MDX Technology (MDXT) today announces the acquisition of Iceflow Technologies Limited. Iceflow enables users to build workflows on-the-fly, circumventing congested development queues. Proof of Concepts (POCs) can be set up within days and deployed very quickly due to it being a low-code/no-code SaaS platform. Iceflow has been developed by Graham Denyer, ex-IHS Markit and architect of the original Markit EDM solution, Graham will join MDXT as CTO. 

Graham comments. “Iceflow is the culmination of 20 years experience in building financial services workflow solutions. The tool has been specifically designed to solve some of the pressing requirements that a lot of institutions struggle with such as post-trade processes, compliance workflows, KYC and more. Once MDXT and Iceflow are fully integrated, clients will be able to do even more with their data and benefit from enhanced cross-platform, real-time data distribution capabilities driven by complementary workflows.”

Nigel Someck, CEO at MDXT comments. “We are excited to welcome Graham and his team. MDXT has over 35 customers across the financial services landscape and all of them are looking to automate as many of their manual processes as possible. Often, opportunities are missed due to crippling development lead times, Iceflow is the perfect solution enabling them to rapidly build and deploy integrated workflows in days. We already have one client who is adopting Iceflow to augment the capabilities which MDXT delivers, I am certain there will be many more to come.”

Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange with one of the largest BTC futures open interest, has enabled portfolio margin mode for eligible users on June 15, 2022.

Bybit users will now be able to fully leverage their portfolio with greater capital efficiency thanks to the new portfolio margin feature. The portfolio margin mode evaluates positions across Bybit's extensive trading products and calculates the margin accordingly.

Portfolio margin increases users' capital efficiency by calculating the overall risk across a user's hedged portfolio. Doing this reduces margin requirements, and potentially amplifies return on capital.

For example, under the bull market call spread strategy in regular margin mode based on individual positions, the trader needs to pay the premium required for the option bought. At the same time, the trader will also need to pay the margin required for the option sold, while the combination target return is limited. Under this strategy, users may not achieve the optimal return on capital.

With the portfolio margin mode activated, Bybit calculates the combined risk of options bought and sold. Since most of the risk has been hedged, the margin will be significantly reduced. The more comprehensive approach to risk assessment yields safer and more stable trading strategies and, in turn, higher returns in profit scenarios.

"We are excited about the opportunities Bybit's portfolio margin will open up for Bybit users. As traders ourselves, we understand the importance of having access to the most powerful trading tools and features. To that end, portfolio margin offers one of the best capital efficiency options in the market on one of the most reliable trading platforms out there. This product is another step forward in our growth as a digital asset service provider in our continued effort to meet the needs of the community of 6 million registered users on the Bybit platform," said Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit.

Portfolio margin takes derivatives trading on Bybit to the next level. Users can start with newly launched USDC perpetual contracts plus USDC options with greater capital efficiency. Portfolio margin will be expanded into USDT products in later stages.

Furthermore, traders can be confident that Bybit's tested and trusted TP/SL (Take Profit/Stop Loss) feature will help them to trade derivatives easily with advanced exit position methods. As with all our leveraged products, users can manage risks and safeguard themselves against excessive losses with multi-layered liquidation protocols to ensure safety and fairness across all Bybit trades, every step of the way.

Workato, the leading enterprise automation platform, unveiled today its second annual Work Automation Index, the company's data report focused on the key trends that shaped automation over the past year. For this year’s report, the anonymised data was collected from 900 mid-size to enterprise Workato customers who utilise automation across their organisations (18% of these businesses have a presence in the EMEA region), revealing a massive shift in which departments are using automation tools and creating that automation.  

During a time when the world is rapidly changing and organisations are finding that how we work is continually evolving, automation has become the great equaliser, creating an opportunity to be more efficient and deliver better business outcomes.  

Workato discovered that the role of IT has shifted from delivering projects to being an enabler of the business, with 66% of organisations now having 5 or more departments using automation and the number of organisations with 7 departments automating has nearly tripled since 2019.  

“It’s amazing to see that IT teams are now becoming the less dominant automation creators within organisations. This demonstrates that when you have the right guardrails, the right governorship, and the right tools in place, business users can create automation safely,” said Carter Busse, CIO at Workato. “From finance becoming the most automated department to HR seeing the value in automation to help improve the employee experience, we’ll continue to see this type of growth and adoption as automation becomes more accessible across departments.”  

This year’s report identified the following key findings:  

· Departments beyond IT are automating more than ever before. The number of organisations with 7 departments automating has nearly tripled since 2019. 23% of automation was built by non-technical users in business operations roles, the highest of any persona in both business and IT. 

· Finance is the most automated department. Surpassing IT for the first time, Finance departments made up 26% of all automation. Order-to-cash continues to be one of the top automated processes with record-to-report automation also seeing significant growth with a 290% increase.  

· HR automation continues to be a focus with recruiting automation growing 316%. As the competition for top talent continues and “work from anywhere” becomes the norm, HR teams are using automation to stand out and improve the employee experience right from the start.  

·  Hospitality saw the biggest growth in automation usage at 1,518%. The hospitality industry has struggled over the past two years with lockdowns and travel restrictions keeping people at home. As the industry begins to recover, it's seeing the value in automation tools to help streamline processes.  

· Data creates a way for IT to add strategic value to the business. Businesses are striving to become more data-driven and to use their data to make real-time decisions. The DataOps function is one of the top departments with 3x growth in automation in the past year.  

· EMEA and APJ regions are tapping into the power of automation. In EMEA, the growth in automation for processes like insights and analytics, which has grown 403% in the past year, as well as in financial processes like record-to-report, and in IT operations. For APJ, the focus is on financial automation with record-to-report growing 569% in the past year and procure-to-pay growing 514%.  

“Business leaders increasingly recognise that pervasive use of automation technology leads to improved efficiency, greater business agility, faster innovation, and shorter time to value,” said Massimo Pezzini, Head of Research, Future of the Enterprise at Workato. “Consequently, we’re seeing a foundational shift in how IT and business decision makers are embracing automation tools. A business-led, IT-enabled democratised model will become the dominant approach to automation over the next five years.”  

Designed to uncover the workflows used and the role automation plays across departments and functions, the 2022 Work Automation Index analysed 900 mid-size ($50M to $2B in annual revenue) to enterprise (over $2B in annual revenue) Workato customers who use automation in their businesses. The team looked at all of the automated workflows created at these companies from February 2021 to January 2022, as well as compared to the period from February 2020 to January 2021 for year-over-year trends.  

DivideBuy, the leading UK point-of-sale (POS) finance pioneer, has today announced multiple appointments to its commercial senior leadership team to drive the company’s commercial strategy and fuel its ambitious growth trajectory.

Headed up by the recently-appointed Teresa Byrne, Chief Commercial Officer, these pivotal hires mark an exciting new chapter for the Newcastle-under-Lyme business, following the impressive £300m funding agreement announced in late 2021 with global investment management firm, Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP.

With its unique business model of being both tech solution provider and lender, DivideBuy’s revolutionary approach to providing affordable lending solutions comes at a time when interest-free credit is the fastest-growing eCommerce payment method in the world today.

POS finance accounted for 2.9% of global eCommerce transaction value in 2021 and is projected to account for a 5.3% share of the market by 2025. Driven by agile technologies like that of DivideBuy, the UK’s interest-free credit POS finance market, with 54% of UK consumers using the payment method being from the millennial generation.

With these new hires and funding in place, DivideBuy’s commercial senior leadership team will advance the disruptive fintech’s role as a leading player in the POS finance market, further develop the company’s award-winning SaaS platform and expand its merchant network, both in the UK and internationally.

DivideBuy’s new commercial senior leadership team now includes:

• Pat Hourigan as Head of Sales: Pat will maximise sales growth, grow revenues and market share, identify new business opportunities and lead the sales team. Having previously worked with private equity and FTSE 100 companies, Pat has vast experience with blue-chip companies. Pat’s last major role was Managing Director (UK) at Photo Me, having also spent 14 years in senior roles for Yellow Pages/Yell.com as well as Sales Director for JLA, Htec, Npower and ADT.
• Samir Ray as Head of Product: Samir will align DivideBuy’s product strategy and overall business strategy and ensure the company's products meet the needs of its customers. Samir has 20 years experience in financial services and technology, including nine years at one of India’s largest financial services firms. Within this role, he was part of the core product team where he managed retailer capabilities and was recognised several times by the senior management for making strong contributions in innovative products.
• Ben Smith as Head of Partnerships: Ben will deliver value and scale for the business by building strategic partnerships that drive DivideBuy’s LendTech strategy. Ben has 14 years experience in the payments sector, including roles as Strategic Partnerships Director and Sales Engineering Lead at Worldpay. During this time, he gained a wealth of experience in partnership, sales and relationship management as well as technical pre-sales operations covering transaction networking and routing, omnichannel payment gateway service and card scheme relationship management. 
• Scott Winstanley as Head of Marketing: Scott will set and drive the company’s expanded multi-channel marketing strategy. Scott was previously the Head of Global Marketing for identity verification specialists Acuant and Hello Soda, as well as spending six years at an award-winning marketing agency, Motionlab, both as Operations Director and Head of Digital. Scott has spent over 20 years creating and delivering global and national marketing campaigns and has vast experience in both B2B and B2C marketing, with a key focus on data and insights.
• David Stewart as Head of Compliance: Dave will lead the execution of the company’s risk and compliance programmes to identify, analyse and mitigate internal and external events that may impact the company. David has over 10 years of experience in financial services, including compliance management roles at Jaguar Land Rover, as well as having built the Financial Products Compliance Framework for the Halfords Group of companies to incorporate consumer credit, insurance, subscription and loyalty services.

On the new hires, Teresa Byrne, Chief Commercial Officer at DivideBuy, comments: “We’re thrilled that Pat, Samir, Ben, Scott and David are bringing their in-depth leadership, operations and business intelligence strengths to DivideBuy, at an incredibly exciting time to be joining DivideBuy as we build on our gathering momentum in the growing POS finance market. With their established expertise and proven business success, the commercial senior leadership team will be a catalyst for DivideBuy’s ambitious plans for the future. We are now well placed to become the go-to credit partner for consumers and merchants, offering the nation’s shoppers truly flexible finance.”

DivideBuy’s latest senior appointments demonstrate its commitment to providing consumers in all income groups with affordable POS finance based on responsible lending practices, as well as giving retailers the ability to offer more consumer payment choices.

Robert Flowers, CEO of DivideBuy, added: “We are delighted to have bolstered DivideBuy’s leadership team with such experienced and inspiring talent, and I look forward to seeing what they will do for the team and the company. Our commercial senior leadership team is now in a position to help scale the business and redefine the ethical consumer credit space for our customers through new products, partnerships and markets. These appointments will further engrain our ethos of ethical and accessible lending throughout our people and our business.”

“We have always put the consumer at the heart of our business and pride ourselves on being able to help consumers make informed purchasing decisions thanks to having no late fees, instalment repayments over longer periods, deposit weightings and payment holidays. Ultimately, DivideBuy has one goal – to make fair, ethical, affordable and fee-free lending accessible to consumers at all income levels.”

CASHe, India’s leading credit-led, AI-driven financial wellness platform today announced that it has launched an industry-first credit line service using its AI-powered chat capability on WhatsApp to provide customers with a fast, seamless and convenient way to access instant credit lines by merely typing their name. The company further stated that it is the first fintech player to offer this revolutionary service that promises an instant credit limit without the need for any documents, app downloads or filling up tedious application forms. WhatsApp’s millions of users across India can avail of a pre-approved credit limit 24/7 in under a minute from CASHe on WhatsApp itself. Any customer can avail of this service by initiating a conversation by just saying a ‘Hi” on CASHe’s WhatsApp number +91 80975 53191. The user-friendly service on the popular instant messaging platform will give users access to instant credit in a contactless way and at their fingertips. This facility is available to all salaried customers.

Underlying this facility is an AI-powered bot that matches the customer’s inputs and automatically facilitates a formal application along with a KYC check, and once verified, sets up a credit line in a few clicks through a guided conversational flow. The borrower’s details will be generated and displayed based on the name entered – the only key input that the borrower needs to enter at the start of the conversation.   

Mr. V. Raman Kumar, Founder Chairman, CASHe, said, “It’s our “Customer First” approach that is at the forefront of our product innovation strategy. Today’s smart consumers demand instant gratification and contactless support. Our AI-enabled chat product introduced on WhatsApp is a step in this direction. We believe an industry-first and innovative service like this will not only empower our customers and ensure that they get a best-in-class experience in their demand for credit but will also significantly expand our credit footprint using the humongous user base of WhatsApp, thereby bringing us closer to our vision of achieving financial inclusion to the underserved in India.”

CASHe’s WhatsApp chat service is built on the WhatsApp Business Platform, an enterprise solution that allows businesses to communicate with new and existing customers on WhatsApp in a simple, secure, and reliable way. WhatsApp in India has been gaining consumers in millions with a quarter of the two billion global users are from India alone. Taking cognizance of this trend, CASHe has become the first fintech player to introduce this service through its AI-powered chatbot. The service received tremendous traction with customers during the beta stage with a near-zero delay in approving credit limits for the KYC-compliant customers.  

Nearly half (43%) of all large financial institutions have already adopted Open Banking according to a new report from API-driven identity management company Curity.

The ‘Facilitating the Future of Open Finance’ report surveyed 200 global financial institutions and employees who are managing the Open Banking process. The report reveals that the top three motivators for adopting Open Banking are to increase competitiveness (58%), to deliver new products and services (55%), and to meet customer demand (48%).

Despite these significant drivers for the Open Banking initiative, the results also show some hesitation regarding its adoption. Reasons for hesitation include compliance and security risk concerns (61%), skills and knowledge shortage (51%) and changing business priorities (45%).

Curity’s findings come amid the fourth anniversary of the launch of PSD2, which made Open Banking a regulatory requirement in the UK. According to the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE), there are now 4.5 million regular users of Open Banking.

With the exponential interest in Open Banking, the global Open Banking market is expected to reach $43.15 billion by 2026 according to the report published by Allied Market Research.

With customer acceptance growing, the fact that nearly three-quarters of organizations surveyed (71%) plan to adopt Open Banking in the next 18 months demonstrates the importance of continuing to build robust technical solutions, meet regulatory requirements and preserve business integrity. 

The largest security concern amongst financial enterprises is outdated systems that don’t support data sharing (62%), meaning they are unable to comply with new data protection regulations that are imperative to new Open Banking products and services. 

Travis Spencer, CEO at Curity, said: Our new report offers a level of insight that is crucial in understanding Open Banking and the impact it will have on financial institutions in the foreseeable future. 70% of financial institutions surveyed are planning to adopt Open Banking relatively soon so they must understand the regulatory requirements and security necessary to be successful.”

Nearly all financial institutions (96%) believe consumer adoption is crucial to the future of Open Banking. Organizations must communicate with customers in simple and concise ways about data privacy without relying on jargon to overcomplicate matters, ensuring customers feel confident in the way their data is handled and managed within the Open Banking process. Understanding the deployment of modern authentication methods is key to consumer adoption, according to over half of those surveyed (56%).

The Future of Open Banking is clear for financial institutions of all sizes if they are willing to embrace it. Larger enterprises have led the way with nearly half of those surveyed (43%) already adopting the technology but there are still opportunities to encourage smaller organizations to adapt and move forward with innovation for years to come.

With summer firmly upon us, Lisbon’s tech scene is beginning to heat up as it welcomes the launch of Plug-and-Play Finance provider, Weavr, to Portugal.

In recent times, Portugal has become a noted hub for start-ups. In fact, the number of start-ups per capita in the country is currently 13% higher than the average in Europe.

Thanks to its skilled, multilingual, and diverse local workforce, Lisbon was recently ranked seventeenth on a list of the Top 100 emerging ecosystems, with the city quickly becoming a hotbed for investors and innovators alike. To this end, the city’s booming tech and fintech scene is currently worth €2.1bn

Now, Weavr will become the latest addition to this thriving hub. The business has already announced the appointment of Lisbon native, Joaquim Marques, to lead local business development, with more technical and development hires expected soon. Making an early impact, Weavr has also signed deals with two Portuguese companies, E-virtual and GrowIN Portugal.

Speaking on the launch, Daniel Greiller, Chief Commercial Officer, said:

“The traditional Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) model in Portugal, as across all of Europe, is dauntingly complex and expensive for early-stage businesses looking for options to embed financial services. It’s totally at odds with the country’s agile and innovative start-up community and appetite for growth.

“By offering a ‘plug-and-play' model of embedded finance we can enable digital businesses in Portugal to look beyond the limitations of traditional BaaS and instead use our ready-made embedded-finance options. It also means that more businesses can unlock growth much more quickly and efficiently without worrying about complex integrations or regulations, navigating compliance or manage data security, as it’s all part of the Weavr service.”

Last year, there were 2,159 start-ups in Portugal, and this growth is set to rocket. With Weavr’s platform, Portuguese start-ups will be able to get to market in just a few weeks, eliminating lengthy delays in setting up and reducing unnecessary costs, which are typically experienced with BaaS and other embedded-finance providers.

Marin Cauvas, Principal at Anthemis adds: “Weavr continues to build on its vision to become the mainstream plug and play embedded finance infrastructure partner of any business types. Lisbon is an obvious expansion hub for the company given the growing breadth of its innovation and technology startup tissue.

“Weavr's solution has the potential to largely benefit the local ecosystem, by impacting how businesses "think" about their tech infrastructure, whether they are launching a new product, aiming to expand internationally or are in need to modernise part of their stack.”

With imminent plans to expand into the US and Singapore, Weavr’s sights are set firmly on rapid global expansion, enabling more start-ups to get to market quickly and efficiently offer financial services to their customers.

The official Weavr launch event, entitled “Sky-Rocketing Growth for Digital Start-ups” in partnership with Fintech House, will be held at the Altis Grand Hotel in Lisbon on 23^rd June 2022 at 5 pm. The event will welcome successful founders, investors, and the media to a panel with experts, including a world-leading venture capital firm Anthemis, which will offer strategic advice on building, funding and growing a start-up.

OmniCard, an omnichannel spending platform with a keen focus on youth and underserved consumers, has tied up with Mobileware Technologies for their interoperable UPI solutions for wallet-wallet/bank-wallet transactions. A market leader in UPI interoperability, Mobileware also offers scalable payment solutions to organizations that require digital payment transactions for seamless access to the payments ecosystem.

OmniCard is a Bank independent RBI licensed PPI exclusively focusing on its technology innovations to offer omnichannel spending experience to the customers across the section of the society. OmniCard offers a RuPay powered card and a mobile app. OmniCard is a complete payment platform that provides multiple online and offline payment modes, complete card controls, a robust security system, money management and many more exciting features. OmniCard can be used by anyone above 14 years of age. The platform’s innovative payment modes offer security and convenience to its users and their latest offering ‘Omnicard Keychain’ is a contactless, on-the-go payment solution.

Mobileware will be offering OmniCard with PPI interoperability features along with hosted UPI switch to work easily in the interoperable UPI ecosystem.

Commenting on their association, Satyajit Kanekar, Co-Founder & CEO of Mobileware, says, “OmniCard has a unique product line that focuses primarily on the youth of India who influence the lifestyle and spending trends in today’s time. The financial freedom and responsibility that Omnicard provides the youngsters are remarkable, and we are happy to be offering our seamless interoperability solution that further makes online transactions easier for their customers.” Mobileware is the market leader in the hosted UPI wallet interoperability services.

ZikZuk Technologies, a leading player in solving credit challenges faced by MSMEs, has been selected by the RBI for the ‘Test Phase’ for MSME lending as part of the third cohort under RBI’s Regulatory Sandbox.

Regulatory Sandbox refers to live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which the regulators may permit certain relaxations. The Reserve Bank had received 22 applications for the cohort and shortlisted eight for the same.

A cohort for SME lending will be expected to fill the lending gap for small and medium entrepreneurs through the innovative use of technology and data analytics. ZikZuk will be testing its innovative product ‘Business Finance Manager’ to enable an unsecured cash flow-based model that will open up a massive opportunity to enable credit for NTC (new to credit) and thin-file customers.

‘Business Finance Manager’ integrates with MSMEs' accounting software, and banking ecosystem and uses its proprietary analytics engine to empower MSMEs with insights on sales, cash flow, payables, receivables, etc. It also enables lenders to make data-driven decisions to provide their contextual credit to MSMEs.

Tarun Bansal, Co-Founder, ZikZuk, said, “We are honoured that the RBI has selected ZikZuk Technologies for the test phase under Regulatory Sandbox – Third Cohort on MSME lending. We have constantly believed in evolving our products with innovation backed by technology. It gives us great pride that the RBI has found merit in the same. With this feat, we plan to explore more opportunities that will enable us in creating feasible and sustainable solutions for accelerating MSME lending across the country.”

In September 2021, the Reserve Bank of India announced the opening of the third cohort under the regulatory sandbox for MSME lending. The entities that have been selected are ZikZuk Technologies, FinAGG Technologies, Moshpit Technologies, Mynd Solutions, New Street Technologies, Rupifi Technology Solutions, and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), and SysArc Infomatix. These entities are supposed to start the testing of their products this month itself.

AllianceBernstein Holding L.P., a leading global asset management firm, and Allfunds Blockchain, the arm of Allfunds (AMS:ALLFG) specialising in blockchain technology, have announced a collaboration to adapt AB’s asset services activities to the blockchain ecosystem.

Allfunds Blockchain’s dedicated funds technology offers the possibility to transform operational processes in the fund industry value chain and provide legacy platforms with efficiency, agility, accuracy, and the increased safety blockchain technology delivers. AB will connect its global operational activity with the Allfunds platform to Allfunds Blockchain, where it will enjoy all the benefits of the solution, as well as Allfunds’ global scale and growing offering. The collaboration will offer Allfunds Blockchain solutions across AB’s EU domiciled-global platform.

Ronit Walny, Head of AllianceBernstein’s Investment Innovation Center, added, “Across multiple departments at AB and in partnership with Equitable Holdings, we underwent a deep exploration of the value that the blockchain technology unlocks. We anticipate that this technology will be transformative to the asset management industry, uncovering significant transactional efficiencies and enhanced transparency as well as operational agility that makes investment solutions available to a broader investor base. We are committed to delivering solutions that our clients prefer today and in the future, Allfunds Blockchain brings extensive fund industry experience and insightful and integrated solutions, and we look forward to partnering with them in our journey to offer solutions across our EU domiciled global platform.”

Karl Sprules, Global Head of Technology and Operations at AllianceBernstein, added, “Our interest in blockchain was born out of an internal, innovative ideation workshop, hosted jointly between AB and Equitable Holdings for employees. In 2021, more than 100 colleagues across both organizations participated in the program, working to increase firmwide knowledge of disruptive technologies and closely examine how blockchain and cryptocurrency can be used in the financial services industry. A year later, we are excited to announce this integrative collaboration between AB and Allfunds Blockchain, which we believe is an important step forward for the future of our firm – and across the industry.”

Rubén Nieto, Managing Director of Allfunds Blockchain, said: “We are very excited to collaborate with one of the leading global asset management firms and deliver our bespoke solutions to such a renowned household name like AB. This emphasizes our clear strategy to team up and help to understand the incredible benefits of the technology and our value proposition to all the actors of the fund industry. It is about the future of the industry vs. the industry of the future.”