Fintech, Finance, Technology, Banking Highlights – 10 October 2018
Grab forges strategic cloud partnership with Microsoft to drive innovation and adoption of digital services across Southeast Asia
Microsoft Corp. and Grab, on-demand transportation, mobile payments and online-to-offline services platform in Southeast Asia, announced a strategic partnership that will transform the delivery of digital services and mobility in the region by leveraging Microsoft’s world-class expertise in machine learning and other artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
As a first step in the broad collaboration between the two companies, Grab will adopt Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform and Microsoft will make a strategic investment in Grab.
“This partnership signals a deep collaboration with Microsoft on an array of technology projects, including big data and artificial intelligence, that will transform the delivery of everyday services and mobility solutions in Southeast Asia,” said Ming Maa, president of Grab.
“As a global technology leader, Microsoft’s investment into Grab highlights our position as the leading homegrown technology player in the region. We look forward to collaborating with Microsoft in the pursuit of enhancing on-demand transportation and seamless online-to-offline experiences for users.”
“Our partnership with Grab opens up new opportunities to innovate in both a rapidly evolving industry and growth region,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president at Microsoft. “We’re excited to team up to transform the customer experience as well as enhance the delivery of digital services for the millions of users who rely on Grab for safe and affordable transport, food and package delivery, mobile payments, and financial services.”
Belgium’s bpost bank Selects Wolters Kluwer to Provide AnaCredit and Regulatory Reporting Software
Belgium-based bpost bank has chosen Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business to provide its regulatory reporting and AnaCredit software for its operations in the country.
OneSumX Regulatory Reporting uses a single source of data to ensure consistency, reconciliation and accuracy and includes the firm’s Regulatory Update Service. This unique service is maintained by Wolters Kluwer experts who actively monitor regulation in approximately 30 countries.
AnaCredit is the European Central Bank project to set up a dataset containing detailed information on individual bank loans in the euro area, harmonized across all Member States. Wolters Kluwer’s integrated, scalable OneSumX AnaCredit solution uses grid and in-memory computing to handle the large data volumes required by the extensive regulation. This enables faster processing time and a more flexible operational environment for end users. In-memory processing preserves data lineage at each functional stage enabling more transparent reporting and full confidence in the reporting process leading to lower risk of mis-reporting.
“AnaCredit introduces a step-change in the amount of data that banks are required to report on and on such a frequent basis – daily in some cases,” noted Pierre-Aymar de Potter, Chief Financial Officer at bpost bank. “As a result we required an expert in the field to ensure we are comprehensively managing our AnaCredit and wider reporting obligations. Wolters Kluwer was the natural choice.”
Aareal Bank AG: Aareal Bank participates in property investment platform BrickVest
As part of its digitisation growth strategy, Germany’s Aareal Bank Group has announced its intention to acquire a stake in BrickVest, the London-based European online platform for commercial real estate investments.
The planned acquisition is subject to contractual agreement and the terms are not disclosed.
BrickVest provides professional investors with easy, cost-effective access to institutional-class real estate investment opportunities and is the only fully regulated online platform of its kind in Europe. Aareal Bank is the second major German bank to acquire a strategic stake in BrickVest, following Berlin Hyp’s investment in October 2017.
Aareal Bank, a leading provider of international commercial property financing, decided to invest in BrickVest because of the latter’s success in building a proven digital model, which it believes will play a key role in shaping the future of real estate investing.
Hermann J. Merkens, CEO of Aareal Bank commented: “BrickVest is a proven start-up with a comprehensive understanding of real estate, capital markets, regulation and technology. Its platform fits perfectly with our innovation and digitization growth strategy. Making such acquisitions is also one of the central thrusts of our Aareal 2020 programme.”
