Author: World Finance

How Convoy is transforming trucking and protecting the environment

Posted on by World Finance

Convoy is a Seattle-based transport technology innovator, working to fix the inefficiencies in one of the largest industries in the US – trucking. Worth an estimated $800bn a year, it is the lynchpin of American logistics – but, explains Convoy’s Juliet Horton, it hasn’t evolved in decades, and is rife with inefficiencies. She outlines Convoy’s approach to disrupting the industry: using automation to match shipper loads with carriers, reducing the number of empty miles travelled, and slashing the carbon cost of trucking.

World Finance: Why is digital transformation so critical for this sector?

Juliet Horton: Thanks for having me, Paul. Trucking is an $800bn a year industry in the US, that powers every aspect of our economy. Something that’s only become more clear in recent years, throughout this global pandemic.

Yet despite how critical this business is, it is riddled with inefficiencies, and hasn’t evolved very much in the last several decades. This is a problem for shippers, because it doesn’t allow them to have full access to the capacity across the country, and as a result doesn’t give them the best prices and the best scheduling options. Conversely for carriers, inefficiencies in this market cost them the ability to find the best jobs that would work for their schedule and allow them to optimise their earnings for themselves.

Secondly this has major consequences for our environment. In the US truckers log 175 billion miles every single year, a third of which are driven empty. That results in 87 million metric tonnes of carbon emitted needlessly into our environment.

So we see this as such a critical industry to innovate in, both for the benefit of our customers, and our environment.

World Finance: You’re creating what you call a digital freight network – what does this mean, and what does it achieve?

Juliet Horton: A digital freight network is an open, fully connected freight marketplace that uses software, automation, and machine learning to streamline every step of the process.

So we’re thinking about building products and services for our customers that hit two key areas that they need. The first is efficiency: that means every aspect of the shipment lifecycle we’re looking to automate and drive efficiency in, and as a result pass our savings along to our customers.

The second piece is around transparency. This means giving shippers better insights into the health of their network, the status of their shipments, and allowing them to most efficiently run their businesses. And for carriers that means giving them the transparency into every opportunity that exists in their market for them to optimise their schedules and earn as much as possible for themselves.

We see our business as a flywheel, meaning that we can become more efficient the bigger that we get. The more shippers we bring into our network, the more loads that are available for carriers: that attracts more carriers onto our network, and the more truck drivers that we have available, the more likely we are to match that load to the best driver at the best price possible, saving shippers money.

World Finance: How does your technology actually achieve that efficiency and transparency?

Juliet Horton: We’re using technology in two key ways. The first is to automate every necessary step of a shipment lifecycle. So when you think about everything that has to happen from when a producer creates a good before it gets into the hands of consumers, there are countless steps in that process. And we’re looking to automate each and every one of them. Currently we’re able to automate 100 percent of our pricing and matching decisions in our target markets. So we’re looking at everything that has to be done and trying to make it as fast and efficient as possible. And the second way is that we’re building new businesses to rethink how the freight industry works.

One of our businesses is called Convoy Go, which is our drop-and-hook service, that allows us to decouple the loading of a trailer and the transportation of a trailer. This means shippers are able to load up a trailer on their own schedule, at their own convenience. And the carrier only has to be on site to actually transport that trailer.

So there’s less downtime for the carrier, they’re able to fit in more shipments into their schedule and maximise their earnings. And within our Convoy Go network, these are our trailers that we’re able to equip with smart technology. That means we have great insights on the status of shipments that we’re able to send back to the shipper, give them transparency into where everything in their network stands, and allow them to optimise their business.

Vertex tax technology: Introducing SAP chain flow accelerator

Posted on by World Finance

Managing tax across Europe has become increasingly complex: with new VAT regulations, migrating to the cloud, multiple financial systems, faster data speeds, and urgent reporting deadlines.

For companies with cross-border supply chains, ensuring consistent VAT treatment across all legs of transaction requires tedious manipulation of data in the ERP system. The process is manual, error-prone, and usually requires significant support from IT.

Errors in the interpretation of which data is relevant for VAT determination can mean errors in VAT payments and accruals which affect the bottom line.

Vertex offers a visualisation tool to streamline chain flow data mapping for improved VAT determination. Using the chain flow accelerator, the user can map data inside SAP ECC or SAP S/4HANA to Vertex VAT fields – and perform an interpretation of the data before it’s sent to the Vertex tax engine for VAT determination.

To perform this data mapping, Vertex offers a unique visualisation tool to streamline the data mapping and improve accuracy. Tax professionals can use the tool without IT intervention, connecting up to 80 data elements and documents in a chain, to ensure consistent VAT treatment across the transaction.

The streamlined chain flow data mapping is not only available in S/4HANA, but also in ECC. SAP customers who implement the tool now in ECC can streamline their migration to S/4HANA, since the VAT data mapping can be easily transferred.

Add the Vertex Chain Flow Accelerator to SAP ECC or SAP S/4HANA today – to improve VAT accuracy and spend less time recouping VAT overpayments, reduce IT support, increase tax department efficiency, and improve audit performance.

Vertex tax technology: Why add a tax engine for VAT determination

Posted on by World Finance

Today’s multinational businesses face constant changes that affect global tax determination. Not just the ongoing regulatory changes, but business changes: including market expansion, M&A, new financial systems, and new product offerings.

With these constant changes, the process of manual tax research and updating every financial system can be a significant cause of VAT error, and a strain on in-house tax and IT. Even if the tax content is up-to-date, the native functionality in these systems often doesn’t meet the needs of a complex multinational, leaving them exposed at audit time.

Adding a tax engine to your ERP and financial systems improves your VAT process in multiple ways. A tax engine takes away the burden and cost of continuous in-house tax research, since tax content is maintained by the tax engine provider. Adding a tax engine improves VAT determination accuracy, since more relevant data elements are considered than in a native ERP calculation.

With a tax engine, there’s less IT support needed to implement VAT changes, since this can be managed by the tax specialists themselves. Using a tax engine, you can introduce consistent tax coding for a reliable, repeatable accounts payable process. You can conduct adequate real-time reporting, since the tax engine ensures VAT is calculated accurately the first time. A tax engine centralises your VAT controls, allowing for a more agile tax organisation that can scale quickly with business growth.

Adding a tax engine can reduce the overall cost of global VAT management. Integrating a tax engine with your financial systems is essential to stay ahead in today’s tax landscape. You’ll improve your end-to-end VAT processes, making it more efficient, agile, and scalable.

Vertex tax technology: Why add a tax engine for procurement

Posted on by World Finance

Today’s tax departments continually look for ways to streamline their operations and reduce audit risk. That focus is not just on the sales side of the business, but on the procurement side as well.

Regardless of whether you’re using your ERP system or implementing a new procurement platform, managing tax in the procure-to-pay process requires constant collaboration between tax, IT, procurement, and accounts payable teams. Without this partnership, it will significantly increase audit risk and inefficiencies within AP.

The manual process of tax research and updating financial systems can strain in-house tax and IT resources, and lead to tax errors. Even when these systems are updated with the latest tax content, their native tax functionality is usually not granular enough for today’s complex tax landscape.

At the same time, tax coding decisions on purchase orders and supplier invoices are being made in the AP department instead of the tax department; and all this is happening at a time when tax authorities are increasing audit activity.

Integrating a tax engine automates sales, use, and value-added tax determination to improve the accuracy of taxes paid and accrued. It uses rules-based calculations instead of human decisions. It applies the same tax logic across the procure-to-pay process: at the requisition and purchase order stage, and at the invoice reconciliation and approval stage.

Adding a tax engine for your procurement process brings benefits across tax, IT, and purchasing. It reduces the burden and cost of continuous in-house tax research, since tax content is maintained by the tax engine provider. There’s less IT support needed to implement tax changes, since this can be managed by the tax specialists themselves. It improves tax accuracy since the functionality is more robust than native ERP or procurement systems.

You can introduce consistent tax coding for reliable, repeatable accounts payable process, where tax own tax decisions. And you can integrate a single tax engine to all your financial systems across sales and purchasing, for centralisation and scalability.

Add a tax engine to your procurement process today to improve tax accuracy, reduce IT support, increase efficiency, increase scalability, and improve audit performance.

Vertex tax technology: How Siemens sought (and found) a tax calculation engine built for growth

Posted on by World Finance

“When you’re processing 20-25,000 tax returns and 146 audits a year, it’s extremely important to have a partner like Vertex that you can rely on,” says Sandra Blair, Head of Indirect Tax for Siemens in the US.

Sandra Blair: I’m head of indirect tax for Siemens in the US. We are a global conglomerate in the top 50 throughout the world. We have locations in every country in the world.

We were seeking a new tax calculation engine provider. In conjunction with the Vertex consultants, the DMA alliance partner, we were able to move seven SAP systems off of our previous provider, onto the new Vertex tax calculation engine. Move 3.5 million tax exemption certificates, and set up our use-tax accrual program in less than six months.

After a bit of stabilisation, we then moved our Oracle system in three weeks from our previous provider, onto the Vertex solution.

One of the big benefits that we have been able to obtain from Vertex is putting our destiny in our control. We are no longer having to reach out to IT to make changes once a configuration is identified, or an overpayment, or an over-accrual on the use tax, we’re immediately able to go into Vertex, test our solution, correct it, and get it rolled into production. So a five to six month process has now been taken down to a day, if needed. So it’s been a huge benefit, cost reduction, savings.

We have also had a report customised, so any of these changes that we have made because of Vertex, we were able to identify down to the penny how much we’ve been able to save. So it’s setting us up to take us into the future, into the digitalisation environment and economy. And Vertex, with their content, has given us a broader range to handle our conglomerate and all the service lines that we sell.

When you’re processing 20-25,000 tax returns a year, and 146 audits a year, it’s extremely important to have a partner through, like Vertex, that you can rely on. Their tax calculations, you know they’re right. That provides the right answer when it comes back in to your system.

Working with Vertex has enabled my shared service organisation to take on additional work without additional headcount. It has allowed us to increase our accuracy on our consumers use-tax filing, our accuracy on our customer billings, which has led to helping us increase our customer satisfaction scores from a tax department perspective: making sure that everything is compliant, and that we’re responding in the most efficient and effective manner.

Vertex tax technology: Global tax determination at speed and scale

Posted on by World Finance

Tax and IT departments today face an uphill battle, with constantly evolving tax rules and business changes. A Vertex tax engine provides a powerful solution to automate, streamline, and centralise indirect tax, so companies can reduce risk and increase scalability.

Vertex takes tax determination out of each individual transaction system, and puts it in a single global tax engine to support the sales and purchasing side of your business. No matter how many financial systems you use.

With Vertex, indirect tax is managed in one place – but leveraged across all of your business units around the world.
A Vertex tax engine delivers robust capabilities for the end-to-end tax process.

Continually updated tax content, maintained by the Vertex research team, supports sales, use, and value-added tax; plus industry-specific content for retail, leasing, food and beverage, and communications services.

Configurable tax rules let you configure your system to support your specific products and complex business needs.

Real-time address cleansing and precise jurisdiction assignment improve tax accuracy, regardless of where the transaction takes place.

Robust integrations seamlessly pass transaction details and tax calculations between Vertex and your financial systems in real-time.

Integrated tools to help you collect, track, and store exemption certificates. Reporting and data to automate compliance and support audit management. And options to let you deploy the tax engine in whatever way meets your business and IT requirements: in the cloud, on premise, or a hybrid approach that combines the benefits of both.

Find out how a Vertex tax engine can help you: reduce audit exposure, improve compliance, improve global scalability, centralise tax management, and increase productivity.

Integrate Vertex with your financial systems today, to make your end-to-end tax processes more efficient, agile, and scalable. Contact Vertex today to learn more or schedule a demonstration.

Vertex tax technology: Data intelligence for tax

Posted on by World Finance

All tax departments collect data. But are you using it in an intelligent and insightful way?

Tax has access to one of the largest, most detailed datasets in the company: sales, purchases, expenses, payroll, and more. But many use that goldmine of information merely to support the monthly compliance process. You use data to generate and validate the monthly returns.

A truly value-driven tax function uses that data for more than just compliance. It leverages data intelligence tools to not only improve the accuracy of the returns, but unlock time, capacity, and insight, to become a more strategic tax function and drive better business outcomes.

You’ll reduce the time spent on compliance and focus more on higher value functions: like audit defence and planning to support the business.

Data Intelligence leverages every data point that already exists in various business systems, and turns it into insight for the tax function to enhance business outcomes.

Data Intelligence tools gives you insight about your customers, your vendors, your taxes collected and paid. Your newly released products and services. Your new selling and buying locations.

You can easily identify changes and trends; and pinpoint areas of risk that you can address more proactively, to impact the business sooner.

Data Intelligence turns raw data into insight; insight you can use immediately, to not only optimise tax performance, but to model, predict, and influence business decision-making to drive business growth.

It’s the key to moving your tax department out in front of the business, and becoming a profit centre; rather than just a cost centre that handles regulatory reporting.

With Data Intelligence, you’ll use tax data to identify new business opportunities, and influence business growth strategy beyond the tax department. You’ll become more proactive, not just reactive. You’ll measure the value contributed, not just the tasks executed.

Vertex tax technology: Introducing Vertex Cloud VAT compliance

Posted on by World Finance

A manual spreadsheet approach to VAT reporting is labour-intensive, error-prone, and costly. Keeping up with the latest regulatory changes is challenging at best; and the effort required to support business expansion can hinder a company’s agility to respond to market opportunity.

Vertex offers a cloud-based VAT-reporting solution to reduce risk, automate and improve process efficiency, improve data quality, and keep the business in line with the latest regulatory changes.

Import tax data from multiple ERPs, a tax determination engine, and all other financial systems – even Excel files.
Perform data quality checks and make necessary enhancements.

Map data easily to generate signature-ready, multi-language VAT/GST returns, reports, and AP/AR ledgers. E-file right in the application.

Access workflow tools, dashboards and reports, designed to let tax preparers and managers alike track progress across the end-to-end compliance process: from filing preparation, to approvals, to submissions.

And support audits with drill-down capability to detail transaction data and complete audit logs.

Vertex Cloud VAT Compliance enables multinational corporations to support business growth without additional VAT/GST process burden.

Built-in up-to-date tax content ensures you keep pace with the latest return forms and regulatory changes.
And efficient cloud access reduces the need for IT infrastructure and maintenance, accelerates deployment, and scales easily to support business growth.

Leverage a robust, multi-country VAT-reporting solution across the enterprise: ideal for decentralised tax departments and shared service centres.

Add Vertex Cloud VAT Compliance to your tax operations today, to: streamline process efficiency and reduce manual error, enhance data accuracy and transparency, improve audit performance, and accelerate scalability.

Post-pandemic surge for healthcare, banking and infrastructure sectors

Posted on by World Finance

Dimitris Kantzelis is CEO of XSpot Wealth; the innovative, technology-driven wealth management company he co-founded to provide convenient, transparent, low-cost and flexible wealth management solutions to people at every level of income. In the first video from our interview with Dimitris, he discusses how the markets responded to the slow pandemic recovery of 2021. You can also watch him explain how XSpot Wealth has adapted and evolved through 2021, and outline the company’s new offering for institutional investors.

World Finance: Dimitris, obviously 2020 was a year of incredible volatility; how have the markets responded this year, as we inch closer to recovery?

Dimitris Kantzelis: Yes, it was a quite bumpy ride, especially in March 2020, when we saw the stock markets dropping more than 30 percent, and oil prices at some point trading at below zero levels. So that was a very difficult situation for investors, as they were dumping everything and getting cash, preparing for a lifetime catastrophe.

Now, we saw that governments and central banks were very well prepared to support the system, with trillions in stimulus packages. This is now bringing some fears of hyperinflation lasting for the next couple of years – this is the main theme of discussion for these current months and the next year.

The counter-argument for that is that these stimulus packages went to support households and businesses to get through the pandemic, as we saw record levels of savings all around the world. We believe those savings will help as we go out of this pandemic; we believe we will be going out very quickly, and we will be looking at the face of mature growth in the global stock and bond markets.

World Finance: And what sectors do you expect to perform well as life slowly returns to normal?

Dimitris Kantzelis: Well, we’re looking at some sectors specifically. I would mention the health sector, because the MRNA technology helped a lot – not only in the COVID-19 vaccines, but also in the entire research and development around vaccines for the future. So that’s a sector we’re focusing in.

The banking sector is another very important sector. The banks were very well capitalised this time, and we believe that with increasing interest rates they will be very profitable, so that’s another sector we’re focusing on.

Real estate is another sector – we’re seeing people buying houses, turning to real estate for safety after the global pandemic. And also infrastructure, as we’re trying to change the way we commute, and we live in cities.

So, these are the main sectors we’ll be focusing on.

World Finance: And which geographies do you expect to be outperforming?

Dimitris Kantzelis: We believe the US will keep outperforming the global stock and bond markets. We see some worries in China – we still believe China is going to be the next big thing for the next decade, but with the Evergrande situation and the debt issues of many companies, the overregulation that Beijing is trying to bring in, we believe that it might grow at a slower pace for the next couple of years.

Now Europe will also grow and get out of the pandemic, but the issue is the big energy crisis that is unfolding at the moment. So we believe this will be lagging the US as well.

World Finance: Dimitris, thank you very much.

Dimitris Kantzelis: Thank you so much.

XSpot Wealth technology and transparency will empower institutions

Posted on by World Finance

Dimitris Kantzelis is CEO of XSpot Wealth; the innovative, technology-driven wealth management company he co-founded to provide convenient, transparent, low-cost and flexible wealth management solutions to people at every level of income. In the third and final video from our interview with Dimitris, he discusses XSpot Wealth’s new institutional offering. You can also watch him outline prospects for growth as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, and explain how XSpot Wealth has adapted and evolved through 2021.

World Finance: Dimitris, this year XSpot has expanded the services you provide, and started offering your technology to institutional investors?

Dimitris Kantzelis: That’s correct Paul. We worked a lot during the pandemic, we expanded and upgraded our systems a lot. So we’re reaching a point where we’re discussing with people from the industry, and they will tell us that the system we have, the smart technology and AI, would be so helpful to them: so they can offer better services to their clients, and expand their books. Which is now something they cannot do: it would take very long, and they wouldn’t have the assets to invest in such technologies as well.

So we said, why not license the technology? Expand our global reach, help the investor get more robust and more transparent investment services. But also empower these companies to give better advice and services for their clients, and also expand their books.

World Finance: I know the foundation of XSpot Wealth has always been your smart technology; what sets it apart?

Dimitris Kantzelis: It could be summarised in four main sectors, which are scalability, security, efficiency, and transparency.

So, scalability: we’re working hard with the latest technology infrastructure to accommodate big data, big numbers of clients, while at the same time we give very low latency.

Security is of paramount importance; we’re implementing a lot of security layers before that point, but also security encryption is a very important feature, and we already have that in our system.

Efficiency: the wealth management and banking sectors are very complex sectors. You need a lot of things from the back office, the middle office, the front office, connections with fixed engines; and we’re covering all that.

And finally the transparency. With strong reporting engines, we can give all the information to the client, but also real-time information through our CRM. So they have all the details they want to value and assess their investment.

World Finance: And does it integrate easily? How does the partnership work?

Dimitris Kantzelis: It’s actually one of the big advantages, that it can integrate so easily, and it’s ready to go with any company. We’re very flexible – they can choose parts of the system, from the back office, middle office, reporting lines, the fixed engine connecting them to the global stock and bond markets with some of the biggest counterparties. We provide full support of course, for the entire engagement. And it comes in very competitive packages.

World Finance: And what are your hopes for this side of the business?

Dimitris Kantzelis: First of all expanding our global reach in many countries outside our normal retail space. So, all around the world.

Helping, empowering clients who can now take advantage of these transparent services. Helping other companies and other institutions; expanding their books, offering better services to their clients.

And this will result for us to keep investing and upgrading the technology even more. So hopefully become one of the global key players in the wealth technology space.

World Finance: Dimitris Kantzelis, thank you very much.

Dimitris Kantzelis: Thank you.

XSpot Wealth launches ESG plans and prepares to expand to Middle East

Posted on by World Finance

Dimitris Kantzelis is CEO of XSpot Wealth; the innovative, technology-driven wealth management company he co-founded to provide convenient, transparent, low-cost and flexible wealth management solutions to people at every level of income. In the second video from our interview with Dimitris, he discusses how XSpot Wealth responded to the trends of 2021, and its roadmap of future growth. You can also watch him explain the company’s new offering for institutional investors, and outline prospects for growth as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.

World Finance: Dimitris, how has XSpot Wealth responded this year to the macroeconomic trends you’ve described?

Dimitris Kantzelis: Yes, from the beginning of the year we had some transitions that needed to take place. The Biden administration coming in, and the fears for breaking down the big tech shifted some of our portfolios from technology stock to value sectors as our economies were opening up again – travelling, going out, real estate, banking, as we discussed before. Health sectors. This is where we had to change efficiently, quickly, and that was a key point where our clients saw that we made the correct decisions.

But we believe we’re doing nicely; the way of passive investments, and being able to be extremely diversified, more aggressive but also more conservative approaches, depending on the risk profiles of the clients, proved very, very efficient.

We also launched our ESG plans, we see a lot of people interested in ESG investments. So now we have the thematic ESG funds, which are targeting different kinds of investments in global stock and bond markets. So that was a quite successful launch as well.

World Finance: And what feedback have you had from clients, as you’ve adapted and evolved?

Dimitris Kantzelis: They were very happy, because with the passive way we’re investing, with the big transparency, they can always see what we’re doing. And that’s why they feel comfortable. And this is the reason why they’re bringing us a lot of referrals. And we also see them bringing deposits from different institutions over to us.

World Finance: As the world has opened up, you must have been able to interact with your clients in better and more engaging ways?

Dimitris Kantzelis: Yes of course – being digital doesn’t stop us, because at the same time, we’re hybrid. So we always have our private wealth managers ready, and our customer support, to help solve any questions and advise our clients in a better way based on their individual goals and what they have in mind, yes.

World Finance: When we spoke last year you mentioned your ambitions for 2021 of entering two new countries and reaching 10,000 clients; how far along are you on your roadmap?

Dimitris Kantzelis: We’re very close actually; we believe we can hit that by the end of this year. But COVID-19 delayed us a bit – I believe it did most companies. We’re launching our Dubai office very soon, and we believe by next year we’ll be in another European location.

So by 2023 we will have expanded our reach all around south-eastern Europe and the Middle East. So we’re on track for our next target, which is the 100,000 client mark. But also with the institutional offering we now have, we believe we can expand all around the world.

World Finance: Dimitris, thank you.

Dimitris Kantzelis: Thank you Paul.

How BVI fosters entrepreneurship with its fintech regulatory sandbox

Posted on by World Finance

The last year has shown how truly dependent we all are on smooth international supply chains and the business structures that enable frictionless, cross-border trade. Simon Gray is Global Head of Business Development and Marketing for BVI Finance; he explains how the British Virgin Islands has been helping to create our modern global village for the last 36 years, and how the BVI is continuously updating and upgrading its offering to foster entrepreneurship.

You can also watch the second half of this conversation with Simon Gray, where he discusses the ways the BVI is innovating in funds and trusts.

World Finance: Simon, what role has the BVI played in creating our modern global village?

Simon Gray: The role has been very significant. It really began about 35, 36 years ago with the introduction of the International Business Companies Act; and that was extremely innovative and flexible at the time. But we continue to be responsive to business needs and changes globally. So we tend to always try to benchmark with the best. We try to seek out opportunities where they maybe haven’t been considered for whatever reason. And we try to capitalise on that, to the advantage of our stakeholders.

And perhaps a good example of that with the global village is that we do now represent interests in the four corners of the world. And an independent report through Capital Economics indicated or advised that two million jobs were created globally as a consequence of BVI mediated finance, and we contributed $1.5trn to the global economy. So we always try to punch above our weight.

World Finance: I think there is a broad perception that IFC structures are kind of the domain of enormous multinationals, but they are particularly important in helping young entrepreneurs or small businesses to grow internationally.

Simon Gray: Oh absolutely. And you’re right, we do have a number of listed entities – I think there’s about 140 of them. But we have many, many more thousands which are very much smaller operations.

Entrepreneurship is very much something that we’ve always wanted to attract, and we continue to attract. And in the past four years we introduced the Microbusiness Act to help small entrepreneurs. Most recently there’s been our fintech initiative, and our regulatory sandbox, which we introduced last year.

World Finance: Tell me more – what is your fintech regulatory sandbox? Who is it for, what does it achieve, and how has it been performing so far?

Simon Gray: Well it was actually introduced in the summer of last year, and that was not by any means the first globally. But the approach we’ve always taken is: look, and learn, and listen from others, and hopefully improve.

It’s really targeted at the young entrepreneurial individuals who wish to create a new initiative in the fintech space. And we’ve worked very closely with the Financial Services Commission to disentangle some of the regulations that would have been required normally for a period of time while they sit in the sandbox.

Obviously there’s no risk to consumers, because they’re in the laboratory at this point. And at such time as they leave the sandbox, the condition absolutely is they have to have full compliance. There are certain rules that are non-negotiable – there’s no way we’re going to compromise on anti-money laundering or counter-terrorist financing. But for the most part it’s managed to attract a great deal of business. So that is very much the spirit of entrepreneurship that we continue to propagate.

World Finance: And how do you stay agile and adaptive while still maintaining a strong regulatory framework?

Simon Gray: Well I’ve said we try never to be complacent; but we also recognise humility. It’s very important to understand that there are amazing competitors out there, and rather than fear them, I respect them. Hopefully they respect us as well.

But by benchmarking, by networking, we bounce ideas and thought leadership around. And working together, we hope we can price things slightly more competitively. But by working together we think it’s for the good of the overall global industry.

BVI Finance: ‘A suite of services for the entire corporate and blood family’

Posted on by World Finance

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, BVI Finance began running its events online, in a series of programmes it called ‘Virtually Together, Virtually Everywhere.’ On the occasion of his first physical event since the world’s first lockdown, at AFSIC Investing in Africa, BVI Finance’s Simon Gray describes the key themes explored through its events: including a private investment fund regime, a renewed purpose for its incubator fund, and and innovating in the digital space with smart contracts.

You can also watch the first half of this conversation with Simon Gray, where he discusses BVI’s role in fostering entrepreneurship around the world.

World Finance: Now you’re here in London to take part in AFSIC Investing In Africa – what are your hopes for this event?

Simon Gray: Well it’s great to be back physically; I mean we’ve been very big sponsors of AFSIC for many many years, I think over 10. And it’s very much to continue our support – not just for that important investment opportunity, but the African continent.

We have very strong historic links there, and we see Africa as an important location, not just for our business structures; our common law system provides certainty, our robust regulatory framework provides reassurance. So we’re seeing exponential growth and opportunity there, and we’re glad we can do our bit to assist.

One thing we’ve been doing as a consequence of COVID-19 is moving more into the virtual field. So we have an initiative called Virtually Together, Virtually Everywhere; recently we did an event for southern Africa, we did one for west Africa, we’re doing one for eastern Africa in the next six weeks. So that focus is very much going to continue.

World Finance: Tell me more about the virtually together, virtually everywhere, events. What were the key themes coming out of them?

Simon Gray: We try to really build on what we’ve got good experience of. So that is not just in the field of business companies, but also the diverse range of funds that we offer. As well as our innovative trust structures.

And if you look at our funds, in 2020 we introduced a private investment fund regime – very much a closed end fund focus, and it really consolidated a lot of existing legislation together. And the real focus has been on private equity and venture capital. So that’s doing great guns, we’re very pleased with that result.

We’re perhaps even more pleased with the incubator fund – that was created back in 2015, at that point really with a focus on the hedge fund industry. What we’ve discovered is that it’s proving as successful – if not moreso – with the world of digital and crypto funds. And that’s largely due to the very benign regulatory structure which keeps the costs down. The speed with which funds can be established and operate. And I think the word incubator says it all: it helps generate life and create a robust structure for the future.

And if I may just develop that in the trusts field. What we’ve also found is that many successful entrepreneurs then capitalise on using our trust structures, which helps with the succession planning for future generations.

So we try and offer a suite of different products and services for the entire corporate and blood family.

World Finance: You’ve touched on a few of these examples so far, I’m sure, but how would you say the BVI is driving innovation?

Simon Gray: We try to be as flexible, as innovative, as possible. And I think a good example of that is our focus on digital assets and working groups. We consult widely with the industry, we liaise closely with the regulator to ensure that whatever rules they have planned are fit for purpose and can work commercially.

And perhaps the best example with the digital space is smart contracts. The decentralised autonomous organisations, or limited liability autonomous organisations – both of those really work very well with the LLC construct, so that’s something that we’re pushing.

World Finance: Simon, thank you very much.

Simon Gray: Thank you very much, Paul.

Banco Popular ‘will continue to bet on a greater digitisation of our clients’

Posted on by World Finance

Francisco Ramirez, Executive Vice President of Personal Business and Branches for Banco Popular Dominicano, explains how the bank’s commitment to digital technologies helped it meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Francisco Ramirez: Since the establishment of Banco Popular Dominicano more than five decades ago, innovation has been a fundamental pillar that characterises our service and growth strategy. New technologies have enabled us to continue developing new business models, products, and services, that allow us to excel in our customer experience, making us a reference for financial innovation in the region.

In order to accelerate our digital transformation process, we have adopted the AGILE methodology, which allows us to constantly launch new innovations. In recent months, we have introduced a series of digital solutions that together with previously existing digital functionality help us maintain our leadership status in the market.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought challenges to all the productive and social sectors of the Dominican Republic – and the rest of the world. And this has propagated into changes in consumer behaviour. It has been a period of great learning and growth, where Banco Popular had the opportunity to reinvent itself, and support its clients with the launch of multiple digital functionalities that facilitate their interactions with the institution.

During 2020, we saw an accelerated adoption to digital banking services by our clients, where digital transactions reached 87 percent of the total operations performed by the bank.

For example, our Popular App has increased its relevance and usage every year compared to the rest of the channels. In 2020, transactions increased by 34 percent. This demonstrates clients’ trust in our technological infrastructure and the digital migration resulting from the effects of the pandemic.

At Banco Popular we believe that the digital migration process will continue as more clients experience the benefits of digital banking. For this reason, we are constantly communicating digital banking benefits through educational videos and advice from our executives, showing clients how they can save time when using digital solutions.

However, clients who continue to prefer personalised assistance have access to all of our traditional channels to perform their operations, where we are constantly making improvements to maximise the service experience.

For example, guided by innovation, one of our core values, we invest efforts to increase the scope of robotic process automation. Thanks to the robotisation of tasks, we increased our operational efficiency. In 2020, we identified and robotised 19 high-volume macro operational processes, which has an impact of improving the quality of the service offered to our customers.

We want to help our clients prosper in the digital world. That is why we have a strong commitment to online security. We work so that our clients can carry out operations digitally with total security, providing them with a 24/7 service, thanks to a powerful technological infrastructure.

During 2020, we continued to strengthen our information security and cyber security programme, incorporating the requirements of the Cyber and Information Security Regulation of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic and adapting it to best practices.

At Banco Popular we will continue to innovate and provide our clients with new solutions that can satisfy their needs and make their experience more pleasant. This is why we believe in the importance of listening to customers and co-creating with them. We have always started the innovations that digital transformation requires by understanding what our clients need.

Banco Popular will continue to bet on a greater digitisation of our clients, the automation of processes, and the continuous improvement of the service experience for Dominicans.

Portuguese Golden Visa demand soars as 2022 rules change is announced

Posted on by World Finance

Portugal’s Residency Permit Programme – its Golden Visa – has been offering high-net-worth-individuals a route to EU citizenship since 2012. Tiago Camara and David Machado are co-founders of PTGoldenVisa, an investment and consultancy service that focuses exclusively on Portugal’s programme. They explain how the COVID-19 pandemic, in combination with changes to the golden visa rules from January 2022, have created a surge in demand for investments this year. And they discuss how they’ve adapted their services to be more accessible than ever, in a time when people can’t physically visit their potential investment properties.

World Finance: Tiago, who are your clients and what are they looking for?

Tiago Camara: Our clients are typically non-European business owners or highly qualified workers, who are looking for freedom and security. They have available capital to invest – at least €280,000 on real estate, or €350,000 on qualified investment funds – and qualify for a programme that opens them the doors of Europe.

The pandemic has created enormous uncertainty and instability – and for many people, the promise of a Portuguese residency permit, with the potential to apply for citizenship after five years – represents a secure future – or simply a back-up plan against the unforeseen.

World Finance: And David, how are your clients typically investing – and how have things changed since the start of the pandemic?

David Machado: Nowadays the investment is still majority in real estate, so that’s how majority of the clients qualify for the programme. We have different opportunities here, but the big hit these days is to invest over €500,000 in villas, modern villas especially, where you can invest off-plan and get a very high capital appreciation.

And now the demand is bigger than ever. These days people realise how hard it is to travel, how important it is to feel secure and safe. People also feel very comfortable to place their investments in real estate in pandemic situations.

We also simplified the process to make it more easier for those who cannot travel. So everything can be done remotely: with 3D viewings, which these days are very accurate, very precise, and give you the real feeling of travelling through the property, a whole video of the property, outside and inside, and also a video that explain you how the rental projections of the property will perform. This will give you a very accurate feeling of what’s going to happen with your investment.

World Finance: There are big changes coming to the programme in 2022, how are you preparing for that?

David Machado: Our recommendation is for those who have the ability to perform the investments in 2021, don’t delay your investments, because the current rules are much more beneficial than the rules in the next year.

Obviously we’re still very confident that in 2022 Portugal will still be the main programme in Europe, and still very strong. But if you can do it today, don’t leave it for tomorrow, because the current rules allow you to have a very, very safe investment, and collect the benefits the same way. Obviously next year is still going to be attractive, but this year is much better.

World Finance: Finally Tiago, Why PTGoldenVisa? What sets you apart?

Tiago Camara: So, you know, it’s been a challenging time, but we pride ourselves on providing a complete investment and consultancy service all the time for our clients. Our ability to adapt and continue giving an excellent service for our clients through the pandemic is just one of the reasons we were awarded once again as the best Service Provider for the Portuguese Golden Visa Program.

We offer a complete service starting from Real estate investments, consultancy on the Golden Visa programme, assuring the solutions on all the legal legal steps, banking services, tax optimisation, property management. We are basically with our clients through all the investment and through all the programme – and lately we support them to apply for their citizenship.

Just visit our website, www.ptgoldenvisa.com or contact us directly on our email: contact@ptgoldenvisa.com and start your process with us – presently or remotely.