Fintech, Finance, Technology, Banking Highlights – 15 May 2018
Workers Credit Union signs for Sageworks lending tech
Workers Credit Union of Fitchburg, Mass., has recently partnered with Sageworks, a financial analysis company that offers lending, credit risk and portfolio risk solutions.
The credit union selected Sageworks Lending Solution to improve efficiency and consistency across their credit analysis and origination processes in support of recent growth.
Workers Credit Union, now with 16 branches throughout Massachusetts, has grown assets to nearly $1.7 billion and posted year-over-year growth of 57 percent in loans outstanding in 2017 alone. To scale and support the increased activity, the credit union’s commercial lending department undertook a 6-month strategic assessment. A key outcome was the decision to move from the more time-consuming, arbitrary processes loan officers were using to a solution that would allow for faster, streamlined analysis and consistent documentation for regulators. Workers undertook a vigorous assessment of vendors to find a solution that would help them push through and track more loans as they seek to continue growing profitably.
With the institution’s chief objective of improving credit analysis, the team saw value in Sageworks’ history of serving accountants and CPAs and in the company’s expertise in understanding cash flows. The credit union also found that Sageworks Lending Solution offered full automation of the member’s lifecycle from beginning to end, starting with its patented Electronic Tax Return Reader to eliminate data entry, through to the collection of the loan and document preparation.
“We chose Sageworks for the very simple reason that its loan origination system demonstrated the highest value proposition for Workers Credit Union. We believe that Sageworks will increase revenue, at the margin, but will also make our processes more efficient and effective, meaning productivity gains for our lending staff,” said William “Bill” Mullin, Senior Vice President of Commercial Lending at Workers Credit Union. Expanding further on the credit union’s implementation expectations, Mullin added, “A major side benefit for Workers is that our regulators trust Sageworks systems, which will help us achieve better regulatory results. In other words, Sageworks software will make our Commercial Lending business better, so we can better serve our members!”
PumaPay raises $117m in private token sale
Decentralized Vision, Cyprus-based blockchain company, has ended the Private Sale for its PumaPay project by raising $117 million on May 7, 2018.
The fundraising has resulted in the Token Generation Event that produced the total supply of 78,042,956,829 PMA tokens. Besides achieving the fundraising milestone, PumaPay has signed up over 40 companies with over $10 billion worth of transactions per year, as partners.
PumaPay‘s PullPayment Protocol was created with the mission to bring crypto payments in the daily life. Its innovative approach reverses the mechanisms of a transaction, enabling merchants to ‘pull’ crypto funds from their customers’ account, thus avoiding the drawbacks of the current banking systems, such as high transaction costs, the insecurity of chargebacks (reverse transactions) and associated fines, and the lack of customer anonymity.
PumaPay Protocol supports payment practices that have been impossible on the blockchain, including recurring payments with fixed and variable amounts, pay-per-use transactions, restricted and split payments, and more, enabling merchants to run their businesses the way they’re used to with credit cards.
“We are very proud and happy to have raised this amount of $117 million, leading us to generating 78,042,956,829 PMA tokens,” says PumaPay’s CEO, Yoav Dror. “This great achievement will help us finish the development of our PullPayment Protocol, PumaPay wallets, the PumaPay Pride, and other innovative components to achieve our vision and values. It gives us the resource to expand our ecosystem, bringing more companies to adapt the protocol at this early stage. I would like to thank all our contributors for their trust and support. It is also a great honor to have so many companies to have committed to adapt the Protocol from the onset, introducing PMA as a payment method and creating a strong foundation for the PumaPay economy.”
AMBD and MAS ink fintech deal
The Autoriti Monetari Brunei Darussalam (AMBD) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today signed a FinTech Cooperation Agreement (CA) to foster innovation in financial services between Brunei Darussalam and Singapore.
The FinTech CA will facilitate the sharing of information on emerging FinTech trends and developments, and promote joint innovation projects between both countries. It will also establish a framework for both authorities to provide support for FinTech companies to better understand the regulatory regime and opportunities in each jurisdiction.
Beyond the FinTech CA, AMBD and MAS will also work together to enhance the retail payment ecosystem between Brunei Darussalam and Singapore. Both authorities will be guided by a cooperation framework that will provide mutual benefits to businesses and consumers in the two countries.
