Fintech PR
RED SEA ATTACKS DRIVE TRANSPORTATION COSTS TO 15-MONTH HIGH AND SAFETY STOCKPILING INCREASES SLIGHTLY, BUT NO SIGNS OF PANIC SO FAR: GEP GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN VOLATILITY INDEX
- Excess global supply chain capacity shrinks to its lowest level in nine months, showing the first signs of recovery in global manufacturing
- Demand for raw materials, commodities and components, while subdued, also trends higher in January
- Asian supply chains at their busiest in nearly a year as factory purchasing rebounds in region’s key markets
CLARK, N.J., Feb. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index — a leading indicator tracking demand conditions, shortages, transportation costs, inventories and backlogs based on a monthly survey of 27,000 businesses — rose to -0.12 in January, from -0.44 in December, its highest level since last April, indicating that spare capacity across global supply chains has shrunk notably.
Although this is the ninth successive month of excess capacity at global suppliers, the downturn eased to its weakest since last April. The index suggests that underlying trading conditions may be starting to improve as recession and inflation fears fade and businesses prepare for a stronger 2024.
The most noteworthy impact from the Red Sea disruption was to transportation costs, which rose to a 15-month high in January, as commercial ships took the lengthier route around the Cape of Good Hope. There was also a slight pick-up in safety stockpiling, with reports from businesses of inventory building due to supply or price fears at the highest since last June. That said, they were well below the levels seen in 2021-2022 during the post-pandemic supply crunch.
Regionally, Asia’s supply chains were at their busiest in nearly a year as factory purchasing activity in China, South Korea and India rebounded, suggesting manufacturers there are gearing up for growth. In a similar vein, suppliers to North America and Europe saw their spare capacity shrink during January. Less slack was also seen for the U.K.’s suppliers, who have experienced subdued demand for 19 consecutive months.
“The world’s supply chains got busier in January, and activity at our global manufacturing clients is ticking up,” explained Daryl Watkins, senior director, consulting, GEP.
“With input demand trending higher, led by Asia, signalling a return to positive growth in the coming months, it is imperative business keeps tamping down suppliers’ price increases so inflation continues to trend down,” said Watkins, summarizing the implications.
JANUARY 2024 KEY FINDINGS
- DEMAND: Purchases of raw materials, commodities and components remained subdued, although the decline eased to its weakest since last April, hinting at improving demand.
- INVENTORIES: Reports of safety stockpiling due to supply or price concerns ticked up to a seven-month high in January as disruption through the Suez Canal led some companies to build up inventory buffers.
- MATERIAL SHORTAGES: Global supply conditions remain healthy — reports of item shortages remain among the lowest seen in four years.
- LABOR SHORTAGES: Labor availability remains unproblematic for global suppliers, with reports of backlogs rising due to a lack of staff holding close to historically typical levels.
- TRANSPORTATION: Global transportation costs rose to a 15-month high in January, signalling some contagion from the disruption to shipping through the Suez Canal.
REGIONAL SUPPLY CHAIN VOLATILITY
- NORTH AMERICA: Index rose to -0.33, from -0.39, indicating the 10th consecutive month of underutilized supplier capacity.
- EUROPE: Index rose to -0.63, from -0.92, the lowest level of excess vendor capacity in five months.
- U.K.: Index rose to -0.62, from -1.05, showing spare capacity at U.K. suppliers almost halving, which is a positive sign after 19 consecutive months of subdued input demand.
- ASIA: Index rose to 0.14, from -0.42, indicating the strongest pressure on the region’s supply chains in almost a year amid improving demand in key exporting nations.
For more information, visit www.gep.com/volatility.
Note: Full historical data dating back to January 2005 is available for subscription. Please contact [email protected].
The next release of the GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index will be 8 a.m. ET, March 13, 2024.
About the GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index
The GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index is produced by S&P Global and GEP. It is derived from S&P Global’s PMI® surveys, sent to companies in over 40 countries, totaling around 27,000 companies. The headline figure is a weighted sum of six sub-indices derived from PMI data, PMI Comments Trackers and PMI Commodity Price & Supply Indicators compiled by S&P Global.
- A value above 0 indicates that supply chain capacity is being stretched and supply chain volatility is increasing. The further above 0, the greater the extent to which capacity is being stretched.
- A value below 0 indicates that supply chain capacity is being underutilized, reducing supply chain volatility. The further below 0, the greater the extent to which capacity is being underutilized.
A Supply Chain Volatility Index is also published at a regional level for Europe, Asia, North America and the U.K. For more information about the methodology, click here.
About GEP
GEP® delivers AI-powered procurement and supply chain solutions that help global enterprises become more agile and resilient, operate more efficiently and effectively, gain competitive advantage, boost profitability and increase shareholder value. Fresh thinking, innovative products, unrivaled domain expertise, smart, passionate people — this is how GEP SOFTWARE™, GEP STRATEGY™ and GEP MANAGED SERVICES™ together deliver procurement and supply chain solutions of unprecedented scale, power and effectiveness. Our customers are the world’s best companies, including more than 550 Fortune 500 and Global 2000 industry leaders who rely on GEP to meet ambitious strategic, financial and operational goals. A leader in multiple Gartner Magic Quadrants, GEP’s cloud-native software and digital business platforms consistently win awards and recognition from industry analysts, research firms and media outlets, including Gartner, Forrester, IDC, ISG, and Spend Matters.
GEP is also regularly ranked a top procurement and supply chain consulting and strategy firm, and a leading managed services provider by ALM, Everest Group, NelsonHall, IDC, ISG and HFS, among others. Headquartered in Clark, New Jersey, GEP has offices and operations centers across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. To learn more, visit www.gep.com.
About S&P Global
S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI) S&P Global provides essential intelligence. We enable governments, businesses and individuals with the right data, expertise and connected technology so that they can make decisions with conviction. From helping our customers assess new investments to guiding them through ESG and energy transition across supply chains, we unlock new opportunities, solve challenges and accelerate progress for the world. We are widely sought after by many of the world’s leading organizations to provide credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity and automotive markets. With every one of our offerings, we help the world’s leading organizations plan for tomorrow, today.
Disclaimer
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Fintech
Fintech Pulse: Your Daily Industry Brief (Pennant Technologies, MogoPlus, Stash, Kennel Connection, RedRover)
As the fintech world evolves, emerging technologies, strategic collaborations, and industry shifts continue to shape the financial landscape. Today’s briefing covers the intensifying AI race between fintechs and banks, transformative partnerships, executive changes, and industry-wide innovations, highlighting the crucial role of fintech in reshaping the future of finance.
The AI Race: Fintechs vs. Traditional Banks
The competition between fintech firms and traditional banks to dominate AI integration is heating up. Fintech companies are leveraging AI to enhance customer experience and streamline operations, whereas banks are adopting AI cautiously, balancing innovation with regulatory compliance. The dynamic is reshaping customer expectations, with fintechs pushing the envelope in personalization, risk assessment, and fraud prevention. Traditional institutions are adopting fintech-style agility to stay competitive.
Source: Yahoo Finance, Fintech Futures, Cointelegraph
Collaborations for Enhanced Services
Pennant Technologies and MogoPlus have joined forces in Australia to revolutionize the lending process. By integrating their technologies, they aim to streamline the value chain in lending, offering enhanced speed and efficiency to both institutions and borrowers. This partnership reflects a growing trend of fintechs collaborating to offer comprehensive solutions, expanding their reach and impact within traditional financial sectors.
Source: Fintech Futures
Leadership Shifts and Layoffs: Stash’s Turbulent Turn
Stash, a major player in the fintech space, is undergoing significant leadership changes and layoffs amidst acquisition speculations. The fintech industry is experiencing a wave of strategic realignments, with several firms reevaluating their business models in response to market pressures and investor demands. This reflects broader industry concerns about sustainability and scaling in a competitive, innovation-driven market.
Source: Fortune
Fintech Meets Pet Care: A Unique Philanthropic Move
Kennel Connection has made waves by contributing $5,000 to RedRover on Giving Tuesday, an amount doubled through impact matching. This innovative use of fintech in pet care philanthropy highlights how financial technology can facilitate social impact, offering seamless donation solutions and promoting corporate responsibility in niche markets.
Source: PR Newswire
The post Fintech Pulse: Your Daily Industry Brief (Pennant Technologies, MogoPlus, Stash, Kennel Connection, RedRover) appeared first on News, Events, Advertising Options.
Fund aims to support new projects building AI tools to accelerate breakthrough discoveries in mathematics
WASHINGTON and LONDON, Dec. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Renaissance Philanthropy and XTX Markets today announced the launch of the AI for Math Fund. The fund will commit $9.2 million to support the development of new AI tools, which will serve as long-term building blocks to advance mathematics.
An increasing number of researchers, including some of the world’s leading mathematicians, are embracing AI to push the boundaries of mathematical discovery and learning. The AI for Math Fund will support projects that expand the use of leading AI technology by mathematicians globally.
Alex Gerko, Founder and co-CEO, XTX Markets said, “The fund will support this critical intersection between AI and math. Working in partnership with Renaissance Philanthropy, we want to give mathematicians the tools they need to advance the field. As AI continues to transform other sciences, we believe that mathematics will be next.”
Renaissance Philanthropy and XTX Markets are inviting proposals for innovative projects led by researchers, non-profits, companies, mathematicians, software engineers and computer scientists that are unlikely to occur under business-as-usual conditions. Click here to submit an application.
Proposals should be aligned with one of the following categories:
- Production grade software tools: AI for auto-formalization, proof generation, synthesis of verifiable code, and more
- Datasets: Open-source collections of theorems, proofs, and math problems
- Field building: Textbooks, courses, and resources to grow the AI-for-math community
- Breakthrough ideas: High-risk, high-reward approaches to AI-driven math research
XTX Markets is the founding donor of the AI for Math Fund.
“We are excited to partner with XTX Markets on this important initiative,” said Tom Kalil, CEO of Renaissance Philanthropy. “The convergence of AI and math has the potential to advance fundamental mathematics, the reasoning capability of AI systems, and the synthesis of verifiable code.”
Following a rigorous assessment of the proposals, individual grants of up to $1 million will be awarded for projects lasting up to 24 months.
Terence Tao, UCLA, Fields Medalist and AI for Math Fund advisor said, “The next generation of AI models and tools have the potential to enhance collaboration among mathematicians that was previously impossible. I am delighted to work with Renaissance Philanthropy and XTX Markets to realize this potential through the AI for Math Fund.”
About Renaissance Philanthropy
Renaissance Philanthropy is a nonprofit organization with a mission to fuel a 21st century renaissance by increasing the ambition of philanthropists, scientists, and innovators. We do this by advising philanthropists, surfacing breakthrough ideas, and incubating ambitious initiatives.
About XTX Markets
XTX Markets is a leading algorithmic trading firm which uses state-of-the-art machine learning technology to produce price forecasts for over 50,000 financial instruments across equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities and crypto. It uses those forecasts to trade on exchanges and alternative trading venues, and to offer differentiated liquidity directly to clients worldwide. The firm trades over $250bn a day across 35 countries and has over 250 employees based in London, Singapore, New York, Paris, Bristol, Mumbai and Yerevan.
XTX Markets has an unrivalled level of computational resources in the trading industry, with a growing research cluster currently containing over 25,000 GPUs with 650 petabytes of usable storage. Teams across the firm include world-class researchers with backgrounds in pure math, programming, physics, computer science and machine learning. The firm is also constructing a large-scale data centre in Finland to future-proof its significant computational capabilities.
Since 2017, XTX Markets has committed over £250 million to charities and non-profit partners, establishing the firm as a major philanthropic donor in the UK and globally. The firm’s philanthropy focuses on advancing mathematics education and research, having committed over £50 million in grants to UK charities and education institutions, with the aim of supporting more students to progress to degrees, PhDs and highly-skilled careers in maths, especially those from low-income backgrounds. XTX Markets has also committed more than £25 million to support elite mathematics talent worldwide. More broadly, the firm’s giving also supports high-impact education programmes in low- and middle-income countries, humanitarian relief and local community initiatives in the regions where our offices are located internationally.
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/renaissance-philanthropy-and-xtx-markets-launch-new-9-million-ai-for-math-fund-302324035.html
Fintech PR
Mambu acquires payment technology provider Numeral, bolstering its market position to target new growth opportunities
- The acquisition marks a strategic move by the cloud banking leader to extend its payment capabilities for customers, as Mambu eyes market expansion and accelerated growth in support of long-term plans.
- Numeral’s platform will be integrated into Mambu’s core banking offerings, with advanced payment solutions technology, to accelerate and advance the next generation of financial products.
AMSTERDAM, Dec. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Mambu, a leading cloud banking platform, has announced the acquisition of Numeral, a French payment technology provider for banks and fintechs.
The acquisition strengthens Mambu’s position as an industry leader, in a move that underscores market confidence and growing demand for modern financial experiences. The addition of advanced payment capabilities represents a significant investment in the next phase of Mambu’s growth as an established market player.
With Numeral’s platform, Mambu is set to drive new value from wider audience segments that will increase its overall share of the market. It also offers a unique strategic fit to the foundation of the cloud banking leader’s long-term expansion efforts.
“This acquisition marks a considered move to deliver a more modern, comprehensive payment offering which is now an integrated part of Mambu’s product portfolio. Numeral’s advanced payments platform will enable us to address changing customer demands, strengthen existing product lines and expand our market reach, while offering businesses advanced capabilities to meet an extensive range of needs.” – Fernando Zandona, CEO at Mambu.
Speaking about why Numeral was the ‘right fit’ for Mambu, Zandona added: “Numeral’s values, proven agility, and robust onboarding processes match perfectly with our growth mindset as a business. We look forward to welcoming their talented team as we unlock new growth opportunities together.”
Founded in 2021, Numeral is a fast-growing payment technology provider that offers financial institutions a universal gateway to connect to partner banks and access schemes and a modern payments hub to automate payment processing. The Paris-based firm processes more than €10 billion in payments annually and has established a strong presence in Europe, having expanded its operations to the UK last year.
The size of the market opportunity for bank payments is striking. In 2022, the value of bank payments in the Eurozone stood at €191 trillion, that is 58x more than card payments (€3.3 trillion). This vast global market is transforming rapidly, driven by the rise of instant payments as a catalyst for modernising core banking and payment platforms. With its robust bank integrations, a modular API and modern dashboard, Numeral’s platform will enable Mambu to capitalise on this market opportunity.
The cloud banking platform will also benefit from Numeral’s roster of partnerships with some of Europe’s leading banks, including BNP Paribas, Barclays, HSBC, and ABN AMRO.
“Payments are at the heart of how companies do business around the world, yet they remain trapped in systems designed decades ago, unfit for the ongoing instant payments revolution,” said Numeral co-founder and CEO, Édouard Mandon. “This is a problem that Mambu intimately understands having helped banks and financial institutions worldwide to migrate from rigid, traditional core systems to agile and adaptable cloud infrastructure. Bringing together our dedicated payments technology with Mambu’s leading cloud banking platform and global customer base, we can enable more companies to make their payments future-proof and ever-compliant while eliminating hidden payment complexity at scale.”
The integration of Mambu and Numeral’s advanced payment platform will enable banks, fintechs, and non-financial service firms to seamlessly manage end-to-end payment workflows, support multiple payment methods, and provide real-time transaction capabilities. This will drive greater operational efficiency, improved customer experiences, and accelerated time-to-market for innovative financial solutions.
Mambu will gain the flexibility to offer an even more sophisticated, readily-available set of payment capabilities. New and not-yet-live customers can take advantage of this from day one, while customers that already have a payment solution in place will have the option to upgrade.
Notes to editors
About Mambu
Mambu is the world’s only true SaaS cloud banking platform. Launched in 2011, Mambu fast-tracks the design and build of nearly any type of financial offering for banks of all sizes, lenders, fintechs, retailers, telcos and more. Our unique composable approach means that independent components, systems and connectors can be assembled in any configuration to meet business needs and end user demands. Mambu supports over 260 customers in over 65 countries – including Western Union, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, N26, BancoEstado, Raiffeisen Bank, ABN AMRO, and Bank Islam. www.mambu.com
About Numeral
Numeral is a payment technology provider that offers financial institutions a universal gateway to connect to partner banks and access schemes and a modern payments hub to automate payment processing. Numeral enables fintechs and banks to unlock growth by launching new products and expanding geographically faster, eliminating hidden payment complexity and making their payments future-proof and ever-compliant. Launched in 2021, Numeral provides the payment infrastructure for the most innovative European banks and fintechs like WorldFirst, Argentex and Alma and partners with Europe’s leading banks, including BNP Paribas, Barclays, BPCE, HSBC and LHV.
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/mambu-acquires-payment-technology-provider-numeral-bolstering-its-market-position-to-target-new-growth-opportunities-302323963.html
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