The 10 Most Trusted Remittance Service Providers 2018

www.insightssuccess.com November 2018

The

10

Most Trusted

Remittance

Service Providers 2018

Digi payments

Tech Talk

Industry Insight

The Age of Disruptive Banking through Digital Payment Solutions

Chatbots: A Dynamic Digital Gesture for Creative Entrepreneurs

An Insight on the Opportunities in the Big Data Industry

Editor’s Note

Easing Cross-Border Money Transactions

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lobalization and Digitization have made the world quite small. While the former has opened gates for infinite business opportunities, the latter has made the process faster and convenient. The duo has given birth to various industries and those industries have changed the course of various other businesses. Remittance is one such industry and is growing rapidly. It is impacting economies positively, especially in developing countries, while promoting the efficiency of cross border money transfer on global platforms.

In recent studies, it was shown that the second largest financial inflow the developing countries receive is in the type of remittances. It helps economies in numerous ways, direct and indirect, including raising the spending capacities of the families of individuals that send the money, which further leads to increased saving as well. Evidently, such activities on a collective level have an effective impact on GDP and National Income.

Recently, the industry has witnessed various changes and these changes have resulted in increased pace in its steady growth. It is leveraging the available technology in order to increase the productivity and the overall quality of services. Among those technologies, Bitcoin is such that has changed the course of online transfer. With the help of Bitcoin, transferring money across the globe becomes very easy and real

fast. Additionally, the charging fees are much lower than the traditional portals such as FOREX agencies and banks.

However, it is believed by the industry experts that along with other technological advancements, the traditional methods including banks and other private firms should also be upgraded in order to ease the process. There must be a standardized approach to communicate and operate within each station through which money is transferred.

If everything goes as per the plan, the remittance industry will witness huge competition. the customers will be highly benefited as they will enjoy easy services with little or no fees. However, the companies will face difficult times seeking new opportunities to make money. That being said, the industry is heading towards new pinnacles of opportunities and will continue to do so.

There are several companies that have helped the industry blossom and reach to the heights where it is today. Therefore in order to acknowledge some of the greatest contributors of excellence in the remittance services space, Insights Success has shortlisted “The 10 Most Trusted Remittance Service Providers, 2018”

Bhushan Kadam

CONTENTS 10 Reforming Benchmarks leverage existing sap solutions with cloud procurement

18 Pitching Excellence Eminence at the Edge

28 Brand Vision Brand Building: The Right Way

Articles Digi Payments

Industry Insight An Insight on the Opportunities in the Big Data Industry

14

The Age of Disruptive Banking through Digital Payment Solutions

34

Chatbots: A Dynamic Digital Gesture for Creative Entrepreneurs

Editor’s Pick Data Center Security: Controlling Possible Threats

26

Tech Talk

40

12 AlipayHK: Establishing a Cashless Future

24 BitSpark:

A Global Leader in the Blockchain Remittance Space

32 EasyPay:

An Inclusive Digital Payment Platform in Albania

38 Small World Financial Services:

A Leading Cross-Border Payments Provider

www.inď€ onic.com

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Executive Editor Assistant Editors Contributing Editors Visualiser Art & Design Director Associate Designer Co-designer

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Bhushan Kadam Jenny Fernandes Abhishaj Sajeev Sharad Chitalkar Ishan Mittal David King Amol Kamble Tejas Kulkarni Mayur Koli

Art & Picture Editors Paul Belin Jayant Khanna Senior Sales Manager Passi D. Business Development Manager Peter Collins Marketing Manager John Matthew Business Development Executives Steve, Avdhut, Alan, Vishnu Sales Executives David, Kevin, Mark, Avinash Technical Head Jacob Smile Technical Specialists Amar, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza Online Marketing Strategists Alina Sege, Shubham, Vishal SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Prasad Research Analyst Patrick James Circulation Managers Robert, Tanaji Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes sales@insightssuccess.com

November, 2018 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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The

10

Most Trusted

Remittance

Service Providers 2018

Company Name

Management

Brief

AlipayHK alipay.com

Jennifer Tan CEO

AlipayHK is an electronic wallet operated by Alipay Financial Services (HK) Limited and supervised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

BFC Group Holdings bfcgroupholdings.com

Ebrahim Nonoo CEO

BFC Group Holdings specialise in the provision of money transfer, foreign currency exchange and wholesale currency services.

Bitspark zephyr.bitspark.io

Maxine Ryan COO

BitSpark is a leading financial company where business individuals are able to buy and sell worldwide currencies by using stable coins, crypto currencies pegged to fiat assets.

CEX.IO cex.io

Oleksandr Lutskevych CEO

CEX.IO offers cross-platform trading via website, mobile app, WebSocket and REST API, providing access to high liquidity orderbook for top currency pairs on the market.

EasyPay easypay.al

Linda Shomo Founder & CEO

EasyPay is an Albanian FinTech company, born with an idea to offer customers an ‘easy’ to ‘pay’ concept from their mobile phone.

IronFX ironfx.com

Markos Kashiouris CEO

IronFX is the award-winning Global Leader in Online Trading, with 10 trading platforms and over 200 tradable instruments in forex, spot metals, futures, shares, spot indices and commodities.

Midpoint midpoint.com

David S. Wong CEO

Midpoint is an international payments service offering it’s customers live mid-market foreign exchange rates via our patented matching technology.

MOIN themoin.com

Ilseok Ian Suh CEO

Moin is a FinTech company that provides optimal overseas remittance solutions.

MoneyGram moneygram.sg

Alex Holmes CEO

MoneyGram is a global provider of innovative money transfer and payment services.

Small World Financial Services smallworldfs.com

Nick Day CEO

Small World Financial Services Group Ltd is the leading company that provides omni-channel, cross border payment services for consumers and businesses.

Reforming Benchmarks

Leverage Existing

SAP Solutions with Cloud Procurement

C

ompanies that have already invested in SAP find that they can achieve even better results from their existing investment with cloud technology and eProcurement. After the initial investment, companies find certain roadblocks preventing mass user adoption and diminishing cost savings. Issues such as inability to stay connected, lack of insight into data, and complex and fragmented business rules stop businesses from using the full power of SAP. As cloud application technologies advance, companies gain the benefits of rapid deployment cycles, increased self-service tools, and faster performance. Vroozi delivers on the promise and power of eProcurement in the Cloud with seamless integration into SAP. SAP users looking to the cloud generally face a few questions, including: Ÿ How can I benefit from using cloud procurement?

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Will my transition to the cloud be cost-effective? Ÿ How will my business processes be affected by cloud technology?

Ÿ

To understand the benefits of cloud technology to existing SAP users, let’s evaluate three procurement strategies that highlight the power of cloud procurement.

Value Realization .

Return on Investment (ROI) is a central factor in any procurement strategy. Buyers and trading partners of cloud procurement solutions need to feel confident that solutions will lead to cost savings and higher productivity and efficiency. Users quickly see returns by focusing on user adoption, compliance, and spend management. Spend Management allows companies to visualize purchasing spending patterns and usage and drives employees to leverage preferred pricing with contract suppliers. To increase user

adoption and compliance, the cloud empowers a mobile workforce with the right resources and experience so everyone stays connected and available so that business is not disrupted. As user adoption and compliance frameworks increase with cloud-based systems, organizations gain immediate cost savings in procurement by decreasing transaction costs and preventing spend leakage with your supply chain.

Efficiencies Process efficiency is key for a successful, healthy business. Cloud technology enables better processes by keeping everyone connected through a mobile experience and automating transaction tasks through the use of machine learning and pattern matching. With a centralized, unified system, cloud automation can yield immediate benefits in requisition to invoice and payment business processes and reduced

November 2018

About the Author

Brad Hill

Director of Global Sales & Marketing Vroozi

errors and issues leading to higher productivity and decreased processing costs. Further, by allowing employees to interact with cloud procurement via smart Phones and tablets, business can continue to move with efficiency and speed.

implementation time companies once faced with traditional software solutions. Cloud technology relieves the user of hidden costs such as hardware, consultants, infrastructure, maintenance, and costly upgrade cycles, providing lower risk and lower total cost of ownership.

IT Cost Savings Conclusion Perhaps no determinant is more important in realizing the benefits of cloud technologies versus traditional on premise software is in IT Cost Savings. Systems and applications which required large physical infrastructure and monetary investments can now provide inexpensive and scalable solutions through the Cloud and cloud infrastructure providers. A procurement solution that integrates with SAP is easier to access, less expensive, and takes a fraction of the

November 2018

The cloud offers little upfront expense, automatic upgrades, and pre-integrated best practices which allow organizations to focus on business growth and improved operating margins. Vroozi’s eProcurement solution that takes SAP solutions to the cloud empower users with better returns, better processes and higher savings, so their overall SAP investment’s ROI is accelerated.

Brad Hill, Director of Global Sales & Marketing of Vroozi is a passionate leader and is responsible for expanding the Vroozi Product Suite, Brand Adoption, Partnership Network & ensuring our customers receive an unparalleled experience with Vroozi. Brad spent the last 20 years building Enterprise Sales and Product strategies with leading IT Services organizations. His entrepreneurial strategies have served a vast number of Fortune 500 industries and verticals. He is also an aspiring mechanic and frustrated golfer, two good reminders to keep his day job.

According to IDC, spending on Cloud computing is growing at 4.5 times the rate of IT spending since 2009 and is expected to continue growing at more than 6 times the rate of IT spending from 2015 through 2020. (via Forbes) This massive growth is easily understood when businesses understand the power and value of cloud solutions. With the Vroozi Platform, companies can take advantage of robust eProcurement technology delivered in the Cloud and integrated seamlessly with SAP.

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The

10

Most Trusted

Remittance

Service Providers 2018

AlipayHK: Establishing a Cashless Future

A

lipayHK is an electronic wallet operated by Alipay Financial Services (HK) Limited and supervised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Alipay Payment Services (HK) Limited (APSHK) is a joint venture established and managed by CK Hutchison Holdings Limited, a conglomerate spanning over 50 countries and by Ant Financial Services Group, a leading global technology and financial services company and the parent company of “Alipay”.

Currently, over 35,000 local retail outlets have supported AlipayHK for payment, covering large chain stores, convenience stores, drug stores, supermarkets, fresh markets, taxies, restaurants, and others. Features of the AlipayHK also include payment on Taobao and TMall, P2P transfer, remittance, electricity payment, telecom payment, entry tickets and F&B vouchers for The Racecourse, purchase of insurance products offered by a third party, ecoupons, etc. making Hong Kong residents’ lives more convenient by integrating mobile payment into daily lives.

AlipayHK had 1 million users in March but saw a 50 percent surge in growth to 1.5 million users by the end of June.

According to the “AlipayHK Smart Payment Popularity Index” that is conducted by the Hong Kong Productivity Council in July, 82% of the respondents have heard of the AlipayHK brand and 22% of them have also become familiar with the App. The survey also reflects that AlipayHK’s mobile payment brand is currently most popular among Hong Kong people.

A Customer-Centric Approach AlipayHK is mainly reaching the customers that are Overseas Filipino Workers residing in Hong Kong. Until the Remittance service innovation by AlipayHK, the OFW had to go through a long process of queuing for hours and

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filling out forms just to send money home. With the innovative application of blockchain technology to the service, AlipayHK has made the process easier with more options of sending money to home. AlipayHK applied blockchain technology into its e-wallet to streamline the remittance process. The introduction of such innovation to remittance radically improves the speed of delivery, enhances transparency of the process and drastically reduces costs while ensuring better security measures while sending money across borders.

At the same time, AlipayHK has partnered up with a popular e-wallet in the Philippines, GCash, to ensure that this innovative approach is implemented across both ends of the process so it is as effortless and smart as possible for its users. This service between GCash and AlipayHK provides round-the-clock, real-time money transfer between Hong Kong and the Philippines at a competitive exchange rate with much lower transaction fees than available on market. Now, with a few taps through AlipayHK’s mobile phone application, money can be transferred within seconds to a GCash user.

A Momentous Journey Since the establishment of this joint venture on March 8, the number of app users has surged from over 1 million to 1.5 million, and the number of merchants who accept AlipayHK has increased from 10,000 to 35,000. Many users and merchants in Hong Kong have recognized AlipayHK and its scaling services of cashless transactions.

AlipayHK is dedicated to build a comprehensive lifestyle platform, covering four pillars of daily life - food, clothing, housing, and transportation. Everything can be paid with this app, such as online and offline merchants, electricity bills, telecom payment, property management fees, and taxis etc. The app has also developed a smart mobility solution called “EasyGo,” to solve the pain points of local November 2018

“

We hope to bring a little change in the payment method for the public, in exchange for more time for Hong Kong people to realize their dreams and change the world.

“

—Jennifer Tan CEO AlipayHK

traffic so that the public can have a seamless travel experience in Hong Kong.

The Visionary of AlipayHK Jennifer Tan, the CEO of the company announced the concept of “new retail, new experience” at the time of establishing the venture. This concept was a revolutionary idea by the company’s CMO and for the first time, the concept was executed with great planning and brought a new retail experience to the people of Hong Kong. Then AlipayHK brought a real unmanned store to public in September caught the attention of several people in less than a month’s span. During the campaign period, it drove more than 100% new user registration compared to the same period last year. It also aroused the public’s enthusiasm and discussion for setting up an unmanned store in Hong Kong.

Entry into the store is a two-step process. First, the customer smiles for a facial recognition system, generating a QR code on a screen outside the entrance, which the customer then scans to open the doors. The company seeks to raise awareness of mobile payments through the unmanned store, which comes into play when a customer reaches the check-out point.

Unlike traditional cashier, unmanned store customers simply walk through a sensory gate where all on-hand products are automatically detected, and then pay within a few quick taps on their phones via the AlipayHK app. The whole process is automated, hence making the store an “Unmanned” one.

November 2018

Marching towards a “Cashless Society” The unmanned store offers business incentives to merchants. The new payment technology reduces the current high cost of doing business in Hong Kong so that more resources are allocated to invest in product design or marketing strategy that will help the business to grow rapidly in the market.

The company has also introduced a smart mobility solution named “EasyGo”, which provides Hong Kong people with a choice of public transport payment. With EasyGo, people can travel without cash or transit stored value cards, leading Hong Kong people towards a cashless society.

Apart from a mobile payment solution, the EasyGo payment terminal has other capabilities such as destination notification, Wi-Fi sharing, and real-time terminal monitoring.

Prospects to Become a Super Lifestyle App The app will mainly focus on promoting mobile payment development and finding suitable scenes to integrate its services with four major daily necessities of Hong Kong citizens: clothing, food, housing, and transportation. The company targets to develop a super lifestyle app with 4 goals: Acceptance, Convenience, Easy-to-use and Secured data. The company believes that AlipayHK will become the most popular electronic wallet in Hong Kong.

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Industry Insight

An Insight on the Opportunities in the Industry

I

n this era of changing technologies, the Big Data domain has evolved in a very short period of time. It plays the most pivotal role across all industries. The ability of Big Data to mine critical data has radically altered the dynamics of the way businesses function, drive sales, and attract customers. It has become an essential component of business strategy nowadays. A business tastes success by uncovering insights locked inside data. The overlaying trends will examine the evolving ways enterprises can realize better business value with Big Data and how improving business intelligence can help transform organizational processes and the customer experience. There is a demand for better data management from most of the business executives for compliance and increased confidence to steer the business. It will help them in more rapid adoption of Big Data and innovative and transformative data analytic technologies.

analytics which will become a major area of investment and will grow swiftly. It is necessary for the enterprises and the government agencies to upgrade their security systems to next-generation software which can address ultra-modern security threats.

Insight-driven Organizations In this present year, businesses will move beyond just data handling to leveraging the insights that Big Data uncovers.

As understanding, managing, and manipulating Big Data has now become fairly ubiquitous, most of the companies have the ability to deal with it. Mining data will be the center of attraction and it will help effectively to meet organizational requirements and for precise targeting of products and services. An insight-driven approach will facilitate an evolved customer experience, competitiveness, advanced security and operational efficiency.

Bridging the talent gap If the demand expands further, the talent gap in data analytics will soar. It is expected that organizations and academic institutions will collaborate closely to generate skills and talent to meet the demand for data engineers. The functions of all corporate employees will be expected to understand, appreciate and work with analytics since it emerges as one of the key instruments in every organization. The academic institutions are also looking forward to put together degree programs in data science.

Cyber security Applications Today, everyone is dependent on the digital technology and our dependence has reached an unprecedented level. Cyberattacks have also become much more prevalent. An increased occurrence of ransomware has been registered across the globe and cyber criminals are now targeting personal data and devices. Concerning the prime industry, cyber security can only be possible through big data

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Analytics across the enterprise It can be said that the analytics will not remain isolated to a few departments like marketing and risk management. On the other hand it will infuse the entire enterprise. To understand the dynamics of business operations, data analytics will be utilized and will also reveal ways and means to increase efficiency. Hence to derive overall business strategy, insights from multiple departments will be integrated and redundant processes will be eliminated. It will also help the departments to increase efficiency, growth, and productivity.

IoT and People There will be a transition from Internet of Things (IoT) to Internet of People (IoP). Interactions, predictive analytics around human behavior, and other subjective areas will grow and start to filter all industry verticals. For example, hospitals will increasingly deploy machine learning techniques to predict the likelihood of the relapse of a disease. This will enable them to work out a patient’s readmission precisely at the time of the initial discharge.

November 2018

Business-science collaboration Businesses will have to learn and deploy traditional, scientific techniques of pattern-matching and artificial intelligence for analytics use cases. For example, techniques to analyze gene sequences in DNA are being used in text-matching algorithms to process bulk emails. It is expected to see very close collaboration between data scientists and the scientific community. For example, image processing is widely used in ‘tagging’ in social media, while voice recognition is used in apps.

Technology There will be brisk moving in the organizations from on-premise platforms to cloud and hybrid environments. Around 44 percent of applications used by Fortune 500 organizations are already on the cloud, and more than 50 percent of IT applications will move to the cloud by the end of the year. There will be a rise in demand for analytics tools that are simple, flexible, and capable of handling a variety of data sources. Hadoop enables to store an extremely large volume of data at a significantly lower price point and hence it will continue to become increasingly popular. The share of unstructured data in the data warehouse will continue to increase, which will further cause for Hadoop. Hadoop, now, is past the business relevance and scalability assessment phase and its adoption is expected to accelerate strongly.

We are advancing towards a completely new era in the domain of analytics. Big data is disruptive and it has paved the way for pioneering ideas and innovative techniques across industry verticals. It is now driving the stream of disruption and expanding the scope of opportunities for previously untouched market segments. Organizations need to leverage Big Data analytics to its full capacity so as to thrive in this competitive world.

November 2018

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Pitching Experience

E

xecutive summary

Since Internet of Things technology started to gain mainstream traction, multiple platforms, solutions and strategies have been developed. At the moment there are more than 450 ‘platforms’ commercially available.

Yet, realistically speaking, most of these have been designed for a very specific function on out-dated technology and mostly down a vertical application path.

The true power and differentiator in IoT.nxt resides in our full IoT stack capability encompassing the edge and the cloud.

Background Our thinking from the outset has been that we wanted to adopt thinking and develop tech that creates horizontal interoperability between multiple systems and platforms in a technology agnostic manner.

Why? Well, historically, technology companies argued that the best way to quickly create commercial value was to develop a strong vertically integrated application encompassing an ecosystem of partners.

In 2002, it was all about the cloud.

Amazon Web Services was launched and, when OPC Unified Architecture was released in 2006 enabling secure communication between devices, data sources and applications, adoption of IoT began to rise. The early adopters developed their projects with the cloud in mind. The thinking being a simple connected mindset where billions of sensors will be deployed and easily spin up supercomputers at low cost in the cloud to process all of this valuable Big Data… how could they go wrong?

The quickest way to show value was to focus on a vertical and go after it. We have a different view.

During the .com bomb era, people ran around with amazing ideas that they thought would take over the world

Similarly, gateway players have developed powerful gateway technology with a portion that generically aggregates data to the cloud.

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once mass adoption took place. This was followed by an implosion which saw a huge number of concepts, ideas and investments disappear. A similar trend is developing in the adoption of IoT and in digitalisation in general.

Part of the demise of this is because they were too early on the initial curve and either ran out of cash, were unable to build what they said they could, or saw new, sexier, more agile technology drive competitors closer to adoption.

The .com bomb was a rationalisation and a reality for companies and their investors resulting in fortunes being made and lost in the hype. Timing is key in driving Big Tech. If you’re too soon, you are potentially busy developing a concept that will not only age quickly but give competitors plenty to learn from and piggy back off

November 2018

allowing them to develop better tech that is more relevant and value driven. Often a cool idea is exactly that - a cool idea, but without real substance it doesn’t get wide commercial adoption. The commercial viability ultimately sits with the ability of a product to produce ‘real value’, whether quantitative or qualitative.

And then there are the guys who make it.

Amazon, Alibaba, Google. They were unprofitable for a number of years before they started to bear fruit simply because they played the long game. They saw past the hype and created products of real value. They made sure they will be relevant in future economies.

The importance of timing Timing is everything, and tech is hard to time We entered this market at the perfect time. Two years in, our solution is strong and businesses at enterprise level are rallying to adopt Big Data technology. They’re embracing VR, AR, AI, cognitive, algorithmic machine learning technologies as they become a reality.

As irrelevant solutions are being seeded out, the IoT.nxt approach to the problem of IoT is making us a major contender; cementing our position in the market.

If we look at the solutions currently available, we understand more than most of these ‘platforms’ have all been built in the cloud. Five years ago everything was in the cloud, it is therefore unsurprising that it is still dominating IT discussions.

Anyone who has, up until this point, embarked on an IoT initiative, has probably 1. built a solution that resides in the cloud; 2. leverages the power of the cloud and its ability to centralise and leverage processing power from the supercomputers that exist there; 3. adopted a top down approach incorporating the cloud as the central power behind the application.

The competitive landscape Looking at the IoT industry and where the ‘competition’ and ‘incumbents’ are in the current IoT cycle, it is evident that IoT development are in a perfect bubble that I believe is not far from rationalisation. I think it will be less severe

November 2018

than 2000 as I think investors have been more calculated; but there certainly will be a correction in the not so distant future. Driving my belief in this is that you need this type of event for eminence to be created. People need to start understanding where the true value lies. The companies that have the ability to lock into this IoT business value proposition and convert that into investor value will survive and will gain eminence. There are a number of great technologies and concepts available but only the ones that are able to truly unlock value will remain.

What sets us apart The IoT.nxt approach has been somewhat different, defying the norm and, to date, it is my firm belief that ours is the only company that has this unique approach. Addressing the problems of interconnectivity from the bottom up, our solution acknowledges the power of the cloud and Big data, but also acknowledges that power is greatly diminished or even nullified if the edge layer is not correctly managed.

Our definition of interoperability and data orchestration is, at times, diluted by platform players claiming to provide the same. They don’t.

The general platform interoperability discussion talks to cloud interoperability. This is a hugely complex play that causes massive headaches for some of the most influential players as they try to fathom how to seamlessly integrate multiple platforms. API’s are the talk of the day, with the current solution to solving this dilemma, but it is simply not sustainable or practical. On a whiteboard it might look great having several platforms integrated via API and then plugging into some ESB via microservices, but I challenge to you to construct all of that and take into consideration the small part all of these guys initially did not deem necessary – the edge.

This methodology is hugely reliant on smart sensor technology that has the ability to push data into the cloud.

There’s a heavy reliance on networks and, as a result, ‘platforms’ are struggling to grapple with edge technology, all the while hopeful that a 5G, no, 20G network will resolve this problem.

At almost all the international conferences we have attended in the last 24 months the major discussion has been Big Data and smart sensors, so most of the more mature platforms have been designed around the premise of them being able to receive data directly from the sensor.

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The problem now is how to talk back to the sensor or machine and, more importantly, how to do this cross platform. An even bigger issue creeping to the forefront of discussions are regarding ecosystems in which near real-time data feeds are crucial.

Yet still, the focus is on the cloud and understandably so, especially if you have invested millions into a technology that is reliant on the cloud.

We do not believe this.

For some time now we’ve been saying that the edge is eating the cloud.

We’re not implying that the cloud will lose relevance. What we’re saying is that a true IoT ecosystem will become less and less reliant on the cloud and, in fact, that ecosystem design will rely heavily on edge capabilities.

A natural oversight, but a crucial detail destined to form an integral part of this industry’s ability to commercialise in the near future. The IoT industry is inhibited by an inability to create interconnectivity and interoperability at the edge.

Retrofit and decrease the barrier to entry and sweat the assets.

Correctly designed and engineered, edge technology enables edge interoperability and, more importantly, the ability to retrofit into legacy systems. Legacy systems, to a large extent, were disregarded, with current players relying on the ‘rip and replace ‘mentality that has governed and, to a degree, plagued the IT industry since the beginning, befuddling brands that have become household names.

This mentality of winner takes all is not congruent with the ideation of a connected world and certainly does not embrace the concept of true scalability.

Having to rip out and replace existing

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technology and infrastructure on your journey towards digitalisation introduces a huge amount of additional complexity, disruption and a cost, all of which makes it a difficult sale to the business, contributing to the slow adoption rate of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

So whilst the ‘big dogs’ are all trying to figure how they can develop and ensure technology lock-in to secure future revenue, they’re contributing towards the mixed message that is being sent out to the market, diluting the value of IoT technology as a tool to unlocking real business value.

Value is a simple exercise for any business leader – Look at expenditure, then ROI. Satisfied? Great. Here’s the next question - is it relevant to my business?

All data is not the answer.

When we enter into discussions with big companies, the issue of legacy investments in technology at the edge comes up without fail. Remember that everyone is selling some type of cloud platform that is going to ‘change the business’, but that cloud engine is reliant on edge data i.e. devices, sensors, machines, protocols, PLCs, SCADAs, CCTV, access control systems - the list goes on and on.

Clients start considering negotiating with each vendor and realising that, much like when our 1000 piece holiday puzzles has 1 missing piece can ruin the picture and make the whole exercise seem futile. It’s the same with many of the algorithms and predictive applications - the true power of these platforms lie in their ability to provide companies with insights. For this they are 100% dependent on having the correct, filtered, aggregated, curated, secure, real-time data from the edge, and they need all the pieces of the data puzzle to build the Big Data picture.

In every environment, on every piece of the puzzle there is information that is critical to the task at hand, and then there’s other information that isn’t needed in real-time. Things like whether a device needs to be serviced in a weeks’ time, whether stock is going to be depleted by the end of the month, etc. Now consider a sensor having a fixed normal range, and only recording exceptions rather than all data all the time - you’re able to reduce the amount of data passed by around 60%- 90% in real time monitoring environments, as a basic statistic.

We are throwing away the rule book.

While the rest of the industry scrambles to figure out how to showcase the exponential value of IoT whilst also attempting to lock clients in to their technology stack, we’re taking the IoT rule book and throwing it out of the window.

We don’t care what technology our clients have now, and what technology they will have in five years’ time. We don’t talk about vendors, we talk protocols. We’re driving our clients to get to Big Data quicker, using what they have, thanks to our trademarked Raptor.

Raptor technology is the missing link in most of the discussions around digitalisation. A normalised, edge layer of physical and virtual intelligence that can be retrofitted, deployed and connected seamlessly into an ecosystem of existing technologies and things, radically reducing the cost and time of having to develop multiple edge integrations into disparate cloud applications.

The IoT.nxt Power-play Being able to retrofit onto all deployed devices, whether analog-, or IP-based has a huge benefit.

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Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

It reduces disruption to business processes, cost of implementation, cost of training, cost and impact of enterprise-wide change management, reduces vulnerability and cyber risk because of less technology disparity at the edge, reduces data moving across the network that reduces the cost of the network and network congestion, reduces processing required at the cloud platform level as the data has already been curated at the edge, reduces the cost associated with maintenance of edge integrated gateways, has less attack surface at the edge as the gateways are rationalised and simplifies real-time subsystem integration

All of this allows us to better leverage the power of our cloud platform as we can now understand the up-, and downstream effects of an event-triggered occurrence and effect dynamic and seamless recalibration and interoperability throughout ALL edge connected devices.

We ensure that all the pieces of the puzzle are in the box, and ready to be pieced together to create the big picture.

Conclusion Edge normalisation of data at the edge gateway layer form the foundation for rapid digitalisation and digital transformation. The disruption that everyone talks about is vested in the ability for an organisation to continue its business but iteratively and rapidly start to address the core issues within its business through digitalisation. This leads to more visibility on a real-time basis allowing for dynamic recalibration back into the business ecosystem to achieve optimised levels of production and efficiency that bring about change and new ways of doing the same thing, better.

Peer-to-peer intelligence and learning will further drive this thinking – Raptor thinking - making us even more relevant as the necessity to drive edge analytics and decision making in critical business environments nullifies the cloud. Are you with me?

If you control the edge you unlock the cloud, a bottom up approach.

November 2018

21

The

10

Most Trusted

Remittance

Service Providers 2018

BitSpark: A Global Leader in the Blockchain Remittance Space

I

n recent years, the introduction of the increasingly comprehensive cross-border payment and settlement mechanism has been used for covering multiple currencies and has been marked as an important step to further expand the financial co-operation across the globe.

To cope with this increasing demand and to promote the safety and efficiency of foreign currency payments, BitSpark a Hong Kong based Fintech Company has been providing a bank-less alternative for de-risked money transfer business since 2014.

Currently, BitSpark is a leading financial company where business individuals are able to buy and sell worldwide currencies efficiently at a better rate by using stable coins, crypto currencies pegged to fiat assets. Through BitSpark’s secure web and mobile platform or premium service, the individuals are also able to pay out to banks and cash pick-up shops in the Philippines, Indonesia, Ghana, Nigeria and Vietnam by leveraging cryptocurrency without any exposure or prior knowledge.

Exemplifying Leadership George Harrap, the CEO of BitSpark is from an Electronics Engineering background and has been involved in Bitcoin since 2011. He has also been involved in every aspect of the market and seen it grow and mature. George has a deep knowledge and understanding of the Blockchain technology, the market and the use cases while engaged in the Fintech space through consulting on a few projects with fortune 500

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companies. This has led him to eventually launch a very own startup company, Bitspark.

Today under the leadership of George, BitSpark has won numerous international awards and is the pioneer in the bitcoin /blockchain remittance space which is rapidly expanding to cater new customers and geographies.

Additionally, as a general speaker at Hong Kong and at overseas financial technology events, he is dedicated to spread the knowledge and understanding of some of the breakthroughs accomplished in the Fintech industry. He is also particularly identifying the use cases and conveying these to his audiences in the best way possible.

Maxine Ryan is a Hong Kong based entrepreneur who is passionate about freedom of financial services for people. In 2014, she Co-founded Bitspark to help business owners send money better via cryptocurrency solutions worldwide. She worked along with her team members to launch ICO, $ZEPH, a rewards token for Bitspark’s 180+ pegged cryptocurrency network whereby users of networks are incentivized via rewards and the company contributes buybacks to the market via its profits. Maxine also frequently speaks at tech and finance events, has been featured in Bloomberg Live and listed in Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018.

Leveraging Crypto Currencies and Vaults Traditionally, money service businesses require a bank account in order to operate regardless if a person owns a store front or an online remittance platform. But the DeNovember 2018

“

We help you convert cash to cryptocurrency globally, without banks.

“

—Maxine Ryan COO

risking practices have made it increasingly difficult for these businesses to operate or to even exist. Therefore, BitSpark has created a solution that leverages crypto currencies and vaults for businesses to operate as a money transfer operator without the need of a bank.

typically require conversion against a G20 currency such as the USD. This reduces the need for middlemen which will significantly reduce the cost to send money for endcustomers.

Future Aspiration

On the other hand, MSBs would normally need to prefund balances to transfer money via wire transfers which are also costly and time consuming. The conversion and settlement of currencies exchange rates are dependent on banks, correspondent banks and layers of brokers and distributors. With the help of BitSpark solutions, MSBs can be used to prefund cash or crypto currencies such as Bitcoin and can be able to settle transaction in fiat currency in a normal way. BitSpark is leveraging the 24/7 crypto market to settle transactions and obtain rates that are typically above mid-market by 1-4%.

Being a pioneer in the blockchain remittance space, BitSpark is dedicated to ensuring the switch to using cryptocurrencies for remittances is as convenient and seamless as possible; even for those with very little exposure or knowledge about cryptocurrency. Since there are limited formal channels for businesses to choose cryptocurrency, therefore BitSpark is providing options and solutions for businesses that are seeking faster and more cost effective ways to transfer money into their account. Hence, BitSpark uses pegged cryptocurrencies to directly convert between currencies which are extremely beneficial for exotic currencies that November 2018

Since its inception into this disruptive market, BitSpark was the leading company to conduct a cash-in and cashout remittance. But today, there is a growing demand in the usage of crypto currencies for remittance purposes and several crypto remittance companies are entering into the market. However, BitSpark is unique in the sense that it can accept cash as a method of deposit, which isn’t offered by several companies. Additionally, it has the ability to create stable coins pegged to the national fiat and cross huge barriers of entries among other traditional players.

BitSpark’s goal is to build an international network of inclusion points that allow customers to buy and sell cryptocurrency using both fiat and digital assets. The vision of the company is to enable any user to update a balance, convert to any currency and cash-out at any inclusion point. Focusing on the vision of the company, George states “A key indicator of success would be when customers are able to make micropayments more frequently without incurring high cost in underserved countries.”

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Digi Payments

The Age of

Disruptive Banking

through

Digital Payment Solutions T

he way people make payments are changing faster due to the improved integration of digital technology. This has beneďŹ ted the industry with increased competition and consumer demands.

The changes can be witnessed in Travel, E-commerce, Household Bill payments etc. The recent integration of technology in payment solutions makes transactions fast and seamless and can be done at the comfort of your homes.

Although we are witnessing a considerable change in the payment solution industry, there is still a consistent use of the cash and cards, which solely depends on the geographical setting. In some places, people prefer cash and cards, while in other places, they encourage the more use of digital solutions; for example: The United States and Canada. Analysis has shown that

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November 2018

in these areas, they are likely to switch completely to technology enabled payment solutions.

The payment solution processes will become more innovative because of the following disruptive trends;

the result will lead to easy merging of both the traditional medium of resource management concepts with the recent and digitalized concepts. Various financial organizations that may not be able to handle the process of migrating from the traditional format to the digitalized platform finds ease in doing so by partnering with technology companies.

· Digital Banking and Remote Payment Approval As the younger aged masses are turning up to technology more than the traditional mediums, there is a notion that most payment solutions will be done through digitalenabled mediums rather than cash or cheque. This will result in more engagement of mobile phones and digital software applications.

Various business outlets are accepting more of mobile payment which is helping them to improve customer experience. The addition of instant alerts, appreciation notifications and instant payment delivery is making this innovation more interesting. · Customer-Focused Strategy as a Priority One retained customer is one attained success. ~ Chidiebere Moses Ogbodo Customer experience post business encounter is what makes a difference in the industry. Digital banking solutions are improving the way customers feel after making their payments. In the past years, one need to stand in a queue in the bank before they can make even the smallest transaction, but the integration of technology innovation has reduced the stress to the lowest level. We can witness improved services and instant expense management which is helping everyone that is using this medium to stay above the crowd · Improved Customer Satisfaction through Rewards A customer tends to check back on the sales-person who gave them a tip or discount after purchase. This is also applicable in payment solution. After people makes a purchase online or even via cards and the seller offers them a certain percentage of discount, they will always want to come back. The good news is that most business enterprises are supporting this idea in collaboration with the finance institutions. · FinTech Collaboration and Expansion of Networks The innovation in payment solution is incorporating feasibility of resource management between the financial and non-financial organizations. Through this development, November 2018

Organizational growth is measured both in market value, infrastructure and the extent of their networks. The integration of digital technology advances in payment provisions helps especially the finance-oriented establishments to easily expand their reach, even to the most hidden places in the world. This helps to touch the lives of people no matter the class and status and it repays with tremendous customer growth. · Improved Security and Payment by Codes Security is huge concern when money is involved. People are so conscious and very inquisitive about how their money will travel from the sender to the receiver. In so many cases, they will even think that such platforms as digitalized mediums are not trustworthy as a single wrong number can direct their money to unknown destination.

The transaction as of the old was true cheques. But today, there will be a limited need for those methods, rather, payment will simply be done by inputting a certain username and password and your dashboard will be opened.

Through this page, you can easily make every payment. The age of digitalization is turning the whole process into codebased and this raises the question of how to stay safe. It is also believed that for security purposes, the instant notification of transaction, linking of secured email and encryption to individual data and disaster-recovery provisions will lead the innovation to better direction. This concern has a big deal with blockchain, augmented reality, IoT and biometrics.

You may be asking how the future will look like with techenabled payment solutions. As the world is growing and globalization is gaining a good ground, people blends in to what they see that is working well. So, as digital payment solution is making even the life of the lay man on street easy, more people in the near future will completely adopt this innovation. It will not harm the financial institutions, but it will be great if they can migrate or better integrate some form of technology strategies in their financial solutions. This change may be slow, but it will be consistent as the technology changes are not giving room for procrastination.

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Brand Vision

About the Author: Led by Candice Simons, the CEO of Brooklyn Outdoor, a longtime industry leader who returned to Detroit from Chicago to launch the entrepreneurial venture.

The company’s multiple divisions include Outdoor, Experiential, Events, and hand painted. Brooklyn’s clients include national brands like General Motors, Adidas, Warner Brothers, Sprint, and Amazon.

Simons also founded the Detroitbased lifestyle blog company, J’adore Detroit.

She has been recognized for her work with both companies by Crain’s Detroit Business 40 under 40, DBusiness 30 in their 30s, Entrepreneur 360, Detroit Young Professionals Vanguard, Summit International Marketing and Creative Awards, MichBusiness, and Enterprising Women of the year 2017.

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November 2018

Brand Building: The Right Way

I

n an increasingly saturated market, it is becoming increasingly harder to reach your target consumer through traditional channels. Brooklyn Outdoor is fortunate enough to be at the center of the oldest form of advertising – outdoor advertising aka out-of-home advertising. This is the only format of advertising that cannot be turned off in the digital age. This is an exciting time for this highly regarded industry to cut through the clutter and provide our key consumer with exactly what they need and where at point of purchase. We have had our ups and downs as a startup over the past five years battling our goliath competitors but have proven ourselves as a worthy opponent – just as our industry has stood the test of time. Just as we have built our own brand, our specialty is helping our customers build their brands just the same way through outdoor advertising, event marketing, experiential marketing, and more.

Out-of-Home (aka OOH) advertising is the catalyst for brand building. Advertisers can segment audiences and market campaigns more specifically than ever before and choose to reach consumers by multicultural audiences, general market audiences, age, etc. This long term and “always on” strategy is one that allows brands to be and feel as though they are everywhere to the targeted segment in the desired market. This is because OOH reaches almost the entire population and is the best mechanism for bright, in-your-face messages.

Consumers are increasingly on the go, and while on the go they are seeing various types of placements and advertising as they go about their daily routines. Reaching an audience at the bus stop, at the intersection, in a taxi, or during the commute has a tremendous impact on the modern consumer – especially when paired with mobile advertising. These

November 2018

various touch points allow brands and products to resonate with potential customers in a subtle, yet impactful way, as they go about their daily routine.

Digital out of home (DOOH) advertising is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing, technically advanced, and most interactive advertising formats for businesses to reach consumers.

DOOH advertising promises brand safety as it eliminates the risk of crisis by association. Promoting company content on social media platforms assumes the risk of having ads placed next to problematic or politically controversial content. However, in DOOH there is no uncertainty because advertisers know exactly where ads will appear and often make the site selections internally.

Additionally, DOOH advertising eliminates the potential marketing threat of ad-blocking. The biggest concern with most digital formats arises when an audience is able to avoid certain advertisements by shutting them off and media companies fraudulently account for proof of completion.

Due to this inefficiency, the word “digital” naturally brings concern to potential advertisers; however, with DOOH, adblocking is not possible for digital signage because it cannot be blocked, filtered or turned off. Real people are seeing our ads and formats.

When it is done correctly and thoughtfully, the public accepts digital DOOH more so than any other media formats due to the creative advancements in this exciting format. It becomes more than a selling tool for our clients – it becomes something much larger and more impactful.

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Innovation and Trends = Data-Driven Campaigns

Real-time data feeds can be integrated into digital displays, as a result, clients are able to produce a very clear picture and snapshot of the “now” for target audiences. Innovation is the name of the marketing game these days, and DOOH does just that.

With the strategic and thoughtful use of data and technology, in addition to a general market campaign, a client can create a truly powerful and unique experience for their target audience. OOH advertising is THE top medium to create the lasting connection and visibility that an audience needs to take action at point of purchase. = Beacons

Beacons are real-world data generators that are insanely accurate. With them, you can turn your OOH advertising locations into signals, which help to pinpoint a specific target audience and market to them directly. This innovation allows the world of mobile and OOH advertising to further connect and maximize the most efficient exposure possible.

This cutting-edge technology proves extremely useful to reach consumers in specific situations that naturally warrant waiting time like the airport, bus station, or even hospital.

Strategically sending creative messaging via smartphones to consumers in these particular situations makes them much more likely to engage with the brand or product.

Recently, COACH used beacons at the Hong Kong International Airport to engage customer participation in a cutting-edge OOH campaign. The beacon-based, social media campaign prompted participants to share a photo with hashtag #CoachPreFall2016 to enter a drawing to win merchandise from the collection.

Beaconstac reports, “to participate, passengers, had to go near a beacon hoarding (with the Bluetooth switched on their smartphones), go on WeChat and shake their phones.

The beacons installed in the advertising media would then communicate with passengers’ smartphones and take them to the campaign landing page.”

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As a result of strategically placing beacons in a high-impact area with predictable wait time, Coach was able to engage customers and create a lasting impression of the brand while maximizing exposure through virtual outreach.

Hand Painted Mural Advertising Originally popular in the 20th century, hand paint murals are making a comeback in vibrant cities with strong artistic communities like Detroit, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. By commissioning local artists to create brand-promoting murals, advertisers connect with communities on a more powerful level. Using local artists to create advertisements, authentically generates interest in the community and results in public relation opportunities not typically open to run of the mill billboard placements.

Additionally, hand paint murals take time to create. While painting, artists attract attention from pedestrians and street traffic. The process of the mural’s creation can be used as a marketing asset in itself. Time lapse videos of the process from start to finish can be used to supplement OOH advertising campaigns. = Action

OOH advertising is a tried and true method in initiating audiences to take action. Over threequarters of Americans have been noted as smartphone owners, which is an enormous number of potential customers ready to interact and engage with brands at the tip of their fingers.

A recent Nielsen study states that OOH generates more online activity per ad dollar spent when compared to radio, television, or print. Because of OOH exposure, consumers interact with brands via social media.

Because we are always turned on and, on the go,, OOH’s unsurpassed ability to bridge the gap between audience and brand will ultimately drive action from consumers.

About the Company Brooklyn Outdoor is a Detroit-based independent outdoor advertising agency. The company was founded in 2013 and has subsequently emerged as a national and regional force in the outdoor advertising industry with satellite offices and full-time sales representatives in Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

November 2018

The

10

Most Trusted

Remittance

Service Providers 2018

EasyPay: An Inclusive Digital Payment Platform in Albania

H

eadquartered at Tirana, Albania and founded in the year 2010, EasyPay is an Albanian FinTech company, born with an idea to offer customers an ‘easy’ to ‘pay’ concept from their mobile phone. This inclusive e-wallet platform allows people to make real-time payments by saving their time and money while reducing discomfort. On the other hand, people can make use of its mobile application to pay for over 40 services including utility bills, police fines, education fees, internet, top-ups, e-commerce etc.

In addition to this, customers can credit their EasyPay ewallet either with cash or cashless using their mobile phone or to one of the company’s 350 agents who are present across the country. By providing such safe and inclusive top up alternatives, both the banked and the non-banked population can have access to digital financial services and make real-time online or mobile payments. Recently, the company has entered into the remittance business and partnered with Ria Money Transfer, the second largest Money Transfer Operator in the world. This partnership has allowed EasyPay to offer competitive money transfers to the low and middleincome households in the Albanian market.

Apart from providing conventional money transfers through Ria Money Transfer, the Albanian customers who live and work abroad can directly pay their family’s utility bills using the EasyPay mobile application. This way, these customers who send money to their families for bill payments can directly pay for these bills

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comfortably from their homes. This benefit is offered to specific audiences; those who prefer digital channels with a simplified procedure, where EasyPay eliminates at least two steps to make the process easier in order to reduce their time and cost.

Driving Financial Innovations During the last eight years, experts of EasyPay, operating in the Albanian market have learnt never to underestimate the local culture and mentality. Hence, they have been constantly focusing on educating the population about its products and services apart from finding the right business model for success. EasyPay found itself lucky to be the first operator to enter into this sector in Albania, right in time when there was a huge gap in the market that needed to be filled. This led the company towards success as one of the leading fintech companies in the region, but this would have never happened without the company’s talented and passionate team of young Albanians who are truly driving the financial innovation breakthrough in Albania.

It is a result of their hard work that EasyPay is now recognized as a leading FinTech company in Europe, which has also reflected through its ranking as one of the Top 3 Fintech companies for Financial Inclusion in Europe, awarded by the European Fintech Awards 2017.

In the year 2015, it has been awarded as the Best ICT Company in Albania, by the Albanian Government as well. These achievements were also admired by the November 2018

“

We build our products and services byprioritizing their requirements and objectives so our customers have a fantastic experience and a easy life.

“

—Linda Shomo Founder & CEO

international and local media companies such as The Banker, and they invited EasyPay for an exclusive interview in their Financial Times offices in London.

EasyPay has also been featured in Let’s Talk Payments, The Fintech Times and The Paypers. Recently even Microsoft also did a dedicated coverage of EasyPay in their media channels. Further, with less than two years of operation in the remittance sector, the company has experienced a 300% YoY growth whilst its agent’s network has driven the company to gain an upper-hand among them through increasing the number of agents to 350 agents all over Albania.

Exploring Possibilities Presently, EasyPay’s goal is to expand its services into several regions especially in Kosovo and Macedonia where it has discovered similar gaps in the market.

Addressing this challenges the company is looking to offer cross-border payments in respective regions. It is also planning to provide online money transfers in Albania by viewing the present potential of the digital channels in the country. Apart from utilities and money transfers, it has recently introduced new products like tax and microloan payments which help to offer cross-selling to the remittance beneficiaries in Albania.

November 2018

The Lady of Balkans Linda Shomo, the Founder and CEO of EasyPay has an extensive executive experience of over 23 years in the IT industry. Prior to EasyPay, Linda held IT management roles in various global financial institutions such as the American Bank of Albania, First Data International etc.

Linda has received many awards and recognitions for her leading role in the financial revolution including ‘Woman of the year, 2014’ by ICT Awards and ‘Women in FinTech Powerlist 2017’ by Innovate Finance. Apart from this, Linda is also a board member of various Albanian IT, Financial and Women associations. She is also actively contributing as a mentor and jury member in the startup ecosystem and Financial Industry in Albania. She was a special invitee in the International Money Transfer, Remittances & Cross-Border Payments Conference (IMTC) 2018 for EMEA held in Brussels, where she gave an exclusive speech for Ria and EasyPay.

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Editor’s Pick

Data Center Security: Controlling Possible Threats

T

he rise in cyber-crimes is one of the main causes of Data center outages. As per the recent survey conducted by industry insiders, cyber-crime caused 22 percent data center outages in 2015 opposed to 2 percent outages in 2010. Adding to all these, now most of the data centers are re-evaluating their security policies after the recent WannaCry ransomware attack.

Data center outages cause companies to loss revenue in many ways. However, the costliest loss is service interruption and loss of IT productivity. So, the organizations are now realizing that traditional security is no longer secure enough to secure any data center. A recent study has found that 83 percent of traffic travels east/west within the data center, which stays undetected by the perimeter security. In this environment, when an attacker infiltrates the perimeter firewall, then can jump across the system with ease, extract information and compromise valuable data. Additionally, data centers can fail due to trespassers or a terrorist attack or by natural calamities.

So, how can one secure a data center in the best way possible from any kind of cyber threat? Don’t worry we’ve got you covered, with the points below.

As the first step, one should Map the Data Center and flag the hackers within the virtual and physical infrastructure.

The CSOs and CIOs with a system map of their systems can react to any suspicious activity and take steps to stop data breaches. Being able to visualize different traffic patterns within a network helps to understand threats, that eventually elevates the level of security.

Understanding and measurement of traffic flow within the data center boundary are very important. In the case of

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any interruption in traffic across east/west vs north/south, protected vs unprotected one can get to know about a threat.

Additionally, vulnerable zones and unprotected traffic need to be monitored for a better result.

Firewall rules need to be defined and implemented as per requirements. Additionally, one should allow traffic only after thorough verification and selectively allow communication to ensure maximum protection. The key is to identify, what;s legal and secured and what can be blocked to enhance security.

One needs to Build a Team with executives who understand how traffic flows within the premises and can access & secure information, take necessary measures to secure important assets along with the implementation of roadblocks for the attackers.

Security must move as fast as a data center’s technology adoption and integration. Security Strategy Should Change Alongside the Technology and it should not be treated as an add-on option. Additionally, businesses also should ensure that their virus protection, signatures other protection features are up to date for better protection.

Businesses should Identify and Place Controls over highvalue assets, which will help to reduce risk. However, older security solutions are completely blind to new threats, new security companies have produced latest solutions that protect data in the virtual world.

Access Restriction also needs to be imposed. Every business should thoroughly check a person’s background before giving the access to a prized possession. Access to the main site and the loading bay must be limited,

November 2018

additionally, two-factor authentications and fortified interiors with security guards and roving patrols would help to safeguard the employees and the data center.

Installing Surveillance Cameras around the data center, alongside removing signs which may provide clues to its function helps to locate an intruder. A buffer zone between the data center and all the entry points will limit unlawful trespassing to a great extent. Additionally, the data center needs to be far away from the main road and it should not have any windows other than administrative purposes for better security.

A data center should Check Test Back-Up Systems regularly as prescribed by the manufacturer. It should also ensure to make a list and of Do’s and Don’ts in the event of an attack. Recovery plans and security plans also need to be checked thoroughly.

Data centers are always a Soft Target for The Terrorists, as an attack on them can disrupt and damage major business and communication infrastructure. So, security needs to be taken seriously and to do that proactive steps should be taken to limit the impact of a terrorist attack.

Trained Security Guards needs to be posted inside a data center and they should be well trained. Security officers must undergo strict site-specific training to monitor surveillance footage. Depending on the size of data center and the number of security cameras multiple security officers may be required on duty. Security officers dedicated to inspecting surveillance footage helps when it comes to securing a data center.

Disaster Recovery is very much important, that must be in place. If the data center stops functioning after an attack or natural calamity, it must have a way to restore operations as soon as possible. To be ready for a disaster and to evaluate the disaster recovery plan, it’s necessary to train staffs well and experience simulated disasters.

To avoid these obstacles, one needs a fair bit of knowledge of new security systems, solid plans, and comprehensive visibility. The more work a data center can do up front in the above-mentioned areas the better the chances of success with lesser outages.

November 2018

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The

10

Most Trusted

Remittance

Service Providers 2018

Small World Financial Services: A Leading Cross-Border Payments Provider

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owadays, customers expect to be able to transfer money in a quick, seamless and secure way. In an industry once dominated by banks, now new and innovative cross-border payment providers are entering the market and rapidly gaining ground. Payment providers have been able to create a new marketplace and increasingly capitalize the power of big data, analytics and the cloud to create customer-centric models.

Based in London, United Kingdom, Small World Financial Services Group Ltd provides omni-channel, cross border payment services for consumers and businesses to over 180 countries worldwide, including direct to bank account, cash pick-up in minutes, credit to mobile wallets and home delivery.

operations, allowing Small World to extend its service worldwide.

Cross-Border Payment Services Small World is a leading omni-channel provider of crossborder payment services for consumers and businesses.

Customers can send money abroad, whether sending to their family, paying a bill, or making a critical investment. Customers benefit through Small Worlds ability to process and send payments quickly with low charges and competitive exchange rates. In addition to this, having a reliable service means customers trust the company, knowing that their money can be transferred on time at any time of the day.

Small World delivers its services internationally to consumers and businesses through a number of channels: via one of its 84 stores globally, over the phone with one of its call centres, digitally in 21 countries via website and mobile app, and through its global network of over 6,000 authorized sending agents.

Small World have spent over a decade building a product that can integrate their services into hundreds of partner banks, post offices and mobile operators around the world. They have bypassed the existing expensive and slow infrastructure of the typical banking world in order to get payments to customers quickly, securely and at a low cost.

The Driving Force

Benefitting the Customers across the Globe

Since founding Small World back in 2005, Nick Day (CEO) has been the driving force behind its growth and expansion, managing Small World through its first transaction sent from Peckham to Lagos back in 2006 to reaching the recent milestone of 75 million transactions.

Under his leadership, the company has acquired a number of smaller businesses with very strong local

The cross-border payments industry has often been viewed as complex, with strange terminology, opaque fees and low levels of transparency. With Small World, customers have easy access to a variety of international payments services. They can choose the interaction which is most convenient for them by transacting via the mobile app or website, visiting a store, calling one of the

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November 2018

“

Our mission is to bring our customers a simple, trustworthy, transparent and a very fast way to get their money where they want it to

“

be and a very fast way to move their money.

—Nick Day CEO

payment experts in Small Worlds call centers, or visiting one of the conveniently located agents. Some of the benefits gained by the customers are: Firstly, being an omni-channel provider in the market, Small World gives customers the ability to transfer money digitally either online or via the app, by visiting their nearest agent or store, or by placing a transaction over the phone with customer services. This level of convenience allows customers to choose how they want to interact and gives them autonomy over how they send their money.

The Future Relationship Small World remains focused on becoming the leading cross-border payment provider, and continuing to expand its global reach and market share. Innovative technology, relationships with partner banks, and a strong focus on regulatory compliance have proved invaluable in propelling the business forward, and are crucial in enabling Small World to deliver the speed, value and convenience that customers require.

Secondly, with its huge network of direct partnerships and integrations with banks and financial institutions around the world, Small World has the ability to deliver money within seconds. This has generated a huge advantage for their customers in this increasingly realtime world. “Customers just want to know that the money is there, and there is no need for them to wait any more” says Nick.

Finally, Small World can process the payment at a low, highly competitive cost. This high level of service at low price points has helped the company to earn the loyalty of over 3 million customers in over 5,000 country corridors worldwide.

November 2018

39

Tech Talk

T

he arrival of Chatbots is considered to be an incredible breakthrough in the realm of business or any kind of entrepreneurships. It is one of the smartest innovations by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) that businesses can count on. The Chatbot is a software that can be programmed to carry out a certain set of actions all by itself, like a wind-up toy, in text or spoken formats. The capability of the bots to learn from the past interactions and grow in itself, makes it more attractive and interesting. Chatbots work in two different ways.

Firstly, predefined responses are given from an existing database, based on the keywords searched by customers. The smart machine based bots attract their knowledge from Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Computing and adapt their behavior based on the customer interactions.

Applicability of Chatbots in Business: The applicability of these chatting bots is quite relevant in this era of digital glory. As the new tech-savvy generation of customers is always connected to the social platforms, they definitely expect a seamless and less time consuming customer experience with the brands they love. Econsultancy found in a research that 57% of customers prefer live chat to email or a phone call. There’s no surprise that consumers today are appreciating chatting or texting more than any other forms of communication. To address this priority of the customers and outgrow in this competitive business world, many business giants are adopting these virtual agents.

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November 2018

Tech-Talk

CHATBOTS A Dynamic Digital

Gesture for Creative Entrepreneurs It’s a Smart Trend for Entrepreneurial Venture: With the widespread adoption of the artificial intelligence, the human interaction and connectivity has taken a fascinating turn. This extremely sophisticated and versatile tool can be helpful in crafting any small or big business plan. Apart from being awesome in resolving customer care queries, Chatbots can be a part of an entrepreneurial strategy in many ways.

That’s where the appeal of Chatbots lies. There are many different approaches to navigate this connectivity tool throughout the business venture. Let's have a look at some of these approaches: As every organization has a unique set of customers, the Chatbots must be programmed in accordance with customer journey. Knowing the finer details of the customer journey from A-Z, might be proved as the foundation for success. As AI is enacting a larger role in business reforms, having accurate foresight and experience is the most needed prerequisite to program the bot.

After programming the bot, it should be designed in a way that would enhance customer success by advancing them down the sales funnel. A microscopic view of the customer service and sales data always helps in this regard. One should have a good grasp on:

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Which patterns and questions are asked the most?

How the responses can be programmed to answer all of them? Ÿ And most importantly, in what way all the necessary information can be provided to bring people from awareness stage to a decision?

Ÿ Ÿ

In order to guide the customer seamlessly through the sales funnel with the help of the intelligent bot, an entrepreneur needs to put himself/herself in the shoes of the average customer and develop the bot around their path to success.

To build strong relationships with customers, another smarter way is to “humanize” the Chatbot. People generally want to buy something from other people, not from a robot.

Therefore, programming responses needs to be done in a way that reflects the character and personality of the brand.

The Chatbot need to be designed with a tinge of human empathy with the authentic brand voice.

Lastly, with the changing digital landscape, customer mindsets are also always in the verge of change. To stay on the top of the game, one must have to consistently analyze the data and evolve the bot accordingly.

Future of Chatbots:

will become more empowered to edify the conversational interface of businesses. Chatbots are going to get a lot smarter, more intelligent and indistinguishable from a human being with the advancement of AI. However, it will definitely take some trials and errors before the chatting robots master and adopt the delicacies of polite conversation.

Also, it’s quite predictable that the cost of Chatbots will eventually get cheaper as the adoption of it increases across multiple domains. An example is Facebook’s decision to let third-party applications build Chatbots in their platform has drastically lowered the price.

Conclusion: It really amazes us how far technology has come up in the last several years in the digital marketing arena. However, some things will always remain the same. Even if everything gets automated in the future, nothing will minimize the appeal of optimal user experience. The bots can be used to automate a huge chunk of the marketing process, but without making the process dull and impersonal. Only then these marvels of technology will be able to make wonders.

Chatbots are currently being utilized as easy and fun ways on websites, social platforms and smartphones to assist customers in their interactions with a brand. Even if the Chatbots are still in rudimentary stage, we can expect a lot more progressions in this trend. With the gradual evolution of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning, the Chatbots

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November 2018