excited to support Solvo’s vision of creating greater accessibility to crypto and decentralized finance via a simple, transparent and trustworthy platform,” said Stephen Richardson, Senior Vice President of Financial Markets at Fireblocks. “Fireblocks employs next-generation, institutional-grade technology so Solvo users can rest assured that their digital assets are safe.”

The app is currently in beta testing and is expected to launch to the general public in early 2023. 

MilliKart, one of the largest processing centres in Azerbaijan, has successfully completed a major transformation project to migrate all of its services to the open development payments platform, TranzAxis, from Compass Plus Technologies, an international provider of retail banking and electronic payments software.

MilliKart embarked on a journey to revamp its processing business as its existing system was preventing the organisation from launching new services quickly and efficiently, and maintaining its existing services had become challenging.

MilliKart needed a modern, reliable and flexible platform, supplied and supported by a technological partner with a proven history of completing transformation projects in the region. As a market leader and key player, with more than half of the financial institutions in Azerbaijan as its customers, Compass Plus Technologies was the clear choice as MilliKart’s partner for this pivotal project.

The major overhaul project consisted of migrating MilliKart’s entire processing services to the new platform. This included the complex migration of all cardholders and card information, acquiring data and POS terminal network, Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay International gateway services and connection to the national switch, as well as the complete transformation of its e-commerce acquiring solution. Today, all of MilliKart’s payment infrastructure operates on TranzAxis.

In addition to the above, MilliKart became one of the first to launch the latest product from Compass Plus Technologies, MobiCash Payment Gateway, and has successfully onboarded over 10,000 of its e-commerce merchants. Alongside a host of exciting features, MobiCash Payment Gateway fully supports the new EMV 3DS2.x standards, making MilliKart’s e-commerce transactions more secure, preventing fraud and reducing friction for consumers.

“Thanks to the vast experience of Compass Plus Technologies and the effective cooperation between our teams, and also, of course, thanks to the capabilities of TranzAxis, we were able to successfully implement such a large-scale project. As part of the project, we completed the transfer of our entire processing infrastructure to the new platform – including the transformation of our e-commerce acquiring proposition, the migration of our terminal network and client data – and this also provided us with the opportunity to use our own resources more widely in terms of product customisation and integration with external systems. Migration to the new software made it possible to ensure the security of online purchases for end users by switching to the EMV 3D Secure version 2.2 protocol. In addition, the list of services provided to our clients has expanded significantly, and full business automation will allow us to operate our own resources more efficiently and optimise costs,” said Emin Mukhtarov, Chairman of the Board of MilliKart LLC.

“MilliKart is one of the most dynamic processors in Azerbaijan, and embarking on such a large-scale project demonstrates its commitment to staying ahead of the changes in a rapidly evolving market. The successful completion of the migration became possible thanks to the high-quality and well-coordinated work of both of our teams at every stage and the trust placed in us by MilliKart,” said Alexey Osipov, Executive Vice President of Compass Plus Technologies. “TranzAxis is one of the most advanced platforms on the market, enabling payment industry players to develop and launch products and services independently. This makes it possible for them to respond quickly to changing market requirements, and better serve their customers.”