Soar integrates Inbest to help loan applicants access their benefits

Today Soar announced a new feature to alert loan applicants of potential benefits and help them to track their entitlements.

In the UK in 2018/19, almost 8m low-income households were missing £16bn in means-tested benefits. The DWP estimates that 44% of those eligible for means-tested Job Seekers Allowance, 16% of those eligible for means-tested Employment and Support Allowance, and 23% of those eligible for Housing Benefit did not claim them.

Soar has integrated Inbest benefits calculator into its banking platform to compare the actual benefits that customers receive with the benefits they are entitled to due to their specific circumstances and financial situation. The service notifies customers about any unclaimed benefit and guides them on their benefits applications. This new feature will help loan applicants to top-up their salaries with their benefits entitlement, reduce their bills, repay their loans more comfortably, and build savings in the future.

Soar is offering this new feature on its Automated Lending solution to notify clients about their potential benefits entitlement when they make a loan application. Soar is also embedding the benefits calculator on its Banking Apps to help customers manage their benefits and ensure they are always claiming the right amount.

Andrew Duncan, CEO of Soar, said: “Soar’s platform reaches a wide range of consumers and we see Inbest as providing a fantastic opportunity for our clients to offer additional support to those not making the most of their benefits entitlement. We are helping our clients, often credit unions, provide additional ways to improve their customers’ financial well-being and there’s no doubt that this is one of them.”

Manu Peleteiro, CEO of Inbest, said: “We believe that partnering with companies that offer complimentary financial services is the most efficient way to reach people that are missing out on their benefits. We are delighted to partner with Soar to enable easier ways for people to learn about their benefits entitlements and access affordable loans”.

About Soar

Soar makes credit unions and community banks accessible and convenient for consumers with our white-labelled mobile banking platform that automates the handling of loan applications and makes access to affordable credit easy for everyone.

It’s a modern cloud banking platform for the fair finance market which reduces the cost of operations and includes mobile, web and cloud apps. It is connected to an ecosystem of other fintechs giving users access to secure digital messaging, payments, credit checks and open banking.

About Inbest

Inbest is a software platform that helps unemployed individuals or those in low paid or insecure roles to access their benefits entitlement. Inbest offers the widest benefits coverage in the UK and partners with FS institutions and welfare advisers to embed benefits advice into personalised customer journeys.

New Advisory Appointments at Ionburst

Retired Royal Navy Rear Admiral Steve Brunton CBE and Steve Wilkinson, a global data privacy leader, have joined Edinburgh-based advanced cybersecurity startup, Ionburst, as UK advisors.

Rear Admiral Steven Brunton and Steve Wilkinson have just been announced by Ionburst as two high-profile advisor appointments. Rear Admiral, now operating as an Independent Advisor to a number of government and industry organisations, joins Wilkinson, the Data Protection Subject Matter Expert at the UK Cabinet Office Government Digital Service (GDS).

Both join Ionburst whilst it experiences a significant growth period, as it builds theUK and overseas business.

Commenting on the appointments, Ionburst Founder, Dr David Lanc said: “The Cloud needs a new philosophy for protecting the privacy of mission critical information and workloads. We have developed a best-in-class data protection solution to empower this, and its relevance is supported by these powerful industry leaders strengthening our advisory team.”

Rear Admiral Steve Brunton CBE said: “I’m excited to join the Ionburst journey. I believe Ionburst has the ability to help protect us and our way of life in the digital world. I look forward to working with the Ionburst team to help engage with Government and the Defence sector, and to help navigate the next phase of the company’s growth.”

Steve Wilkinson commented: “Ionburst is at the forefront of data security, privacy and sovereignty. In my experience, it’s unique in solving the well-known issues of data privacy compliance and protection from unwanted surveillance in one solution. This is vital to preserve the privacy of sensitive information, which has been made more critical with the EU Court of Justice recently invalidating the EU-US data privacy shield and Brexit.”

Lanc added: “We have big ambitions to help industry and government protect citizen and sensitive data in a world that also demands carbon efficiency. Welcoming Steve and Steve as distinguished advisors demonstrates our aspirations.”

Ionburst has developed a paradigm shift in data protection, through its innovations in privacy by default and data defence in depth.

Omnio selects AutoRek’s reconciliation solution

AutoRek, the Scottish fintech and leading software provider to global financial services firms, has announced Omnio as the latest addition to its ever-expanding list of digital banking/payment clients.

Omnio, a high-growth financial services infrastructure provider, provides a singular platform that combines the best of banking capabilities and customer engagement/loyalty. With operations in the UK and Europe, and headquartered in London, it supports many of the leading corporates and financial institutions in providing innovative and effective banking, payment and loyalty solutions.

AutoRek will provide the core reconciliation solution, including internal and external reconciliations between Omnio’s payment processors, bank accounts and ledger system. AutoRek’s solution seeks to replace its existing manual Excel process by providing end-to-end automation and will facilitate increased efficiency and control, as well as provide automated reporting and real-time Management Information to ensure the team’s business users and management are provided with quality MI through a variety of dashboards to fulfil their daily activities at the optimal level.

Laurence Sproston, Head of Reconciliations and Settlements at Omnio, commented, “We approached AutoRek to provide us with a solution to help automate our reconciliation processes. Our main goal in pursuing this partnership is to save time, costs and ensure operational resilience as we move forward to a new way of working. The AutoRek team adopts a collaborative approach for implementation and have provided us with an automated solution ensuring our regulatory, data integrity, workflow and management information needs are met.”

Gordon McHarg, CEO at AutoRek, added, “We are pleased to welcome Omnio to our increasingly growing client portfolio. The payments industry is evolving rapidly and we are proud that AutoRek’s capabilities meet the challenges facing the industry including volume of data. We are looking forward to establishing a good relationship with Omnio and building upon it over the years.”

Nick Botha, Banking and Payments Lead at AutoRek, who led the deal commented, “We are delighted to be working with the Omnio team. Following the turbulent year defined by COVID-19 and with the constant changes taking place in the digital banking and payments world, we are extremely proud that Omnio has selected the AutoRek solution to be the glue between their internal and external systems.”

Ionburst Cloud Continues Expansion into UK

The advanced data protection startup, Ionburst Cloud, has launched its ultra-secure object storage platform this week in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) London region. Based in Edinburgh, the startup has created the solution of addressing the data protection gap that exists in the Cloud shared responsibility model.

Stating that data privacy is ‘a human right’, the founders of Ionburst Cloud bakes security into the Cloud so that the high bar for protecting data on entry is removed for British businesses of all sizes.

With a very promising initial traction in both the Technology and Fintech sectors, Ionburst Cloud met stringent data privacy regulations like GDPR and the invalidation of the EU-US Data Privacy Shield.

“We are proud to announce that we are expanding the Ionburst Cloud platform into the UK. Going live in the UK is another exciting step forward in our journey of providing data privacy compliance and protection as part of the Cloud. We believe making this part of the Cloud means that customers will never unexpectedly share data again.

We are delighted to be able to offer this service to UK businesses from this week.” – says Anne Lanc, former International Treasury Director of BlackRock.

As a celebration to mark its UK launch, Ionburst Cloud is helping startups and developers by launching a 5GB free tier.

“The sheer scale of the data leaks we’re continuing to see in the Cloud shows there’s a fundamental security gap. This issue isn’t just a concern for smaller businesses, or those without cloud security expertise. Larger, more technical organisations have also been on the receiving end of Cloud data exposure and storage misconfiguration.

We’ve built Ionburst Cloud to fill the missing data security need for organisations storing information in the Cloud, and to always keep it safe and protected.” Josh Fraser ”“ Chief Cybersecurity Engineer.

Ionburst Cloud’s approach has been used by customers in the EU and proven at Cloud scale.

“It is now available to try on the AWS Marketplace from the UK today, and is the first step toward establishing the Cloud we deserve.” says Ms Lanc, CEO (US) and CFO at Ionburst.

Inbest free white-labelled benefits calculator

Welfare advisers, affordable lenders and money charities have been at the forefront helping people to deal with the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in many cases, their capacity to support people is restricted by their limited resources to build or purchase data & digital solutions to identify, reach and serve financially vulnerable customers.

At Inbest we are passionate about financial inclusion and we develop data & digital money management solutions that meet the specific needs of financially vulnerable people. For example, helping them to access their benefits, understand the level of support that disabled people need, or find the best debt solutions according to their personal circumstances and financial situation.

We believe that collaboration between companies with complementary skills is the only way to drive financial inclusion and ensure an inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why we are excited to offer our white-labelled benefits calculator free of charge to support welfare advisers, affordable lenders and money charities in their data & digital journeys.

Our offer

Welfare advisers, affordable lenders and money charities will be able to use our free benefits calculator to:

Help customers: They can embed our benefits calculator across their digital assets (e.g. webpage, mobile apps, social media, blog posts) to help customers to access the support available to them with a simple, quick and user-friendly user journey.
Understands customers: They will be able to use our data analytics application to unlock the full power of customers’ data to better understand their needs and behaviours.

Our free white-labelled benefits calculator also includes the following features and services:

Widest benefits coverage of national, regional and local benefits in the UK – you can see here the benefits and grants we currently calculate.
Data analytics application where you will be able to monitor the application usage and visualise the personal circumstances, financial situation and benefits entitlement of your customers.
We will customise the benefits calculator according to your branding and will co-create content to help your customers to understand how they can make the most of their benefits.

You can check how Advice Direct Scotland and Capital Credit Union are already using our free white-labelled benefits calculator.

Email us at info@inbest.ai to explore this offer in more detail and discuss how we can help you to deliver data & digital solutions to drive financial inclusion.

About Inbest

Level E Research closes seed funding round.

Level E Research, a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) investment solutions, has raised £1.2m from a group of private investors all through a seed funding round.

Founded in 2018 by Dr Sonia Schulenburg, the business combines data science, machine learning and behavioural economics to facilitate institutional investors in developing, testing and implementing smart investment strategies at the highest levels of automation. Their selling point? They offer it at a significantly lower cost than traditional investment management business models.

CEO Schulenburg stated,

“This very successful fundraising backed by well-known industry leaders is a huge vote of confidence in our technology and business model, enabling us to scale up our business development efforts as well as continue to invest in cutting edge research and attract the most talented people. Our hedge fund clients have been quick to realise the benefits that our unique machine learning platform can provide, and we are in discussions with asset managers who are keen to integrate our AI into their investment process or seeking to launch the next generation of AI-driven funds. Our modular SaaS platform readily integrates into existing infrastructure making it easy to adopt.”

Nicola Anderson (CEO of FinTech Scotland)

“I am delighted to hear that Level E Research has secured a significant amount of seed funding. This is a testament to the strength of its innovation and capability and will lead to the creation of more highly skilled jobs in Scotland. The fact that it is mainly Scottish backers who are investing in Sonia’s vision and leadership, supporting a woman fintech founder, also demonstrates the strength of Scotland’s commitment to fintech, diversity and inclusion.”

For further information, please contact Philip Rothfield: phil@levele.ai

www.leveleresearch.ai

Tap on Phone Payments – the Future of Contactless.

The way we pay for products and services has evolved drastically over the past decade, from the simple chip and pin to the modern payment systems we know today. Which allows any individual with a smartphone to make a transaction electronically and virtually, within seconds without any physical money changing hands.

While we may feel as though we are at the forefront of digital payments, reaching the pinnacle of its modern advances. Payment systems are currently undergoing transformational changes, by a few in-the-know’ companies, pushing these boundaries and proving there is more than one way for a business to accept frontline payments.

Enter the Paymob app, transforming the ordinary smartphone into a contactless card reading terminal. Making it easy for businesses across a variety of sectors, from hospitality to transportation, to accept cashless payments quickly and securely in-store, over the phone, or on the move anywhere in the world.

With many consumers enjoying the ease and convenience of making contactless payments delivered through their Apple, Samsung and Goodge devices, the same level of convenience has not been established for business owners accepting payments, with many still using expensive dedicated hardware.

We have been blown away by the demand for our technology. Having found ourselves at a crucial turning point in Paymob’s journey to enable payment acceptance, ushering in a new era of micropreneurs’ and the wider gig economy. Today, Paymob is currently exceeding what we as a startup are able to supply, which has led us to seek support, to maximize and achieve our growth potential and fulfill this staggering demand for our future thinking’ fintech.

In January Paymob became a proud member of the Techstars Accelerator programme, with our exceptional Paymob team pushing us both toward the finish line, and the Techstars Hub71 Virtual Demo Day. Our opportunity to pitch what we know to be the future of frontline payment acceptance technology.

We invite you to join us tomorrow, April 7th at 9:00AM to 10:30AM BST, as our CEO Kosta Du dives into our ethos and new product launch, the SoftPOS smartphone app. To attend the virtual event register here.

If you have any questions for our Paymob team, would like to discuss working together, or simply want to make an introduction, don’t hesitate to get in touch at welcome@paymobtech.com.

If you are interested in our product and would like to know more about who we are and what we are doing to level-up the POS market, visit our website for a quick breakdown of our tap-on-phone technology.

To keep up to date with our fintech advances, company updates and for helpful industry resources, feel free to connect with us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Paymob is now an FCA certified, VISA and Mastercard approved, licensed payment provider launching in the UK, EU, US, Canada, Scandinavia and beyond.

Climate Change Risk in Finance – Edinburgh University

With the ever-increasing demand in the FS Sector, the University of Edinburgh has launched a new, short online executive education course regarding Climate Change Risk in Finance for financial services and fintech professionals. Supported by the Scottish Funding Council, the course is available to a limited number of 50 employees, with places available on the first-come-first-served basis.

Context

With climate-related financial risks ever-increasingly prominent, the effective management of such risks is a primary concern and consideration of investors and regulatory authorities. Topics such as sustainability within financial institutions and markets and climate change impacts in finance are becoming essential for effective decision-making finance professionals. With the University of Edinburgh being a world-leading academic hub for the exploration of how the climate is changing, the impact of this upon the environment, society and economies and thus, how climate adaptation and mitigation strategies are evolving.

About the Climate Change Risk in Finance Executive Education Course 📣:

Topic: the consequences of climate change on finance – how to navigate data, measure risk, gain accurate insights for financial decision making, and capture opportunities related to transitioning to net zero, and the emerging climate-focused fintech products. This course aims to give financial services and fintech professionals the knowledge and confidence to engage with the topics of sustainable finance and climate-related financial risks, to understand their implications, and to take advantage of the opportunities ahead.
This course for You if you are a financial professional working in either asset management, investment or commercial bank, pension funds, insurance, fintech, or similar.
Outcomes: Over the course of 10 weeks, you will:
- Explore theories and practice of sustainable finance and climate-related financial risks.
- Be introduced to climate change fundamentals and terminology.
- Understand how to translate the complex climate information compiled from observations and near- and long-term model predictions for financial decision-makers.
- Understand how to assess and quantify the direct risks arising from climate change on physical assets, businesses, portfolios and supply chains; and also near-term disruptive impacts associated with mitigation policies, changing preferences, and ongoing technological change.
- Understand the impact of climate change on different financial asset classes (equity markets, fixed-income markets, real estate).
- Build confidence in applying learnings for financial decision-making.

Format: 10 ”“weeks long, online course, mix of self-paced materials – pre-recorded and live sessions. Delivered by academic experts & practitioners; facilitated discussions & additional resources
Start date: 3rd of May 2021.
Registration: https://climatechangeriskinfinance.eventbrite.co.uk/
Group bookings: Group discounts are available for colleagues from the same organisation. If you would like to register several participants from one company, please get in touch: Ksenia.Siedlecka@ei.ed.ac.uk
The course fee of £1,500 includes all tuition, guest speaker engagements, and course materials.
Further information:

https://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/executive-education/climate-change-risk-in-finance

TEDxUniversityofStrathclyde: Event of the Year

Few student-led societies aim to organise a large-scale, international conference but for the past several years that is exactly what TEDxUniversityofStrathclyde has been doing. Operating since 2013, our Annual Ideas Conference is one of the highlights of the academic year and much anticipated by our forward-thinking and engaged global community.

Reflecting on the last twelve months, as a society we have achieved much. Our 2020 ‘Everything Connected’ conference was held on Saturday 14 March, just as the pandemic was taking hold and immediately before the first national lockdown. Our Lead Organiser Sheik Abdul Malik was battling multiple logistical challenges, with speakers flying in from the US and the Middle East he worked tirelessly to ensure we could deliver this outstanding event. The playlist of our 2020 speakers can be found on our dedicated YouTube channel.

Since our inception, we have been hosting our flagship event in and around the city of Glasgow, with last year’s conference being hosted at the impressive Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) at the University of Strathclyde.

Not only are we well known for holding our events in outstanding venues, but we are also renowned for the quality of our speakers. We have had the great pleasure of inviting those at the cutting-edge of research, CEOs and leaders in business, engineers, activists and even astronauts! However, we are simply looking for an idea that is worth sharing and which will leave our audience inspired to make positive change.

We were overwhelmed by the support of our community last year, with tickets selling out in less than 60 minutes. Confident that we can deliver another brilliant event this year, and with a team of over 50 talented individuals working across multiple areas, from marketing and finance to logistics and curation, we are well underway to achieving our ambitious goals.

Scheduled for the last weekend of September and with an array of commercial partners and sponsors working with us, we are continuing to search for those individuals who have a unique experience or innovative idea they would like to share with our TEDxUniversityofStrathclyde community.

If you are interested in applying to be a speaker at this year’s Annual Ideas Conference, then you can do so here. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday 31 March at 11:59 pm so be sure to get your entries in soon.

If you would like to find out more about the work that we have been doing as well as see a playlist of our talks dating back several years, then visit our website.

We are happy to answer any queries and chat with those interested in working with us further so why not get in touch with us at tedxstrath@gmail.com

We hope to welcome you all to our Annual Ideas Conference and if you would like to keep up to date with our latest progress then you can connect with us on our social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

*****For the included images can you please give photo credit to Sheik Abdul Malik******

AG Elevate Programme’s New Uptake

AG Elevate programme, a unique fast-track legal mentoring scheme for early-stage businesses, has a new uptake of eleven high-growth UK technology companies.

The programme, designed and delivered by the leading lawyers at Addleshaw Goddard, assigns successful candidates with a legal mentor and dedicated support over a ten-month period. In addition, the 2021 cohort will receive access to professional industry networks, bespoke collateral designed by Addleshaw Goddard and a collaborative online hub, as well as the opportunity to work alongside like-minded business professionals in the tech ecosystem to help elevate and grow their firms.

The ever-growing popularity of the programme was proven this year, with more than three times the number of applications previously received. The eleven organisations selected span across the UK, from Aberdeen to London. Lawyers from across all six of Addleshaw Goddard’s UK offices will now mentor and work with the dynamic firms which include:

London-based firms Rosecut Technologies, Lumio Technologies, Flomark and Yayzy
Scotland-based BlackArrow Financial Solutions
Trojan Energy, headquartered in Aberdeen
Manchester-based Voly and Assif
Yorkshire-based Crysp
WhereIsMyTransport and JUST: Access, both based in Leeds and London

David Anderson, a Corporate and Commercial Partner at Addleshaw Goddard, who specialises in technology said:

“The pandemic has accelerated digital innovation and the integration of technology in all aspects of our lives. We must recognise the vast array of opportunities and expertise tech companies across the UK bring towards the growth and rebuilding of our economy.

“Addleshaw Goddard is the only law firm to offer a dedicated programme of this calibre, and we’re incredibly excited to welcome our 2021 AG Elevate cohort on board. Every company selected champions innovation and pragmatic solutions in the technology sector in which they operate.

“Alongside colleagues across the UK and beyond, we’ll use our expertise in the sector to work closely with the chosen firms to help them navigate their way through the legal challenges frequently faced by fast-growing earlier-stage firms in a bid to propel them into the next chapter.”

Over its five year lifespan, the programme has supported more than 30 fintech and technology, entrepreneurs in accelerating innovation as well as helping establish an international presence. Although originally designed for fintech firms, this year marked the first year that the programme welcomed all high-growth tech businesses, placing a greater focus on businesses interested in sustainability.

For more information about the AG Elevate programme, visit: https://www.addleshawgoddard.com/en/ag-elevate/programmes/apply/2021-ag-elevate-cohort/