Profile Software, an international financial solutions provider, announced today the launch of its pioneering solution Acumen.plus Loan Portfolio Management for corporates. It offers unique support to corporates including shipping firms and family offices with powerful loan management functionality as well as risk management in specific areas whilst having an extensive range of functions across financial instruments. 

In particular, Acumen.plus loan portfolio is the ideal tool to help firms achieve standardisation of workflow, flexible curve management, and various calculation methods including client loans based on RFR (Risk-Free Rates) and indices. The system covers a variety of financial instruments such as all types of Fixed or Floating Loan Agreements, Loans with Multiple Tranches (per vessel), Syndicated Loans with Multiple Tranches, Interest Rate and Currency Swaps for hedging, Leasing Agreements, customised schedules, partial/early Prepayments, simulations, real-time valuations, daily accruals, and a wide range of other functionalities.

Furthermore, an out-of-the-box reporting module is available in the system that covers all reporting requirements including periodic payments, and future projections cumulatively or per product/facility.

Acumen.plus has an RFR instruments module, to support its clients moving away from (LIBOR) and other IBORs thus deploying Risk-Free Rates. This deployment ensures compliance and easy adoption of any change regarding Libor decommissioning, as well as the set up of the new instruments based on RFR rates.

The solution accommodates a simple and quick setup of the new instruments based on RFR rates and all requirements are easily integrated into the existing architecture, making it a must-have tool for any type of corporates thus being up and running in no time whilst enjoying a compliance-ready platform to monitor all loans. It includes the mechanism to support backwards-looking instruments, whether compounding or averaging, with or without a spread, as well as the management of specific fixing and payment lag. Due to its architecture and available functionality, the platform can comprehensively respond to the market requirements whether going for fixed at the beginning term rates or fixed in arrears daily rates.

In addition, seamless real-time integration with Market Data Vendors and Dealing platforms allows robust and flexible valuations and monitoring.

Acumen.plus is constantly being enriched to deliver advanced user experience with holistic dashboards, for all types of instruments with data and analytics.

Launched in 2009, Islamic Finance has been the fastest evolving
industry. Fintech is the future of finance and Shariah compliant
fintech solutions are catching up fast. However, while any finance
solution shall be Shariah compliant, a question remains on the added
value of such solutions. Questions such as do we need more Shariah
compliant Buy Now Pay Later and credit applications? Does such an
application encourage people to spend more than needed? Or are they
necessary developments and enhancing the quality of life of Muslims?
Join us on our 2nd Annual Islamic Fintech Leaders Summit scheduled 21 -
22 September in Kuala Lumpur + online and have an exclusive chance of
getting all these important questions and more answered by one of our
keynote speakers - Farrukh Raza, Chairman AAOIFI Governance & Ethics
Board, UK

For more info on registration and early bird seats:
https://emnesevents.com/islamic-fintech-leaders-summit-2022/#
 

Private equity giants, Carlyle and Advent International have announced their plans to acquire a 10% stake in YES Bank, one of India’s largest private sector banks, as part of a $1.1 billion capital raise.

Australian neobank Up Bank has launched savings service Maybuy. Maybuy is designed as an alternative to Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) products which have become increasingly popular in recent years.

Grasshopper, a US digital bank serving SMEs and entrepreneurs, has raised $30.4 million.

Today FloQast, a provider of accounting workflow automation software created by accountants for accountants, expanded its role as a Microsoft partner by joining the Microsoft Business Applications ISV Connect program and launching multiple apps on Microsoft AppSource. FloQast’s participation in the Microsoft Business Applications ISV Connect Program provides Microsoft ERP customers with a way to increase the efficiency and accuracy of the Close with a centralized suite of solutions. The move offers Finance and Accounting teams seamless workflow integration with their Microsoft environment and the ability to utilize their full investment in Microsoft products for increased speed and optimization across Finance and Accounting operations. Through the collaboration, FloQast, partners, and Microsoft are empowered to co-sell - which includes lead-sharing capabilities, joint marketing activities and collaboration with Microsoft Salesforce - and deliver exceptional value to the office of the CFO. 

With multiple apps now listed on AppSource, customers can integrate FloQast with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, and Outlook via open integration to handle critical operational workflows including closing the books. FloQast solutions went through a rigorous review and certification process by Microsoft to gain multiple AppSource listings, including Dynamics 365 Business Central, Teams and Dynamics 365 Finance.

“Our customers seek ways to deliver faster, more accurate financial data as they scale and respond to changing economic conditions,” said Mike Whitmire, co-founder and CEO of FloQast, inactive CPA. “Our expanded collaboration with Microsoft gives accounting teams greater efficiency and innovation utilizing the Microsoft tech stack. It’s a practical, low-risk way to digitally transform their operations without disruption and with quick ROI."

Controllers still report spending nearly 70% of their time performing traditional tasks, such as closing the books or ensuring compliance with accounting standards, and regularly face challenges with data integrity as a result of manual and siloed processes to transform transactional data into financial information. FloQast uses the full Microsoft environment, helping Accounting teams transition from the tactical to the strategic by automating the Financial Close, the cornerstone of the record-to-report process. FloQast has done the heavy lifting on integration and offers FloQast Connect, a Workflow Integration capability that reduces the effort required for both implementation and ongoing maintenance. The benefit to Finance and Accounting teams is measurable and quicker time to value with an integrated solution that:

• Moves away from manual data manipulation. Automatically transform Dynamics 365 ERP data into information with the Financial Close
• Meets accountants where they work. FloQast coexists with Excel, letting accountants use Excel when it is the right tool for the job
• Creates a secure and organized system of record. Use FloQast and OneDrive to capture evidence and implement controls in support of a more virtual audit
• Drives close anywhere. Get notifications from FloQast using Teams and Outlook, allowing accounting teams to work anywhere

“Microsoft welcomes FloQast into the Microsoft Business Applications ecosystem and will offer its workflow automation software to Microsoft Dynamics 365 customers and partners,” said Toby Bowers, General Manager, Industry, Apps & Data Marketing at Microsoft. “With this Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration, FloQast offers a unique, innovative solution to organizations around the world that focuses on accounting and finance solutions.”

• 01.08.2022 -- 06:49 pm

Thanks again for joining us today. Could you please introduce and your role in the company?

Hi, it's great to be here. I'm the founder and CEO of Clausematch and at Clausematch we help regulated companies and regulated industries to comply with regulations and manage compliance content in a modern, compliant and real-time way.

Thank you very much. So what are the problems that Clausematch solves for the customers? And if you could please share the latest use cases and how your solutions evolved during the time.

Yes, absolutely. At Clausematch, we help our customers to manage compliance content like policies, procedures, regulatory obligations in one single place, and then to distribute that compliance content to employees in a compliant way and track engagement with these documents. Clausematch solving a problem that I have seen personally in the financial services industry and before that, working in oil and gas. And that is the fact that we're still managing compliance documents in the same way as 20 years ago. With Clausematch, rather than, for example, sending a policy document when it's being updated by email as a Word document and trying to get comments, changes, approval, suggestions on this document via email, all of that is centralized. And once that document is approved by the relevant people, by the committees and checked for compliance with the related regulatory obligation, it's then distributed to employees via what we call an employee portal, where employees can engage with this content, ask questions,provide data stations and we can check if certain employee has read the document.

Thank you very much. It’s brilliant. So you touched on the solutions that you provide to the customers. So what is the USP of Clausematch then?

So our unique part of Clausematch is what we call a document editor. A long time ago when this technology wasn’t really available to the market, we decided to build a real-time content and document collaboration as a core of the platform, and even today in the market we don’t see many companies developing that type of technology because it’s quite challenging. And at the same time because we control and help our customers to control daily the content creation process that means that we are storing that content as structured data and that also means that we can apply machine learning and natural language processing to this content and then help our customers and our users to highlight regulated content within the platform. As example, a practical example would be mapping and identifying relevant and related regulatory obligations, mapping them to policies, and then, in turn, mapping them to procedures. So when, for example, you're changing a policy document or a specific paragraph in a policy document, you know exactly where the impact is across the organization on other related documents.

Thank you very much. So you touched on the compliance and regulations and policies. So what are the trends in the compliance space that you observe nowadays?

So we're seeing a big change in companies looking at new regulations. For example, ESG standards and ESG regulations across the world are affecting how companies are, for example, evaluating their vendors, and how companies are evaluated by their investors. And that means that a much wider audience of companies is required to comply with ESG standards and regulations. And there is a big interest in a big change in companies adopting new policies, new procedures, and actually following the ESG standards, which are being pushed out by organizations or countries or governments. I guess in another kind of financial services sphere, we're seeing crypto regulations being talked about quite a lot. And actually, we're working with a number of crypto companies that are following the trend of potential new crypto regulations, and they are managing compliance documents in a very similar way. Obviously, they're part of antimony laundering regulations and they need to comply with them. But there are new regulations that are being drafted now. So that is another emerging field and regulation.

Thank you very much. That's brilliant. So you touched on the features that you have developed and serving your customers, as well as the goals so Clausematch, its 10th anniversary this year. What are the milestones that company has achieved during the journey, and what are your further growth strategies?

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess a few milestones. Our first client was Barclays after we participated in the Barclays accelerator, which was run by Techstars. Accelerator for companies. And that has been a great partnership. We've been working with Barclays now for over six years, and they have proven to be an amazing client for us. So that was the first milestone, which then enabled us to create a case study with Barclays and then show to other banks how compliance could be done in a better modern way. The next milestone was really when we raised a large round of funding in 2018, which was led by Index Ventures and Talis Capital. Both are well known venture capital funds. And that enabled us to really expand our team and build out the products that we had. For example, we came out with a new employee portal module, exceptions management Module, compliance assessment module, and this really helped us to extend our product offerings. And then 2020 was a big year for us when a big milestone was getting four North American clients and expanding to North America based on the demand that we're getting from the US. And Canadian markets. So this was a huge milestone because we know it's very difficult to expand to the US Market, and typically it takes a lot of time and resources to expand there. But on the back of signing great Tier One financial institutions in North America, we managed to expand and we're growing. That our team there. Otherwise, yes, the last two years has been great as well in working with other adjacent industries. So we've signed a number of clients in asset management and insurance. So that really added more verticals to where our software has been used.

Thank you. And lastly, what is the latest news about Clausematch?

So, the latest news. We raised another round of funding last year, which is enabling us to continue growing, to continue really streamlining our go-to-market strategy in Europe and US, which are currently quarter markets for us. An interesting fact that Sony Innovation Fund, which is part of Sony Corporation, also invested in this round. And for them this was a strategic investment because large companies are realizing that regulation is not going away and regulation is just becoming more complex and applicable to wider types of companies by way of data privacy regulations. For example, antimatter laundering. Know your customer. It doesn't just apply to financial services, but actually every industry is now becoming heavily regulated.

That's brilliant news, congratulations on that and thank you very much for your time.

Again, thank you very much and thank you for having me.

Simpl, India’s fastest-growing checkout network, announced a collaboration with ClearTax to enable hassle-free tax filings. Through this partnership, millions of ClearTax users can pay for using their services by opting to pay through Simpl’s convenient and speedy 1-click checkout option.

“Filing taxes can be cumbersome and during this tedious process having an easy option to pay makes it less daunting. We are thrilled to be ClearTax’s partner in easing the tax filing process and making it simple for millions of their customers,” said Nitya Sharma, co-founder & CEO, Simpl.

Simpl is reimagining how online payments can be seamless and frictionless, enhancing the final consumer experience. It’s relentlessly working towards building a suite of new merchant and consumer-facing products to enable frictionless commerce experiences.

“We like Simpl’s tech-driven approach to enabling great customer experience and simplifying checkout options which makes it easy for our tax filing clients to use our services with greater speed and convenience,” said Srivatsan Chari, co-founder, ClearTax.

To date, Cleartax has saved over two million man-hours in income tax filing and an average of Rs 20,000 in tax. It has also partnered with over 40,000 organizations to provide tax filing services for their employees and partners.

The synergies between ClearTax and Simpl will allow millions of Indians access to convenience, speed and easy checkout enhancing the consumer experience. Through its powerful AI and ML tools, Simpl enables merchants across product categories and end customers across segments to unlock multiple benefits from a single unified platform. Today, over 20,000 merchant partners and millions of trusted users pan-India are onboard the checkout network.

Bybit, the third most visited cryptocurrency exchange in the world, launched a new structured product Bybit Shark Fin for all users on August 1, 2022.

Bybit Shark Fin is a low-risk, principal-protected structured product that affords better capital protection to users as they reap profit. Users deposit their funds into the product and receive a yield based on the performance of the strategy. The underlying strategy utilizes up-and-out call options to generate the yield.

This means users of Bybit's ultra-fast trading platform — processing up to 100K transactions per second — can deposit stablecoins, such as USDT or USDC, to earn attractive yields with lower risk.

The final yield is calculated based on the settlement price of the underlying asset when the plan expires, in comparison to the preset price range. There are time periods to choose from between seven and 21 days.

At the end of the time period, if the final price is within the preset range, users can receive a maximum yield of up to 20%. If the price settles below or above the range they can receive up to 3% or 10% respectively.

The product includes bullish or bearish strategies that speculate on whether or not the price of the underlying asset will rise or fall. Therefore, in a situation where market prices fluctuate rapidly in either direction within the given product parameter range, subscribers have a better chance of achieving the best yield.

In a risk-off environment, many people are holding stablecoins and seeking a low-risk yield for their capital. Bybit, with its commitment to world-class security, an insurance fund, and 24/7 customer service in multiple languages, is a popular choice for investors looking to earn a yield on their stablecoins.

"Bybit has a wide range of products suitable for every investor, and Bybit Shark Fin is a fantastic addition to our specialist suite of yield-generating products," said Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit. "This trading product is perfect for users looking for a simple, low-risk investment that is settled at regular intervals."

Bybit Shark Fin is the latest addition to Bybit Earn, an asset management platform that includes Bybit's dual asset and liquidity mining pool features. For its extensive trading products, Bybit has created a risk-based margin requirement, which means that Bybit's system can deploy profits from winning positions to shore up a position during market volatility for maximum capital efficiency.