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  • 02:00 am

OneSpan, the digital agreements security company, today announced the general availability of its secure Virtual Room cloud service which enables organisations to deliver live, high-touch assistance to their customers in a high-assurance virtual environment. This next-generation customer engagement solution gives organisations the ability to balance identity security, authentication, and e-signature solutions from the broader OneSpan portfolio with a high-assurance virtual experience that is the next best thing to entering a branch or meeting in person.

Virtual Room complements digital-first transaction experiences by providing a unique opportunity for organisations to create personalised, high-touch, human-assisted interactions, and by improving the customer experience, increasing agreement completion rates, and reducing security risks and fraud.


“Today, businesses requiring a high degree of security and regulatory compliance rely daily on a variety of technologies that use insecure, shared links and expose users to elevated risks including data breaches and compliance violations in the anywhere economy. This should not be the case. Organisations and their customers want to be confident that the person joining a virtual meeting is the person they claim to be. And multi-million dollar business agreements transacted digitally should not be subject to fraud fallout,” said Matthew Moynahan, President and CEO at OneSpan.

“Today’s off-the-shelf video conferencing tools do not offer optimal security. As the complexity and value of transactions increase, customers want a live interaction rather than relying on a virtual assistant or self-service experience. We built Virtual Room for these scenarios to help our customers complete an agreement or transaction where they need a personal touch and where security is paramount.”


Combining OneSpan’s heritage in high-assurance identity verification and authentication with agreement co-browsing, web-enabled videoconferencing, rich collaboration features, and built-in e-signature, Virtual Room helps organisations engage and transact with customers with confidence. Virtual Room can be used for multiple high-value customer agreements, including account opening and maintenance, wealth management, and car financing.

Virtual Room enables organisations to:
• Verify the identities of participants, utilising OneSpan’s identity verification and mobile and hardware authentication solutions;
• Interact with signers remotely;
• Simultaneously review documents and address questions;
• Capture legally binding e-signatures in real-time; and
• Record virtual sessions to reinforce the electronic evidence captured in the audit trails.

A recent report from Aragon highlighted the need for higher assurance within these processes. “It’s important for buyers to look for a provider that has global security compliance expertise in all aspects of the workflow, from the initial identity verification and authentication steps to creating a secure virtual interaction environment and all the way through to securing the final output or artefact of the transaction, for compliance and enforceability purposes. Equally important, buyers should look for a vendor that has the flexibility to adapt any step in the digital workflow to meet local regulations for digital identity, secure customer authentication, transaction risk analysis, and the many other security requirements, which differ from one country to the next.”

As a secure solution for customer-facing digital agreements where the integrity of the agreement is paramount, Virtual Room allows organisations to embrace a new way of working that’s more distributed, virtual, and dynamic, enabled by advancements in cloud technology. With the onset of the anywhere economy, and with more transactions being completed online, identity verification and authentication technologies are critical in the digital agreements process. This purpose-built, high-assurance digital agreement solution includes identification and authentication capabilities that enable organisations to increase the integrity and completion rates of agreements and transactions in a highly-secure and protected ecosystem without impacting user experience or productivity.

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  • 01:00 am

Clausematch, a global RegTech company automating policy management and regulatory compliance at financial institutions and other regulated organizations, has been recognised as RegTech of the Year by the annual US FinTech Awards.

The award celebrates regulatory technology that provides tools capable of being used across industries.

Clausematch’s “policy management and compliance solution is unique and easy to use and the company is doing fantastic work in digitizing regulation,” said host Geeta Pendse.

The company has seen substantial growth in the US market as it continues to expand its footprint in the country. Work in the region includes servicing multiple clients from one of the biggest asset managers in the world with US $10 trillion in assets and operations across 30 countries. Clausematch also assists top-tier global banks such as Barclays as well as innovative small and medium-size FinTechs.

“It’s incredible to win RegTech company of the year,” said Danny Gal, Chief Revenue Officer for Clausematch. “Thank you to the US FinTech Awards, the organizing team, and the judges. We look forward to continuing working with the fintech industry on our best-in-class solutions for compliance and life cycle management.”

According to a report from TechNavio, a leading tech research company, the US is about 30% of the market share, and growing, for RegTech opportunities. As there becomes increasing demand for complex regulatory reporting and risk management, companies like Clausematch are expected to see demand for their services to help provide compliance management and monitoring.

Clausematch’s technology helps companies achieve agile robust policy and procedure management, hitting efficiencies and improving quality and standardization. To recall, Clausematch was recently listed on FinTech100 and RegTech100 industry listings. 

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  • 05:00 am

The European Central Bank (ECB) has selected CaixaBank and four other organisations to collaborate in the development a prototype of a digital euro. The institution launched a call with the aim of selecting entities to develop technology projects associated with the creation of the European digital currency. CaixaBank, the only European bank selected for the project and will be responsible for producing a prototype for peer-to-peer (P2P) online payments using the digital euro.

Starting September and until the end of this year, CaixaBank will be developing a mobile application that simulates the steps individuals will need to transfer digital euros to their account and/or transfer digital euros to other individuals.

CaixaBank's extensive experience and leadership in the field of innovation and payment methods, as well as the quality of its services, internal capacity to develop such projects and its market coverage, have been some of the key aspects considered by the ECB during the selection process.

Objective to explore solutions for digital euro payments

In April this year, the ECB launched a call for payment service providers, banks and other relevant market participants to unite and engage in the creation of prototypes for digital euro payment services aimed at customers. Fifty-four companies responded, spanning from banks to multinational technology companies.

In addition to CaixaBank, the other four companies selected for this stage will produce prototypes for other user interfaces of the digital euro, such as offline P2P payments, POS payments (including specific processes based on whether they are initiated by the business or the customer) and e-commerce payments.

The ECB is currently investigating how a digital euro could look like. If a digital euro should be issued, it would not replace cash or other existing payment methods, but instead complement them by becoming another payment option, thus contributing to advancing financial inclusion and accessibility.

CaixaBank, leader in innovation

Technology and innovation are crucial for CaixaBank. With more than 11 million users of its digital banking service – the largest customer base in the Spanish financial sector – the bank works on a daily basis towards developing new models that are able to meet the requirements and the needs of its customers and that bring its products, services and financial culture closer to all citizens.

CaixaBank is the leading bank in payment methods with a 32.1% market share in retailer turnover, and more than 3 million clients of mobile payments. Today, CaixaBank has in its digital banking app CaixaBankNow, the option of mobile payments, integrated into a wide service range for payment management. CaixaBankNow has iOS and Android versions and it is also compatible with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Garmin Pay and FitBit Pay. CaixaBank is also the first Spanish bank compatible with Swatch Pay, allowing payments with Swatch’s analogical watches.

The financial institution boasts its own technology subsidiary, CaixaBank Tech, and multidisciplinary teams that transfer innovation to all areas across the organisation. As part of its digitisation process, it has launched various projects underpinning blockchain technology, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, among others. These technologies are used to provide CaixaBank’s financial advisers with additional and better resources to advise their customers, drive the customisation of its commercial offering, with the aim of improving customer loyalty, develop new financial services and streamlining the decision-making process. 

Thanks to its digital transformation strategy, CaixaBank has become one of the highest-rated banks in the world for the quality of its digital products and services and has received various international acknowledgements, such as the "Most Innovative Financial Institution in Western Europe 2022" by Global Finance and the "Most Innovative Bank in the World 2021" at the EFMA & Accenture Awards. In terms of digital banking, it was named "Best Digital Retail Bank in Spain 2021" and acknowledged as "Best Retail Bank Website Design in Western Europe 2021" and "Best Retail Banking Mobile Application in Western Europe 2021" by Global Finance.   

In the field of private banking, CaixaBank was chosen as the "Most Innovative Private Bank in Western Europe 2022" by Global Finance, whereas the UK magazine PWM (Financial Times Group) named it the "Best Private Banking Entity in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Analysis in Europe 2022" and "Best Private Bank in Digital Marketing and Communication in Europe 2022".

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  • 09:00 am

Worldline, a global leader in payments services is proud to have been selected by the European Central Bank (ECB) for prototyping a front-end user interface for the digital euro. Worldline is developing the peer-to-peer offline payments use case.

Worldline has been selected for the specific use case “peer-to-peer offline payments” of a digital euro, which focuses on the payment between individuals.

As a leader in payment services, Worldline can rely on its expertise and assets to build a digital wallet supporting the physical storage of funds that can be transferred without connectivity. The aim of the prototyping exercises is to test how well the technology behind a digital euro integrates with various use cases.

Worldline is sharing the common goal of the ECB and its partners and intends to be active participants in payment industry evolution, by contributing to strategic and potentially transformative projects such as the digital euro. Its entire corporate product portfolio can be leveraged to deliver pilots and facilitate a successful CBDC roll-out

The prototyping exercise is an important element in the ongoing two-year investigation phase of the digital euro project. It is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2023.

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  • 03:00 am

Nutanix has announced a partnership with Trust Systems and Crown Hosting Data Centres to deliver against Crown Hosting’s Shared Hybrid Initiative with a new service for public service customers wanting to migrate to the cloud on their own terms. 

As in the commercial sector, public service bodies are increasingly turning to the cloud as a means of delivering digital transformation, not only securely, but affordably and at least cost to the environment. To assist with this, the UK government sponsored the creation of Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited, a joint venture with Ark Data Centres, tasked with meeting the data centre needs of public organisations regardless of size, level of expertise or starting point in their transformation journey. That brief, however, remains a work in progress and although Crown Hosting addresses many of the issues faced by customers through an established framework of platforms and services, some still face difficulties making the cloud work for them. 

“Mandated to take a ‘cloud first’ approach to IT, it’s easy for organisations to fall into the trap of thinking of Cloud as a place rather than a model and that they have, necessarily, to move everything out of the datacentre to one of the hyperscaler cloud platforms, like AWS or Azure,” said Andrew Puddephatt, Sr. Sales Director, Public Sector at Nutanix. “But that’s not the case, moreover it can be highly disruptive as well as costly with no guarantee that any of the anticipated savings will be realised. This kind of ‘big bang’ cloud migration can also be a real shock to support teams needing to learn new skills and ways of working, on top of which there are technological, cost and support risks from locking into a single platform no matter who the provider is.” 

Faced with this reality, customers across the board are increasingly looking to take a ‘cloud-appropriate’ approach to transformation. An approach where individual workloads are hosted by different platforms to meet their specific needs across a mix of legacy platforms plus both public cloud services and private clouds either on-premise or in a colocation datacentre. Indeed, some 83% of respondents to the latest Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index survey identified this kind of hybrid multi-cloud approach as their preferred model. Moreover, with Nutanix widely recognised as a champion and market leader in this approach, Nutanix technology is what Trust Systems will be offering as a core component of its new Trust Cloud service for Crown Hosting customers.   

“Experience has shown that public organisations are likely to have legacy applications and platforms that can’t be easily migrated to the cloud,” said Chris Boyes, Chief Operating Officer at Trust Systems, “By partnering with Nutanix we’re able to offer those customers the same immediate benefits by migrating those workloads to scalable, highly available and easy to manage hyperconverged Nutanix infrastructure, fully compliant with the DDAT playbook and other government security standards. Beyond that, Trust Cloud customers can also host their own fully segmented private cloud as well as access tools to build, run and manage applications on any cloud, balance workloads across clouds and focus on business outcomes rather than having to manage multiple platforms and technologies. It’s a solution in its own right and a real stepping stone from legacy on-premise platforms to the cloud with less hassle, cost and risk.”

The new Trust Cloud Hosting Service is an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) solution offering customers access to dedicated, per customer, Hyperconverged Infrastructure ensuring complete data separation. The hardware consists of Tier 1 servers running the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud software and a choice of virtualization hypervisor. Connectivity is also included by using high-performance COTS switching technologies with a dedicated high-security perimeter firewall, shared edge landing network and intermediate Core LAN based on a market-leading dual resilient and redundant platform.

As well as both central and local government, the new Crown Hosting service is available now on a subscription basis to NHS and other publicly funded organisations. It is made available with a tiered menu of support packages and access to additional services including encryption and both backup and disaster recovery as a service product. 

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  • 09:00 am

The European Central Bank has chosen Nexi, the European Paytech leader, to develop a front-end prototype for making payments with digital euros.

After joining the call for expression of interest launched in April by the ECB as part of the digital euro investigation phase, Nexi has been appointed as one of the five companies, out of 54 respondents to the call, which will provide front-end prototypes to test different payment use cases.

In the coming months, a dedicated, multi-disciplinary pool of Nexi experts will work closely with the European Central Bank digital euro project team, bringing Nexi’s high technological profile, proven track record and distinctive expertise in payment acceptance services to explore a front-end technical solution for digital euro payments at physical shops.

Since the beginning of the ECB investigation phase, Nexi has been involved in different working groups at a European level, with the aim of supporting ECB initiatives to design an efficient, inclusive and sustainable digital euro that can complement existing payment systems.

As the largest European spender in technology and innovation in the digital payments sector, with about 300 million euros of investments, Nexi can bolster the European Central Bank project for the digital euro. This will foster financial innovation and improve the overall efficiency of the retail payments system.

“We are proud to have been chosen to support the European Central Bank in such a strategic project for Europe,” said Roberto Catanzaro, Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer of Nexi Group and member of the Digital Euro Market Advisory Group. “We look forward to bringing the best of Nexi’s recognised know-how in the digital payments space and more specifically in Merchant solutions, to drive innovation in the European payment landscape”.

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  • 08:00 am

Modern Treasury, a software platform that helps companies modernize money movement, and Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking (TxB) today announced a partnership to accelerate the shift to embedded payments, helping joint customers seamlessly embed and scale domestic and international payments into their products to drive growth.

Modern Treasury’s Payment Operations software platform will provide mutual clients with an integrated money movement solution, with payments powered by TxB.

“Embedding payments into software products is increasingly the trajectory of commerce, and by partnering with Modern Treasury, we are creating new opportunities for clients to seamlessly leverage our payments capabilities within their own platforms,” said Eduardo Vergara, Global Head of Product and Sales at Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking.

Embedded payments are one of the fastest growing sectors across the payments industry as entire industries and workflows digitize. Global Payments notes that 60%-70% of new clients come from software channels. However, existing banking infrastructure was not designed with them in mind, and companies often have to build in-house solutions, which takes considerable development and resources.

To embed payments, companies need expertise in both banking capabilities and software. However, navigating across them introduces complexities around client onboarding, compliance, counterparty management, programmatic payment initiation, product ledgering, third-party payment reconciliation, accounting integrations, and more, becoming a barrier to entry for many mid-market companies seeking to digitize payments.

“Modern money movement is software driven. Goldman Sachs understands software developers and has built award-winning APIs for this audience,” said Dimitri Dadiomov, Modern Treasury co-founder and CEO. “Modern Treasury fills the payment operations gaps to provide our joint clients with a best-in-class software solution for money movement, so they don’t have to build it themselves. We look forward to helping more customers get products and services to market faster, driving growth.”

The companies have jointly served clients since late last year. Going forward, product teams from both companies have committed to a mutual product roadmap to address new client needs, tighten the integration, and offer mutual clients a unified product experience.

"We’re delighted to work with Goldman Sachs and Modern Treasury to better serve our investors and business partners,” says Nigel Glenday, Chief Financial Officer at Masterworks, the leading art investment platform. “With the help of both companies, our payment operations now support timely reconciliation of investor payments, irrespective of payment methods, and an integrated workflow to identify and resolve payment exceptions as they arise, all of which contributed to receiving our recognition as a recipient of this year’s noted Adam Smith Award.”

Modern Treasury and Goldman Sachs have collaborated on a solution to expedite clients' time to onboard. In addition, clients can open virtual accounts, make domestic and cross-border payments, view real-time payment statuses, manage incoming payment receipts, and access many more services needed to support today’s high-growth companies.

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  • 05:00 am

SanKash, the fastest growing AI-powered platform which aggregates BNPL & consumer financing providers, today announced its partnership with EarlySalary and Finzy to offer Travel Now Pay Later (TNPL) options to Indian travellers. This move is to streamline the booking processes and avoid costly upfront investments for trips booked months in advance.

As a travel-first BNPL aggregator, SanKash helps BNPL/consumer financing providers to plug and access its 6000+ merchants’ base network, aggregating $20 billion of transaction value through a single pay later button. Sankash connects travel merchants and BNPL providers, as a middle layer, in a hassle-free way on a single interface to offer the best point-of-sale financing option to travellers.

SanKash AI-powered engine does all the heavy lifting for customers & merchants.  Basis Knock-off criteria set by NBFC, customer inputs, and travel data of customers, the engine decides the financial provider which is going to approve the case and the customer will only interact with one BNPL provider.

“Our partnership with EarlySalary and Finzy is another attempt on our part to create a new generation of credit by providing transparent and flexible payment options to travellers. With the travel industry picking up again post-pandemic, we hope to provide a further boost by removing financial boundaries for travellers, through our financing partners. With outbound travel predicted to hit 29m by 2025, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Akash Dahiya, Co-founder and CEO SanKash.

Mr. Amol Maheshwari, Chief Distribution Officer, EarlySalary said, “We are excited to partner with the Leading Travel Aggregator, Sankash who provides Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) solutions to Travelers. This partnership will enable us to power the affordability and aspirations of millions of Indians who wish to travel to their dream destinations every year. We have already processed BNPL transactions worth Rs. 2 crores seamlessly in the first 10 days of going live with SanKash. Post the third wave of COVID-19, Indians are looking forward to the much-needed holiday break with their families. Hence with the travel industry bouncing back, our partnership with SanKash will empower customers to plan their travel immediately and afford it in easy EMIs. Through this, we wish to enhance the happiness quotient & the aspirations of customers and significantly drive their confidence in seamless digital transactions.”

Speaking about the partnership, Vishwas Dixit, Co-founder & CMO from Finzy further said, “We are delighted to partner with SanKash to expand our offerings in the travel industry. SanKash is helping us in connecting with travel customers through their merchant tie-ups to offer the best point-of-sale financing option to travellers. We digitally connect investors to hand-picked borrowers to provide risk-optimized returns through SanKash.”

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  • 02:00 am

Private Markets Alpha (PM Alpha), the recently launched company dedicated to improving access to private markets for the global wealth management industry, has announced it is officially launching its new platform at the IPEM industry conference on 20th September.

The platform links together services and solutions from carefully selected third-party providers to create a one-stop-shop for wealth managers, who may have never tackled private markets or may have from time to time but lack the resources and experience to approach it systematically.

Through the platform, wealth managers can access a macro- and theme-driven strategy investment toolkit, with investor-friendly features (such as shorter life funds and providing the option of being fully invested on day 1).

Strategies are implemented through a blend of carefully selected managers, to achieve the desired investment outcome, with platform users benefitting from a complete package of supporting resources, including:

·         Platform design is fundamentally driven by industry regulations 

·         Ability to attest investors are of a certain level of means and financial sophistication required to access private markets assets 

·         Meets disclosure requirements in areas such as, but not limited to, client suitability checks, product development governance and KYC requirements throughout the value chain 

·         Highly scalable in support of wealth manager business growth objectives 

·         Offers asset managers (or GPs) access to a client segment not accessed previously 

·         Delivers product development based on demand assessment in the wealth manager community, thus more closely aligning product to client needs.

PM Alpha has designed the platform to leverage insight from the wealth management community to better identify what investment needs exist, and through the community feedback better develop most suitable blends of funds for end investors.

Currently, in Beta version built in-house, a full version will be in place by Q1 2023 following further feedback from users.

PM Alpha will deliver investment products (funds) through the platform at a cost range of 25-55 bps, in line with its aim to popularise private markets investment to a wider investment base by enabling better access for wealth managers to the best private markets managers. 

Tom Douie, PM Alpha Founder and CEO commented,

“Aside from generally improving access to private markets by addressing ALL the typical barriers to entry for a wealth management firm to offer such strategies, we are confident our curated, thematic private markets tool kit delivers the tangible ‘alpha’ benefits of a strong product design and manager selection leading we believe to superior performance outcomes, a structuring benefit (such as shorter life funds) and a cost advantage on the product itself.”

IPEM

The platform launch is taking place at the IPEM event in Cannes, France, which brings together 5,000 delegates from the global private markets community, including Investors, Advisors and General Partners. 

PM Alpha will be hosting platform demonstrations from 20th through 22nd September at its Meeting Pod in the Meeting Pod Area (Level 0 – Croisette).

Tom Douie, Founder and CEO will additionally lead a panel discussion titled Private Markets Democratisation for Wealth Through Retail Access on Tuesday 20th September from 5 pm-6 pm at the IPEM Showcase Area, Demo Room #2.

Panellists include: 

Richard Young, Managing Director – Oaktree Capital  

Rafael Torres Boulet, Co-Head of European Private Debt – Muzinich Private Credit  

Maria Porta, CEO Europe – Saranac Partners  

Ayesha Corrine Singh, Head of Regulatory Fund Services – E&Y Legal Services, UK   

Alexis Weber, Chief Investment Officer – PM Alpha, UK

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  • 04:00 am

The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has published the Cyber Thematic Review Report 2022 (Report). The purpose of the Report is to summarise key findings from the Cyber Thematic Review (Review) the DFSA launched in January 2022. The Review was designed to assist in determining:

  • the status of areas that the Cyber Thematic Review Report 2020 identified as needing improvement;
  • the degree to which Authorised Firms, Authorised Market Institutions and Registered Auditors (collectively referred to as Firms) have implemented the DFSA Cyber Risk Management Guidelines (Guidelines); and
  • the current maturity level of Firms’ cybersecurity frameworks.

The Review identified that Firms have made material improvements in most of the assessed control areas but that all 14 key findings from the Cyber Thematic Review Report 2020 continue to require Firms’ attention. The Review noted that while the overall application of the DFSA Cyber Risk Management Guidelines is improving with most Firms implementing the recommended governance and hygiene guidelines, less implementation was identified in resilience practices. Finally, the review also noted an improvement in the maturity level of Firms’ cybersecurity frameworks.

Ian Johnston, Chief Executive of the DFSA commented, “Digital transformation continues to be a focus for the financial services industry, fast-tracked by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is important that firms prioritise a strong cyberinfrastructure in line with the UAE National Cybersecurity Strategy. While we are pleased to see that many companies have adopted cyber security best practices over the last year, there is still room for further progress, and we look forward to continued engagement with firms to ensure they are shielded against cyber threats and have a proper response and recovery frameworks in place.”

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