Matt Parker, former Partner & Chief Financial Officer of New  York-based venture capital firm Greycroft, has joined circular economy-focused investment and innovation firm Closed Loop Partners as Chief Financial Officer & Managing Director. Matt will manage the financial operations of Closed Loop Partners’ asset management business as well as the firm’s innovation hub, the Center for the Circular Economy. 

Prior to joining Closed Loop Partners, Matt managed finance, legal and operations at Greycroft,  a seed-to-growth venture capital firm, for eight years. During his time at Greycroft, he scaled the firm’s infrastructure from $600 million of capital raised to over $2 billion, with over 200  investments under management. His time at Greycroft is preceded by a notable career in strategic and operational financial management and alternative asset investing. 

“Investment and innovation are critical pieces to building closed-loop systems, and Closed Loop  Partners has been a pioneer in accelerating the transition to the circular economy,” says Parker.  “I am thrilled to join the entire Closed Loop Partners team and look forward to combining my  finance and investment experience with the firm’s deep sector expertise.” 

“Closed Loop Partners is at a key moment of growth as the circular economy becomes a top priority for investors and corporations working to meet climate goals,” says Ron Gonen, Founder  & CEO of Closed Loop Partners. “With the circular economy driving a $4.5 trillion capital shift  by 2030 globally, we are thrilled to have Matt join the Closed Loop Partners team to advance our  firm’s strategic growth and capital optimization.”  

The firm’s investments align capitalism with positive social and environmental impact by reducing waste and greenhouse gas emissions via materials innovation, advanced recycling technologies, supply chain optimization and landfill diversion. To date, the firm has made over  60 investments in solutions advancing circularity, which has led to 6.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions avoided and 3.6 million tons of materials kept in circulation. 

Cuentas, Inc., a leading fintech provider of mobile financial apps and payment solutions, is expanding internationally. The company will commence global operations in Mexico with Cuentas LATAM and a headquarters in Mexico City. Consumers in Mexico will be able to start requesting funds via Cuentas LATAM later this year from Cuentas USA Mobile App. Current customers in the United States are able to send money from Cuentas App and pick up the funds at any Western Union locations in Mexico using the Cuentas ecosystem.

“Globally, around 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked,” says Arik Maimon, founder and Executive Chairman of Cuentas. “In Latin America, less than half of the population has access to financial products. With borderless services, Cuentas and Cuentas LATAM provide comprehensive banking solutions for remittance customers and underserved populations around the world,” he continued. “It’s difficult to overstate the dramatic impact this will have on working immigrants and their families.”

Hardbacon, a personal finance application used by more than 39,000 Canadians, announced today a new relationship with home insurance provider Square One introducing a better way for Hardbacon users to shop for home insurance in Western Canada.

As part of the partnership, Hardbacon’s home insurance comparison tool can now be used by Canadians in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, to shop and compare home insurance to secure the best deals and packages for their unique needs.

The relationship with Square One will allow Hardbacon to reach more Canadians than ever and solidifies its commitment to helping those in Western Canada shop for the best financial products. Currently, more than 55% of the traffic at Hardbacon.ca comes from outside of Quebec, which users regularly visit to compare everything from credit cards and bank accounts to insurance and online brokers.

“We are very excited to collaborate with a strong partner in Western Canada, like Square One, to further support our users across the country,” said Hardbacon CEO, Julien Brault. “Now more than ever, Canadians are looking to save and we are making it easier than ever to save on home insurance.”

The move comes on the heels of an equity crowdfunding round launched by Hardbacon last month, via the FrontFundr portal. The bulk of the proceeds of this round will be used to fuel company growth. Since its founding, Hardbacon's total financing has reached more than $2.8 million.

Launched in 2011, Square One was started by a team of experienced professionals who, after years of working in the insurance industry, recognized that traditional home insurance wasn’t meeting the needs of most consumers. Today, it offers the only home insurance policy in Canada where customers can customize their policy, choosing to only pay for the coverage they actually need.

“The home insurance industry hasn’t changed since the 1970s, but working with companies like Hardbacon we’re able to meet the needs of today’s consumers,” said Daniel Mirkovic, President at Square One. “We’re excited to work together and continue to offer a better home insurance experience across Canada.”

Jscrambler, a technology company specialising in cybersecurity products for web and mobile applications, today announced a new report: ‘The State of Application Security in UK Banking’. Analysing a sample of banks and fintechs from the UK, Jscrambler’s dedicated research team have focussed on the security of the source code of each bank or fintech’s applications and analysed their exposure to third-party risk and software supply chain attacks.

Attacks such as phishing, ransomware, malware and banking trojans have been gaining momentum globally, resulting in the theft of user data and disruption of operations. In parallel, Fintechs have been enjoying very rapid growth. With competition between players in the banking industry quickly mounting, development teams had to cut time to market, which inherently increases the chance of security weaknesses being introduced into the web and mobile apps they develop. Ultimately, consumers are left at risk, and companies face regulatory, financial and reputational risks.

Specifically, for each of these apps and websites, tests were performed with two different methodologies: an analysis of the existence of JavaScript source code protection techniques and an analysis of all scripts present on the website that come from third parties, as well as the behaviour of these scripts.

The key findings include:

• 55% of apps do not obfuscate the JavaScript code - leaving it exposed on the client-side and opening the door to attacks.

• 40% of those that do use obfuscation are using very weak protection, with little resilience - attackers can easily reverse this by means of a de-obfuscator.

• 18% use anti-debugging protection at runtime - the vast majority of UK banking websites are not impeding threat actors from experimenting with the source code at runtime.

• 23 external domains (on average) receive data from banking apps - often, security teams are not aware that their applications are sending data to so many external domains. 

"When you have a system with hundreds of critical moving parts that are sourced and maintained by dozens of vendors, third-party risk cannot be ignored,” said Pedro Fortuna, Jscrambler co-founder and CTO. “Protecting JavaScript code against attacks is essential, especially when you consider the risk posed to consumers and their data, as well as the financial and reputational damage caused to banks and fintechs.”

The results presented in this report are based on an analysis conducted by Jscrambler's security team between March and May of 2022. The sample of this analysis represents 11 banks and Fintechs from the United Kingdom. The analysis refers to a series of tests carried out on the websites and mobile apps of these institutions, used by their own customers. 

To view the report, click here.

Ruta Cizinauskaite, the cybersecurity researcher and writer at Atlas VPN, shares her thoughts on crypto phishing scams: “Brand impersonation is a common tacting among cybercriminals as people are more likely to trust the brands they know with their money or information. To lure in their victims, scammers develop counterfeit websites using legitimate brand names, similar-looking URLs or appearances. Crypto scams, in particular, are very lucrative to cybercriminals as cryptocurrency payments are irreversible, uncontrolled by central authorities, and many newcomers are not very knowledgeable in how crypto works. ”

The Disruption House, providers of in-depth risk analytics on the ESG and business resiliency capabilities of Private and Venture Funded firms, announced that their scorecards and reports will be available for many of the firms hosted on the Temenos Exchange open marketplace for fintech solutions.

Using model-based analytics developed on internationally recognised frameworks, The Disruption House’s proprietary risk assessment scorecards and reports, updated annually, enable potential purchasers to better understand and monitor the resiliency and sustainability of the fintechs under consideration. As a result, Temenos clients with access to the Temenos Exchange open marketplace can quickly identify relevant fintechs aligned to their business needs at pace and with confidence.  

Temenos Exchange brings open innovation to market faster and at scale. The marketplace offers pre-integrated and approved fintech solutions in areas such as digital identity, digital engagement and sustainability that can be easily deployed on Temenos open platform for composable banking. Enabling banks to accelerate the creation of innovative financial services offerings extends and enriches the overall user experience. This approach also helps to significantly reduce development costs.

Martin Bailey, Director of Innovation and Ecosystems, Temenos, said: “Temenos Exchange acts as an accelerator for fintechs and software developers, helping them develop, validate and monetise new banking solutions for our client community that serves the banking needs of 1.2 billion people worldwide. The Disruption House helps us to rapidly measure and understand the risk profiles of Temenos Exchange members. Making The Disruption House’s reports and scorecards available to our vast banking audience of more than 3,000 clients in 150 countries means they can quickly identify the operational resiliency risks that need to be managed when working with their chosen innovation partners.”

Rupert Bull, CEO and Founder at the Disruption House, commented. “In this volatile and highly competitive market environment, speed to change is a game-changer. And while the desire to engage with new or early-stage fintechs is very strong, most institutions find it both challenging and time-consuming. This is where The Disruption House comes into its own. Our goal is to democratise and accelerate the adoption of modern technology and services, enabling firms to inject much-needed innovation and verifiable sustainability practices across the global financial services ecosystem.”

Rupert concluded. As a result, we believe this unique collaboration marks a significant turning point for the financial institutions and the new fintech providers alike, as all users can now reap the proven benefits of our viability and risk management assessment services. We look forward to leveraging the power of the Temenos platform for the common good of all financial services industry participants.”

Wealth Dynamix today announces that they have launched the first CLM benefit calculator for Wealth Managers.

Using a handful of typical use cases throughout the client lifecycle, the benefits calculator gamifies business case generation by allowing firms to generate the likely benefits of mitigating to a digital-first CLM platform - all reflected in terms of revenue in, or costs out of the firm.

The use cases include increases to prospect win rate and share of wallet via responsive nurture processes and opportunity management. Secondly, the cost savings by reducing the man-hours during the onboarding process – which Wealth Dynamix say they can do within a single day – as well as the increase in fees earned by getting AUM faster, and lastly, the operational efficiencies realised by improving client servicing. 

Why did Wealth Dynamix build this?

1. The tyranny of the should: Many companies feel that they need to do something – but often leap into a transformation project without fully considering the art of the possible / the true scope. I.e. Rather than transforming the “way we do things” they transform one thing – which often leads to more problems (fragmented process, siloed teams, multiple sources of data) leaving the firm in a worse position than before. Conversely:
2. The cost of doing nothing is too high – Only 8%* of CEOs say their business model will survive the current digital disruption. many industry analysts believe that firms that do not embrace digital will not survive beyond the next few years
3. A blueprint for a business case for CLM does not exist. Wealth Dynamix has therefore attempted to de-mystify the process, and provide practical advice and tools to support – but say they can also support the development of a firm's business case unlocking the value and helping to make transformation a reality.
4. Proving the Value: Knowing what levers and metrics are important in delivering ROI for a CLM project/integration is problematic. The benefits calculator can help take the guesswork out of it – This light-touch version helps prepares the firm for the task with key metrics segmented, prioritised and weighted; together with built-in assumptions from real-life use cases.
5. The transformation process is speeding up – research** shows that firms want to conclude the business case element of a transformation process within 3 months. Without a process to follow many firms may fall at the first hurdle

Johnny Beloe, Director of pre-sales at Wealth Dynamix and creator of the calculator said: “The Wealth Management industry is undergoing a period of intense technological transformation fuelled by changing client needs and expectations including digital-first experiences, lower fees and the need for more information at their fingertips.

“In order to progress change initiatives, firms can sometimes run into challenges articulating the business value of the proposal; it may be instinctively obvious that transformation is the ‘right’ thing to do, but the financially centric metrics stakeholders are often looking for can be harder to arrive at.

‘We are pleased to provide a simplified version of a comprehensive business value analysis tool used within Wealth Dynamix to provide some insight into the true value a CLM solution can deliver, expressed in raw financial terms”.

Founded in 2012 by wealth management technology experts Gary Linieres and Brent Randall, Wealth Dynamix is the first wealth management technology firm to revolutionise the Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) processes with innovative applications of data modelling. Wealth Dynamix digitises the entire client lifecycle for private banks and wealth managers, from client acquisition and onboarding through to ongoing relationship management and client servicing. Wealth Dynamix identifies opportunities for boosting operating efficiencies and growing revenue, whilst enabling a significantly higher degree of client insight and due diligence.

Wealth Dynamix operates globally with offices in the UK, France, Switzerland, Singapore, United States of America, Lithuania and Vietnam.

As the ONLY end-to-end CLM provider for Wealth Managers, Wealth Dynamix takes CLM to unchartered territories. The Wealth Dynamix solution adds intelligence to client data. This empowers advisors to make the right recommendations at the right time, identify opportunities to grow revenue and boost operating efficiencies, all while ensuring regulatory adherence.