Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT), a global provider of high-performance professional trading software, infrastructure and data solutions, announced today that the firm successfully began offering clients access to the popular Nifty equity derivatives through NSE IFSC-SGX Connect (the Connect), a new joint initiative between Singapore Exchange (SGX Group) and National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) launched on Friday, July 29. The Connect – a collaboration in trading of India’s stock index-based products – is a prominent achievement for India’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) known as GIFT (Gujarat International Finance Tec) City in Gandhinagar.

The Connect, which was officially launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, enables both international and domestic market participants to take a position on India’s equity markets through futures based on the Nifty 50. International members of SGX Group and domestic clients of NSE IFSC can trade and access real-time trading data of Nifty contracts via SGX Group’s derivatives trading infrastructure in GIFT City.

Under the Connect, all orders on Nifty derivatives placed by SGX Group members are routed to and matched on the NSE-IFSC order matching and trading platform. As one of the first technology providers to offer international market participants access to the Connect, Trading Technologies is giving global banks and other major financial institutions that use the TT® platform seamless access to Nifty equity derivatives alongside products from more than 50 other major international markets, including SGX Group.

TT EVP and Chief Revenue Officer Guy Scott said: “We are delighted to be among the first technology providers to offer day-one global access to the benchmark Nifty products under the innovative new trading regime in India’s GIFT City. We’ve seen strong demand for this access from many of our biggest global bank clients, which serve institutional investors that incorporate the Indian equity markets as part of their global macro-economic portfolios. We’re also pleased to build further on our longstanding relationship with SGX Group and support its diverse product offering through the new Connect initiative.”

Pol de Win, Head of Global Sales & Origination, SGX Group, said: “We are excited that the Connect has now gone live, enabling direct and efficient access for international and domestic investors to trade Nifty futures. With an enhanced pool of liquidity from all over the world, we are optimistic it will support a more vibrant capital market in India. This has been a tremendous undertaking and we are pleased to roll this innovative pathway out with the efforts from Trading Technologies and our members.”

AxeTrading, the award-winning global fixed income trading software company, has extended its Fixed Income products’ offering to support non-standard Interest Rate Swaps. This allows Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) to respond quickly to complex inquiries in a competitive market environment and gain electronic market share.

The actively traded instrument in the Fixed Income space, Interest Rate Swaps, add significant value to investors and dealers alike. The flexible ticket types provide all the information required by dealers to seamlessly handle customer inquiries. RBI developed its own pricing library for the calculation of non-standard swaps, which effortlessly connects to AxeTrader and boosts quoting confidence for their traders.

Crucially, this feature can also be fully integrated into AxeTrading’s existing products across the globe, no matter the region or currency. Its introduction will therefore reduce administrative workload and drain by enabling all Fixed Income workflows to be handled from one application. Traders can connect to Tradeweb and Bloomberg from one market-making platform.

Coming only two months after AxeTrading announced the appointment of a new CEO, Greville Lucking, this introduction of non-standard Interest Rate Swaps signals the company’s new direction and desire to cater and respond to client feedback and industry demands.

Greville Lucking, CEO, AxeTrading: “We worked closely with several customers to implement this product feature and are delighted with the result – an expanded product suite that is already proving its worth within a highly competitive market. Working with an institution with the reputation of RBI has brought real credibility to AxeTrading’s offering and we look forward to working with them to continue to deliver the efficiencies and solutions that AxeTrading provides”.”

Harald Müller, Head of Group Capital Markets Trading & Institutional Sales at RBI:

“We are running a client-centric trading and sales business and are striving to always improve our product offering as well as our competitiveness from a pricing and response time perspective.
Therefore, we are glad that by integrating our in-house developed pricing library into our existing Quoting and Execution Management System (QEMS) from AxeTrading, we can now offer broken date interest swaps on electronic platforms.
Through this approach, we have (i) reached the highest level of flexibility and efficiency for our pricing methodologies and (ii) reduced manual workflows for traders drastically"

Deutsche Bank and Traydstream have been working together since July 2021 with a detailed pilot of the Traydstream automated trade document checking platform. Both parties have now announced a further commitment for a deep dive into the bank’s trade operations as well as integration of Traydstream’s AI tools. The parties have agreed to integrate the Traydstream platform into the Deutsche Bank environment and intend to subsequently roll out the platform globally.

Claudia Hussy, Trade Finance Product & Process Management at Deutsche Bank, says: “Traydstream’s extensive trade expertise and technical knowledge will enhance our Trade Finance offering to improve the processes for our global documentary trade business. It brings our client service to the next level and is a further endorsement for automated document checks as a key enabler for the digitisation of documentary trade products.”

Traydstream has recently launched the 2.0 version of its platform, with enhanced speed and accuracy of its data extraction and classification models, and integrated third-party providers for compliance checks. The 2.0 platform further augments all workability checks, across all available documents, including underlying letters of credit, in accordance with global trade rules (Uniform Customs & Practice for Documentary Credits and International Standard Banking Practice).
Another update to the 2.0 platform includes a cloud-native architecture as well as a new user interface that utilises all the learnings from documents the system has processed over the past twelve months.

“The entire team at Deutsche Bank, from Business to Operations and Technology, have been clear on the value add that they are looking for. Traydstream is excited to work with Deutsche Bank - the leading Trade Finance bank in Europe – on the transformation of their global documentary trade business” said Moshe Wolfson, Traydstream Global Sales & Implementations Head for Europe & the Americas.

Tonik, the Philippines’ first neobank, continues to make digital banking easy and convenient for Filipinos through the integration of InstaPay services on its mobile app. This makes the neobank the first officially BSP-recognized and licensed digital bank in the country to fully implement InstaPay services.

Customers can now send and receive real-time transactions for up to Php 50,000 to and from participating banks and electronic money issuers with no added transfer fees from Tonik. 

To top up a Tonik account, simply go to the “Top Up” options in the app dashboard, choose InstaPay and copy the 14-digit Tonik account number. Once copied, launch the source bank’s mobile app or online banking website, paste the 14-digit Tonik account number and enter the desired amount and other required transaction details. Lastly, perform the required authorization to finalize the transaction.

To transfer funds to another bank, just click on the “Send Money Options'' on the app dashboard and select “To another bank.” Change the channel to InstaPay and input the desired cash-out amount, transfer purpose, beneficiary account details, and perform the required authorization.

This is applicable to all financial institutions with InstaPay in their payments rail and the best part is, that all Tonik InstaPay transfers are free of charge! Other banks, however, may have varied transaction fees for InstaPay top-ups so make sure to check with the source bank to make the most out of the transfers.

“It has always been our mission to make digital banking work for the convenience and ease of Filipinos—and with InstaPay now in our service roster, it’s even easier to transact using our proprietary mobile app. Filipinos work hard for their finances and they deserve to have a bank that works as hard in ensuring they get access to better ways of managing their hard-earned money,” says Tonik Founder and CEO Greg Krasnov.

“This milestone of Tonik provides more opportunities for us to serve the underserved, and together with other financial institutions, the opportunity to serve the unbanked Filipinos who deserve a better banking experience,” adds Krasnov.

To know more about Tonik and how to transfer funds via InstaPay, download the app now via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Tonik is supervised by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and deposits are insured by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) for up to Php 500,000 per depositor.  Its unique cloud-based solution is powered by global financial technology leaders such as Mastercard, Amazon Web Services, and Finastra.

• Product Reviews
• 03.08.2022 10:00 am

What does the product do?

Trust Payments specialise in frictionless payments and value-added services by providing on-demand Payments and Banking-as-a-Service to help businesses grow and scale online, in-store, and mobile. Services and tools such as loyalty management and instant eCommerce combine to create engaging, new and innovative payment methods.

Who needs the product?

Small and medium-sized businesses across the UK, EU, and the US - an industry frequently struggling to deploy digital strategies due to a lack of funding, time and resources. 

What is special about the product?

Trust Payments holds the licensing to carry out payments, which means their innovative technology drives value through personalised services, secure and frictionless payments, and creative products. The level of investment Trust Payment has in data, a key area of competitive advantage, means SMEs can deploy digitalisation quickly and easily. Providing SMEs with the ability to combine payments with another experience, for example, a shopping cart or alternative payments for contactless, offers brands a personalised entry into the US, EU and UK markets.

What features are relevant?

SMEs can easily integrate Trust Payments’ systems into existing tech stacks. Trust Payments gives businesses a choice of entry with an advanced stack of APIs and other technology integration points. They have an extensive network of partners giving SMEs access to millions of tools and features.

An example of the key features includes payments-as-a-service (streamlining sales channels with smart payments, crypto and tokenisation online and offline), hassle-free finance and an e-commerce platform to go direct to consumers with AI and SEO channels to amplify reach. Trust Payments provide everything SMEs need to accept payments from customers globally with omnichannel payments and 24/7customer support and a dedicated local account manager.

Who is the competition?

The fintech industry is a saturated marketplace and there are many established and challenger brands offering payment solutions. For our recently launched e-commerce platform Stor, Shopify would be the obvious answer, however, Trust Payments offers a unique selling proposition that maximises the use of partner services, features and tools to layer tech infrastructure in a tailored way that has never been done before. 

What are some real case examples?

Trust Payments partnered with Guestline to offer a payment solution to hoteliers for all their payment needs, including payment platform services. In almost 3,000 hoteliers in 25 countries, Trust Payments delivers a unified payments solution to enable global pay-in, pay-out, and customer journey technologies, linking merchant acquiring, e-commerce, and POS devices.

The initiative reduces fraud, chargebacks, manual processes, costs and reporting in a transparent interface. Another benefit is securing revenue for hoteliers by enabling guests to settle their invoices or deposit payments before check-in.

The partnership is revolutionising the customer experience in the hospitality industry by providing an end-to-end solution embedded into Guestline’s systems. Trust Payments are deeply integrated into Guestline connection points, so when customers book online and check into a hotel, all their information is in one simple to access quick and secure place. 

Federated Innovation @MIND, a public-private collaborative model to foster innovation and Fabrick, a business that promotes Open Finance at an international level, are two businesses that share a common desire to encourage the development of innovative concepts into concrete new products, processes and services that can contribute to economic growth in Italy and Europe while enabling collaboration and synergies between different sectors through the open
platform model.

Federated Innovation @MIND, thanks to a multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach, intends to go beyond traditional business innovation by encouraging cooperation between different market players and sectors with a view to fostering Open Innovation. The public-private innovation model created inside @MIND (Milan Innovation District) has identified Fabrick as a leader in fintech and financial services. As a result, Federated Innovation @Mind and Fabrick have partnered to launch “B2B FINTECH FOR FUTURE”. The “B2B Fintech for Future” initiative is a call for standout European startups that are creating disruptive fintech solutions in one of the following B2B areas:

- Billing
- Payments
- Credit
- Prospect and customer data analysis
- Digitisation of the buying/selling process
- SaaS solutions for specific industry verticals (e.g. wellness, hospitality, catering, etc.)

By applying to the “B2B Fintech for Future” challenge via the initiative’s portal, the most promising startups and projects will have the chance to become part of Fabrick's open financial ecosystem. The “B2B Fintech for Future” initiative will enable Fabrick to welcome the best European startups to its Open Finance ecosystem from the pool of successful applicants. This will support Fabrick’s efforts to continue expanding its network with innovative new fintechs in accordance with its founding values of collaboration, openness, and innovation.

Paolo Zaccardi, CEO of Fabrick: "The decision to promote the MIND project stems from our open approach, which sees openness and collaboration as engines of growth and development for the entire financial sector and a great resource for end consumers who have an increasing appetite for innovative and customised products and services. MIND also applies this model to other sectors, making the district an all-around innovation hub. Fabrick is fully convinced of the great value of MIND and we are proud to be in charge of the fintech vertical and to provide know-how and leverage the network of interdisciplinary relationships developed over the years. Milan once again proves to be a place where it is possible to experiment, work and build together. Against this backdrop, we have launched B2B FINTECH FOR FUTURE, the first of many initiatives that will be organised to help the most promising startups to develop and grow rapidly”.

Tommaso Boralevi, President of Federated Innovation @MIND: "The entire Federated Innovation @MIND ecosystem is progressing at a rapid pace and has launched many projects that will make a fundamental contribution to the Italian and European innovation landscape in the coming years. It is in this context that we created B2B FINTECH FOR FUTURE and launched it alongside Fabrick. It is now well known that fintech played a primary role in overcoming the crisis triggered by the pandemic two years ago by enabling many small and medium-sized enterprises to obtain financing in a very short time. Now we need to go a step further and try to bring those same companies’ other tools to simplify internal processes and services: from invoicing to payments, from analysing prospect and customer data to digitising the buying and selling process, and much more. Our call for startups to join B2B FINTECH FOR FUTURE will make it possible to identify many innovative startups that can support SMEs in the transition towards increased digitalisation, and we are proud that it is happening within Federated Innovation @MIND."

The SWIFT Hackathon 2022 continues our innovation mission to work together with experts in the industry to solve the biggest technological puzzles as the digital economy evolves.

We’re looking to harness the brightest minds in the tech world, and those at the forefront of finance, to take part.

Spotlight on digital assets

Following on from our hugely successful hackathon last year, we’re now drilling into the theme of digital assets.

Are you thinking about how new networks of value will be connected to the existing infrastructure of today? Are you concerned about the traceability of ownership of digital assets? Are you currently exploring interoperability between the platforms that process these assets? We’re bringing together experts at the cutting-edge of the latest developments around these questions and giving them a unique platform to share their knowledge. 

We expect ideas to fly, thoughts to be challenged, and more than a little disruption…

And we invite you to join. Entry is only open until Friday 12 August, so sign up now to be sure to reserve your team’s place.

About the SWIFT Hackathon theme

Digital assets are a key topic on the innovation agenda, as many leading forces in the industry know.

At SWIFT, we’ve already been experimenting around this topic with major industry players and fintechs, as well as using our expertise to help others.

So it made sense to take it one step further – and collaborate and innovate as an industry. That’s why we’ve made the theme for this year’s SWIFT Hackathon “Digital assets: exploring interoperability and ownership.”

The challenges

These are the challenges we’ll be giving to hackathon teams this year:

Challenge one

Interoperability: how might we achieve interoperability between multiple digital asset platforms to have a scalable, secure, irrevocable exchange of assets against payment?

Challenge two

Ownership: how might we achieve traceability of ownership of digital assets across multiple ledgers on multiple technologies?

Neither of these questions has a simple answer. But by sharing our knowledge and expertise, together we can create solutions. We want you to challenge each other’s views, think beyond the obvious, and expand established industry thinking.  

Areas to consider

Challenge one: financial firms want faster transactions and reduced costs. Meanwhile, the introduction of new technologies may well help resolve longstanding interoperability issues.

From a legal responsibility perspective, finality and irrevocability of asset purchase is a key question in traditional asset management.

Participants should address one or more of the following use cases: coin-to-coin, tokenised asset to a single currency, tokenised asset purchase with multi-linking.

Challenge two: for traditional assets, traceability of ownership is an aspect that the industry has been actively trying to improve and gain better control over. Could accelerated creation of digitally-native assets and conversion of existing ones bring new solutions?

Another factor is that digital assets will be expected to be transferred from one ledger to another, and these ledgers use different technologies. Will this lead to even more complexity, or will it force issuers and intermediaries to adopt relevant solutions?

If you’re ready to get going and create solutions to these issues, grab a team and let’s go.

Sharing industry expertise

When you join the hackathon, you’re guaranteed to be in good company. Last year’s participating teams came from leading global financial firms as well as cutting-edge fintech challengers.

The hackathon is an opportunity to delve into key issues affecting your organisation, focus minds, and benefit from the support and expertise of SWIFT.

The solution you develop could not only help your organisation but also future-proof key elements of our industry.

Individually, this is an opportunity to deepen your expertise, and to give yourself time to innovate and explore key issues. It’s also a chance to show the rest of your firm what you can do.

How does the hackathon work?

Each company can submit one team per challenge, with a maximum of 10 participants per team.

One solution per team can be submitted.

The winners will be announced at Sibos and have the chance to show off their solutions.

On top of that, the joy is in taking part, and knowing that your skills have added to some of the biggest challenges the industry is facing right now. Share your insight, and in return, you’ll get ah-ha moments, industry connections and the chance to innovate.

We want to foster this spirit of innovation across the whole industry. Because learning benefits the industry as a whole. And connections are our driving force.

Registrations are open until Friday 12 August with the hackathon commencing on 6 September until 23 September.

Europe financial intermediary and FinTech platform YouHodler bolstered its European occupation by obtaining registration and regulatory approval in Italy. Currently, the company has offices in Switzerland and Cyprus and services various countries in Europe and around the world. Now, it will expand its physical presence once again in Italy. 

As of 29th July 2022, YouHodler has been officially registered and approved by the Organismo Agenti e Mediatori (OAM) in Italy as a cryptocurrency service provider. This registration allows YouHodler to offer its wide range of crypto services to Italian clients in compliance with local regulations.

In a statement, YouHodler legal counsel Julian Grech said “we are extremely happy with this registration. It is yet another step in YouHodler’s strategy to extend its presence within Europe. More local licenses and registrations are expected shortly.”

Following the announcement, YouHodler states it will initiate steps towards setting up a physical office space in Milan and recruiting local teammates. This new structure will align with all local operations in accordance with Italian regulations.

Grech added that “we’re pleased to continue servicing our long-time, loyal Italian clients in new and exciting ways. This latest announcement means we can take them to an even higher level, opening new gateways to creative and innovative financial possibilities.”