News in brief - February 2011

DataFlux has been chosen to support the implementation of Ecclesiastical Insurance Group’s data management programme, enabling compliance with the Solvency II Directive data requirements, and improving operational efficiency. The firm will use the DataFlux Data Management Platform to help control the integrity of data and provide the means to comprehensively govern data.

McAfee is furthering its commitment to securing devices for work, personal and e-commerce use with enhanced mobile security offerings. Its Business Ready program will be launched in Q2 2011, enabling partners to pre-load or load McAfee Enterprise Mobility Management client software with the McAfee Mobile Security consumer client technology. McAfee has also bundled its Wave Secure and Virus Scan technologies into a single licence for its partners.

Piran Partners and Consult Hyperion have partnered to address the Near Field Communications (NFC) mobile payments environment, and to tackle the question of how a sustainable NFC economic business model can be developed. A process has been developed enabling third parties to create and deliver a sustainable NFC go-to market strategy.

FRSGlobal will provide advanced Value at Risk (VaR) backtesting technologies within its solutions in Q1 2011. The techniques will allow risk managers to benefit from the application of statistical analysis on profit and loss data compared against VaR measures at configure confidence levels, holding periods and sample sizes, easing risk managers’ workloads and supporting them in model configuration and analysis.

COMPUTERLINKS has announced the launch of its ALVEA Cloud Attached Storage service, developed to address the needs of small to medium-sized businesses to protect against the loss of critical business data through the implementation of a centralised storage and secure off-site data protection and recovery infrastructure.

VeriFone has launched PAYware Mobile, a pocket-sized reader aimed at small businesses, allowing them to ring up card sales with the same security and reliability as any major retailer. Using their smartphones, and shipping from April 2011, the reader works with selected models to accept secure chip and PIN credit, debit and contactless card payments – adding new convenience for both merchants and customers.

The government department responsible for keeping and maintaining the Land Register for England and Wales, the Land Registry, has selected open source data management tool, Talend Integration Suite. The tool extends the existing Talend Open Studio.

WeDo Technologies has launched BASE, a new low TCO and fast deployment tool for small operators that want to protect their revenues, targeted at mobile network carriers with up to one million subscribers. Tier 3 mobile operators can use a system that in a short timeframe and with a low budget addresses key issues and processes within the mobile operator prepaid revenue streams.

Direct Debit Limited has formed a partnership with WorldPay enabling customers to benefit from a single comprehensive payments platform and make and collect numerous payment types, including credit and debit card, Direct Debit, SEPA and Faster Payments, through one system. Direct Debit Limited has added a module that processes card payments to its PayCentre payments-management platform.

Capita, through its subsidiary Capita Financial Managers Limited, has signed an agreement to use Calastone’s settlement, matching and reconciliations functionality. The deal enables Capita’s investment manager delegates, as well as their distributors, to benefit from Calastone’s straight-through-processing, and removes the need for manual intervention and reduces risk, by automating processing throughout the trade lifecycle.

Novell has announced its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server will be used to support the London Stock Exchange’s new trading platform. The system will help the Exchange to manage the high volume of traffic passing through its systems in record-breaking time, and will help improve the performance of the Exchange’s UK cash markets.

SEB has become the first Nordic bank to launch an iPad app, offering market data from more than 50 exchanges in real-time as well as SEB Enskilda’s equity research. The market data includes consolidated order depth for several market places, charts and news. The analysis service comprises research reports, fact sheets, earnings revisions and recommendation changes on the 300 largest Nordic companies.

VMware hosting company StratoGen has announced the launch of its hybrid cloud solution. Working with VMware, StratoGen have marketed a solution that enables organisations to seamlessly move virtual machines from their own infrastructure into the StratoGen cloud.

European provider of carrier-neutral collocation datacentre services, Interxion, has announced a strategic partnership with NYSE Technologies, the global commercial technology unit of NYSE Euronext. The partnership builds upon NYSE Technologies’ use of Interxion as a provider of datacentre space to house several network access point for its pan-European and Asian trading network, the Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure (SFTI).

Temenos has launched into the cloud with the launch of T24 on the Windows Azure platform. This is the first core banking system to go into production with customers on Azure, and builds on Temenos’ experience of core systems applications in hosted environments. The move offers far reaching operational and financial gains to certain banking markets across the globe.

TSYS has entered into a partnership with CASSIS International to provide secure mobile payment, loyalty and commerce functionality. CASSIS is a mobile trusted service manager for banks, retailers, transit operators and mobile service providers, and is globally certified by Visa and MasterCard.

BT has announced that its collaboration services for financial markets is now commercially available. The announcement follows the completion of successful customer trials. The service allows users to spot opportunities, make faster and more informed decisions, provide advice to clients and move to capture client order-flow ahead of the competition, allowing them to better service their clients, and do so with greater efficiency.

eWise has launched eWise payo mobile, a smartphone application that enables consumers to initiate secure and private payments for goods, services or bills online or face-to-face, without having to provide personal financial information to any third parties. Following the launch of eWise payo, an Online Banking ePayments solution, the mobile app brings a consistent, intuitive, fast and safe way to pay from accounts with existing funds. It also provides visibility of account balances at the time of purchase.

Bank Machine, the UK subsidiary of Cardtronics, Inc., has announced a multi-year deal with Yorkshire Building Society to take over the management of its 20 ATMs. The deal will include maintenance and cash delivery through Bank Machine’s in-house cash-in-transit company, Green Team.

BT has launched a consultancy service to help firms meet new regulatory obligations. Mobility Compliance Quick Start helps firms to address forthcoming compliance requirements to record all communications from mobile devices related to the execution of client orders or transactions.

Virgin Media Business has launched a new proposition aimed at the datacentre market that will reduce power and space consumption and allow datacentres to access carrier grade connectivity simply. Virgin Media Business has extended its network into selected datacentres to deliver carrier grade performance, connecting customers to a range of services at speeds up to 10Gbit/s with true network resilience.

BT has announced the next phase of the roll-out of its next generation voice trading platform. Customer trials are set to begin in April this year, and live deployments are then expected to begin on branch floors from July. The platform breaks down the barriers of physical and proprietary hardware switches by moving to an open, software-based component model, which can be distributed across a trading firm or into the cloud, providing firms with flexibility and cost efficiency.

SunGard has acquired PredictiveMetrics, a provider of predictive scoring and analytical services for trade credit, debt collections, utilities and other markets. The acquisition will help extend SunGard’s AvantGard suite of receivables solutions to offer statistical scoring services to help organisations proactively analyse the credit and collection worthiness and likelihood of delinquency or payment across their receivables portfolio.

FaceTime Communications has revealed its new corporate name – Actiance, which it says better reflects its focus on ‘active compliance’ for next generation communications in the enterprise. Actiance enables use of Unified Communications, collaboration and Web 2.0, including blogs and social networking sites.

BT has launched Virtual Data Centre (VDC) Private, the latest update to its cloud-based services. The service enables customers to build dedicated private clouds to drive efficiencies whilst responding to the changing needs of their business. VDC Private delivers the benefits of cloud-based services, such as improved flexibility and lower cost, and allows customers to choose a solution to meet their current business needs.

Ixaris has launched Opn Card Guardian, a payment application that automates the corporate publishing process through one-time-use virtual Visa cards. Developers and businesses can integrate corporate purchasing functionality into third-party procurement systems, without have to partner with a financial institution or integrate with a card processor.

Norwegian investment bank, Pareto Securities, has gone live with Fidessa group’s Software as a Service (SaaS) sell-side trading platform. The solution has underpinned Pareto’s global trading operations for six months, and incorporates Fidessa’s algorithmic trading functionality and FIX connectivity to multiple liquidity venues worldwide.



Share Story:

Recent Stories


Creating value together: Strategic partnerships in the age of GCCs
As Global Capability Centres reshape the financial services landscape, one question stands out: how do leading banks balance in-house innovation with strategic partnerships to drive real transformation?

Data trust in the AI era: Building customer confidence through responsible banking
In the second episode of FStech’s three-part video podcast series sponsored by HCLTech, Sudip Lahiri, Executive Vice President & Head of Financial Services for Europe & UKI at HCLTech examines the critical relationship between data trust, transparency, and responsible AI implementation in financial services.

Banking's GenAI evolution: Beyond the hype, building the future
In the first episode of a three-part video podcast series sponsored by HCLTech, Sudip Lahiri, Executive Vice President & Head of Financial Services for Europe & UKI at HCLTech explores how financial institutions can navigate the transformative potential of Generative AI while building lasting foundations for innovation.

Beyond compliance: Building unshakeable operational resilience in financial services
In today's rapidly evolving financial landscape, operational resilience has become a critical focus for institutions worldwide. As regulatory requirements grow more complex and cyber threats, particularly ransomware, become increasingly sophisticated, financial services providers must adapt and strengthen their defences. The intersection of compliance, technology, and security presents both challenges and opportunities.