Biz Builder Mike

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Europe

AC Milan Will Launch ACM Crypto Tokens for Fans

Italian football club AC Milan recently partnered with fintech blockchain company Chiliz to launch a new fan token. The token will be available on socios.com.

An exciting new development for fans

The new fan token will bring new engagement options for fans. It will also give fans voting rights in club polls. The token will be called $ACM and will be available on the social platform socios.com. The official announcement suggests that $ACM will be available in the next few weeks and give VIP rewards to fans of the football club.

AC Milan Will Launch ACM Crypto Tokens for Fans

However, AC Milan is not the first club to launch a fan token. AS Roma, PSG, Juventus, and FC Barcelona have already launched their fan tokens on the same platform. The estimated fanbase of the Italian club is around 450 million around the globe. It is one of the most prominent clubs in European football with a number of Serie A titles and 18 FIFA and UEFA trophies.

A new partnership for the club

Chief revenue office of AC Milan, Casper Stylsvig commented on the new partnership and said,

“We are happy to join hands with Socios.com and welcome them to our family as a global partner. This partnership allows us to give our 450 million fans across the world another exciting way to interact with AC Milan, which is particularly important under the current circumstances created by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Blockchain technology is becoming popular amongst football clubs in Europe. Barca launched a cryptocurrency for its fans back in February 2020. Socios.com has also registered exponential growth because of football clubs joining its platform. It has registered the sale of 14 million fan tokens on its platform last year alone. Clubs and partners have generated millions via the sale of these tokens. Some fan tokens were listed on global crypto exchanges in late December and early January because of which volumes also increased. In December, the trading volumes of $JUV and $PSG reached 24 hours high of $300 million.

AC Milan Will Launch ACM Crypto Tokens for Fans

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Huobi Global Partners with BCB Group to Better Globalize Offerings

Huobi Global has partnered with BCB Group, to “better globalize” its offerings, according to a release. Huobi is a large digital asset firm based in Asia.

BCB Group is a payment services provider that enables clients with European fiat the ability to send fiat to crypto counterparties via “BLINC” in real-time, 24/7, 365 days a year.  BCB Group is a multi-jurisdictional regulated cryptocurrency service firms managed by an executive team have that has worked for incumbent financial services firms. BCB currently serves clients including Bitstamp, Coinbase, Galaxy, and Kraken. BCB Group provides payment services in 20+ currencies, FX, cryptocurrency liquidity, and digital asset custody.

Huobi states that working with BCB will enable it to bank its OTC desk with the firm as well as let them handle foreign exchange flow.

Ciara Sun, the VP and Head of Global Business at Huobi commented on the arrangement:

“We understand the importance of both a compliant, and streamlined service. Partnering with BCB allows us to offer a European fiat on and off ramping service that we know is in line with the laws of that area, but it also allows our customers in Europe to experience a smooth and hassle-free user experience.”

Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, founder and CEO of BCB called the partnership important in furthering BCB’s mission to “promote future-friendly growth of the industry.”

“We are excited to play a part in Huobi’s global project.”

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UK based Property Finance Platform LendInvest Claims it’s Well-Prepared to Deal with New COVID-19 Lockdown Measures

UK-based LendInvest, a property finance platform, has reportedly told its investors that it’s well-prepared to deal with new lockdown measures. This, after making upgrades to its business processes, risk mitigation efforts and various financial metrics during the lockdown enforced in March of last year.

The digital lending platform confirmed that it had to face challenges during the first lockdown, which was when construction and property viewings had to temporarily stop. But during the current lockdown period, property viewings may continue and home moves are also going as planned.

Jono Gomez, Treasurer at LendInvest, has noted that companies are beginning to adapt to changes after the initial lockdown. Gomez revealed that the lender learned more about the COVID-19 pandemic, which has helped with opening up construction sites. Valuers have also been able to carry out socially-distanced visits, and third-party services figured out how to conduct operations remotely.

Gomez added that LendInvest has spent this time carefully going over its business processes, building in more resilience and buffers, and changing up its financial risk metrics to support greater limits and also make plans for the worst possible scenarios in the foreseeable future.

Gomez further noted that the lending platform has been able to adapt and held significantly more funds or assets just in case its investors experienced their own challenges and asked for approval for alternative types of valuation methods with its funders.

Gomez noted:

“None were required, and none have been utilized, but should something of the scale of the March lockdown happen again, we are better placed to pivot more nimbly to keep supporting our customers.”

Gomez also mentioned that the lending platform would be able to keep operating throughout the Coronavirus pandemic with a full set of valued loans to progress which will help the company face the current challenges.

Gomez added:

“March was a month riddled with uncertainty, and the team’s quick reaction to the scenario and the work carried out to put both internal and external stakeholders at ease is easily the success story of 2020. Resiliency planning, scenario analysis, credit risk and liquidity management pivoting, were done with incredible rigor, diligence and speed, to give [the] executive committee and the board confidence that the business could weather the storm.”

Christian Faes, Founder of LendInvest and creator of the lobbying group Fintech Founders, recently noted that the Fintech sector is “losing out to big banks” in receiving attention from the government.”

Faes said:

“Now, more than ever, the Fintech sector is facing real challenges and the voice of founders needs to be heard loud and clear.”

Last month, LendInvest launched a new Cloud-based application for short-term lending products. The new application is designed to streamline and automate the loan origination process. The application utilizes Salesforce to enable a centralized hub for customer information, a log for all interactions with LendInvest while automating the workflow.

As reported in November 2020, LendInvest was recognized as the BTL [Buy to Let] Lender of the Year at the 2020 National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB) awards for the second year in a row.

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By 2022, Most Payments will Migrate to ISO 20022, a Standard for Electronic Data Interchange between Financial Institutions, According to Payment Components

The team at Payment Components, a UK-based firm that’s empowering Open Banking with agile PSD2 and API frameworks (developing solutions for banks, corporates, and developers including BaaS while supporting Fintech payments), notes that with the introduction of new regulations and payment systems, managing a bank’s payment infrastructure is “becoming increasingly complex.”

Bank institutions have to integrate with new acquisitions, localize their proprietary technology stacks to the countries they move to, while also having to keep up with standard payment integrations. If banking platforms don’t complete these tasks, then their payments messaging “becomes siloed and causes system delays, errors, and increased costs,” according to Payment Components.

The Payment Components team asks how smaller banks and e-money institutions can “efficiently keep up with the constant stream of new releases?” The Fintech firm states that it has created a solution that lets banks manage all their payment flows “within the same system.”

The company explains:

“Each country has its own domestic payment service and each bank and group may have its own messaging system. So far, the dominant messaging standard used for the last decades has been SWIFT MT. But this international standard has reached its limits as the industry needed a messaging protocol able to carry more data and requiring fewer manual intervention.”

They added:

“The demand for instant payments is growing. In the UK, the use of Faster Payments has seen an increase with double digits quarter on quarter. And growth is similar all over the world.” 

Big Four auditing firm Deloitte reveals that real-time payments have helped with increasing and providing easier access to working capital. They’ve also improved the efficiency of the financial system by enhancing financial inclusion, while lowering the overall cost of payment systems. According to Payment Components, it should be clear that the trend is “moving towards instant payments and ISO 20022 is the messaging standard that can be used for all types of financial communication.”

The payments firm further noted:

“There are a huge number of benefits to managing payments with a new protocol such as the ISO20022. Firstly, it can transfer a lot more data and therefore enable banks to build informational structures and make data-driven decisions. Secondly, it offers long term benefits for the economy as it allows for more flexibility and innovation in the financial sector.”

Payment Components explains that it’s a protocol that serves as an “enabler” since it provides a more organized way to take care of payments messaging. Two of the primary features are that messaging components are reused instead of having to be created “from scratch” for each message, and the format (syntax) is separate or distinct from the semantics. This reportedly makes it a lot easier to understand messages wherever they might be coming from, the Payment Components team noted.

They also mentioned:

“ISO20022 is there to help improve communication, understand messages from other institutions, and enhance cooperation. The vast majority of the payments around the world will have migrated to the ISO20022 by 2022.”

The Fintech firm continued:

“SEPA, the EURO area payment integration initiative, also utilizes ISO20022 to offer low-value transfers at minimal cost and real-time payments throughout the SCT Inst scheme. That’s why the best strategy is to implement a system that can manage all types of payment protocols.” 

They further noted that it’s one that manages to stay up to date with new releases, and can also integrate with ISO20022, SWIFT MT, SEPA and proprietary payment protocols. With an Internet-based end-to-end solution, banks and financial institutions may add digital payments to their core system in “a simple plug-in application.” They also mentioned that the upfront time and investment required to install it is “minimal,” and the system is “specifically built to integrate seamlessly with different banking core systems.”

Payment Components claims that being able to stay up-to-date with the latest releases and payment infrastructures does not have to be costly and time-consuming. We also don’t have to work with fragmented legacy systems, because with payment systems such as aplonHub, your bank may use the same technology that Fintech firms use and take advantage of the latest payment standards “without creating more siloes,” according to Payment Components.

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Open Banking: UK Fintechs have Asked FCA to Adopt a More Market-led Approach to Open Finance Services

Fintech companies are reportedly urging the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to “break” banks during 2021.

A group of London-based startups is asking the FCA to look into ending the control and dominance of traditional banking institutions, specifically their use of consumer data. The companies have stated that this move should increase healthy competition in key financial services such as savings, credit, mortgages and pensions.

The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), which serves as the policy voice of Fintech startups and other tech scaleups and reportedly includes former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s son Euan as one its board members, is recommending a more market-led approach to providing open finance services (somewhat like in Australia).

Coadec is calling on the FCA to put an end to what they consider to be an “overly-standardized” approach to offering these types of financial services.

The Coadec consortium notably includes Fintech Unicorn TransferWise and Seedrs. In statements shared with City A.M., the group suggested that the FCA needs to “break banks” and offer a more transparent open banking system. Specifically, the FCA should allow other providers (not just banks) to engage in platforms through which consumer data, user accounts and customer transactions are shared among various parties, the consortium recommended.

Joel Gladwin, Head of Policy at Coadec, noted that if Fintechs are provided more access to data this year, then it should increase competition in key services like savings, credit, mortgages and pensions.

Gladwin added:

“Banks were able to send armies of slick lobbyists and magic circle lawyers to Brussels to build extra barriers to Fintechs and maintain their gatekeeper roles.”

But if consumers are able to have greater control of their banking details and related information, then it could help increase trust, promote more engagement and empower activity, Gladwin claims.

He further noted:

“By granting consumers a new data sharing right, and encouraging a market of specialists to compete, banks will have very little room for maneuver this time. Ultimately, this will allow consumers to access better, and more tailored, financial services than they do currently.”

The Fintech companies stated that there has to be an end to bank charges on third-party firms for accessing their financial data. They also recommended removing the 90-day re-authentication requirements, which asks customers to re-authorize their banking provider to release their financial data for use by other parties.

According to Gladwin:

“It is an unnecessary barrier that is preventing consumers from accessing better financial services. As the Brexit transition nears, the Government will have greater flexibility to find a better solution.”

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