Fintech, Finance, Technology, Banking Highlights – 20 July 2018
Apple Pay Now Available to BBVA’s Customers in Spain
BBVA, brings its customers Apple Pay, which is transforming mobile payments with an easy, secure and private way to pay that’s fast and convenient.
“BBVA, as a leader in digital banking, is continuing to evolve its services and promote mobile payments, so we’re thrilled to bring Apple Pay to our customers”, said Peio Belausteguigoitia, Business Development director in BBVA Spain.
Security and privacy is at the core of Apple Pay. When you use a credit or debit card with Apple Pay, the actual card numbers are not stored on the device, nor on Apple servers. Instead, a unique Device Account Number is assigned, encrypted and securely stored in the Secure Element on your device. Each transaction is authorized with a one-time unique dynamic security code.
Apple Pay is easy to set up and users will continue to receive all of the rewards and benefits offered by credit and debit cards. In stores, Apple Pay works with iPhone SE, iPhone 6 and later, and Apple Watch.
Online shopping in apps and on websites accepting Apple Pay is simple with Touch ID, or just double-click the side button and glance at your iPhone X to authenticate with Face ID. There’s no need to manually fill out lengthy account forms or repeatedly type in shipping and billing information with Apple Pay. When paying for goods and services on the go in apps or Safari, Apple Pay works with iPhone 6 and later, iPhone SE, iPad Pro, iPad (5th Generation), iPad Air 2, and iPad mini 3 and later. You can also use Apple Pay in Safari on any Mac introduced in or after 2012 running macOS Sierra and confirm the payment with iPhone 6 or later or Apple Watch, or with Touch ID on the new MacBook Pro.
Trade finance distribution platform to expand AI capabilities after US$6.3mn investment
Tradeteq, the trade finance distribution platform, has raised US$6.3mn of equity investment in seed extension funding round, led by ADV.
The financing will be used for the expansion of Tradeteq’s platform, and for the release of new applications and data services. Several of Tradeteq’s existing investors also participated in the seed extension round.
Tradeteq’s platform connects trade finance originators with institutional investors and provides them with the technology to interact and transact efficiently. Machine learning is used to deliver advanced credit analytics and reporting, making trade finance asset investment both transparent and scalable.
Since its launch in 2016, US$150mn of assets have been processed through the platform, and Tradeteq has received distinctions from various sources, including Sonovate and Wealth and Finance Magazine, which named it Best Trade Finance Collaboration Network 2018.
Tradeteq’s ultimate mission is to make trade finance a fully investable asset class. “We started Tradeteq with the vision to make trade finance investable and to establish trade finance as an alternative asset class.
This funding is a significant milestone for Tradeteq as it will allow us to aggressively expand our sales and marketing efforts as well as broaden and expedite product development,” says Christoph Gugelmann, co-founder and CEO of Tradeteq.
Mike Dimelow, CIO at ADV, said: “The global trade finance market is worth $12trn USD annually, which is largely managed by banks and currently isn’t an investable asset class for institutions. Tradeteq want to change all that and so are bringing Artificial Intelligence to the market through a marketplace platform which should open up trade finance to a more diverse set of companies than traditional credit scoring models do, expanding the market and enabling institutions to provide capital to emergent and fast-growing SME/SMBs. This is a huge opportunity and is a space that Tradeteq’s founding team have years of world-leading trading experience within and are ready to redefine the industry. I’m delighted we can play a small part in such a bold mission.”
Corvil Introduces AI-Powered “Intelligence Hub” to Help Electronic Trading Firms Achieve Optimal Execution Quality and Operations
Corvil announced Intelligence Hub, the next generation of digital intelligence to improve the performance, agility and digital experience of today’s Electronic Trading businesses. This new solution has the potential to dramatically change how they see, manage, and improve quality of execution, client experience, and operations.
Electronic trading businesses require intelligence that correlates and understands changes in the critical dimensions of trading outcomes, financial performance, client experience, and underlying technology performance and security. Intelligence Hub provides proactive alerting on changes in these dimensions and allows business and operations teams to flexibly visualize, explore and analyze this key information for more informed action.
“Intelligence Hub has enabled us to quickly see the business how we need to, understanding important activity about customers, how they are experiencing our service, and why,” said a Managing Director at a Global Bank. “From improving customer engagement and outcomes to increasing operational efficiency and providing better intelligence for business decisions, this new level of insight has become imperative to running our business.”
Applying machine learning and big data analytics to Corvil’s unique capture of high fidelity business data from the network, Intelligence Hub accurately identifies anomalies, triages areas of greatest concern, and has capabilities to predict conditions for improved planning.
“In today’s competitive trading environment, firms require greater understanding of their execution and how clients are experiencing their service. Corvil is committed to empowering firms with the best insight and intelligence, to optimize their trading business,” said Donal Byrne, Corvil CEO. “Intelligence Hub marks a major development in extending Corvil’s unrivalled capabilities in deriving intelligence and analytics from network data to wider teams to ultimately help trading firms to consistently move fast and stay secure.”
W2 Global Data raises £1.25m
A South Wales fintech company W2 Global Data has closed a £1.25million funding round backed by Mercia Fund Managers, Development Bank of Wales and TTI Angels.
W2 Global Data, which is based in Newport and has doubled in size since the beginning of the year, is now planning to recruit a further 20 staff. The latest funding round follows an initial investment by Mercia and the development bank in 2017 and brings the total amount raised by the company to over £3.0million.
W2 provides identity verification services to help prevent fraud and money laundering. With access to thousands of government and commercial data sources, it can instantly verify whether the data given by individuals is genuine and even whether they are on a criminal wanted list.
W2’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools allow payment and financial services companies to screen clients and managers, online retailers to verify the identity of purchasers in card transactions and online gaming firms to check the age of players.
Founded in 2011 by Warren Russell, the current CEO, the business has achieved consistent growth and now employs almost 40 people. Warren says: “The rapid growth of online fraud and increased regulation is putting real pressure on banks, financial services, online retailers and other businesses to verify their customers’ identity. Demand for our services has far outgrown our earlier projections and we have doubled our headcount over the past year.”
