“Alan is a veteran financial sector sales executive and published author,” said AllocateRite CEO, Ted Theocheung.  “Together with our institutionally proven AI-based core technology, we have a winning combination.  I am delighted to announce the addition of Alan to expand and accelerate growth of our product portfolio to those that want the latest innovation technologies for financial strategy and risk management products.”

Prior to joining AllocateRite, Alan was Director of Sales for TrimTabs Asset Management, a leading boutique ETF provider. Before that, Alan worked in senior ETF sales positions for Financial Products LLC and QuantShares.

Alan spent most of his career in senior sales management positions at several leading global financial institutions. He was Executive Director of Portfolio Trading and ETF sales at UBS, a Managing Director of Institutional Relationship Management at BNP Paribas and a Managing Director of Global Portfolio Trading and Transition Management for Deutsche Bank Securities. At Deutsche Bank, Alan was responsible for the some of the largest global portfolio trades ever executed by a broker/dealer and helped lead the bank to become the premier global provider of execution services to the institutional investment community.

Alan is the author of The Super Traders: Secrets and Successes of Wall Street’s Best and Brightest (Dow Jones Irwin Publishing) and was a contributing writer to Traders magazine. Alan is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he received both a BA in English Literature and an MBA in Business Administration.

The post AllocateRite Announces Hiring of New Director of Sales first appeared on FinTecBuzz.

Built on the latest cloud-based technology, the CreditLens platform helps businesses digitally transform their commercial credit processes to make faster and better-informed decisions. It applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to facilitate process automation and help clients improve efficiency, reduce errors, and streamline workflows.

Bank of Georgia is the largest universal bank in the country of Georgia, serving more than 2.4 million clients through one of the widest services distribution networks in the Caucasus region.

“The CreditLens solution will be a cornerstone of our organizational transformation,” said Giorgi Chiladze, Bank of Georgia’s Chief Risk Officer. “We will use it to integrate and automate key components of our business credit function and to bring greater transparency and efficiency to our credit decisioning processes.”

“Many organizations continue to pursue a digitalization strategy, to operate more efficiently and enhance their customers’ experiences,” said Elaine Wong, Managing Director at Moody’s Analytics. “We are pleased to support Bank of Georgia’s initiatives, featuring our CreditLens platform as a foundation.”

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 Quini^® The undisputed leader of sensory real-time data, analytics and technology solutions for the wine industry, today announced that it has completed a minority funding round, led by OKR Financial. This funding will support operations, help Quini to advance its artificial intelligence development program and expand the company’s sales organization FinTech News.

The OKR Financial investment was supported by a syndicate of private investors as well as the company’s co-founders who chose to increase their support for the company. The round included Convertible Debenture and equity placements. Further financial details have not been disclosed.

Funds raised from this round will enable Quini to accelerate the development of its artificial intelligence-based wine recommendations engine and expand its sales organization to support the wine industry’s growing interest in consumer sensory data to enable more informed decisions across business functions including marketing and brand management, logistics, product innovation, and wine making.

“This funding round will enable us to augment our artificial intelligence-based innovations around Quini’s proprietary consumer sensory data, and grow our sales organization, as interest for our solutions rises among some of the largest wine producers and retailers,” said Quini’s CEO, Roger Noujeim. “I welcome all our new investors to Quini, including OKR Financial, a true leader in funding solutions for technology companies. I am proud that they share our excitement for Quini’s vision and future.”

“Quini has made solid investments in its technology and ideas, and created a business model that forever changed how wine producers and retailers can obtain and access consumer sensory data,” said OKR Financial Managing Partner and co-founder, Jason Neale. “With our investment in Quini, we can help advance the wine industry’s ability to compete more effectively and innovate with wines that delight the critically important, digitally hardwired millennial and Gen Z consumer groups on whose shoulders the wine industry will grow for decades.”

Quini was established in late 2012, bringing to market the world’s first visual wine tasting and rating application. The project was co-funded by Canada Media Fund (CMF). Quini, a unique application for capturing deep, rich sensory and attitudinal data, has since released its next generation web based app and QUINI API platform, as well as the enterprise wine program and customer engagement automation platform, QUINI SOMM, in 2017 and 2018. The solution revolutionized wine consumer engagement, sales support and staff training in the wine and hospitality sectors. In 2018, Quini also introduced QUINI DATA, the industry’s first self-serve consumer sensory and attitudinal near real-time data and analytics solution, used by large and small wine producers and retailers to solve critical business questions and make more informed marketing and product decisions. The solution collapses the time and cost of consumer research, making data-driven decision making accessible to wine companies of virtually any size. (www.quiniwine.com) (www.okrfinancial.com)

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The ratings reflect NMG’s balance sheet strength, which AM Best categorizes as strongest, as well as its very strong operating performance, very favorable business profile and very strong enterprise risk management (ERM).

NMG’s risk-adjusted capital and surplus-to-liability positions are consistent with its Superior rating. The quantitative assessments are aided by its high quality of capital compared with its peers. NMG’s leverage is within AM Best tolerances, and makes no use of captives or permitted practices that would make its capital position less conservative. Its reserve book is enhanced qualitatively by its concentration in whole life insurance, which AM Best categorizes as a high creditworthy product on the life insurance product continuum. Slightly offsetting these positives is an investment portfolio that while well-diversified, contains an allocation to risky assets that is likely to be impacted negatively by the recent downturn; however, AM Best expects only modest impacts to NMG’s risk-adjusted capital ratio and expects its Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR) to remain in the strongest category.

NMG’s operating performance has a long track record of remaining profitable from an operating income basis and net income basis throughout a full market cycle with a low volatility of earnings. This consistent profitability is aided by a flexible dividend policy, which management has shown it is capable of reducing while maintaining sales targets. Offsetting this, is the highly competitive market segment of ordinary life in the affluent market segment, which continues to constrain top-line growth.

Contributing to NMG’s very favorable business profile is the group’s exclusive agency force, which provides it with a distinct competitive advantage, with strong market positions in the whole life insurance line of business with diversification coming from disability and long-term care, and its variable annuity segment. NMG has a recruitment program, which has led to a consistent flow of younger talent into the career agency system, and its business profile benefits from strong brand recognition, with national reach in the affluent market. These strengths are offset partially by its concentration within traditional product lines, which lack some of the product features offered in the highly competitive life insurance and annuity market.

Northwestern Mutual has demonstrated a robust commitment to strong ERM practices. NMG’s ERM program includes comprehensive economic capital modeling and multi-model stress testing including a liquidity reverse test and various investment, macroeconomic, interest rate and insurance-related stress tests. AM Best views NMG’s ERM program as very strong, and it has been effective historically over full market cycles. The group’s ERM program is enhanced by its economic capital modeling capabilities.

The following Long-Term IRs have been affirmed with a stable outlook:

The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company—
— “aa” on $1.2 billion 6.063% surplus notes due 2040
— “aa” on $1.2 billion 3.85% surplus notes due 2047
— “aa” on $1.2 billion 3.625% surplus notes due 2059

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best’s website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best’s Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best’s Credit Ratings. For information on the proper media use of Best’s Credit Ratings and AM Best press releases, please view Guide for Media – Proper Use of Best’s Credit Ratings and AM Best Rating Action Press Releases.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

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These examinations encompassed policies, operating procedures, and controls related to financial reporting of user entities by an independent auditor to objectively validate that Moody’s Analytics meets its declared control objectives.

“We are committed to providing our clients with products that deliver exceptional operational compliance,” said Nihil Patel, Senior Director at Moody’s Analytics. “This SOC 1 Type 1 attestation demonstrates that our RiskCalc and CMM solutions have met this objective.”

The RiskCalc solution offers a comprehensive approach to assessing the default and recovery of private firms. Our RiskCalc models generate forward-looking probability of default or Expected Default Frequency (EDF) calculations, loss given default, and expected loss credit measures.

The CMM solution is the leading analytical tool for combining property performance forecasts with commercial mortgage fundamentals to assess default and recovery for commercial real estate (CRE) mortgages. It enables investment professionals to perform robust analyses for equity and debt decisions in CRE.

These award-winning solutions deliver best-in-class analytics that help our customers make better decisions.

Moody’s Analytics, Moody’s, and all other names, logos, and icons identifying Moody’s Analytics and/or its products and services are trademarks of Moody’s Analytics, Inc. or its affiliates. Third-party trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Numerous financial institutions nationwide are leveraging Baker Hill’s legacy small business solution, Bank2Business, as well as Baker Hill NextGen^® and the newly released Baker Hill NextGen^® SBA Fast Track to support consumers. With over 35 years of industry expertise, Baker Hill is providing guidance and support to both new and existing clients experiencing an increase in demand volume. With rapid deployment capabilities, Baker Hill can have a solution consumer-ready within a matter of hours.Banking News

“We know how important it is for our clients to be able to serve their customers during this period,” said John Deignan, president and chief executive officer at Baker Hill. “Supplying a solution to fit the needs of our client partner that could be implemented quickly was crucial to getting funds into the hands of those that need it.”

Baker Hill NextGen^® SBA Fast Track relies on the power of Baker Hill’s small business loan origination expertise and is specifically designed to meet an escalating need as small businesses look to leverage the resources available through the PPP and CARES Act. With the evolving guidelines from the SBA, Baker Hill created its approach to capture loan applicant information through a unique link to a Baker Hill hosted PPP application website. Each application page is branded, enhancing the borrower’s experience with the financial institution. The small business owner’s application feeds directly into the existing Baker Hill solutions, eliminating the need for bankers to re-enter the data and best of all providing a single source for managing the documentation and the process of each SBA PPP request. With an E-Tran integration, financial institutions can quickly complete the process to get small businesses the funds they need.

Baker Hill NextGen^® Portfolio Risk Management minimizes risk and optimizes portfolio insights related to portfolio monitoring. The solution integrates multiple sources of information about client interactions into a single platform to identify opportunities and manage risk and the relationship at the same time. As financial institutions look to stay sound during a period of increased uncertainty, Baker Hill NextGen^® Portfolio Risk Management creates a unified solution.

Baker Hill NextGen^® is an end-to-end platform with a roles-based modern user interface specifically engineered to adapt to the evolving needs of financial institutions. Over 35 years of proven industry expertise is available for banks and credit unions through the power of Baker Hill NextGen^®.

The post Baker Hill Partners with Financial Institutions Amid COVID-19 first appeared on FinTecBuzz.

As healthcare organizations face unprecedented challenges, access to better, faster insights into revenue cycle performance is critical. This launch comes on the heels of the announcement of Hubble, Waystar’s artificial intelligence and robotic process automation platform. Together, Waystar Analytics and Waystar Hubble can help take financial and administrative processes to new levels of efficiency and automation, freeing up staff time and resources for higher priorities.

While many healthcare leaders understand the value data analytics can provide, teams often encounter challenges that prevent them from effective use. Common obstacles include inaccurate and insufficient access to data and data visualizations, long turnaround times for reports from IT teams, and cumbersome tools with complex user interfaces, all of which make it difficult to get a comprehensive, comprehensible picture of an organization’s financial situation.

Waystar Analytics is purpose-built to provide the level of customization and granularity needed for the most complex data queries—while ensuring a user experience that makes these insights accessible and digestible. With Waystar Analytics, team members of all levels can quickly and easily dive into data on everything across the revenue cycle, including cost to collect, AR days, claims, remittances and denials. With advanced visualization tools, Waystar Analytics enables any user to turn their data into actionable intelligence. Because Waystar processes billions of transactions, and more than 500 billion dollars in claims for 450,000 healthcare providers nationwide, the comparative benchmarking potential for clients is unsurpassed.

“Amid the current COVID-19 health crisis, hospitals and healthcare organizations everywhere are dealing with extraordinary challenges. Many of these organizations are moving quickly and effectively to offer the best care possible in an effort to flatten the curve,” said Matt Hawkins, CEO of Waystar. “Waystar Analytics allows our clients to gain access to actionable insights into their financial health through simple, easy to use technology. Waystar Analytics empowers providers to spend less time on billing so they can focus their valuable time and resources on what matters most—the health of their patients and communities.”

“We are excited to bring cutting-edge business intelligence to healthcare finance with Waystar’s Analytics platform,” says Ric Sinclair, Waystar’s chief strategy and product officer. “As we continue to develop and improve this solution, we will enable features including customizable peer group benchmarking, comparative performance reporting, scheduled dashboards and conditional alerts to stay on top of your performance in real time, and predictive insights via Waystar Hubble. Ultimately, we will empower our clients to move from reaction to informed, proactive performance.”

Waystar Analytics will be offered in two different versions: Analytics Pro and Analytics Peak. Analytics Pro offers robust, pre-built data visualization that enables healthcare leaders to measure the performance of their entire revenue cycle and make smarter decisions. For advanced users and organizations with more complex needs, Analytics Peak will offer ad-hoc analysis capabilities, enhanced customization and more sophisticated business intelligence functionality and tools.

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The Forrester Wave: Retail Planning, Q1 2020

The Forrester report states that SAS “proved its ability to tackle hard optimization issues by demonstrating above-par application architecture, assortment optimization, and aggregate demand management. It has potential to improve customer segmentation and merchandise financial planning.” The analyst firm also cited SAS as a “best fit for brands and retailers that need the security of a large vendor with a massive ecosystem of implementers, but that also have the ability to: 1) extend retail planning applications using a proven platform to deploy sophisticated applications, without disrupting on premise infrastructure.”

“Intelligent planning analytics from SAS gives retailers an edge for synchronizing merchandise plans with marketing and supply chain plans so a shopper is always satisfied,” said Dan Mitchell, Global Business Director for SAS’ Retail Practice. “Powerful analytics used strategically can help a retailer or consumer goods manufacturer stay ahead of demand, localize the merchandise mix quickly, and reap the rewards long-term from loyal customers. Retailers looking for rapid ROI recognize that applications containing purpose-built analytic models are now the must-have, next-generation technology.”

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Nucleus empowers healthcare organizations—employers, employer groups, benefit managers, health plans, and provider health systems—to optimize benefit programs, improve care delivery, and manage costs by creating a single data repository that offers a complete picture of member health tightly integrated with the powerful predictive analytics products available from Certilytics. Nucleus gives customers access to the data “behind the scenes” to develop new insights by integrating the data warehouse layer with their own data discovery tools, business intelligence platforms, and custom applications. Fintech News

“Nucleus collects, links, standardizes, and validates data from disparate sources to create a complete picture of member health, utilization, and risk,” said Elton Tavenner, Certilytics’ Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. “By combining that advanced underlying data warehouse with our data platform and innovative product offerings, we’re empowering our customers with more than ‘just another data warehouse’ by giving them the tools to take the leap from disparate data to transformative knowledge.”

Among other capabilities, Nucleus Data Warehousing + Predictive Analytics:

• Links disparate data-sets and generates a globally unique ID for every employee, member, or patient
• Includes sophisticated proprietary validations to ensure the quality, accuracy, and reasonableness of all data
• Is capable of regularly processing billions of member data records, including:
  • Claims (medical, pharmacy, dental, & vision)
  • Benefits & eligibility
  • Lab results
  • Clinical management programs
  • Disability benefits
  • Third-party technology platforms
  • Others
• Enriches data with hundreds of tags and measures, including our proprietary clinical episode grouper CORE Pathways
• Includes easy-to-understand aggregations of underlying data to provide simple and consistent reporting
• Seamlessly and securely shares data via JDBC, API, and BI integrations

Nucleus is the foundation for all of Certilytics’ advanced predictive analytics solutions, including the Aspects Suite’s dashboards, data extracts, and reports.

The integrated predictive analytics in the Aspects Suite are used to:

• Benchmark clinical and financial results against national norms, peer groups, business units, or geographies
• Evaluate the performance of employee benefit programs and optimize benefit investments
• Generate a standard set of proprietary reports to assess, manage and measure risk, including:
  • Employer group reporting
  • Individualized member clinical profiles
  • Medical management reporting
  • Pharmacy management
  • Provider profiling
  • Actuarial reporting (trend, pricing, and reserving)
  • High cost claimant reporting
  • Insured run rate reporting
• Identify, report, and benchmark cost trends, provider treatment patterns, condition severity, and health outcomes across billions of member records
• Perform sophisticated analysis at the member level into complete episodes of care, utilization patterns, emerging disease onset, gaps in care, and each member’s likelihood of engagement
• Develop high-performance provider networks supporting fee-for-service and value-based arrangements
• Evaluate care pathways and predict future costs for a given condition
• Review performance, perform risk assessments, and analyze spend, helping business and clinical leaders make more informed decisions

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Allison Munro has been appointed to lead the Vena marketing team as Chief Marketing Officer, tasked with driving brand, demand, customer experience and expanding Vena’s marketing efforts to support company goals worldwide. With her unique balance of strategic, brand and performance marketing experience, she will help to power Vena’s next stage of growth. Munro has a proven history of developing, mentoring and leading diverse, high-performing marketing teams through rapid scaling. An ardent advocate for women in the workplace, she became an executive sponsor of Vena’s Network for Women (#N4W), an employee resource group that works to amplify the voices of women+ in tech, immediately upon joining Vena. Munro brings over 15 years of leadership experience to the CMO role at Vena with recent positions at Oracle Marketing Cloud, NexJ Systems and Piano Software.

On the operations side, Vena welcomed Tina Goulbourne as Chief Operating Officer. Goulbourne has extensive experience collaborating across functions in the financial services and information technology industries, and has held senior leadership roles in customer service, strategy and communications, product management and operations at companies including Apple and Hewlett-Packard. Goulbourne has been a leadership participant in diversity-focused employee resource groups at each of the organizations in which she has served. At Vena, she is actively involved in promoting greater diversity in the workplace through her mentorship and sponsorship efforts. Goulbourne is charged with leading Vena’s new strategy and operations function, keeping the company focused on its mission and core values as it scales for success in 2020 and beyond. fintech news

“Allison and Tina are proven leaders in tech here in Canada, with the right blend of strategic vision and operational rigor,” said Vena CEO Hunter Madeley. “We have a focused executive team and are fortunate to be able to leverage our many dimensions of diversity to solve for our customers. We’re truly appreciative of the trust our customers place in us, and I know that Allison and Tina will each play a critical role in fulfilling our vision of taking Vena to the next level as a global leader in FP&A software and finance process management. We’re really excited to welcome them to our team.”

Vena isn’t just adding talent at the highest echelons. Ambitious growth calls for new people throughout the organization and that’s led to a physical expansion of the company’s footprint in Toronto.

Vena recently opened dedicated offices for its sales team in Toronto’s Liberty Village, located in the city’s West End. Like Vena’s headquarters, the new space features all the state-of-the-art conveniences and amenities to attract Canada’s most promising tech talent.

“Planning for the new offices has been in the works for some time,” added Madeley. “We wanted to create a work environment that’s conducive to collaboration, efficiency and fun, and this space checks all the boxes. It’s emblematic of the growth we’ve had, but also the vision we’re poised to achieve as we continue our steep growth trajectory.”

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