Dustin Rennie & Will Mitchell with RE/MAX Belize Launch New Investment Strategy

Posted in: Business,Finance,Personal Finance,Real Estate,Travel

RE/MAX Belize Agents Will Mitchell & Dustin Rennie Finish as 2021 Top Producers in Region

Posted in: Business,Finance,Lifestyle,Real Estate,Travel

AveriSource Announces iSAT Assessment Licensing For Its Global Systems Integration Partners

Posted in: Business,Computers & Software,Finance,Manufacturing & Industry,Technology

Institutional Investor Publishes 2021 Asia-Pacific Research Rankings, Including Local Regional Results

Posted in: Finance,Services

Creation of Twenty Million Manufacturing Jobs

The United States has lost over twenty million manufacturing jobs to other competitive industrial countries because they produce goods at a lower price. Improving U.S. competition to bring back those jobs, the nation’s production costs must be lower. The single cost factor U.S. companies have but foreign companies do not have are employee benefits. All countries provide some social services, of Social Security and Healthcare, the top 35 industrial countries provide universal health care coverage. The difference is how the costs of the services are covered. The other countries pay through a company and personal income tax system while the United States has the employers pay for the benefits. 

An examination of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the past forty years shows a direct correlation of the loss of manufacturing revenues as healthcare revenues increased. The illustrated chart shows the GDP percentages of the Manufacturing Industry and the Healthcare Industry over forty years. As health care costs increased, the manufacturing industry lost companies and jobs.

The solution is simple but extreme. The U.S. must eliminate a system where employers pay for all social services and adopt a revenue system where corporate and personal income taxes pay for the social benefits. An income tax is not a production cost. This system will create a financial revenue environment that supports a strong manufacturing industry. Shifting the costs of employee benefits lowers the breakeven point of the manufactured goods and makes a more competitive price. The chart below illustrates the elimination of the costs of social services.

Moving to a Single-payer healthcare system will save two trillion dollars. The revenues now paid by the employers for social benefits will be paid to the employees. A flat tax of three percent will increase corporate income taxes, and personal income taxes will cover the lost FICA tax. The revenue numbers and tax increase will be in the ranges as follows: Employees will see an increase in their pay of about four trillion dollars, the FICA taxes will be eliminated and replaced by a 3% increase flat tax across all tax revenue levels to cover the costs of the Social Security and Healthcare services, initially, the employers and employees will see an increase of disposable income of two trillion dollars, which is the savings realized of going to a universal health care system, the increase of the salaries given to the employees will be paid every year. With the rise of new manufacturing companies and the expansion of existing companies, the twenty million lost employees will be rehired. With the rise of manufactured goods in the United States, the trade deficit will be eliminated.

The financial well-being of the nation is in the hands of the people. I hope the country adopts this proposal and we bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. 

Posted in: Finance

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR Publishes 2021 Japan Executive Team Rankings

NEW YORK - 23 April, 2021 - Today, Institutional Investor Research announced results of their 9th Annual Japan Executive Team survey, revealing Japan’s leading CEOs, CFOs, Investor Relations Officers, and Investor Relations programs that best uphold corporate governance standards and facilitate investment into their company. A total of 100 companies attained a published position in the categories listed above to become an Honored company, and 81 of those companies were granted the coveted Most Honored Company recognition by ranking in 2 or more of these categories. 

Results highlights 

The following companies clinched All-Star status, achieving a first place clean sweep in the combined rankings across four categories for Best CEO, Best CFO, Best Investor Relations Professional and Best IR Program in their respective sectors in the 2021 Japan Executive Team survey, published today by Institutional Investor Research (II Research).

ANA Holdings (Transportation (Air, Land, Sea)); Asahi Group Holdings (Beverages, Food & Tobacco); Daikin Industries (Engineering & Machinery); Daiwa Securities Group (Insurance & Other Nonbank Financials); HOYA Corp. (Electronics/Precision Instruments (including Imaging & Semiconductor Precision Equipment)); ITOCHU Corp. (Trading Companies); Mizuho Financial Group (Banks); Nidec Corp. (Electronics/Components); Nippon Steel Corp. (Metals & Technical Materials); Sony Corp. (Electronics/Consumer); Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. (Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals).

The companies with the highest weighted score are: Asahi Group Holdings, Nidec Corp., Sony Corp. and Daikin Industries.

This year, Daiwa Securities stood out as achieving #1 in their sector as well as topping the leaders table for 2021’s top research provider.

715 investors and portfolio managers and analysts from 298 voter firms participated in this survey, nominating a total of 510 companies across 25 sectors. The companies were rated on several core areas, including Financial Disclosure, Services & Communication, and ESG. When presented with the added attributes of CEO and CFO, we can see that while there was an increase in votes for these positions, there was also more scrutiny.

1. Emerging trends identified:

Electronics/Components, Engineering & Machinery, and Electronics/Precision Instruments garnered the most attention this year.

2. Feedback on ESG: 

Has risen in importance with 38% of the buy side saying it was of greater importance year on year, mirroring the market sentiment and the shift in importance to the social aspects of ESG.

3. IR performance attributes: 

Investment professionals were presented with six IR performance attributes to help assess the quality of IR, the two most important ones emerged to be ‘Timing to Market (Timeliness)’ in Financial Disclosure and ‘Productivity of NDR/Conferences/Calls in Services & Communication.

Michael Clemons, Sales Director for Japan, says “2020 was a challenging year across the globe with no exception in Japan. It was very much a level playing field for the IR departments to be reaching out to investors across Zoom and other online platforms. As a positive result of the challenges, we saw a doubling in voters to 715 as well as yet another record year of 33,000 votes versus 19,000 in 2020. Utilizing data will be tantamount for the “new normal” as companies continue to defend their top positions or regain them.”

For the full list of published winners, please visit https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/research/10984/The-All-Japan-Executive-Team. 

Marketing License

Institutional Investor owns the copyright to all survey and awards logos. Speak with us to acquire access to the Institutional Investor award or award logo to share your winning position in the 2021 Japan Executive Team ranking across your website content, advertisements, communications, marketing collateral, and more. Please contact marketing@iiresearch.com.

You may share your position across social media if you tag @Institutional Investor Research.

Benchmark Data and IR Perception Analysis

To request further information on how you can use survey data to market your firm internally or externally, or deeper analysis of survey data, please contact Michael Clemons, Japan Rep, II Research, on +81 (0)50 5532 1664 or michael.clemons@institutionalinvestor.com.

About Institutional Investor Research

For 52 years Institutional Investor has consistently distinguished itself among the world’s foremost media companies with ground-breaking journalism and incisive writing that provides essential intelligence for a global audience. In addition, Institutional Investor offers highly-respected proprietary benchmark research and rankings; Institutional Investor Research provides independent sell-side and corporate performance research and rankings and aims to be the first-choice and independent validation source of qualitative market intelligence for all three sides of the investment community. Institutional Investor Research has a global presence, spanning Europe, Asia Pacific, the US and Latin America.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,Services

Financial Literacy Group LLC, Launches Affordable Digital Hybrid Financial Wellness Solution As An Employee Benefit For Small Business called Betterment Inc.

Betterment Inc., is a progressive financial wellness solution that makes employees smarter about their finances. “Our solution includes a textbook, eBooks, online courses, with provision of debt and financial analysis. Our solution exposes employees to breakthrough financial technologies, proprietary debt reduction techniques, relieves their stress and adds to the quality of their lives,” states Ron Harris, CEO of Financial Literacy Group LLC.

“Through Betterment Inc., we deliver financial literacy, personally; in one on one meetings and through personal finance eLearning courses. These courses are developed by our team of certified educators at Finance Literacy Institute, our educational division. Much of our curriculum is based on our text book “How Money Works” and is presented in English and Spanish,” adds Harris.

The algorithm based technology pinpoints exactly where an employee is financially. The Debt to Wealth SaaS calculates a mathematical strategy that substantially shortens debt payoff time and it eliminates interest on all kinds of debt.

The app also provides an additional way to measure the actual impact and results our overall solution has on your employees lives, day to day, month to month and year over year.

Financial wellness initiatives are promoted across the organization using content that is researched and created weekly. “The Betterment Inc., content library houses thousands of educational financial posts, email, articles, videos, blogs, podcasts, advice, presentations, webinars, community and media appearances,” explains, Dr. Joseph Webb, III, Vice President of Black Wealth Consortium

The solution measures and evaluates employee engagement and participation through online survey, and KPI driven analytics. “The Betterment team participates, tracks course scores, and the financial accomplishments of participating employees, for years, if not their lifetimes,” adds Webb.

Betterment Inc, gives employees access to a large selection of debt counselors, independent financial advisors, certified financial educators, professional financial planners and experienced financial investment advisors.

The financial wellness solution is easily integrated into your current employee benefits package, we currently work with benefits brokers across the US.

“Unlike many financial wellness companies, are not associated with any financial institution, we don’t offer any loan restructuring schemes, we are consumer advocates. Our debt solution is strategic payoff and deploying proprietary debt reduction techniques while relieving employee stress and adding to the quality of their lives,” adds Harris.

Betterment Inc. developed by Financial Literacy Group LLC, is a collaboration of solution specialists, software developers, systems integrators, debt counselors, certified financial educators and experienced independent financial advisors, who are dedicated to employee wellbeing.

Financial Literacy Group LLC, is on a mission to help America close it’s wealth gap. Working with employers, we provide financial wellness solutions that level the financial literacy playing field between working class adults and financial institutions. We teach people who live on Main Street, how to manage their finances like people who work on Wall Street; one individual, one family or one small business owner at a time.

Posted in: Finance,U.S

Advertorials, The Marketing Services And The Advertising

An advertorial is basically an ad in the form of print advertising. The word "advertorial" is a combination of the words "advert" and" editorial". The earliest use of the term is documented in a magazine (owing to the term's obvious similarity to the term 'cartoon') which put an ad for C.P. Martin & Son in the March, 1946 edition under the title "Cartoon Shop Ad".

The term was later on used in Advertising magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, and the Saturday Evening Post. The advertorial has since become a standard form of advertising, appearing either in full-page newspaper advertising or, increasingly, on the internet. In the recent past, advertorials have increasingly turned up in television advertising as well, and this trend is increasing.

The key advantage of the advertorial, the marketing services and the advertising is its relatively low cost. The writer or, more commonly, the company pays only for the space in which the advertorial appears. The company paying for the advertorial is effectively advertising itself. Even the paper in which the advertorial is displayed pays only a small percentage of the total cost of the advertorial. This means that while the marketing services and the advertising are expensive, they are relatively cheap when measured in the scale of a business's budget.

The second advantage of the advertorial, the marketing services and the advertising is that it can reach a much wider audience than a regular advertising campaign would. Because the pages of a newspaper or a magazine are often targeted to a very narrow audience, these kinds of media are not the right kinds of places to distribute the kinds of services and goods that a business should be promoting. In other words, marketing messages should not be directed at a very narrow group of customers or clients. For example, clothing stores would be better served by placing their advertisements in fashion magazines than in a travel brochure. While a travel advertisement placed in a general publication would probably get some readers, most people who buy travel products would not be interested in reading it. Instead, they would go straight to a website where they could find exactly what they were looking for.

The third advantage of the advertorial, the marketing services and the advertising is that it can reach potential customers who wouldn't normally have been able to reach the intended audience through traditional marketing channels. For example, many businesses choose to place their marketing communications in glossy magazines rather than in newspapers. In some cases, businesses place their advertisements in magazines that are targeted at an even more exclusive clientele, such as business executives and other members of the upper echelon of society. In these circumstances, it would be difficult for any business to afford to advertise in a mainstream publication, but placing an ad in an obscure business magazine might be a worthwhile short-term solution.

Another advantage of the advertorial, the marketing services and the advertising are that it can be very cost effective. This is particularly true where the marketer is trying to deal with a small budget. The person who has created the advertorial will only need to pay for postage and paper, and then they will be able to place their marketing communication in every area where there is a strong market for it. The same thing applies when a business chooses to advertise in magazines. The expenses for preparing the copy for the advertorial and then printing it can be very low, and the money made from the sale of the advertising can be high.

The last advantage of the advertorial, the marketing services and the advertising are that it can give the person selling the product a greater sense of significance. When a person sees that a large number of other people are interested in their product, it gives them a feeling of worth. When they have created an advertorial and have placed it in a high-profile magazine, then they will be able to command a higher price for the product or service, because of the amount of exposure that they will be able to give it. This can be a very good way for them to make a profit.

The use of an advertorial, the marketing services and the advertising is a great way to enhance the marketing of any product. The reason for this is that it is relatively inexpensive, and it can provide long term benefits to both the marketer and the client. The people who are most likely to be interested in the product that has been advertised are the ones who are already interested in buying it. This means that the advertorial, the marketing services and the advertising will give long-term benefits to both parties. It is important to take a look at these advantages when planning on advertising products.

Posted in: Business,Finance

TheAdvertorial.com - A Managed eCommerce Shop for Advertising & Marketing Launched

GBAF Publications Pte Ltd which runs various portals like Global Banking & Finance Review, Luxury Adviser, Companies Digest, Economy Standard etc today announced the launch of The Advertorial, a managed eCommerce Shop focused on advertising & marketing for businesses and individuals. The eCommerce shop offers business owners and individuals a variety of cost-efficient marketing services and solutions right from content creation, design, guest post distribution, press release distribution, advertising on digital magazines, Advertorial distribution, Video Distribution, Social Media Marketing and much more.

The store TheAdvertorial.com also offers a 7-day money back guarantee on orders if for any reason the work is not satisfactory. The eCommerce store starts off with 13 main categories focussed on digital services and solutions targeting small business owners and individuals who would like to market their products and services to a vast audience using social media and a lot of websites using guest post distribution services. www.TheAdvertorial.com also offers a feature where if business owners or individuals need customized digital services which are not offered in the catalogue, they can request for custom offer. This ensures a complete broad range of services which are currently popular in the market and those niche services which are not so commonly offered. The way The Advertorial works is by managing the delivery of the digital services using their own inhouse staff to complete the work and in certain cases hiring freelancers and managing them. This means that business owners and individuals do not have to deal with freelancers when their work is not delivered. The Advertorial will have an account manager who will get in touch with each customer to understand their requirements and ensure that the projects are managed end to end. This makes things unique as digital services are managed and saves a lot of time, effort and money for the entrepreneurs who can focus on developing their products and services in a much more effective and streamlined way.

For Further Information

Visit The Advertorial at www.TheAdvertorial.com

Or contact us by email at

support@theadvertorial.com

Posted in: Business,Finance

Mr. Frederick W. Newcomb: A Legendary Investment Tycoon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Fred Newcomb has been the owner and President of Newcomb & Company and a registered securities principal over the course of a half century, has created numerous startling innovations in the investment world, stirring observers and participants to call him a “legendary investor”. Newcomb & Company, a broker/dealer and member firm of the NASD/FINRA, specialized in financial services institutional and mutual fund building, development and sales, investment banking, wholesale syndications and the development of investment pools for large financial institutions and international government agencies. The firm also served as a consulting firm in the financial services and general business industries. Mr. Newcomb’s accomplishments in investment banking have ranged from arranging the financing of Samsung’s entry into the computer market in the United States in the commercial arena, to the creation and sales of investment companies in the mutual fund, insurance, hedge fund and venture capital industries.

Prior to froming Newcomb and Company, he was President of AIM Financial Services, a provider of software, systems, data processing and mutual fund transfer agency services to the financial services industry. Prior to AIM, Mr. Newcomb was employed by Putnam, where he was Vice President of the Putnam Daily Dividend Trust and Senior Vice President and Director of Marketing for Putnam and Eberstadt, initially doubling assets through working in the areas of load mutual fund distribution through broker/dealers, the introduction to no load institutional and retirement markets and the creation of the bank market for the Putnam Funds, which then became one-half of Putnam’s half billion asset base. Prior to Putnam he was Director of Marketing for the Scudder Funds for eleven years.

In the insurance industries, he served in several management positions at NEL Equity Services Corp. including national sales manager for equity products, a broker/dealer and distributor for New England Life Insurance Company, the firm that acquired Mr. Newcomb's first financial services industry employer, Loomis Sayles & Company, where he was an officer of the Loomis Sayles Funds.

A pioneer of the mutual fund industry, Mr. Newcomb was one of the founders and directors of the No Load Mutual Fund Association, where he served as President. He also was a director and Executive Committee member of the National Investment Company Services Association as well a member of the Investment Company Institute and the Investment Counsel Association. His industry firsts include: the first cash management system for individuals and corporations of money market funds; the first wire transfer between unaffiliated investment companies; the inclusion of 403(b) plans placed into ERISA; the first mutual fund 401(k) plan filed and produced under ERISA; and the first international mutual fund management company merger, involving Loomis Sayles Canadian & International Fund and Scudder International Investments Fund.

As part of his practice at Newcomb & Company, Mr. Newcomb combined investment banking and financial services by building the Advantage Trust Funds for Great American First Bank, the Sierra Trust Funds for Great Western Bank, sold the original Pro Funds to the American Medical Association to create AMA Funds and did the consulting analysis for the sale of Stein Roe and Farnham to Liberty Mutual Financial Services. He provided the original consulting for the formation of the Morgan Stanley Mutual Funds, built the Alexander Hamilton Life Variable Annuities and restructured the investment company services structure for Riggs Bank of Washington, DC. Mr. Newcomb has also built international and foreign fund portfolios outside of the United States.

An integral part of Mr. Newcomb’s work has been the reorganization of the structure and operation of mutual funds and their service support systems to ensure stronger compliance, reduce costs, provide superior service and to increase sales and assets. The background and experience to do this work was at the many fine and prestigious investment firms in his earlier career that provided Mr. Newcomb with the opportunity to create, build, sell, deliver and support what became billions of dollars of industry assets as an NASD/FINRA Registered General Securities Principal and Registered Representative licensed to sell securities. 

Mr. Newcomb is a graduate of Boston University with a double degree in English and American Literature, attended the University of Maine School of Management and is a graduate of the Career Life Underwriting School. He has served on the Board of Directors of the US Boston Funds and Board of Advisers of General Defense Systems and other various companies.

As senior advisor to some of the largest investment company groups, Mr. Newcomb has always been a popular speaker for conferences and broadcast appearances and now under current conditions to smaller groups on his style of macro analysis as an overlay to micro applications and real world practical business acumen.

 

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,Government & Politics

giftya Adds Visa Credit As Additional Redemption Option

giftya, the personalized, digital smart gift card platform, now enables gift recipients to link their giftya e-gifts to their Visa® credit card, in addition to debit cards, for seamless redemption at any of giftya’s 5000+ national and local partner merchants.

This linkage establishes giftya as the industry’s first truly “Smart Gift Card” enabling the recipient to either link to a credit or debit card; use as e-gift code; or convert the value into a Visa Gift Card.

Additionally, giftya is the only platform in the industry that enables recipients to switch their gift for redemption with a different merchant than originally issued.

For small to mid-sized merchants who cannot afford to undertake a proprietary gift card offering, this provides them with the ability to offer a Visa gift option without the need for any additional system processing infrastructure, implementation, training or cost. For larger, national merchants, this provides another option to drive revenue to their existing gift offerings.

“giftya provides consumers with even more convenience and secure redemption options,” said giftya founder and CEO, Jason Wolfe. “Additionally, it enables consumers to convert their giftyas to pay for more essential needs if they desire.”

Ease of use -- Personalized -- Secure
Using the giftya mobile app or website, purchasers can personalize their giftya by uploading a photo, video and/or wrapper and record a message before securely texting their e-gift to loved ones and friends. Unlike physical gift cards, giftya’s proprietary platform has no risk of loss or theft. Recipients are notified of their gift within seconds. Once recipients decide how they would like to redeem their giftya, the connected account is automatically credited the gift amount until the giftya is used in full. Additionally, for those that are environmentally conscious, using giftya at scale can cut thousands of tons of plastic gift cards from ending up in landfills, lessening the world’s carbon footprint and the effect of physical gift cards on the climate.

ABOUT GIFTYA
Giftya, a Telos Gifting, LLC company, is reinventing gift giving with a meaningful no loss, no waste e-gift. Giftya enables you to text a personalized gift for any national or local merchant in the U.S. within seconds. Visit https://www.giftya.com for more information.

Posted in: Finance,News & Current Affairs,Services,U.S

StarCompliance Named Company of the Year By The Technology Headlines Magazine

StarCompliance has been named Company of the Year by The Technology Headlines: a magazine for enterprise IT industry leaders and professionals to share their experiences, ideas, and advice in. In recognition of this achievement, the compliance software solutions company has been chosen for the cover story of The Technology Headlines special edition: “The Successful Companies of 2020.”

This year’s special edition highlights the businesses that have learned to work and thrive throughout the course of the pandemic—shining a light on the strong leaders and strong companies that have successfully pivoted to a remote-work environment, and have grown, innovated, and achieved outstanding financial results despite the unprecedented challenges COVID-19 has thrust upon the marketplace.

Star CEO Jennifer Sun, who was interviewed for the story, had this to say about her company's inclusion on the list: “One of the most important things we did this year was initiate a company-wide transformation to the Agile methodology. We made the decision to do this before the pandemic hit, and it’s turned out to be a very fortuitous decision: one that has paid off for us this year. Agile allowed us to pivot successfully both internally and externally—to streamline and even accelerate our services. If we’re Company of the Year in the year of COVID, it’s because we’ve been able to adapt quickly and effectively.”

StarCompliance has over 20 years of experience building configurable compliance software solutions. Star supports a global client base across a wide range of financial service disciplines—including asset managers, investment banks, broker dealers, PE firms, insurance companies, and other service providers in the financial services ecosystem. Star’s employee conflicts of interest platform is scalable and easy-to-use for employees at all levels of an organization, and helps financial firms reduce risk, gain efficiencies, and drive adoption around their employee compliance programs.

The Technology Headlines article, titled "Making Compliance Simple & Easy For The Global Financial Industry," is an homage to Star’s mission statement: "We Are Reputation Guardians, On A Mission To Make Compliance Simple And Easy." It's a mission the regtech company takes seriously, and one that has kept the organization on track, even in the middle of a global health crisis. “The pandemic has made our mission clearer than ever," says Sun. "This year, we’ve been laser focused on two main initiatives: transforming ourselves internally—becoming Agile—and investing in our future product strategy.”

Star’s Agile transformation at the beginning of this year helped employees pivot quickly to the new remote-work environment. The company was able to shift its implementation approach from a mixture of onsite and offsite work to 100% remote installs, and as a result has completed more than 25 successful remote implementations since the beginning of March. Star has also moved to a fully virtual events platform—hosting monthly webinars to provide actionable advice to help clients and attendees adjust to the “new normal” of remote work and the compliance challenges that have come with it.

2020 has been a year of innovation for Star, with the company bringing new functionality online and integrating critical datasets to improve the user experience. Compliance Dashboards—which provide a new level of data accessibility and employee activity transparency—help inform compliance decision making and reduce firm risk. Star is also taking a new approach to its product strategy, applying the “Jobs To Be Done” methodology to build software that meets unmet needs in the compliance industry and improve the accuracy and expediency of customers’ day-to-day tasks. Sun: “We followed a rigorous process to uncover the major struggles our compliance customers face, and developed a product strategy that will bring them greater efficiency and lower the cost of their compliance programs.”

To read more about StarCompliance and their year of innovation and growth, download your free copy of “The Successful Companies of 2020" here.

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About StarCompliance

StarCompliance is the leading provider of compliance technology solutions. Trusted globally by enterprise financial institutions, the intuitive STAR Platform empowers organizations to achieve regulatory compliance while safeguarding their integrity and business reputations. Through a customizable, 360-degree view of employee activity, the STAR software enables firms to automate the detection and resolution of potential areas of conflict while streamlining daily workflows and increasing efficiency. http://www.starcompliance.com

About Luminate Capital Partners

Luminate Capital Partners is a private equity firm focused on making investments in growing enterprise software companies. Luminate partners with management teams to provide flexible capital and operational support to drive strategy, accelerated growth and build long-term value. With headquarters in San Francisco, Luminate invests in portfolio companies that serve customers globally. Representative investments to date include AMTdirect, Comply365, Conexiom, Fintech, Oversight Systems, PDI and StarCompliance. http://www.luminatecapital.com.

Posted in: Business,Computers & Software,Finance,Technology,U.S

YourHome1Source and Money Management, Changing How America Overcomes Financial Challenges

Two leaders in financial education have teamed to provide an array of helpful resources for U.S. home buyers and homeowners. Money Management International (MMI) and YourHome1Source (YH1S.com) are collaborating to provide practical guidance across important financial topics such as Creating a Home Budget, Repaying Credit Card Debt, Understanding Credit Scores, Preparing to Buy a Home, Recovering from a Natural Disaster, Avoiding Home Foreclosure, and more.

"This is our company mission in action. This is why we developed YH1S.com - to be a one-stop trusted resource for home buyers and homeowners on important home-related financial matters. This moment in time is so rewarding for our team. Money Management has been committed to financial counseling since 1958, and their helpful guidance has benefitted millions of families over the years. It's an honor and privilege to work closely with MMI on educational content, especially knowing our combined efforts will lead to improved, tangible solutions for more people facing real-life financial challenges. Combining our resources to reach and help more Americans is extremely rewarding, and bolsters our commitment at work each day," says Sean Stockell, Publisher of YourHome1Source.

“MMI is pleased to help YH1S.com support prospective and current homeowners in achieving their goals,” said Jim Triggs, President and CEO of MMI. “As one of the nation’s largest nonprofit credit and housing advisors, we strive to make life affordable for everyone through innovative solutions and partnerships. Collaboration with YH1S.com is a natural fit, benefiting people as they seek their own path to achieving The American Dream. Our certified experts stand ready 24/7 to help individuals and families overcome the barriers they face and increase their confidence to lead financially healthy lives.”

"Our company always brings solutions for success to families and entrepreneurs. Our partnership with YourHome1Source is an extension of that philosophy," says Kathy Ireland, Chair, CEO and Chief Designer of kathy ireland® Worldwide (kiWW®). "Knowledge is key to empowerment, especially now, as so many individuals, families and businesses are facing difficult choices brought on by the pandemic, YourHome1Source is now able to offer everyone the education and tools needed to make informed decisions."    

ABOUT kathy ireland® WORLDWIDE (kiWW®): https://www.kathyireland.com/
kiWW® is listed at #26 in the world by License Global Magazine. Kathy Ireland is one of the most influential businesswomen in the world today and according to Fairchild Publications, Kathy is one of the 50 most influential people in fashion. Furniture Today also names Kathy one of the most influential leaders in the furniture industry. Kathy has graced the cover of Forbes Magazine twice (2012, 2016) and was featured on the cover of SUCCESS magazine in August 2019. kiWW® is the recipient of many awards including several Good Housekeeping Seals.

ABOUT MMI: https://www.moneymanagement.org/
Money Management International (MMI) is changing the way financial challenges are solved. MMI helps create, restore, and maintain a life of financial wellness through empowered choices. For over 60 years, our clients have achieved financial confidence through nonprofit programs that educate, motivate, and liberate. MMI inspires action by delivering expert professional guidance and timely solutions aligned with our clients' goals. Experiencing a financial challenge? Find your solution 24/7 at 866.864.8995 and?MoneyManagement.org.

ABOUT YOURHOME1SOURCE® https://www.yourhome1source.com/
YourHome1Source® (YH1S.com), America’s Resource on Homeownership® is a leading online resource for home buyers and homeowners covering many home-related topics including home buying, building, remodeling, furnishing & décor, home loans, insurance, home inspections, home security, smart-home technology and more. Visitors find tips, emerging product announcements, savings opportunities and home project solutions, and can view hundreds of home product videos on Your Home TV. Other resources include home plan and resource books, home valuation tool, home budget worksheet, mortgage calculator, photo galleries, checklists on home loans, buying, selling, building and access to free credit reports, credit scores and ways to protect personal identity and financial information.

Posted in: Finance,News & Current Affairs,Real Estate,U.S

FEI to Host Top Regulators From SEC, FASB and PCAOB at Annual Corporate Financial Reporting Insights (CFRI) Conference

Financial Executives International (FEI), the association of choice for CFOs and other senior-level finance executives, will hold its 39th Annual Corporate Financial Reporting Insights (CFRI) Conference. For the first time, the event will be hosted virtually on November 2,4,9,11,16 and 18. As with prior years, FEI continues to host an exclusive speaker roster, providing CFRI attendees with invaluable access to business-critical information regarding financial reporting trends, strategies, and tools. Attendees can earn up to 24.5 CPE credits after registering here: https://www.financialexecutives.org/Events/Conferences/Corporate-Financial-Reporting-Insights-Virtual-Con/Info/Register.aspx.

Sessions will be conducted by financial leaders from major organizations such as American Express, Crowe, Deloitte, EY, Facebook, Google. IBM, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Merck, Microsoft, PayPal, Pfizer, PepsiCo, and PWC. These presenters will be joined by key representatives from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

Conference Chair Aaron Anderson, Treasurer for PayPal Holdings, Inc. and member of FEI’s Committee on Corporate Reporting, said, “We are operating in unprecedented times of economic, societal, and personal disruption. To effectively lead our organizations and people through these challenges, we must come together as a profession and share experiences, gather insights, and ultimately take action. To this end, no conference can match CFRI in terms of caliber of speakers and relevancy of topics. We are confident that professionals who attend the conference will walk away empowered and equipped with strategies to succeed personally and professionally.”

Mark Zandi, Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics and Alex Gorsky, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Johnson & Johnson will deliver impactful insights through keynote and interviews on November 9 and 16 respectively.

“This year, CFRI will focus on training financial leaders on how to not only manage but embrace the post-pandemic business environment. With engaging keynotes exploring the pandemic’s impact moving into 2021, from the state of the profession to leadership perspectives, including the presidential election and what might unfold in the U.S. and global economies. Corporate Financial Reporting Insights rounds out an agenda with first-rate experts across various fields of relevance ranging from regulators to tech scientists, and may be the single-most important conference for financial professionals this year,” said Andrej Suskavcevic, CAE, president and CEO of FEI and FERF.

The CFRI conference is made possible through the support of the Financial Education & Research Foundation, and the event sponsors, including Diamond Sponsor Microsoft; Platinum Sponsors Deloitte, EY, Kaplan, KPMG, OneStream, PWC, and Workiva.

Agenda and Registration Details
Visit the CFRI website for the complete agenda, speaker biographies and registration details regarding both in-person and livestream attendance. Additionally, join the Twitter conversation at #FEICFRI2020.

About FEI
Financial Executives International (FEI) is the leading advocate for the views of corporate financial management. Its more than 10,000 members hold policy-making positions as chief financial officers, treasurers and controllers at companies from every major industry. FEI enhances member professional development through peer networking, career management services, conferences, research and publications. Members participate in the activities of more than 65 Chapters in the U.S. FEI is located in Morristown, NJ. Visit http://www.financialexecutives.org for more information.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,News & Current Affairs,U.S

Global Banking & Finance Review Magazine Launches its Native Android & iOS Apps

Global Banking & Finance Review Magazine, a world-renowned financial magazine, has launched mobile apps that make the magazine’s valuable content accessible to the public at no cost.

The magazine covers global topics on business, finance, banking, technology, trading, insurance, investing, and leadership. The magazine has evolved from the growing need to have a more balanced view of informative and independent news within the financial community. 

The experienced contributors of the magazines provide in-depth information that grants valuable insights into the latest happenings in the relevant fields. Leading players and key figures of the industry can gain this critical information from within the finance sector for free via the newly launched apps. Launching these apps is a part of Global Banking & Finance Review’s consistent efforts to make quality financial information accessible, palatable, and easily available to the public.

The Finance magazine provides ground-breaking coverage across various topics from across the world. The magazine is divided into Asian, African, American & European sections, offering articles, news, and analysis written by experts within various industries. Information like this, although extremely important and valuable, is not easy to access even in the Age of the Internet. That is the gap GBAF is seeking to address with its new apps.

With these apps, Global Banking & Finance Review has made it easier for the common man to access information that can radically change the way they manage their financial lives. To make the experience even better, the apps carry no ads. Of late, people have started going to great lengths to avoid being bombarded with ads while making use of free content. The Global Banking and Finance Review apps offer an ad-free experience while giving access to all the issues of the Global Banking & Finance Review Magazine. Smartphone users can now view all these magazines and use them to form better financial decisions.

Click on the following links to download the apps

For Android – Global Banking & Finance Review Magazine

For iOS – Global Banking & Finance Review Magazine

For Media Enquiries please contact

Wanda Rich

Editor

info@gbafmag.com

+44 2081443511

Posted in: Business,Finance,News & Current Affairs

Avenu Insights & Analytics Launches the Clearview Justice Portal

Today Avenu Insights & Analytics (Avenu) launched its new Clearview Justice Portal (CJP). CJP is an applications integration platform offering a comprehensive suite of public-facing applications that enables Courts to provide a modern experience for its constituents, while also acting as a single point of “contactless” interaction with the Court. CJP will provide jurors with an enhanced jury experience allowing easy, streamlined and socially distanced interactions with the court system – features that are now more important than ever due to COVID-19 precautions.

“We’re thrilled to launch this state-of-the-art digital solution for streamlining the court system,” said Paul Colangelo, CEO of Avenu. “Avenu has decades of experience using digital technology to transform everyday procedures in government. Clearview Justice Portal makes court processes easier and more effective, in everything from managing jury attendance to storing and sharing court documents and information. It also provides citizens with a simplified and improved jury duty experience that is “contactless” and promotes social distancing.”

CJP features a flexible and extensible plug-in-based architecture that allows courts to implement and deploy CJP functionalities as needed. Additionally, CJP can integrate with non-Avenu supplied justice applications, enabling workflow improvements for any existing court system.

“Jury service is a vital civic responsibility and the cornerstone of the American judicial system,” said Keith Ellery, Avenu’s Justice Solutions Business Unit Owner. “But jury service today is difficult, time-consuming and labor-intensive. With CJP, we’re able to use digital and automation technology to make jury service simpler and more convenient than ever before. We think that’s a win-win for the courts and the broader public.”

About Avenu

As a leading provider in state and local government solutions, Avenu has partnered with over 3,000 state and local governments to boost revenue, optimize operations, and reduce costs. Avenu provides revenue enhancement and administrative solutions that uncover new sources of untapped revenue and deliver software that streamlines day-to-day operations. State and local governments partner with Avenu to increase revenue without raising taxes, streamline internal operations, and improve services by enhancing connectivity for constituents. Avenu is a portfolio company of Mill Point Capital. To learn more, visit http://www.avenuinsights.com.

About Mill Point Capital

Mill Point Capital is a private equity firm targeting control investments in lower-middle market businesses, with a focus on industrial and business services companies in North America. Mill Point’s experienced team of investors and Executive Partners seek to enhance the value of portfolio companies by executing transformative strategic initiatives and operational improvements. Mill Point is based in New York, NY. For more information, please visit http://www.millpoint.com.

Posted in: Business,Finance,News & Current Affairs,U.S

ZorroSign Partners with DocuXplorer to Provide Seamless Integration of Document Management and Digital Signature Solutions

ZorroSign, Inc., a global leader in blockchain-based digital signatures and digital transaction management, today announced a new strategic partnership with DocuXplorer, a leading Document Management Solution. DocuXplorer’s native integration with ZorroSign will allow a seamless process from document management through to encrypted electronic signing of documents. DocuXplorer customers will be able to quickly send, sign, and file contracts.

ZorroSign and DocuXplorer regularly seek out new alliances to further expand product offerings for customers. As a result of this partnership, users can now execute documents, then store, access, and share those documents with complete security and compliance with industry regulations including SEC, Sarbanes Oxley, FINRA, GDPR and HIPAA. Businesses that go paperless can reduce their processing errors by an average of 90 percent (BP Trends) and achieve 70 to 80 percent efficiency improvements when implementing electronic signature solutions (Forbes).

“We are thrilled to partner with ZorroSign to offer their leading-edge digital signature services to our growing client base,” stated Mr. Wyman, spokesperson for DocuXplorer. “Partnerships like this demonstrate our efforts to regularly deliver new value-add services to our customers.”

DocuXplorer provides a complete document management solution for document handling and storage. The software provides users with an extremely effective, yet easy-to-use, method of quickly finding, sharing and accessing all types of documents, both scanned-in paper and electronic. DocuXplorer uses a familiar File Explorer-style interface, making it a simple yet robust, low-cost solution that requires little training and virtually no technology expertise.

“People use ZorroSign because they know that it is safe, it is secure, it is authentic and most importantly, they know that the person that they are transacting with is the real person. We can prove it,” said Shamsh Hadi, ZorroSign’s chief executive officer. ZorroSign is the first Blockchain Tokenization based eSignature, digital signature and Digital Transaction Management (DTM) Platform that offers digital document tamper and fraud detection technology.

Sign up today for your free trial: http://www.zorrosign.com/signup.

About DocuXplorer
Since 1997, DocuXplorer has provided thousands of its users with an end-to-end document management and archiving solution, including award-winning document management software, consulting services, taxonomy training, a cloud-based solution and secure online backup of its clients’ data. It was named one of the top solution providers by OCR World magazine for its advanced optical character recognition and one of the Top 20 providers of document management software by Capterra. For more information and to try DocuXplorer, please visit http://www.docuxplorer.com.

Save a Tree – Plant a Tree
Through its #PaperlessLife initiative, every time ZorroSign customers save a tree by not printing paper, ZorroSign plants a tree on their behalf. Saving the planet is a core part of ZorroSign, as using this technology saves trees, water and our carbon footprint. For more information about our Paperless Life initiative visit: http://www.zorrosign.com/paperless-life.

About ZorroSign
ZorroSign, Inc. is a leader in digital signature technology and the global provider of ZorroSign DTM—a secure platform delivering digital signature and digital transaction management. ZorroSign’s patent-pending 4n6 (“forensics”) technology offers post-execution fraud detection, verification and authentication of legally binding electronic signatures, digital signatures and documents using proprietary blockchain tokenization. ZorroSign DTM streamlines end-to-end digital transactions with bank-grade protection and security certificates that never expire—allowing governments, corporations, and individuals to eSign documents, request signatures on documents and forms, build workflows, automate approval processes, and more leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence. For more information, visit http://www.zorrosign.com.

Trademarks
ZorroSign, ZorroFill, ZorroSign (patent-pending) 4n6 Token, and JustZSign, are registered trademarks of ZorroSign, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All other trademarked names or terms used in this document are the property of their respective owners.

Posted in: Business,Finance,News & Current Affairs,Services,U.S

HRMP to Exhibit at Self-Insurance Institute of America Virtual National Conference

HRMP, a leading provider of administrative service support and reinsurance to group insurance carriers, is proud to announce that it will be an exhibitor at the Self-Insurance Institute of America's 40th Annual National Conference and Expo to be held as a virtual event October 12-15, 2020.

Founded in 1990, HRMP offers third-party administrative and reinsurance support to underwriters, insurance carriers, and reinsurers in partnership with A.M. Best “A” rated carriers and reinsurers.

The Self-Insurance Institute of America, Inc. (SIIA), works to protect and promote the business interests of companies involved in the self-insurance and alternative risk transfer industry. SIIA members include self-insured entities, third-party administrators, captive managers, excess/stop-loss/reinsurance insurers, and other service providers. The organization provides its members with informational and educational resources as well as networking opportunities and legislative/regulatory representation.

HRMP President Jim Mange commented, “HRMP is proud to support the Self-Insurance Institute of America at its upcoming conference. We have been an exhibitor at SIIA events for many years, and we are excited to participate as the association launches its first virtual national conference. HRMP sincerely appreciates the important benefits SIIA provides for its members.”

About HRMP, LLC
Founded in 1990, HRMP, LLC, is a distinctive third-party administrator positioned to offer creative solutions to underwriters, insurance carriers, and reinsurers. Our unique solutions include back office or run-out administration, auditing services, life conversions, and more. HRMP, LLC, is a member of the Aran Insurance Services Group. For more information, visit https://www.hrmp.com/.

Posted in: Education,Finance,News & Current Affairs,U.S

Ideanomics Reports 503 EV Units Processed for July & August an Increase from Q2

Ideanomics Announces MEG's July and August Activity

203 Units Delivered in July and August

­ 557 Units Invoiced in July and August

 

NEW YORK – Sep 15, 2020 – Ideanomics (NASDAQ: IDEX) ("Ideanomics" or the "Company") is pleased to announce its Mobile Energy Global (MEG) division's activity from the period starting July 1, 2020, and ending August 31, 2020.

MEG activities during the period of July 1, 2020 through August 31, 2020 were as follows:

Vehicle Type	Units Invoiced (pending expected delivery)	Units Delivered
Heavy Trucks	-	25
Taxis/Ride-Hailing	557	178
TOTAL UNITS	557	203

"Units Delivered" refers to vehicles which have been delivered to customers, and Ideanomics has obtained the delivery notes. "Units Invoiced (pending expected delivery)" refers to customer orders where sales invoices have been issued and units ordered are still pending expected delivery. Delivery dates vary according to the type of vehicle and manufacturer availability.  

The US GAAP accounting treatment for the anticipated revenue from the above orders will not be finalized until the order transactions complete. Consequently, the revenue may be reported on a Gross or Net basis and some portion may be deferred to future accounting periods.

 

About Ideanomics

Ideanomics is a global company that facilitates the adoption of commercial electric vehicles and supports next-generation financial services and fintech products. Our electric vehicle division, Mobile Energy Global (MEG) provides group purchasing discounts on commercial electric vehicles, EV batteries and electricity, as well as financing and charging solutions; we refer to this business model as sales to financing to charging (S2F2C). Ideanomics Capital provides fintech services that include intelligent and innovative solutions powered by AI and blockchain. Together, MEG and Ideanomics Capital provide our global customers and partners with more efficient solutions for a greener economy.

The company is headquartered in New York, NY, with offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Qingdao, and operations in the U.S., China, Ukraine, and Malaysia.

Posted in: Automotive,Business,Finance,Finance Market,Technology

Diamante Blockchain to be featured on Advancements with Ted Danson via CNBC

Diamante Blockchain, a global fintech company creating a dedicated financial ecosystem for the diamond and luxury good space, will be featured on ‘Advancements with Ted Danson’, to be televised Sunday, September 13th at 2:30 pm ET via CNBC. The program will also be distributed to Voice of America Television, which reaches more than 200 cities in 140 countries across the globe. In the exclusive feature, CEO Dinesh Patel and the Diamante team provide insight into the Company’s unique vision, mission and approach, and why distributed ledger technology (DLT, or blockchain) is so important for the diamond and luxury goods sectors.

“The impact of blockchain in the diamond industry goes beyond just modernizing the supply chain,” explains Chirag Jetani, Diamante’s Chief Operating Officer. “Our goal is to convey that the full embrace of DLT can revolutionize the diamond industry and that this revolution is happening now. We are honoured to be featured on Advancements, and hope the program broadens awareness of the power of DLT and its ability to help the industry.”

About Diamante Blockchain

Diamante Blockchain is a fintech company leveraging blockchain technology to create a dedicated ecosystem for the diamond and luxury goods sector. The Diamante ecosystem consists of (i) Diamante’s proprietary blockchain (DiamanteNet), (ii) industry stakeholders (the Diamante Consortium) and (iii) Diamante’s ecosystem payments network (PayCircle). Learn more at diamanteblockchain.com.

Posted in: Business,Finance,News & Current Affairs,Technology,U.S

Financial Poise™ Announces "Trade Finance Basics" a New Webinar Premiering October 7th at 2:00 PM CST through West LegalEdcenter™

Trade is growing exponentially across the globe. In this increasingly interconnected cross-border business environment, it is time critical for companies buying and selling goods and services (and their advisors) to understand trade finance. Deploying the trade finance toolbox effectively helps importers and exporters manage working capital solutions and reduce cost. This webinar explains the basics of letters of credit, open account, supply chain and documentary collections, how and why they are used, how much they cost, and the benefits and risks. It covers how financial institutions facilitate these funding options and explains why trade finance is a natural fit for Blockchain technology.

To learn more and register, click here.

The webinar will be available on-demand after its premiere. As with every Financial Poise Webinar, it will be an engaging and plain English conversation designed to entertain as it teaches.

About Financial Poise –

Financial Poise has one mission: to provide reliable plain English business, financial and legal education to investors, private business owners and executives, and their respective trusted advisors. Financial Poise content is created by seasoned, respected experts who are invited to join our Faculty only after being recommended by current Faculty Members. Our editorial staff then works to make sure all content is easily digestible. Financial Poise is a meritocracy; nobody can “buy” their way into the Financial Poise Faculty. Start learning today at https://www.financialpoise.com/

Posted in: Business,Education,Finance,Law & Legal

Reflexis ONE for Banking Platform Selected by Top U.S. Bank

Reflexis Systems, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent workforce management and execution solutions for multi-site businesses in retail, food service, hospitality and banking, announced today that a second top U.S. bank has selected Reflexis ONE™ for Banking to transform their branch operations.

Reflexis ONE for Banking provides a best-in-class solution for branch staffing optimization and mobile tools for improved employee engagement. The solution simplifies work for branch employees and increases time spent directly with customers, driving productivity and improved client outcomes.

Banking executives have realized the value in looking outside of their industry for best practices to optimize branch performance, and they have found that retailers have overcome many of these same challenges. Reflexis has worked with the world’s largest retailers since 2001 to drive workforce efficiency, effectiveness and productivity and is uniquely well positioned to help banks adopt many of these learnings.

With AI and machine learning powered forecasting, automated schedule optimization and mobile-first Employee Self-Service, banks can ensure they have the right staff in the right place at the right time to improve client engagement. In addition to driving staffing efficiencies, the Reflexis ONE for Banking platform increases employee engagement and satisfaction in the scheduling process.

“Reflexis is thrilled to welcome a second top U.S. bank to our roster of more than 275 forward thinking banks, retailers, food service companies and hotels,” said Brett Friedman, Chief Revenue Officer at Reflexis.

“We’re confident that Reflexis ONE for Banking will streamline labor scheduling and branch operations processes, as we’ve done for our retail customers since 2001,” said Brian Wallace, General Manager of Banking at Reflexis. “This will improve the customer experience and increase operational efficiency, employee satisfaction and sales effectiveness across their national network of banking centers.”

About Reflexis Systems, Inc.
Reflexis Systems is the leading provider of intelligent workforce management, execution and communication solutions for multi-site organizations in retail, food service, hospitality and banking.

The Reflexis ONE™ intelligent work platform is used by our customers across the globe to simplify execution, improve communication and optimize labor decisions. Today, over 275 leaders in retail, food service, hospitality and banking are leveraging Reflexis ONE™ to achieve measurable improvements in customer engagement & associate productivity and retention.

Reflexis Systems is privately held and headquartered in Dedham, Massachusetts and has offices in Atlanta, Columbus, London, Düsseldorf, and Pune (India), with additional sales presence across Europe and Latin America. For further information, please visit http://www.Reflexisinc.com.

Reflexis: Unleash the Power of Your Store Associates.

Follow Reflexis on: LinkedIn | Blog | Twitter | YouTube

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,News & Current Affairs,Services,U.S

BLUEFIN, LLC a Subsidiary of Mantis Innovation Group, LLC Partners with Crenshaw Consulting Group, LLC

O2 Investment Partners, LLC (http://www.o2investment.com) is pleased to announce that through Mantis Innovation Group, LLC (http://www.mantisinnovation.com), Bluefin, LLC has acquired and partnered with Crenshaw Consulting Group, LLC (http://www.crenshawconsultinggroup.vpweb.com) and its leadership team to enhance both companies’ service offerings, geographic presence, and talented employee group.

Miah Dancy, President of BLUEFIN, LLC, commented, “We are excited to welcome Crenshaw to BLUEFIN. Crenshaw has been an exceptional business for many years, providing expert solutions to its clients. We value its longstanding success, and we commit to providing its team of dedicated employees the resources they need to grow that success even further. Vickie Crenshaw brings exceptional technical expertise to our management team, and we look forward to working closely with her to continue providing superior service to Crenshaw’s customers.”

Crenshaw has a long history of providing the highest quality roof consulting services to a wide variety of customers in both the public and private sectors, including city, county, and state agencies, school districts, as well as major U.S. insurance carriers. The entire Crenshaw team will join BLUEFIN’s staff, and Crenshaw’s owner, Vickie Crenshaw, PE, RRO, RRC, will remain an owner in the combined business and become a Senior Vice President within the BLUEFIN organization.

Vickie Crenshaw commented, “Crenshaw is very proud of the legacy we have established and nurtured over the past 16 years. We view this transaction as an opportunity to continue growing, and we welcome the chance to provide an expanded service offering to our clients. Culturally, this is an excellent fit for us, and we are excited for our future with BLUEFIN.”

Joe Vallee of O2 Investment Partners added, “The addition of Crenshaw Consulting Group creates tremendous opportunity for both BLUEFIN as well as the broader Mantis Innovation Group platform. When combined, Crenshaw adds focused expertise in design services and creates an opportunity for Mantis to provide additional software-enabled services to improve facility performance and reduce operating and capital costs. Vickie and her team have built an exceptional business, and we look forward to accomplishing great things together.”

About Mantis Innovation Group, LLC:

Mantis Innovation Group, LLC is a technology-driven firm employing proprietary software and data analytics to improve facility performance. Mantis’ service offering includes electricity and natural gas procurement; proactive roof, pavement, and envelope management; roof design and quality assurance; demand management; energy monitoring; and solar / renewable implementation. Mantis is headquartered in Houston, TX, with additional operations in Dallas, Texas; Waco, Texas; Coppell, TX; Trenton, New Jersey; Burlington, MA; West Springfield, MA; King of Prussia, PA; Harrisburg, PA; and Brunswick, ME.

About BLUEFIN, LLC:

BLUEFIN is the nation’s leading provider of facility asset management and facility energy consulting services to clients with large facility footprints. BLUEFIN delivers an innovative portfolio approach to asset management that significantly reduces costs while improving facility performance.

About Crenshaw Consulting Group, LLC:

Crenshaw Consulting Group, LLC is a design, engineering, and consulting firm specializing in roof systems, waterproofing, exterior wall systems, lab analysis, forensic investigation, quality assurance, and construction observation. Crenshaw has expertise in complex site-specific plans and specifications for renovation, re-roofing, repair, and maintenance jobs.

About O2 Investment Partners:

O2 Investment Partners is a Midwestern based private equity firm that seeks to acquire majority interests in lower middle market B2B services, technology, and select niche industrial companies. The firm invests in businesses with earnings growth potential and a clear path to the creation of shareholder value.

O2 invests with a view toward partnering with management to build and grow the business and take it to its next stage of development. This requires not only a clear vision and strategic plan to create shareholder value, but a close partnership and alignment of interest with management.

Additional information is available at http://www.mantisinnovation.com ; http://www.bluefinllc.com ; http://www.crenshawconsultinggroup.vpweb.com ; http://www.o2investment.com

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,News & Current Affairs,U.S

Commonwealth Collaborates with JPMorgan Chase to Boost Emerging Technology Innovations for Financially Vulnerable Americans

Today, Commonwealth and JPMorgan Chase announced their collaboration to address the challenges and opportunities that emerging technologies present to lower- and moderate-income people’s financial lives. As part of the two-year initiative, Commonwealth will conduct research, understand and document the financial landscape for financially vulnerable people, examining usage patterns of emerging technologies with a focus on how they garner trust.

Emerging technology is already shaping the financial landscape, and COVID-19 has only accelerated its disruption. 64% of financial services executives expect to become mass adopters of AI and 77% expect AI to be an essential driver across the industry within two years. Lower-income workers are already experiencing barriers to financial services. Commonwealth data shows 43% of lower income workers do not have a savings account. But as fintechs and social impact innovators progress towards folding technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics into their products, a major risk exists.

If the needs of financially vulnerable, lower- and moderate-income Americans are not addressed, our financial system will become even more fractured. But if they are, the financial landscape could shift to include new people and drive widespread financial security and opportunity.

“Emerging technology will play a central role in the post-COVID economy--but the question is, will this hurt or help America’s most financially vulnerable?” said Commonwealth Co-Founder and Executive Director Timothy Flacke. “A time of disruption provides an opportunity to include new people in the financial system--but only if technology is intentionally designed and distributed based on a thorough understanding of the needs and aspirations of these customers.”

This initiative builds on Commonwealth’s prior work with JPMorgan Chase, which tested savings tools for lower-wage workers. Commonwealth will research, understand and document the financial landscape for financially vulnerable people, examining usage patterns of emerging technologies with a focus on how they garner trust. The initiative will examine how emerging technologies can address acute financial challenges faced by financially vulnerable people during COVID-19, and on the path to recovery.

Data will be disaggregated by race, gender and age, and will consider the role of place, recognizing that economic disruptions often have different impacts across communities. As part of this effort, fintech and nonprofit innovators will field test research findings on the ground with their financially vulnerable consumers to produce more accurate, nuanced insights.

Commonwealth will produce tools and resources that inform and influence fintech and social impact innovators to harness the power of emerging technologies like big data analytics and artificial intelligence in a way that addresses the needs of financially vulnerable Americans--transforming the landscape for decades to come. Importantly, the project will include discussions and collaboration with key stakeholders, fintechs and experts in emerging technology and ultimately findings will be disseminated through digital assets and events including a private stakeholder convening and a public webinar.

Commonwealth has a long track record of helping financially vulnerable people build savings and financial security. For the past 20 years, the organization has built innovative solutions that make people financially secure and work towards financial opportunity for all, helping people accumulate over B in savings.

For more information on Commonwealth’s work, visit http://www.buildcommonwealth.org.

About Commonwealth
Commonwealth strengthens the financial opportunity and security of financially vulnerable people by discovering ideas, piloting solutions, and driving innovations to scale. For nearly two decades, Commonwealth has designed effective innovations, products, and policies enabling over 750,000 people to accumulate more than billion in savings. Commonwealth understands broad changes require market players to act. That’s why we collaborate with consumers, the financial services industry, employers, policy-makers and mission-driven organizations. The solutions we build are grounded in real life, based on our deep understanding of people who are financially vulnerable and how businesses can best serve them.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,News & Current Affairs,U.S

Offshore Protection: Why Covid-19 May Leave Assets Exposed

PANAMA CITY – July 31 2020 – Living in an a time of uncertainty makes future proofing your assets essential. Having a financial plan in place guarantees you will not be left unprepared for what tomorrow might bring. 

Forming an offshore protection strategy is about securing your assets for the future. Today it is easier than ever to secure that future using an overseas account. An offshore bank account gives you privacy, spreads your risk, and diversifying your assets. Offshore Protection provides the offshore strategies you need to survive tomorrow.

Financial diversification is to ensure all your eggs are not held in the same basket. The solution; have more than one basket. Offshore diversification strategies spread your eggs across several accounts, in different currencies and countries. Offshore diversification is the single most effective strategy to safeguard your wealth for tomorrow.

Having your assets in a separate banking system provides a measure of security that protects against domestic issues such as currency fluctuation, political uncertainty and economic downturn. 

Forming an offshore trust or creating a LLC is also used as means to protect assets that may be exposed to unnecessary levels of risk. They provide additional levels of protection, confidentiality and security through proper offshore structuring that separates an individual from a group of assets.

Uncertainty is perhaps the greatest destabilising force that can break havoc on banks, markets and the economy. Without the assurances of tomorrow people lose their trust in institutions. While accounts, trusts and currency can help to minimise the damage of any uncertainty, perhaps the greatest tool for freedom is a second passport.

https://www.offshore-protection.com/passport-residency-and-citizenship

A second passport gives you the freedom to chose your future whatever the circumstances by ensuring you more travel options and most importantly a second country where you are treated like a first class citizen.

Your life is exposed to unnecessary levels of risk when it is kept all together within a single single banking institution, currency denomination or geographical area. The consequences can be sudden and devastating. The current crises is might just be an early warning sign of whats to come. Everything happens in cycles and the last downturn of 2008 the entire world felt the repercussions of an unstable banking industry. What uncertainty might be around the corner?

An offshore protection plan is about preparation. Preparing yourself for whatever may come by creating a strategy that suits your individual circumstances and the needs of the day.

About Offshore Protection

Offshore Protection is an offshore service and law centre based in Panama City and has helped thousand of clients since 1996 specialising in multi-jurisdictional offshore solutions. 

Offshore Protection offers everything you need to secure your offshore future, including company formations, offshore accounts, financial licenses, crypto licenses, offshore trusts and foundations as well as second passports. Offshore Protection has over 20 years of experience conducting business in over 35 jurisdictions offering tailor-made offshore solutions.

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market

New RoFX Artificial Intelligence Features for Automated Trading. Full Review

Trading in the forex market has always been an enticing prospect for all traders out there.  In recent years, automated trading in the forex has largely replaced manual trading as the most popular method of trading. This usually relies on the efficiency of software in question such as EAs or forex robots. One such Expert Advisor which constantly features on the top ten lists of forex EAs is ROFX. Here is an honest RoFx review for traders who wish to start trading.

ROFX advertises itself as a self-learning EA which implements a profitable algorithm. It is one of the few EAs which is known for its background running capacity as well as its ability to learn the changes in the market quickly. Developed back in 2009, ROFX is backed up by a team of developers who are experienced in Forex. ROFX labels itself as safe because they guarantee the safety of deposits made by traders. They are also committed to providing transparency and operate with 100% confidentiality. 

ROFX can be bought in either USD, EUR, and even Bitcoin. It offers 5 account packages, namely, Trial packages, Easy start package, Money maker package, Gold package, and VIP package. 

Salient Features 

ROFX has some features that enable it to deliver profitable trading experiences to its users.  Some of these are mentioned below. 

• Easy Initiation: ROFX allows almost any amateur trader to start trading short term investments within the first month. 
• Daily Profit Collection: ROFX allows its users to take the profit they’ve earned on a daily basis, provided the day was profitable. 
• Minimum Risks: ROFX employs the stop-loss system to stop trading to allow the most minimum of losses. 
• Guaranteed Return of Funds: Investors can get back their invested funds at any time they wish. 
• No Leverage: Trading with leverage is not allowed in ROFX. 
• Support System: ROFX has a responsive customer service team that works around the clock, 24/7. There is also an option available for live chat. 

Advantages of using ROFX

• Novice-friendly: One of the most obvious benefits of using ROFX is that it is beginner-friendly. It’s a well-known fact that novice traders tend to struggle when using an EA for the first time. ROFX makes it easy to get acquainted with the environment and to start trading pretty soon. 
• Trading Strategy: ROFX’s trading strategy has been formulated by a group of forex experts after considerable testing. This makes it easy for novice traders to easily hop on-board and start trading. They can thus skip their usual trial and error approach and work towards profitability. 
• Verified Results: As we’ll see in the section below, ROFX has provided verified trading statistics and results on sites like myfxbook. 
• Transparency is Paramount: ROFX is committed towards transparency which reflects in their practices and policies. As part of this, ROFX provides all information on their myfxbook page, something not all EAs do. 

Trading Record on myfxbook

There no denying that there is a multitude of Expert Advisors available in the market, each claiming to offer the best degree of profitability. While there is no way to confirm these claims on the spot, traders can check for live trading statistics from authoritative sites such as myfxbook and fxblue to get a better picture. In this case, ROFX has provided us with a live account, hosted on myfxbook. 

In the above account, we can see that the total accumulated profit stands at 042706.00 and the account has a current balance of 042706.00. On the tab at the top, we are presented with information regarding the account including that its using USD and Ester as the broker. The bottom-left tab indicates that the information has been updated quite recently. All of these are signs that the account is indeed in order and verified frequently. 

The information in the account indicates that the account has indeed gained an impressive profit of 463.43% with an amazingly low drawdown rate of 0.35% Low drawdown rates are always favorable and indicative of a good, low-risk trading strategy. All the other aspects pertaining to this account, including the trading charts and other trading records. 

After looking at the above account, it’s clear that ROFX makes realistic claims on its website. When comparing other trading statistics from EAs, many may have a profit that is generated almost magically from a small initial investment. However, it is clear from the records of ROFX that the account started with a small amount and gradually grew as it earned profit over the years. These are definitely more reliable figures to consider. 

Conclusion

With the growth of automated trading, traders are realizing the potential of using software such as Expert advisors for profitability, largely replacing manual trading. Additionally, there are ample reasons to include ROFX in the list of the best Forex robots available. Apart from being an excellent forex robot with a bunch of amazing features, it provides trading records and proof on its official website.  The registration process is fast and easy, taking about 5 minutes. 

Overall ROFX has impressed us with the quality of statistics it has provided and the salient features it possesses. At a time when markets are saturated and potential buyers can get confused while choosing, ROFX displays all the hallmarks of being a reliable trading robot. 

Posted in: Business,Finance

Financial Recovery Group Achieves HITRUST CSF® Certification to Manage Risk, Improve Security Posture, and Meet Compliance Requirements

Financial Recovery Group, Inc. (FRG), a leading provider of interactive software to health plans and physicians groups to improve financial performance, today announced the AccuReports® and Audit Tracker applications have earned Certified status for information security by HITRUST®.

HITRUST CSF Certified status demonstrates that the organization’s AccuReports® and Audit Tracker systems have met key regulations and industry-defined requirements and are appropriately managing risk. This achievement places Financial Recovery Group, Inc. in an elite group of organizations worldwide that have earned this certification. By including federal and state regulations, standards, and frameworks, and incorporating a risk-based approach, the HITRUST CSF helps organizations address these challenges through a comprehensive and flexible framework of prescriptive and scalable security controls.

"HITRUST plays an important role in how our prospects assess and choose vendors. FRG has always been committed to meeting the most rigorous industry standards for information security, and our work to achieve this designation reinforces that commitment," said Keith Robertson, President of FRG.

“HITRUST is continually innovating to help streamline and simplify how organizations assess information risk and manage compliance in a cloud environment,” said Jeremy Huval, Chief Compliance Officer, HITRUST. “We are happy that Financial Recovery Group, Inc. has taken the steps needed to achieve HITRUST CSF Certification—a designation which provides added confidence to their customers.”

About Financial Recovery Group, Inc

Since 1999, Financial Recovery Group (FRG) has worked with health plans and physician groups to improve financial performance through online analytical reports and claims audit recovery services. Trusted by national HMOs and over 700 Independent Practice Associations (IPAs), Medical Service Organizations (MSOs) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), FRG brings industry leading medical economics capabilities to healthcare enterprises. FRG’s proprietary algorithms and rigorous processes make it easy to consolidate and evaluate complex health plan data sets. Clients in value-based care agreements gain the power to build informed medical cost improvement plans and boost risk pool, shared savings and incentive plan payments.

Posted in: Finance,News & Current Affairs,Services,U.S

What Is Wealth Management and why one Needs wealth management

How do you manage your wealth? What kind of tricks do you use to manage your wealth? Well, in this world everyone is working for earning the money and that is why most people go for manages their money in many ways. Money is a thing which is the most common or you can say must needed things in this world. Everyone in this world just work for money we know that money is a thing which make us a big and powerful person otherwise if you do not have money then you may become a poor person so it your condition is depends on your work, on your money and many more things, that is why the wealth management is take place between that.

 We know that money matters for us and that is why it is also very necessary to maintain the money otherwise we may lose our ranking. Your living style shows that why much rich is you are and that is why it is very important that to keep our lifestyle good but it can only possible by the money and here you will see that who much is the importance is there in our life to manage our money and that is why it is very necessary to manage our money.

You can describe your wealth by showing your lifestyle like a car, you branded clothes, your branded shoes, your beautiful home and many more things which are require telling you how much you are rich in this world so to manage all of them we need certain things which are very necessary. So in this topic we are going to read about the people who can manage or wealth so I will request you to stay with us till the end.

Who we can manage our wealth?

If you have lots of money so it is very important to place our money in those areas where we can get lots of returns like the share market. So to manage our money we have too many options to make it use or manageable so we should hire those people who can make our work easy like hiring a wealth manager or a financial adviser. Well, now the question is who are the wealth manager and a financial manager well?

Who are the wealth manager and a financial adviser well?

Now we will talk about both one by one in the topic.

Wealth manager: -a wealth manager is the kind of person who is then responsible for keeping the record of your wealth. The best wealth management firms too many kind of work related to wealth. Like the financial and investment advice, legal or estate plans, accounting, and tax services, and retirement planning, to manage an affluent client's wealth and many more work related to the office it is also take care for your incoming and outgoing expenses that is why a health manager is very necessary for us to keep eyes on wealth.

A financial adviser: - a financial adviser is a person who describes you the best place to invest your money at the right time when the money must be invested. The financial manager keeps eyes on the goals of the company which are set as per time and by his advice the company can achieve the goals as soon as possible which were set by the company.

What are the differences between the financial adviser and a wealth manager?

The answer to the question what is the difference between a wealth manager and a financial advisor? The difference between both the managers are very simple to explain because the financial manager provides a suitable advise as well as provide the tricks by which company can achieve the goals by the time while a wealth manager always implement the work and he maintain the money which is always very necessary for everyone or every company.

Who the salaries are paid to both the managers?

The wealth manager is always a person who held a lot of money work in the company and that is why as per his work he is paid a sizable amount by which he manage his life but How do wealth managers get paid? So he may get money to buy the annual package or by the monthly salary. That is why it is a big job as per the responsibility

Certified retirement counselor. If we talk about the financial adviser so he is also get a good paid salary and that is why this job also have too many kind of work has to perform to get a good amount of money so he can manage his life by getting money on a salary basis or on that time when he may give you a advise and your work become successful. 

What are wealth management strategies?

The question is what are wealth management strategies? So if we talk about the work which is performed by a wealth manager or the strategies are used by the wealth manager so those all strategies always made for companies favor that is why a wealth manager has to think too much to make a decision. So he may use some strategies we will discuss by these points.

• Create financial goals: - he/she always keep eyes on the company’s situation so as per the situation the wealth manager looks to make their perfect goals which companies have achieve.
• Manage your savings: - the wealth manager is always look for manage your savings and expenses by which you can manage your life’s saving’s investment
• Provides perfect tips for manage money: - there are many tips which are given by the wealth manager for making your life’s perfect plan.
• Manage your estate work: - it manages your work of real estate by which you can earn lots of money by selling them or you can become the owner of a lot of estate. That is why the manager of wealth is require

Posted in: Business,Finance

How to find the best wealth management firm?

Management can be a troublesome task especially when it comes to managing the wealth. Nowadays you do not need to worry because you get the support of professional Wealth Management firms.Several wealth management firms are available in the market that you can choose to generate financial leads as often as possible. One can take the services of a professional manager who is capable to study all the facts of the current financial situation. Once all these facts are studied expert wealth managers build the best plan or strategy to operate profitably.

Wealth Management Collective and Effective Strategies

What is the role of effective Strategies for Wealth Management? An effective strategy is a well-known factor helping to manage the wealth precisely. No one can manage the wealth itself if you are one of ultra-high net worth. So it’s better to take the services of Wealth Management near me or effective strategies that are working progressively. One can take the best of plans to acquire the financial leads in a short amount of time. Once all the financial aspects are pre-planned or well maintained, it will secure your future.

Integrated Wealth Solutions

For example, when you have died in an uncertain incident or you do not plan the Wealth Management for your family and firm what happens next. The situation has turned problematic completely for your family because you do not have any Wealth Management plans. Besides, it becomes impossible for them to survive because they do not have any monetary support.

To overcome these kinds of situations come it’s better to get integrated wealth solutions. To get all the solutions, you can contact Wealth Management near me. But, you make sure you get the services of professionals by watching the reviews. Always an integrated bulk solution has provided by a professional but wealth manager. A manager has expertise knowledge to invest all your money in the profitable financial sectors.

Collective and Effective Strategies

When it comes to gettingWealth Management near me, it’s quite good to check the reputation. Once you have taken the services of professional Wealth Management executives if they have developed excellent for effective strategies. A professional wealth manager creates collective strategies according to the requirements when it comes to fulfilling the financial goals. The financial goal is the best way to secure the future or now you get better returns when you take the services of an expert wealth manager.

Clients always approach the Wealth Management firm advisors with quick questions. When it comes to an investment opportunity more and more clients are looking for professionals. It could be troublesome to evacuate the losses or plan for the tax, insurance future, or other aspects. To get all these benefits, you get in touch with professional Wealth Management near me.

Investment management vs wealth management 

• Although many think these two are equivalent, investment management and wealth management are various things. What's more, with regards to picking a firm, this qualification is an urgent factor. 
• While investment management likewise deals with your wealth, it is increasingly centredon resource distribution, execution, and return. Wealth management, then again, has a more extensive degree. 
• It incorporates resource management however is increasingly worried about long haul wealth protection as opposed to transient investment returns. Wealth directors assist you with developing and give your cash.

Facts to find-

Range of solutions

The prevailing variables that direct the standards by which individuals pick wealth management firms can differ over the long haul and patterns travel every which way. The powers that drove the business a year ago might not have a similar effect in the following five years or something like that. 

To guarantee that the firm you pick can climate the progressions that happen in the wealth management firm, go for those that offer a more prominent scope of services than most. An organization equipped for dealing with your wealth on a more extensive exhibit of settings will be increasingly viable in helping you arrive at your financial objectives even as the business moves and changes after some time. 

You'll need a firm that is skilled in traditional investment openings yet experienced and adaptable enough to alter their procedures as indicated by showcase patterns and projections.

The reputation of the firm

Numerous customers wrongly choose a wealth management firm dependent on the aggregate sum of advantages that they oversee. And would that mean? Individuals promptly accept that the more famous or wealthier the firm is, the better their services will be. 

However, while that might be the situation for a few, it doesn't have any significant bearing to all. A firm can have billions of dollars under its management and still because you feel like you're not getting your cash's worth. 

As usual, research is the key. At the point when you as of now have a bunch of possibilities to browse, make it a point to beware of their history and customer surveys to get a vibe of how it resembles functioning with them. 

During your visit, plunk down and talk with the consultant who's peered toward to deal with your record. You would prefer not to have an astounding meeting involvement in one delegate just to discover that you're getting doled out to another person. https://www.dcneweconomy.com/

Does price matter?

• Let it be known or not, cost turns into the arrangement producer or major issue after everything has been said and spread out on the table. An insight worth heeding: it shouldn't be. 
• While the cost of a wealth management firm's services does make a difference, don't be enticed to put together your choice concerning how much it will cost you. Utilize the tips referenced above to assess likely firms. Furthermore, with regards to estimating, ask not which one is less expensive yet which one offers more worth. 
• Last, yet unquestionably not minimal, search for quality. Continuously recollect that you're the customer here. They must dazzle you and prevail upon you not the opposite way around.

Posted in: Business,Finance

Valley Bank Partners with Vikar Technologies To Accelerate Loan Processing

Vikar Technologies (“Vikar”), a leading provider of Loan Lifecycle Management solutions announced today that Valley National Bank (Valley) has selected Vikar to automate their commercial loan onboarding process to improve cycle time, enhance data integrity and to reduce compliance risk.

The Vikar Loan Lifecycle Management solution greatly reduces the time it takes to onboard and service commercial loans by providing an end to end digital experience straight through to core banking systems. The Vikar solution eliminates re-keying of data, provides pre-configured business rules to eliminate errors, and provides a seamless experience for bank employees and clients.

"Valley strives to deliver the best, most efficient banking services to our customers. By working with Vikar, we are able to leverage a rules-driven engine and strong data aggregation capabilities to reduce processing time and improve accuracy for our commercial loan borrowers" said David Goldberg, Director of Loan Servicing for Valley National Bank. 

“We are thrilled to have Valley as a client”, said Glenn Bolstad, CEO of Vikar.  “Valley’s adoption of our solution for their loan servicing operations will greatly increase the amount of loans they can onboard and service without additional headcount.  This will ultimately allow them to deliver great experiences for their customers while  optimizing their efficiencies.”

About Vikar Technologies
Vikar Technologies combines modern technology and deep industry experience to help financial institutions digitally transform their business. Our Client Lifecycle Management (“CLM”) and Loan Lifecycle Management solutions provide workflow automation and data aggregation with open APIs for the front, middle and back office; enabling our customers to onboard and maintain clients and loans in a complete, end to end digital experience.   For more information, visit http://www.vikartech.com

About Valley
As the principal subsidiary of Valley National Bancorp, Valley National Bank is a regional bank with approximately billion in assets. Valley is committed to giving people and businesses the power to succeed. Valley operates many convenient branch locations across New Jersey, New York, Florida and Alabama, and is committed to providing the most convenient service, the latest innovations and an experienced and knowledgeable team dedicated to meeting customer needs. Helping communities grow and prosper is the heart of Valley’s corporate citizenship philosophy. To learn more about Valley, go to http://www.valley.com or call our Customer Service Center at 800-522-4100.

Posted in: Computers & Software,Finance,News & Current Affairs,Services,Technology

Aquarion Water Company’s Journey into Month-End Close Automation

SkyStem LLC, a provider of automated month-end close account reconciliation software, is pleased to announce Aquarion Water Company’s success story on reducing the time spent on their month-end close process with ART. Aquarion Water Company, a subsidiary of Eversource, is a public water supply company for Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire residents with approximately 230,000 customers. Founded in 1857, as a means to deliver fresh water to sailors and merchants, the company has evolved into the largest investor-owned water utility in New England and is among the seven largest in the United States.

“ART helped significantly reduce our audit research time, as we can now go through various periods and find whatever is needed within minutes,” said Aquarion Water Company’s Corporate Controller. “I wish we had adopted ART sooner as the automated process was smoother than a manual process.”

Since implementation, ART has enabled Aquarion Water Company to achieve the following:

• Decrease financial statement risk through high quality reconciliations.
• Better satisfy internal and external auditors.
• Instantly access reconciliations and supporting documents.
• Faster and easier electronic sign offs.
• Reconciliation process is standardized and centralized with ART’s standard forms.

 

For more information on Aquarion Water Company’s success and benefits from adopting ART, read the case study here.

About SkyStem LLC
Headquartered in the heart of New York City, SkyStem delivers a powerful month-end close solution for organizations seeking to streamline their financial processes. The company’s flagship solution, ART, is an enterprise technology that helps CFOs and Controllers shorten the month-end close and the time to issue financials by automating balance sheet reconciliations, managing month-end tasks, performing flux analysis and providing insightful reporting. The web-based solution streamlines and eliminates up to 90% of manual activities while strengthening internal controls and corporate governance.

Posted in: Computers & Software,Finance,News & Current Affairs,U.S

Must Do Moves for Choosing a Wealth Management Firm

Wealth management is a type of investment and financial planning that provides you solutions in making the best one Strategy for your business. Wealth management advisor or wealth manager is a type of financial advisor who gives ideas related to financial disciplines like financial and investment Advisors, legal law, estate planning, accounting, tax services and retirement planning. Wealth management services are different in different nations. You can choose an advisor from the best wealth management firm and runs your company successfully. A wealth manager is a person who provides you best investment advice. He or she is a subset of financial advisor that offers you high net worth clients.

Why wealth management is important?

It is an advisory process that helps the people in meeting the wants and needs of high net worth clients by providing them effective and appropriate Financial Services. This process is a high level of personal service that is helpful in various aspects. To fulfill all your needs and wants you just meet a highly-skilled investment management advisor. You can choose the perfect and appropriate advisor from the best wealth management firms. Here are the reasons why wealth management is important:

It is based on the client’s goals 

According to time, financial situations will change the financial objective will also change a company. A wealth manager provides you stunning Strategies and takes this into account. So you can meet regularly with the clients to achieve your goals.

It can help you with wealth transfer

Wealth Management includes a lot of aspects like estate planning, retirement planning, work Management Services, accounting, and Tax Services.This is crucial for high net worth individuals. The manager is the one who can help you to minimize your fees and Taxes.

It proves helpful in maintaining wealth

The wealth manager proves helpful in maintaining the wealth of any client. He or she assists them in meeting their financial objectives. The solutions are related tothe current situation, future goals, and many more.

What makes a good wealth manager?

These days everyone wants to get a lot of money in their life.you will spend your entire life trying to build up a lot of money. To allow their children to go to colleges and many more reasons but this process is not easy. If you want to get a bright and secure future you just want to use your hard-earned dollar in such a way that gives you various benefits. You just need to hire a wealth manager. A manager is a person who saves your precious money without Wasting. Here are some qualities that make a wealth manager good. Financial advisor career.

Honesty

Honesty is the world of Wealth Management. It is a commitment of Wealth Management that he or she will always do best for their clients. In most cases, wealth managers will work on how much their clients pay to them. You have to choose highly selective and best Wealth Management firms to get an amazing wealth manager.

Situational recognition 

These days we all want to increase our money, want effective investment strategies to grow their business. Good wealth managers are those who will collect old financial information of past, present, and future. If they will collect your all the relevant information only can he or she will able to assess your financial goals. They will also consider your tax situation and accounts to know that your strategy is optimizing or not.

Investing experience 

Anyone can research difficult situations and develop an amazing strategy for a positive financial situation. But if you want to get a perfect strategy then you need to consult with wealth managers who are experienced.

Monetary knowledge

Along with the experience, knowledge is also the mandatory aspect. As it plays a vital role in selecting the best one manager. Here are numerous ways to invest your precious money. Different companies have different investment percentages and rates. But the good managers are those who actually know the time of investment and save your money in difficult situations also.

Get specific recommendations from your finances

For investing your amount in profitable sectors, you can concern with wealth managers. They provide you various stunning advice and strategies to grow up your business. In today's world, everyone wants to achieve their goals. Wealth managers have a lot of knowledge and surely give genuine results in achieving your goals.

Wealth manager advisor proves helpful for your business as it can handle all the finance-related things like financial and investment, Advisors legal, planning, accounting and Tax Services. He or she will provide you appropriate Advisors in utilizing the financial products and services. With the help of a wealth manager, you can build up theory and he or she will provide relevant services in any aspect of the monetary field. Some wealth managers are much specialized in a particular field and some can handle all the situations.

Is it worth paying a wealth manager?

Yes, it is worthy to hire a wealth manager for your business. When you are looking to invest your precious money into an extensive investment portfolio then you have to hire a wealth manager. In this context, wealth manager proves beneficial to manage your Investments and gives you various potential investment Returns. If you seriously ant to invest your money and grow your wealth considerably, you may hire a wealth manager for your business. The wealth manager can develop a brilliant investment plan for your business. Best Wealth Management firms worked together to get a new client and grow up their business. Another reason forthe hiring manager is that he or she will provide you continuous relevant Advisors. Wealth advisors point out the client through the help of brilliant Communications. By seeking the help of wealth manager service you can get a lot of benefits and easily update you’re regarding investment performance.

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Posted in: Business,Finance

SafeSend Announces Technology Collaboration with Thomson Reuters™

SafeSend today announced a strategic agreement with Thomson Reuters™ to help tax professionals drive firm efficiency, elevate client service, and eliminate various labor-intensive aspects of completing professional tax preparation engagements.

The alliance will have the organizations collaborate to build a technology integration that will fully streamline the process that starts at final review and sign-off of completed tax returns, offers an intuitive, and self-guided client experience, and ends with the firm’s receipt of electronically signed e-file authorization forms. Users of Thomson Reuters market leading UltraTax CS™ and GoSystem Tax RS™ tax preparation solutions will benefit from the newly enabled workflow integration that tightly links to the award winning SafeSend Returns assembly, delivery, and e-sign solution.

SafeSend Returns customers that license UltraTax CS or GoSystem Tax RS have been utilizing the SafeSend Returns technology to digitally assemble final returns, securely deliver them to clients, and automatically collect e-signatures. SafeSend Returns currently supports 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120s and 1065 returns prepared in both Thomson Reuters’ tax packages. The new agreement paves the way for an enhanced automated process for how completed tax returns flow directly from UltraTax CS or GoSystem Tax RS to SafeSend Returns creating a more seamless process and adding additional time savings with every return.

“Automation is in our DNA, and we’re thrilled to partner with a world class organization like Thomson Reuters that has set the bar for sophisticated workflow solutions and digital process innovation,” said Scott Fleszar, Chief Operating and Strategy Officer, SafeSend Returns. “The firms we engage with that are using UltraTax CS or GoSystem Tax RS are progressive and have high expectations of their technology providers for cloud based solutions that save them time, allow them to work from anywhere, and offer a secure, high-end client experience. The new seamless integration coupling SafeSend Returns with UltraTax CS and GoSystem Tax RS will allow firms to optimize all areas of their tax practice.”            

“If the past several months have taught us anything, it is that operational flexibility, employing digital processes, and relying on cloud based solutions are critical if firms wish to remain viable and avoid client service disruptions amidst the new normal,” said Steve Dusablon, President and CEO, SafeSend Returns. “Offering direct integration from UltraTax CS and GoSystem Tax RS to SafeSend Returns provides another opportunity for progressive firms to bring efficiency to the last mile of tax engagements. And circumvent operating challenges brought on by Covid-19.”

The agreement represents the cooperation of two market leading technology providers coming together to add value and make the tax preparation process easier for their mutual customers. “Thomson Reuters has a proven track record of cloud-based product innovation, collaborating with leading organizations across the profession, and leveraging process automation technology,” said Dusablon. “We are guided by a common vision – laser focus on helping firms optimize workflows and delight their clients with innovative technology. Our alliance will unlock additional value for our mutual customers.”    

About SafeSend Returns
SafeSend Returns, a SafeSend cPaperless solution, is the multi-year winner of the CPA Practice Advisor Technology Innovation Award. Built on innovative technology, SafeSend Returns has redefined the way accounting firms digitally assemble and deliver tax returns for their clients. SafeSend Returns eliminates the manual and labor-intensive elements many tax departments experience producing client ready tax returns prepared in CCH Axcess™, CCH ProSystem fx™, Thomson Reuters UltraTax CS™ and Thomson Reuters GoSystem Tax RS™ saving firms per return. With over fifty percent of the Top 300 accounting firms using SafeSend Returns, we are the premier tax return assembly and delivery solution of progressive firms.

SafeSend cPaperless is also the developer of foundational products for the accounting profession including TicTie Calculate and SafeSend, the complete bi-directional document exchange system. Visit safesend.com to learn more about our digital solutions. ###

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,News & Current Affairs,U.S

Credit Expert Umesh Agarwal Announces Exclusive Mentorship Program Opening Soon

July 16, 2020 -- Credit repair entrepreneur and mentor Umesh Agarwal, has announced the official launch of a new mentorship program that will help a handful of entrepreneurs learn credit secrets to build credit repair agencies that are largely automated and fueled by social media exposure. He is currently one of the top credit coaches in the world. 

Agarwal is currently a founding member of Credit 101 LLC, an experienced credit repair agency that is backing “credit in a box” services for entrepreneurs that want to start their own agency. With “credit in a box”, entrepreneurs will get all of the resources, tools, and strategies used by Credit 101 LLC on a day to day basis. This means the chance of failure significantly goes down given a proven system.

For Agarwal and his partners, this service comes with mentorship and day to day guidance to make sure each new agency is on the right track. If this seems too good to be true, it works because Credit 101 takes a rev share of each new agency in exchange for their services. This means it is in Credit 101’s best interest to make sure each new mentee and agency is successful.

Outside of this full-service offering, Agarwal also provides smaller mentorship services that include credit hacking, travel hacking, credit card optimization, and credit repair. Each service is bespoke depending on what a client is looking to learn and achieve. Under the “Inner Circle” brand name, this exclusive group is limited to 100 students.  

Mentorship is conducted through voice calls, video calls, and text messages, depending on the depth of the relationship. To date, Agarwal has helped dozens of entrepreneurs fix their credit, travel for free, and gain deep knowledge around credit in the US.

Agarwal’s experience is rooted in his humble beginnings when he came from India to the US for graduate school. As an engineer, Agarwal used his analytical abilities to learn everything he could about how credit operated in the US. As a new resident, the concept of credit and credit cards was foreign to him and at first, was intimidating. After a few years of hands-on experience, Agarwal started teaching friends and family how to navigate the complex world of personal finance in the US.

This led to establishing himself as a credit repairing expert something he has dedicated to for over 10 years by operating a luxury travel agency and credit repair business. This led to over 7 figures of revenue for his agency. For more advanced students, Agarwal teaches advanced credit hacking using manufactured spending and how to acquire low-interest credit lines by leveraging a good credit score and credit history. 

For interested students, you can learn more on Umesh’s personal website or by contacting him directly on Instagram

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Posted in: Business,Finance

ChargeAfter is First Fintech to Launch Visa Installments in the U.S. and Signs Strategic Partnership to Integrate with Cybersource

ChargeAfter, the leading technology platform for Multi-lender Point of Sale Financing today announced a partnership with Visa to integrate with the Cybersource payment management platform. ChargeAfter is also launching Visa’s installment solutions on the ChargeAfter financing platform in the US.

The strategic partnership enables Cybersource’s merchants worldwide to now access and offer consumers more choice and flexibility in the way they pay through personalized point of sale consumer financing. With its global reach, modern capabilities and commerce insights, the Cybersource digital platform offers payment management capabilities to merchants and acquirers in over 190 countries and territories around the world.

With the launch of Visa’s installment solutions on the ChargeAfter platform, participating U.S. merchants can offer their customers an installment payment experience at checkout using a Visa card they already have in their wallet. Eligible Visa cardholders will have the option to divide their total purchase amount into smaller, equal payments over a defined time period. 42nd Street Photo and Tire Agent are already offering Visa’s installments solutions to their US buyers through ChargeAfter.

“As COVID-19 continues to change retail as we know it and drive more shopping online, merchants are adapting to the new realities of online payments; offering alternative payment methods for consumers who are expecting affordable financing options to help them complete their purchases now and pay later,” said Meidad Sharon, CEO of ChargeAfter. “Our collaboration with Visa is a giant leap forward in bringing quick, convenient, accessible, and safe payments to consumers when and where they are ready to purchase - online or in-store. By combining ChargeAfter’s financing platform with Visa’s solutions, we have created a powerful network for multi-lender Point-of-Sale Financing.”

This announcement follows Visa’s investment in ChargeAfter and partnership that was announced in February 2020 to distribute point of sale financing through Visa’s global network of acquirers, gateways, and financial institutions. Working together, the companies aim to further the distribution of consumer financing tools and help merchants drive higher transactions, and approve upwards of 85% of POS financing applications.

“We’re delighted to continue the momentum of our collaboration with ChargeAfter and bring innovative solutions to our clients globally to help them meet an increased consumer demand for simple and flexible payment options,” said Shahar Friedman, Head of Visa Innovation Studio, Tel Aviv. “Through our global collaboration efforts, we aim to make it easier for merchants and acquirers to use Visa’s Cybersource and installment solutions to offer a range of personalized financing options to their consumers at the point of sale, empowering their customers to manage their payments in a way that works best for their unique needs.”

About ChargeAfter
ChargeAfter is a leading multi-lender financing platform connecting retailers and lenders to offer shoppers personalized financing options at the checkout.

With its data-driven decisioning engine and network of global lenders, ChargeAfter delivers the most relevant financing offers to consumers from multiple lenders based on credit type – resulting in credit approvals for up to 85% of customer applications. ChargeAfter streamlines the distribution of credit into a single platform that retailers can implement swiftly both online and in-store. The company’s growing lender network offers seamless integration to lenders seeking to grow their customer base while expanding into new retail markets.

ChargeAfter investors include PICO Venture Partners, Propel Venture Partners, Visa, MUFG, BBVA, Synchrony Financial, and Plug and Play VC.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, ChargeAfter has offices in Dallas, New York, and Tel Aviv.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,News & Current Affairs,U.S

Why One Must Bother With Wealth Management

What do you do for managing your wealth? How do you use your money? Well, it is very much important to spend our money on care. We all know that money defines our personality and our personality defines wealth that is why it is very important to spend our money in those areas where we may get a good and positive response. But how we can manage our money? So this question answers that the managing of money always depends on you because

If you have not too much money then you can save them by using the bank or you can use the money in invest on that business in which you will get much higher returns and that is why it is very important to take a piece of good advice but on the other side if you have too much money so you must go with the wealth manager because the wealth manager is a kind of person who can help you to manage in to remove from too many kinds of problems by which you can go for a perfect solution of your expenses.

 There are too many kinds of situations which can be struck you at any point of the time by which you cannot increase your business so in this case, the wealth manager will help you to get rid of from this kind of situation and that is why the wealth manager is very necessary for our life because it can analyze the risk and the Key factor is that it has determined this capability include current or future responsibilities, investment objectives, client personality and more things which it deals with that is why the wealth manager is very important. So in this topic, we are going to read about the wealth manager's worth so I will request you to stay with us till the end and I will hope you will like the contents.

 

What do you mean by wealth management? 

The wealth management is a kind of process in which we can save our savings by just taking some precautions in which you have to make some efforts so you can manage your savings as well as you can get to know how to make a perfect solution to save your money.

 

The money is very important to save from the expenses that is why it is very much important to save money but it is very hard to manage your lots of money by just you alone and that is why it is very necessary to have something by which you can manage your money so there is are some pillar wealth management are present who can help you in managing your money so you can save more and more money. But the question is that is it is necessary to have the wealth manager so we will see the answer in the following points

The wealth manager is important to hire?

Well, if you have money then you must want to earn more money as everyone wants and that is why the wealth manager helps us, but yet the question is a wealth manager worth it? The answer is yes, it is very informative and very useful for us because people love to make too much money and the wealth manager always leads you in which they will tell you those things by which you can earn lots of money. They will suggest the best time for the investment and get the returns and that is why it makes the wealth manager much important.

Portfolio management is a kind of art in which you will get to know about the investment and the returns policy. In portfolio management, you may get to know about how to get good returns when we invest somewhere and what time we must invest and at which place we should invest the money. It also teaches us that whenever and call comes from the foreign client for investing for a long time so then by the portfolio method you can make tolerate the risk of a failed investment and that is why it is most important to learn. If we compare both the portfolio management and wealth management then what would be the result

 

What do you mean by the portfolio management vs. the wealth management? 

The Wealth management vs. portfolio management both are made for our convenience where you will get to know by both management is that the wealth management leads for your money’s safety while the portfolio management leads for the safety of our investment and reduces the risk and that is why both courses are very necessary as per the point of view of the business. And that is why if there is any Wealth management alternative is available the that is portfolio management. But why we should hire a wealth manager and what is the work is done by the wealth manager so let us see it in the next topics. Advance financial near me

 

What are the works are performed by the wealth manager?

There are too many works are performed by the wealth manager that is why we may have to pay him a sizeable salary so now we will look at some work that a wealth manager is performing.

 

• Plan for your retirement:- it is important that to plan for the retirement by which you can save lots of money in on the time of retirement by which you can live your life with happiness that is why it is very important to plan your retirement         
• Try to get more and more pension: - yes, after the retirement it is also a big deal for a person who is going to retire in few days and you want to spend your whole life without any jobs that are why it is very important to get the pension on the time and a good-sized pension so they the client can live his life without any worry

Key factors that determine this capability include current/future responsibilities, investment objectives, client personality, and more.

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Posted in: Business,Finance,Personal Finance

How to Become a Financial Advisor: What Needs to be Known

Do you use the wealth manager for making your money double? What do you do to earn the money? Well, there are too many ways to earn money. People love to earn money because everyone earns that money by spreading their sweat on the body. Most of the people who have lots of money they use their money to invest in the share market or at those places where they might get good returns and that is why those people become richer than they were ever before and that is why many medium class people also go for the investment in which people can get too many returns.

But as per the result, many people lose their life’s savings it happens just because of the lack of knowledge and most of the medium class people go for it without and suggestions that is why is very hard for a medium class people to become a rich people. Most people do not even invest in the market because they scare for losing their money, but if we talk about reality then the reality is that to become a rich person you need to get perfect knowledge.

Now the question is that from where we can get the perfect knowledge for investing money? Well, there are too many ways by which you can get advice but as per the opinion, the investor should take the suggestion from and financial adviser or from a wealth manager. Both are made for the helping for us so in this topic, we are going to read about the wealth management advisor job so I will request you to stay with us till the end of this topic and I will hope you will like the content 

 

What do you mean by the wealth advisor job?

Well, wealth advisor management is a high-level professional post, which is used to influent the clients. In this service of the wealth management is a kind of process in which we can save our savings by just taking some precautions in which you have to make some efforts so you can manage your savings as well as you can get to know how to make a perfect solution to save your money.

 

Most of the people lose their money without and mean of that and that is why then continue with the same position and that is why the wealth advisor comes in front of us. So the wealth advisor can help us in this situation by providing us the right and a perfect solution of the problem and that is why the wealth adviser have many demands in the world so people can save their money by taking the tips from the wealth management advisory or people can make their money profitable by taking the tips from the wealth advisor.

 

 The wealth advisory sometime can be your personal assistance or it may also available as a government servant or a broker. If you hire someone for a wealth manager or at a wealth advisory management job then he may charge from you a big and sizable amount by which you can make your work more efficient  

 

How we can become a wealth advisory?

We have several steps by which we can become the wealth advisor so now we will discuss it in these points

• Need a bachelor’s degree: - well, it is very much important that you must go for a bachelor degree in those subjects which will be required you to become the financial advisor so you could be classified for the intern service
• Serve as an intern service: - it is very necessary to learn the work of finance and how that can be done and that is why the intern service is must be used for making your experience batter. One thing you must keep in your mind that you should go with a good company for your internship training by which you can learn lots of content and your experience becomes higher than else
• Get the certificate and the valid license: - it is very much necessary to have the certificate and the valid license for your security and for your business and that is why it is very necessary for you to get a certificate and valid license
• Catch any kind of entrée level job regarding your field: - it is also very necessary to take the entrée level job on your field by which you can get lots of experience as well as you will get lots of money by which can make your life batter and the most important thing is that you must go in the best multinational companies where you will get a break to your career so you can get a great experience
• Go for a better course: - now it is very important to update yourself from one situation to another situation and that is why if you want to grow then you must go for a course which can give you a break to your life. So in this situation, you can hire a bigger post so you can become a good financer.
• Experience: - so if you want to become a finance expert then you need lots of experience and those experience you will get via working and that is why people go for the experience in multinational companies

Now, these are the points that are used for Wealth Management Advisor Career Paths so you can follow these points to get an idea. https://trumbulleconomicdevelopment.com/

What Does a Wealth Management Advisor Do?

A wealth management advisor does many things in their work so we will look them by these points

• Get independent financial advice      
• Create achievable goals.
• Plan for your retirement.  
• Plan your income and expenditure. 
• Manage your savings. 
• Get the most from your pension. 
• Protect you and your estate. 
• Pass on your wealth.

These are the works which a wealth advisor has to perform

 

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Posted in: Business,Finance

Financial advisors and the benefits of hiring

The best way to avoid financial blunders is keeping an advisor on your side. The light they pass would redeem yourself from even a miniature size financial blunders and assist you to stick to the financial investment that ripe better in the future. But do not underestimate the process of hiring a financial advisor. Since the choices are high, it is often baffling and people settle down with low caliber options. The key strategy to end up with financial advisor is understanding what questions you should ask them. The bitter truth is, clients in the need of financial advisor aren’t aware of basic questions while finding, interviewing and choosing right financial advisor. Since the financial goals and needs are different for everyone, it is mandatory to understand those basic questions and effectually carry out the hiring process. 

Why hiring a financial advisors are prominent?

The financial advisors avail numerous things to their clients. These are one of the major reason to be considered hiring them. Some of the benefits experienced after hiring a financial advisor are listed as follows. 

• Understand market trends and make plan accordingly:

The financial advisors are professionals who keeps their eye on overall financial matters around the world. They even update themselves with a miniature sized change in the finance sectors. Since they update themselves with market trends, they have the potential to frame effectual plan. 

• Stay stress-free:

Managing business finances is often a stressful job and novice’s struggles more. When you have financial advisor on your side, your ships moves as you have mapped and there is no reason to jump ship. It is the best way to stay stress free. 

Choosing a financial advisor:

It is mandatory to understand why you should not stick with wrong advisor. The wrong financial advisor would leads you to financial disasters that would bring chaos to you and your financial security. Do not get forged by flashy signs, smooth marketing campaigns and their gimmick advertisements. The basic understanding about the questions you should ask before hiring a financial advisor such as Financial advisor feesis prominent. 

• How often do the financial advisor meet their clients?

How often your financial advisor meets their clients regularly is a prominent thing to look after. Not every day is same, when time changes things around us also change. So, time may arise when you have to change any of your financial plans or update them with the current trend and this is when you need your financial advisor the most. Ensure that your financial advisor is willing to meet you with regular interval of time and update your investment portfolio as per your specific needs. If the financial advisor is not up to regular meeting or becomes hard to reach when you needed them the most, you think the advisor is worth hiring? No time to think and make a better decision. 

• Sample financial plans they have prepared before:

Before hiring a financial advisor, ask them some samples of financial plans they have prepared before. Any financial advisor can share a financial plan they have made for some clients by removing client specific information. Scrutinizing their previous plans would bring out an idea of how effectual their plans are and paves a way to make well informed decision. It allows you to how the financial advisor tracks and measures their results as well as see if the results are in the favor of client’s goals. Ask yourselves about How much money should you have before hiring a financial advisor?and how effectually they work to multiply the capital investment. 

• Compensation of your advisor:

The cost for financial advisoris a prominent thing to look after. An advisor is usually compensated in different ways. The most common way is to receive commission in return of their services in the market. The next way some advisor gets compensation is, paid by a fee on percentage of clients total assets which is under the management of the advisor. In this method, the advisor gets their pay from annual basis and in general, it lies between 1% to 2.5%. There are many more methods available. But make sure about the compensation that your financial advisor works. It should be satisfied by your needs. Another thing to keep your eye on is the hidden charges. In general, hidden charges are applied on the time of billings. Discussing about charges and checking the financial advisors bill is considered mandatory. 

• Credibility and certification:

The credibility and certification of the financial advisor is a prominent thing to look after. The certified financial planner goes under vigorous training that molds their skills and they have passed the complex test. Their training and exams enlightens them to shine in the carrier. Sticking to the licensed is one thing shouldn’t be forgotten. 

• Years of expertise:

The years of expertise of advisor on the field is also prominent thing to look after. Try to stick with the experienced financial advisor since their experience must have thought many things. Instead of sticking to a novices, it is better to consider financial advisor who is in the field at least for three years. Many people asks 

Is it worth paying a financial advisor 1 %?But the service of veterans are more valuable than you think. 

• Service and products offered:

The advisor and firm you have hired must suits all your specific needs. When you need someone to assist you with investing, they must also shows up some light in arena such as asset management etc. 

When you need assistance assessing your current circumstances and frame a specific plans to reach various goals, there is definitely a role of financial advisor kept empty on your side. The sphere of influence of advisor encompasses retirement, college needs, tax strategies, risk management and other similar arenas. Professional finance company.

When you need assistance in both financial planning and investment advice, then seek a wealth manager. With the years of expertise on the field, they shows you some light in comprehensive planning and portfolio management. 

Asking these questions might aids you fish out the best wealth management firms around you. Once you hire the best financial advisor on your side, you can procure all the benefits listed above.

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,Personal Finance

AmeriCash Loans Launches a Website Promising an Improved Customer Experience

New year, new (and improved) website. In June 2020 AmeriCash Loans invited customers to explore its brand-new website. The launch of the new AmeriCashLoans.net unveils a completely retooled digital experience.

Understanding the need for faster speeds and improved navigation, AmeriCash Loans’ new website features a modern design that lets customers quickly find and access important information. The lender’s commitment to its customer-first approach was a driving force behind the redesign, which promises faster loading speeds on all user platforms. It’s the latest in AmeriCash Loans’ efforts to meet its customers’ needs while exceeding their expectations.

“We are so excited to launch the new AmeriCashLoans.net for a better customer experience” says an AmeriCash Loans company spokesman. “The website design was created to give our customers access to the application, informative blogs, and new additional information in a clean format that is easy and fast to navigate.”

Although the web address remains the same, “AmeriCashLoans.net,” customers can expect a dramatically different look with the new minimalistic design and the addition of new pages. They can seamlessly discover everything from nearby physical locations, customer reviews, and new financial content.

Best of all, loading times are faster than ever. No matter if customers access the website on tablets, mobile devices or desktop computers, they can experience reliable speed as they click through the site and log into their customer portal. If a question ever arises, customers can contact a customer support representative directly through the forum on the website or simply access their phone and e-mail at the bottom of each webpage.

The new and improved AmeriCashLoans.net is designed for everyone in mind, from applicants to returning customers, to curious minds looking for information through the variety of blogs offered on the AmeriCash Loans website. These educational blogs provide key insights on a range of topics. The blogs are a go-to resource for anyone interested in learning more about the lender’s products and services, how to save money, tips on making (and sticking to) a budget, notices about events happening in the community, and giveaways.

Strong community ties are another part of what sets AmeriCash Loans apart. During the 2019 holiday season, the lender sponsored several drives in the communities in which it resides, including a “Stuff the Bus” event to collect nonperishable food items ahead of Thanksgiving and a “Christmas Wish” event to help a local Chicago family’s Christmas wish come true.

About AmeriCash Loans

AmeriCash Loans has come a long way since it opened the doors to its first location in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1997. From expanding to include online applications to opening neighborhood stores in more than 60 convenient locations, AmeriCash has continually strived to change and adapt to best meet the needs of its customers. As this lender keeps growing, the website will keep evolving and updating to ensure a top-notch experience to new and repeat customers.

Consumers can apply for loans in person at a location near them, or online at http://www.AmeriCashLoans.net/Apply. Questions? Call 888-907-4227 to speak with an experienced representative.

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,News & Current Affairs,U.S

Meridian Investments Closes Record 7.5 Million LIHTC Fund for R4 Capital

Meridian Investments, Inc. is pleased to announce the closing of R4 Housing Partners XIV, LP., a Section 42 Housing Tax Credit Fund. R4 Housing Partners XIV, LP raised 7.5 million of investor equity and will acquire interests in twenty-eight affordable multi-family rental properties located in fifteen states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Eleven corporate investors participated in the closing. When completed the twenty-eight projects will result in the creation and preservation of 2,758 affordable housing units for families and seniors.

R4 Capital is a nationwide syndicator, lender, loan servicer, and asset manager established in 2011 by its President and CEO, Marc Schnitzer. “Rising to meet the new COVID-19 business challenges to ensure the health and safety of everyone directly or indirectly involved and by partnering with our longstanding clients, we were successful in financing these much-needed projects”, said Marc Schnitzer. “The Housing Credit is our nation’s most successful tool for encouraging private investment in affordable rental housing and we thank the Congress for supporting this public – private partnership.” Schnitzer continued.

R4 Capital’s senior executive team has on average more than 25 years of Housing Tax Credit experience, with a track record that includes over billion of LIHTC equity investments on behalf of more than 200 corporate investors. R4 Capital has continuing relationships with the nation’s top LIHTC developers built over 30 years in more than 2,000 transactions. The firm maintains offices in New York, NY, Boston, MA, Newport Beach, CA, and Austin, TX.

Meridian Investments, Inc. was established in 1981 as a broker-dealer and financial advisor, with Billion in equity placements to over 175 institutional investors. Meridian is active in both the primary and secondary LIHTC markets as well as wind and solar energy renewables and statutory tax advantaged investments. Meridian has offices in Boston, MA. (Braintree), Washington, D.C. (Bethesda, MD.) and Atlanta, Georgia. Meridian is a Board Member of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition.

Media Contacts & LIHTC Program Information Requests:
Rachel Tall, SVP | Director of Marketing, R4 Capital LLC ,780 Third Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10017, (O) +1 646 863-6815
Jack Casey, Vice Chairman, Meridian Investments, Inc. (301) 983-5000 Mobile 301-529-7889
Emily Cadik, Executive Director, Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition (202) 434-8287

Posted in: Finance,News & Current Affairs,Services,U.S

CloudAccess, a Cloud Equity Group Portfolio Company, Completes Second Add-on Acquisition

CloudAccess, a leading Wordpress and Joomla cloud hosting provider based out of Michigan, today announced that it has expanded its professional service offerings with the acquisition of Miller Media, a Michigan-based web development and search engine marketing firm.

Miller Media is a Google Partner digital marketing agency focused on Internet marketing strategies, usability, conversion improvement, SEO, SEM, design, and development of websites. For over 30 years, the team at Miller Media has worked to bring transformative experiences to the business goals of its clients and the unique needs of its customers.

The add-on acquisition will allow both firms to leverage resources from each other to expand their respective service offerings and create significantly more value for their clients.

“We are thrilled to be teaming up with Miller Media. Combining the expertise and assets from each company presents significant opportunities for growth” said Jonathan Gafill, CEO of CloudAccess.

"Very proud of my team and excited for the tremendous opportunity and synergies that this new partnership with CloudAccess offers” added Dan Miller, CEO of Miller Media.

About CloudAccess
CloudAccess.net is the premiere hosting and support platform for the Joomla and WordPress content management systems. The company developed and has exclusive rights to the Cloud Control Panel (CCP), a custom built, feature-rich, application management portal that is setting new standards within the hosting industry. CloudAccess.net is home to over 15,000 websites and offers an industry-leading support team that supports all core Joomla or WordPress features.

About Cloud Equity Group
Cloud Equity Group is a strategically positioned investment management firm capitalizing on the rapidly expanding industries of web hosting and cloud-based infrastructure. The company’s primary focus is leveraging investor capital in the acquisition of private lower middle market companies that possess high levels of unlevered free cash flow and/or significant opportunity for exponential growth.

Posted in: Finance,News & Current Affairs,Services,Technology,U.S

ScoreData Announces Close Of Series A Financing from Impact Venture Capital

ScoreData announced today the close of their Series A financing from Impact Venture Capital, a leading Silicon Valley venture firm with offices in Burlingame, and Sacramento, CA.

Impact Venture Capital has a unique approach to sourcing and developing early stage companies. With their global corporate network, they have successfully identified, invested in, and helped to grow, market leading technology companies.

"ScoreData is reinventing how customers and businesses engage with each other. With ScoreData’s predictive applications driven by its ScoreFast AI/ML platform, companies in the financial services, insurance, and healthcare markets will be able to anticipate customer needs, and offer more personalized solutions for their customers,” said Jack Crawford, Founding General Partner of Impact Venture Capital. “We were very impressed with the ScoreData team, their passion, and their innovative approach to building the next generation of AI/ML powered customer engagement platform.”

In the post-Covid19 era, ScoreData empowers indebted individuals and institutions to work together to negotiate their monthly payments (personal loans, insurance claims payments and reimbursements, and healthcare loans) directly with each other.  With increasing unemployment, wage cuts and a decelerating business environment borrowers and debtors are increasingly unable to make payments.

ScoreData helps solve this problem by helping consumers negotiate better deals with their creditors while also ensuring that institutional loss ratios are minimized. We use advanced AI and machine learning to match consumer propensities to pay while optimizing the return on institutional portfolios.

“ScoreData is delighted to be partnering with Impact Venture Capital. We were very grateful for their steadfast support all through the Covid19 lockdown, their deep diligence across our customers and partners, and their insights into markets, and their extensive corporate network,” said Vas Bhandarkar, CEO of ScoreData Corporation. “We partnered with Impact Venture Capital because they deliver value, beyond capital infusion, helping us forge partnerships with market leading organizations.”

Among existing investors participating in the round were RecruitGroup, and Asha Jadeja Motwani.

“We are pleased to participate in the round. ScoreData has built outstanding customer engagement solutions for Recruit Group for our businesses in Tokyo,” commented a spokesperson for Recruit Co., Ltd, Tokyo.

About ImpactVC

Impact Venture Capital is a Silicon Valley-based early-stage venture capital firm that invests alongside corporate venture groups and top tier investors in seed-stage technology startups with a focus on artificial intelligence applied to cybersecurity, robotics, drones, autonomous vehicles, digital health, and other fast-growing industry sectors.

About ScoreData

As businesses of the twenty-first century digitize their business processes, ScoreData Corporation helps re-invent how they engage with customers across the omni-channel using AI and patented dynamic machine learning. ScoreData delivers cloud-native predictive self-service customer engagement solutions to the BFSI and Healthcare industries. Businesses lose billions of dollars because the right customers are not matched to the most optimal agents (bots or humans) empowered with the right actionable tools. As a result, they have sub-optimal outcomes, leading to business losses, and low net promoter scores.

ScoreData's award-winning ScoreFast™ platform solves these problems by combining external data sets and historical data sets, predictively matching agents, to deliver optimally designed offers/advice to these empowered customers. ScoreData uses advanced ranking, matching, nudge and negotiation algorithms to empower both agents and customers to complete these financial transactions. ScoreData is the only predictive analytics company that combines patented dynamic machine learning and AI, with robust algorithms using econometrics that drive business results which are consistently profitable.

ScoreData pricing is performance based, and thus they are the most cost-effective solutions in the industry.

ScoreData Corporation is a privately held company based in Palo Alto, California with customers in the US, Japan, and India.

For more info contact:
Info@ScoreData.com

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,Services,U.S

Black Wealth Building is Now on the Table

DALLAS - June 15, 2020 - PRLog -- Dr. Ralph Steele, an extraordinary expert on wealth building, has released a powerful new book entitled A National Economic Plan for Financial Inclusion for African Americans (http://www.lulu.com/shop/dr-ralph-steele-esq/a-national-economic-plan-for-financial-inclusion-%20for-afr ican-americans/paperback/product-24477797.html). It is his mission to educate individuals in theory and practice about economics, financial literacy, investments, entrepreneurship, business ownership, being debt free, financial strategies (W=me3). His favorite phrase, "wealth is a human right," became the basis for his creation of Wealth Legacy TV in 2019, and he is currently completing a documentary called "A Cattle on a Thousand Hills" that is based on the economic renewal for inner cities. 

Dr. Steele, who is also the author of How to Acquire and Keep Wealth: Wealth Think Bank, has facilitated wealth building conferences and forums for Capital One Bank, University of Texas Arlington, Richland Community College, Stillman College, Eastfield Community College, Tarrant County Community College, Black CEO Kansas City, KS, and Rolling Hills Country Hills in Arlington, TX. He has also hosted events in Ghana, Africa and in Sydney, Australia. He also was a featured speaker at another event called the Millionaire Master Plan for Business Entrepreneurs in Las Vegas, NV. His influence has transformed numerous families' lives. 

Dr. Steele is an active member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc and the President of Wealth Think Bank Entrepreneurship and Investment, LLC that focuses on educating, training, coaching, mentoring and develop Black entrepreneurs. He is also the recipient of the 2015 Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Award for Entrepreneurship of the Year, the March 2019 NAACP Award for the Man of Honor, and the 2019 Dorothy Norwood Community Services Award. 

He has authored 17 books that pertain to mediation, wealth, and domestic violence. His books can be purchased online at www.wealththinktank.org 

Contact Aart & Kingsley Agency ***@aartkingsleyllc.com 

Posted in: Business,Finance

PayJunction Earns Silver Stevie® Award for Customer Service in 2020 American Business Awards®

PayJunction received a Silver Stevie® Award in the Customer Service Department of the Year category in The 18th Annual American Business Awards® on May 18. This marks the fourth year PayJunction has won a Stevie® Award in this category, having won bronze in 2017, gold in 2018, and bronze in 2019. PayJunction also received a bronze Stevie® Award for Best FinTech Software in 2018, and a bronze Stevie® Award for Achievement in Employee Engagement in 2017.

The American Business Awards are the U.S.A.’s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small.

PayJunction’s customer service team maintained a satisfaction score over 98% during 2019. The team answered over 45,000 support tickets in 2019, an increase from the 29,000 they responded to in 2018. PayJunction has maintained an overall A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau for 5 years in a row with zero complaints.

“We are honored to have once again received national recognition from the American Business Awards,” said Alex Estrada, operations manager at PayJunction. “Every year, we challenge ourselves to continue delivering a level of quality service and care that is unprecedented in the merchant services industry. Recognition as a Silver Stevie Award-winning company proves that it pays to value building long-term relationships over short-term profit.”

More than 3,600 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories.

“Despite the toughest business conditions in memory, American organizations continue to demonstrate their commitment to innovation, creativity, and bottom-line results,” said Stevie Awards president Maggie Gallagher. “This year’s Stevie-winning nominations are full of inspiring stories of persistence, ingenuity, resourcefulness, and compassion. We celebrate all of their stories and look forward to showcasing them during our virtual awards ceremony on August 5.”

Details about The American Business Awards and the list of 2020 Stevie winners are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/ABA.

About PayJunction
PayJunction, founded in 2000, has continually disrupted the payment processing industry with an approach that combines customer advocacy, transparent and ethical pricing, and environmental consciousness. PayJunction’s cloud-based gateway and processing platform consolidates credit, debit and check transactions made in person, online, over the phone and on the go. Its technology helps businesses increase productivity, reduce costs and elevate the customer payment experience. PayJunction processes over billion annually and is the most comprehensive developer of paperless payment software, committed to mitigating the carbon footprint across its rapidly growing customer base. Learn more at https://www.PayJunction.com.

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

Posted in: Computers & Software,Finance,Personal Finance,Services,Technology

Good Steward Financial Company, LLC Announces New Services for Nonprofit Establishments

Good Steward Financial Company, a virtual bookkeeping and CFO service provider in Burlington, NC, is now working with nonprofits to help these establishments stay on top of their finances. Jasmine Simpson, Chief Executive Officer at Good Steward Financial Company, is working with her team to help nonprofits effectively manage organization finances to ensure missions are able to be carried out.

“Nonprofit leaders often lack the accounting knowledge needed to effectively perform bookkeeping duties for their organization,” explains Simpson. “These groups rely on donors, fundraising events, and grants for their continued operation, and the proper recordkeeping that comes along with it can be tedious and time-consuming. When organizations fail to keep required records, they are unable to show they qualify for an exemption and may lose their tax-exempt status. Nonprofits work hard to serve a mission that they believe in, and these great causes shouldn’t be interrupted by financial administrative tasks. My firm is here to help these groups keep doing what they love without having to deal with the burden of financial records. It is our mission to serve those who serve others.”

To learn more about how nonprofits can use the assistance of Good Steward Financial Company to stay on top of payroll, bookkeeping, and more, please visit: https://ub.goodstewardfinancialco.com/good-steward-nonprofit/

About Good Steward Financial Company
As a company with expertise in virtual bookkeeping, Good Steward Financial Company specializes in helping businesses and nonprofits stay on top of their finances while hitting important deadlines. The firm’s diverse services include:

• Payroll Assistance
• Accurate Bookkeeping
• Monthly Financial Reports
• Part-Time CFO Services

 

The work carried out by this organization is based on the foundation of its core values: professionalism, responsiveness, and quality. With staff members having specialized expertise to better serve clients, Good Steward Financial Company provides personal and professional attention to each and every project it faces. The company also boasts an excellent response rate, with competent advice and fast-acting personnel. The quality of the service the team provides reflects the high standards set by each individual staff member.

To learn more about Good Steward Financial Company, LLC, please visit: https://www.goodstewardfinancialco.com/

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,U.S

Validus Growth Investors Awarded Top Guns Designation by Informa Financial Intelligence

Validus Growth Investors has been awarded a PSN Top Guns distinction by Informa Financial Intelligence’s PSN manager database, North America’s longest running database of investment managers. Achieving the Top Guns distinction means that the Validus strategies are among the top 10 performers within one or more peer groups reporting to Informa. The Validus Global Growth strategy finished with the #1 return for the three-month period and the #5 return for the one-year period. The Validus International Growth strategy finished with the #3 return for the three-month period.

"It is certainly nice to have our strategies honored with a Top Gun rating, especially during times of such market volatility,” said Mark Scalzo, Validus Growth Investors Chief Investment Officer. “We attribute this success to Validus’ proprietary, bottom-up, process which seeks to identify mispriced secular growers that are less dependent on macroeconomic conditions. The results further affirm our mission to achieve the best risk-adjusted outcomes for our clients, regardless of the market environment.”

PSN Top Guns ranks products in six proprietary categories in more than 50 universes and is a resource for institutional asset managers and investors in their decision-making process. Top Gun firms are awarded a rating ranging from one to six stars, with the number of stars representing continued performance over time.

Validus Growth Investors was honored with three total ratings: a 1-Star and 2-Star Top Gun rating for its Global Growth strategy and a 1-Star Top Gun rating for its International Growth strategy.

In the Global Equity universe, Validus Growth Investors’ Global Growth strategy was awarded a 1-Star Top Gun rating, for a top ten return in the first quarter of 2020 along with a 2-Star Top Gun rating, for a top ten return for the one-year period.

In the International Equity universe, Validus Growth Investors’ International Growth strategy was awarded a 1-Star Top Gun rating, for a top ten return in the first quarter of 2020

“Congratulations to Validus Growth Investors for being recognized as a PSN Top Gun,” said Ryan Nauman , Market Strategist at Informa Financial Intelligence’s Zephyr. “This highly esteemed designation allows us to recognize success, excellence and performance of leading investment managers each quarter.”

The complete list of PSN Top Guns and an overview of the methodology can be located on https://psn.fi.informais.com/ (Free registration is required to view methodology).

About Validus Growth Investors

Validus is a research-focused, independent growth equity manager. Using proprietary research methods that evolve over time, Validus implements fundamentally-driven strategies with active risk-mitigation techniques to enhance down-side protection. All of Validus’ strategies employ the same philosophy and process. We seek company-specific growth wherever it leads and no matter how it’s defined by the market. We believe that an active growth strategy with an appropriate investment horizon, stock-specific focus and market risk mitigation deserves a place in every portfolio. For more information, visit http://www.validusgrowth.com.

About Informa Financial Intelligence’s Zephyr

Financial Intelligence, part of the Informa Intelligence Division of Informa plc, is a leading provider of products and services helping financial institutions around the world cut through the noise and take decisive action. Informa Financial Intelligence's solutions provide unparalleled insight into market opportunity, competitive performance and customer segment behavioral patterns and performance through specialized industry research, intelligence, and insight. IFI’s Zephyr portfolio supports asset allocation, investment analysis, portfolio construction, and client communications that combine to help advisors and portfolio managers retain and grow client relationships. For more information about IFI, visit https://financialintelligence.informa.com. For more information about Zephyr’s PSN Separately Managed Accounts data, visit https://financialintelligence.informa.com/products-and-services/data-analysis-and-tools/psn-sma.

Investing involves risk, loss of principal is possible. There is no guarantee that any historical trend illustrated above will be repeated in the future, and there is no way to predict precisely when such a trend might begin. The information is based on the economic and market conditions as of this date. The information is not intended as a discussion of the merits of a particular offering and should not assume that any discussion or information provided herein serves as the receipt of, or as a substitute for personalized investment advice from Validus or any other investment professional.

This material is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation. The material is not intended to be relied upon as a forecast, research or investment advice and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt any investment strategy. There is no guarantee that any forecasts made will come to pass.

Posted in: Finance,Services,U.S

As Sales Bottom Out, Restaurants Start Down the Long Road to Recovery

The effects of the coronavirus pandemic have been devastating for the restaurant industry. April was the first month entirely affected by the stay-at-home guidelines and the results show it. Same-store sales for restaurants dropped by 55% during the month year over year; something unheard of for the industry in many decades. This update comes from Black Box Intelligence™ (formerly TDn2K™) data from over 50,000 restaurant units and billion in annual sales.

Same-store traffic for the month also dropped by 55%, as many consumers saw their daily routines upended, concern for the virus escalated at the national level and income of millions of Americans was hurt by the crisis.

“As bad as the results were in April, the latest Black Box Intelligence data suggests that the worst of the sales decline is behind us and we are now starting the long road towards recovery,” said Victor Fernandez, vice president of insights and knowledge for Black Box Intelligence. “During the last two weeks of March restaurants lost 67% of their sales year over year, but since then the decline in same-store sales improved by 20 percentage points. By the last 2 weeks of April sales decline slowed down to 47% year over year.”

“Obviously, we are still far from an ideal situation for the industry,” added Kelli Valade, CEO and president of Black Box Intelligence, “but the improvement in recent weeks is a testament to the resourcefulness and grit of restaurant operators who adapted and shifted quickly to this new restricted environment and have begun to turn things around.”

Limited-Service Brands Fare Much Better; Fine and Family Dining Hurt the Most
As would be expected, brands that traditionally conduct a significant portion of their business through off-premise sales and have the lowest price points are best positioned to face the current challenges. By the last week of April, quick service same-store sales were down less than 2.0% year over year. Fast casual’s sales were down by 30% by the last week of the month, having recovered by 20 percentage points from where they were by the end of March.

Those brands that rely more on dine-in experiences continue to navigate a much tougher scenario. By the last week of the month, full-service restaurants were still reporting lost sales of 62% year over year. Though much better than the 77% sales drop reported for the end of March, these are still problematic results for these companies.

Within the full-service sector of the industry, fine dining and family dining have been the segments hurt hardest by the pandemic. Their improvement over the last month is much smaller compared with the rest of the industry and they continue to see sales loss in the 75% to 85% range in recent weeks.

Guest Checks Growing Rapidly for Limited-Service Brands
As restaurant operations shifted towards off-premise only and limited service began capturing a bigger percentage of overall restaurant sales in recent weeks, an interesting phenomenon started occurring in relation to average guest check. While spending per guest decreased year over year for full-service brands, surely a reflection of lost beverage sales and probably also the effect of guests skipping pricier items or even reduced menu offerings by restaurants, the opposite has been true for limited-service brands.

In the case of quick service, average check has been growing by almost 20% year over year during the last 2 weeks of April. The growth for fast casual also accelerated significantly at 16% for the same period.

Off-Premise Alcohol Sales Providing Little Lift for Restaurants
So far, allowing restaurants to sell alcoholic beverages for off-premise consumption has had small positive impact on lost beverage sales in states in which it has been authorized. For example, same-store beverage sales for casual dining in Texas, Nebraska, Arizona, Connecticut and California (states that allow off-premise alcohol sales and were the best performers on alcoholic beverage sales growth) were all within -92% to -94% for the last week of April. Although better than the -98% national change in alcoholic beverage sales for casual dining, this represents only marginal improvement.

Huge Off-Premise Sales Growth Has Not Been Enough
For full-service restaurants, which typically had less than 15% of their sales coming through off-premise, the shift caused by covid-19 has meant massive growth in those channels. As restaurants have been focusing their efforts in expanding their off-premise offerings and consumers have started receiving some aid from stimulus checks and expanded unemployment benefits, combined sales growth in to-go, delivery and drive-thru topped 200% year over year by the end of April. The problem is, even this enormous growth is not enough to offset the huge hit from lost dine-in sales for concepts that were designed with that sit-down experience in mind.

For limited-service brands, it was common for off-premise to represent more than half of their total sales, so sales growth has been much more moderate given the larger base. But even these brands are reporting to-go, delivery and drive-thru sales growing at a pace nearing 25% year over year. This growth has not been able to offset the total decline in sales yet, but in the case of quick service it has lifted the segment to recoup most of the lost revenue.

Regions with Biggest Number of Cases Continue to Be Hardest Hit
The regions with the worst restaurant same-store sales during April continue to be those that have seen the biggest number of covid-19 cases: New York-New Jersey, California, the Western region and New England. Same-store sales were worse than -60% for all of these regions during the month.

The best performing regions based on restaurant sales were the Southeast, Southwest, Mountain Plains and the Midwest. Sales growth was better than -55% year over year for these regions during April.

Reopening Will Be Uneven and Course of the Economy Remains Unclear
The damage to the economy has been significant. Growth declined in the first quarter and is headed for a huge drop in the current period. Estimates range from -20% to a high of -40%. “The unemployment rate remains on target to reach the 20% range,” stated Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors and Black Box Intelligence economist. “But businesses are starting to reopen, though slowly and extremely unevenly. There doesn’t seem to be a uniform plan that states and localities are following to determine what should be opened and when. That means the process of reopening the economy will not be smooth and is likely to take many months.”

“There are also two critical factors that we know little about,” continued Naroff. “The first is how consumers and workers will react to having businesses open. Will they be willing to go to stores, restaurants and workplaces? If not, how long and what will it take to get them comfortable again? The second, and maybe even more critical question is what will happen if there is an uptick in new cases and deaths. The extent of any resurgence will determine whether a new lockdown is required. If that happens, the implications are dire as much of what was accomplished by the social distancing and government support programs would be wiped out. Until we have better answers to these questions, the course of the economy after the initial recovery will remain unclear.”    

Looking Ahead – Reopening Dining Rooms
“The data suggests full-service restaurants need dining rooms to reopen if they are to speed up their path to recovery,” said Fernandez. “Even fast casual brands, with almost half of their sales typically coming from dine-in sales, could use the boost from guests being allowed to dine in again. However, there are many questions related to states easing up restrictions. Among them, are restaurants going to reopen immediately if the capacity limitations are severe and are guests going to return immediately?”

Early data from a the newly launched Black Box Intelligence Restaurant Recovery Sales Flash shows that in Texas for Saturday, May 2 (the second day restaurant dining rooms were allowed to reopen in the state but at only 25% capacity), same-store sales for full-service restaurants was -36%, which is almost 30 percentage points better than the decline in sales recorded at the national level for that day.

Additionally, data from Texas and Georgia (both allowing dining rooms to be open in some capacity May 1), revealed that, on average, full-service restaurant operators only opened dining rooms in about 40% of their locations in Texas and 31% of them in Georgia.

Black Box Intelligence™ (formerly TDn2K) is the leading data and insights provider of workforce, guest, consumer and financial performance benchmarks for the hospitality industry. The Black Box Intelligence product suite is the industry standard for operators seeking to achieve best-in-class performance results. With the largest and most reliable set of real restaurant data in the marketplace, Black Box Intelligence currently tracks and analyzes more than 300 companies, over 2.8 million employees, over 50,000 restaurant units and billion in annual sales revenue. Black Box Intelligence is also the producer of the Global Best Practices Conference held annually in Dallas, Texas.

Posted in: Business,Finance,Hospitality,Services,U.S

Pulse360 Unveils Game-Changing Meeting Documentation Solution For Financial Advisors

Pulse360, a remote-ready workflow software solution for financial advisors, today announces the unveiling of its patent-pending, enterprise-level Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) suite. Designed to combat workflow inefficiencies and make advisory meeting notes 10x’s more efficient, Pulse360 fixes real-time, remote, and in-person working issues by addressing all aspects of the meeting documentation process - from preparation to follow-ups. Available immediately, advisors can use Pulse360 to prepare for meetings, save and send well-documented notes, and create efficient follow-ups, all through one easy-to-use platform.

“The future of work is now, and this solution is truly a game-changer for financial advisors,” said Anand Sheth, CEO and Founder of Pulse360. “After spending more than two decades in the wealth management industry, I understand the pain points professionals in my field continue to face today. It takes hours, sometimes days, to create detailed agendas, send notes and summaries to clients, creating a waste of valuable practice time while creating a backlog in client communication. That is why we developed our solution to help advisors streamline meeting documentation, win back precious time for their practice and vastly improve the client experience.”

Today, Broker/Dealers and Registered Independent Advisors (RIAs) can take full advantage of Pulse360’s early access offerings: The basic package, which includes the ability to use micro-templates to save time on documentation and integrates with industry-leading CRMs, such as Redtail and Wealthbox, is per month for a limited time. The premium package, which includes the basic functionality, along with a digital notepad and Salesforce integration, and the ability to create annual meeting summaries in as little as 20 seconds, is per month for a limited time.

“In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the way we work has changed, and it’s imperative that financial advisors work smarter, not harder,” continued Sheth. “We’ve made our software available today for that need, so they can now work better with enterprise-grade, cloud-based notes.”

The Pulse360 software can be implemented into financial advisors’ workflow in a matter of minutes, which can help them immediately demonstrate their value to customers and colleagues clearly, in written format. Pulse360 can help them with their fiduciary regulations with a secure, efficient, reliable suite of services.

About Pulse360
Pulse360 was created to vastly improve the way financial advisors operate their businesses. Our remote-ready SaaS suite can make every aspect of fiduciary meeting prep and documentation 10X more efficient. The Company was founded in 2019 by Anand Sheth and James Hill. The Company is headquartered in Riverside, CA. Tim Jenkins, a co-founder of SendGrid and former alumni of Techstars, is on the Board of Advisors.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,U.S

Institutional Investor Unveils 2020 All-Japan Executive Team Rankings

(TOKYO, April 16, 2020) – Today, Institutional Investor Research announced results of their 8th Annual All-Japan Executive Team survey, revealing Japan’s leading CEOs, CFOs, Investor Relations Officers, and Investor Relations programs that best uphold corporate governance standards and facilitate investment into their company. A total of 99 companies attained a published position in the categories listed above to become an Honored company, and 61 of those companies were granted the coveted Most Honored Company recognition by ranking in 2 or more of these categories. 

Results highlights 

A joint achievement this year as four companies across four different sectors attain the same highest weighted score across the 99 Honored companies. The winning sectors covered Beverages, Food & Tobacco, Electronics/Components, Electronics/Consumer and Electronics/Industrials (including Semiconductors). All four of the Most Honored Companies also attained first position in the ESG category.

New entrant Aisin Seiki Co. entered the Auto Parts sector for the first time emerging number One. In the Construction sector, the Honored Companies were completely different from last year’s, whilst in the Chemicals sector, Nissan Chemical jumped to 1st place with almost double the points of the number two. In the hotly contested sector Electronics/Industrial, Hitachi climbed to number one from number two last year, underscoring their increased efforts in investor engagement.

As the competition for capital intensifies, corporates are finding it increasingly more difficult to get investors’ attention. This, coupled with the changing corporate access landscape and relationships between the buy-side, sell-side and corporates; corporates are finding investor engagement becoming more competitive. Nonetheless, 349 investors and portfolio managers and analysts from 189 voter firms participated in this survey, nominating a total of 490 companies across 24 sectors.

For the first time, to calibrate the CEO score, we asked questions on their credibility, leadership and quality of communication. To determine the best CFO, we added the scores given to the CFO’s ability in capital allocation, financial stewardship and quality of communication. In awarding companies the best IR Programs, investors assessed based on 3 broad categories of disclosure, ESG and overall services & communications.

“The current investor environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented. Companies need to be agile to adjust to the new landscape and this includes not only to respond to the increasingly challenging business environment but also to position themselves well to tap into the capital markets, should they need to. In engaging with investors, many have turned to online platforms or conference calls, this means reaction of your audience is more difficult to gauge. Your messages need to be clear, concise and ask for feedback more often,” said Cara Eio, Head of Asia Pacific, Institutional Investor Research. 

The 2020 All-Japan Executive Team Most Honored Companies* List 

*A business that earns a top-three position in one of the four categories — Best CEO, Best CFO, Best IR Professional and Best IR Company — is deemed an Honored Company. To earn the designation of Most Honored Company, it must achieve two or more top-three appearances; rank is determined by weighted score wherein each first-place position is worth three points; second place, two; and third place, one. Most Honored Companies are listed above Honored Companies regardless of score. When a tie exists in the weighted score, companies are ordered according to the number of ranked positions they receive in their industry sectors.

To view the 2020 All-Japan Executive Team Most Honored Companies List, click https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/research/9956/Honored-Companies

Complete results can be found at www.institutionalinvestor.com/research. 

To share your winning position in the 2020 All-Japan Research Team ranking in your website content, advertisements, communications and marketing collateral, please contact marketing@iiresearch.com. 

About Institutional Investor Research

Institutional Investor Research provides independent sell-side and corporate performance research and rankings and aims to be the first-choice and independent validation source of qualitative market intelligence for all three sides of the investment community. Institutional Investor Research has a global presence, spanning Europe, All-Asia, the US and Latin America.

For more information contact Michael Clemons, Japan Rep, II Research, at +81 050 5532 1664 or michael.clemons@institutionalinvestor.com

 

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market

Bravo Pawn Systems and BLUEDOG Announce Partnership & Launch New Integrated Credit Card Payment Solution

Bravo Pawn Systems, the leading point-of-sale software platform for pawnbrokers, and BLUEDOG, an industry-leading payment solution provider for merchants, today announce a strategic partnership.

The new partnership promises ease of use, increased efficiencies and enhanced employee and customer experiences with respect to collecting, processing and reconciling in-store credit card payments. A key highlight of the partnership is the integration between in-store terminals and Bravo platforms — customers will no longer need to manually enter data into the terminal and then re-enter information into their Bravo platforms.

“We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with BLUEDOG” says Tally Mack, CEO at Bravo. “It was clear from our earliest conversations that BLUEDOG was determined to meet a growing market demand — the need for a secure, reliable solution that gives merchants an effective way to quickly and securely process credit card payments in-store through their point of sale, ecommerce and mobile platforms. The alignment between our companies’ visions to enable business owners to run their business efficiently and profitably, while delivering exceptional customer experience make working together a natural and exciting step.”

Bottom-line Benefits of the Bravo & BLUEDOG Partnership

Improved Business Operations & Productivity: Credit card info is entered directly into the Bravo point-of-sale system and BLUEDOG takes care of the rest. No more manual keying of card data or spending hours reconciling accounting books at the end of the day.

Reduced Human-error & Increased Time Savings: Payments are seamlessly passed from the terminal to the Bravo point-of-sale platform – eliminating human errors and duplicate data entry.

Strengthened Security: The cloud-based integration offers multiple levels of security to protect business and customer data – providing a more secure method of collecting and storing sensitive information.

Expanded Product Offerings: BLUEDOG’s risk modeling and position in the market means that pawnbrokers will be able to legally process payments for items like firearms – giving pawnbrokers the ability to quickly expand product offerings to customers.    

“Our partnership with Bravo is an exciting step forward in delivering incredible value to our merchant customers,” says Ron Dichter, President and CEO at BLUEDOG. “We are continually improving the experience for our merchants by advancing our platform functionality, and smart, relevant integrations with strategic partners is a way we accomplish this. Our partnership means that pawnbrokers have a new, more secure – and more efficient way – of processing payments at competitive rates.”

About Bravo
Bravo Pawn Systems specializes in point-of-sale software for the pawn industry. Established in 1988, Bravo POS was designed by pawnbrokers for pawnbrokers. As one of the leading pawn software systems on the market, Bravo strives to enable pawnshops to grow their business by providing continually enhanced features and world-class customer service to help them compete with national big box stores. For more information, visit bravopawnsystems.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

About BLUEDOG
Founded in 2010 on the idea that Merchant Service Providers can do better, BLUEDOG’s mission was clear: be the Best Friend to Your Business. For more information on BLUEDOG, visit them on the web at yourbluedog.com.

Posted in: Business,Computers & Software,Finance,U.S

EMS Consulting to Acquire Digital Banking Services (DBS DX) Accelerating Its Financial Services Cloud Offerings for Digital Banking

EMS Consulting (EMS) has entered into an agreement to acquire Digital Banking Services (DBS DX), one of the fastest-growing Digital Transformation Services Partners for Banking, and Credit Unions specializing in Salesforce. The move will further strengthen EMS’s position as the leading enterprise cloud services provider and enhance its ability to provide clients with unparalleled cloud strategy, technology consulting, cloud application implementation, integration, and their Cloud Advisory managed services.

EMS Consulting, an enterprise technology solutions company, has delivered services to over 7500 customers across the USA for over 22 years. This acquisition further elevates EMS Consulting’s position as an end-to-end Salesforce enterprise cloud solutions and services provider for the Financial Services Market. This addition will address the surging demand from its trans-formative customers from implementation to offering out of the box Virtual Branch Banking Solutions.

DBS brings Financial Services expertise, industry knowledge, solution assets, and deep ecosystem relationships across a variety of financial services segments including mortgage, commercial, consumer, and insurance for both banks and credit unions. DBS has created multiple banking applications that will quickly advance our financial services, customers, in conjunction with EMS’s industry strength, size, and scale.

“We’ve reached a tipping point where our FINS customers are asking for comprehensive, out of the box solutions built on the Salesforce platform that can be easily deployed for rapid adoption to enhance the customer experience and achieve significant business results more quickly,” said Elaine Myrback EMS’s chief executive officer. I look forward to welcoming the talented professionals of DBS to the EMS team.

Lisa Nicholas, DBS DX chief executive officer, said, “We are thrilled to be joining forces with EMS. The combination of our capabilities and experience with EMS’s scale, broad industry expertise, and global cloud application capabilities represents a unique and compelling opportunity for our customers, for our people and the future of cloud technology.”

 

About EMS Consulting

EMS is a Salesforce Gold Partner, founded in 1998 headquartered in Tampa, Florida with experienced, cloud advisory and technology services consultants, providing cloud strategy, implementation, and integration services to thousands of customers around the country. EMS Consulting has over 100 dedicated consultants providing expertise in Financial Services, Health Care, Retail, and Higher Education Industries and a certified Salesforce and MuleSoft Partner since 2012. Visit http://www.consultems.com or call 813-287-2486 to learn more.

Posted in: Business,Finance,Technology,U.S,Website & Blog

Cisive Honored in CIO Applications’ Top 25 HR Tech Solution Providers 2020

Cisive, a global provider of compliance-driven human capital management and risk management solutions, today announced it was named by CIO Applications as one of Top 25 HR Technology Solution Providers 2020. CIO Applications recognizes HR leaders’ need for an expert HR solution provider that can develop and strengthen the capabilities of corporate HR teams while bringing the advantages of quality and efficiency to the fore. Their Top 25 HR Technology Solution Providers list represents the most proficient HR solution providers in the industry.

“Cisive is honored to be recognized as one of the top 25 HR technology solution providers by CIO Applications, a testament to our commitment to quality and efficiency throughout the years,” said James Owens, President and CEO at Cisive. “In order to effectively partner with our clients as they face hiring challenges in a rapidly changing global environment exacerbated by the pandemic crisis, Cisive is prepared to continue serving the business community during these unprecedented times. More than ever, we are focused on delivering innovative technological solutions that provide the HR community with the key information to meet their hiring goals and critical business needs.”

Cisive’s core onboarding and pre-employment background screening offering provides clients with a streamlined, high quality, and regulatory compliant solution. The company’s comprehensive services include background screening, vendor/contractor screening, executive screening, drug testing, fingerprinting, paperless onboarding, and electronic Form I-9/E-Verify solutions.

In addition to being named as one of CIO Applications’ Top 25 HR Technology Solution Providers in 2020, Cisive has previously been honored as Company of the Year by CIO Review and as one of 2019’s 50 Most Admired Companies by The Silicon Review. For more information about Cisive’s suite of solutions, visit http://www.Cisive.com.

About Cisive

Cisive is a global leader in compliance-driven human capital and risk management solutions, providing onboarding and pre-employment background screening solutions to address the complex challenges and needs of large enterprises with dedicated, in-country account management teams committed to customer satisfaction. Cisive is accredited by the Professional Background Screeners Association (PBSA) and was named for the third consecutive year by HRO Today to the 2019 Baker’s Dozen Customer Satisfaction rankings of Top Pre-Employment Screening Providers, in addition to being named Company of the Year by CIO Review. The company and its brands serve clients in financial services, transportation, telecom/media, healthcare, utilities and the home services end-markets, among others. For additional information, please visit http://www.cisive.com.

Posted in: Finance,Personal Finance,Services,U.S

Citisoft Announces New Leadership in UK Practice

Citisoft, a global investment management consulting firm, has announced the hire of David Higgins as Managing Director in their UK practice.

Citisoft’s portfolio of asset management clients continues to expand globally and David’s hire will strengthen the firm’s overall presence in Europe. Under David’s leadership, Citisoft plans to expand its delivery team based in London and capitalize on the firm’s longstanding reputation as a consulting leader in the UK financial services market.

“We’re excited to announce David’s hire to strengthen and broaden our presence in Europe. We continue to see both UK-based and global asset managers search for an experienced consulting partner as their operating models and technology rapidly evolve,” said Tom Secaur, COO of Citisoft. “David’s experience and leadership will help us meet the needs of our clients and the broader market while continuing to grow our global presence.”

David joins Citisoft with over 20 years of experience in asset management technology and operations. From 2005-2010, David was a consultant in Citisoft’s UK practice. Since that time, David has assumed senior responsibilities working for RBC, HSBC, Merian Global Investors, and Aviva Investors as the Head of Global Transformation, Operating Model and Suppliers.

“David’s 20+ years of experience in our space, coupled with his knowledge of the UK marketplace and pre-existing knowledge of Citisoft make him the perfect candidate to lead our UK practice,” said Paul Migliore, CEO of Citisoft. “We are absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to bring David back to the firm in a senior leadership position. Under David’s leadership, we look forward to expanding our delivery team in the UK and providing on-the-ground service and experience to our global clients.”

This announcement follows the opening of Citisoft’s first Canadian office in 2018. Since that time, the firm has seen steady growth in both their client-base in North America as well as the number of clients in need of a consulting partner with deep experience in global markets. Citisoft has operated in London since 1986 and this key hire will capitalize on both Citisoft’s expertise in the UK as well as the firm’s need to meet the needs of clients with growing global footprints.

About Citisoft

Citisoft is a global consulting firm dedicated to servicing the investment management industry. Our staff and management bring credibility and hands-on knowledge to every facet of our client relationships, backed by a history of successful partnerships with leading investment management firms and industry service providers. With our deep understanding of all aspects of the investment management process, our clients benefit from our ability to identify industry trends and accurately assess their effects. Through our Advisory and Delivery services, we offer a full complement of consulting capabilities ranging from strategy formation through guiding and implementing successful business change. Learn more at http://www.citisoft.com.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,U.S

Data Media Associates Extend Patient Billing Solutions with Pay by Text from Everyware

Everyware is redefining healthcare payment processing and patient engagement by offering Pay by Text with two-way messaging that helps companies collect more payments. They are invested in giving health organizations and medical billing companies the best new way to connect, collect and reduce barriers to payment.

Data Media Associates, LLC (DMA), known and trusted for over 40 years for offering the latest ways to streamline the statement-to-payment process, is dedicated to helping providers get paid. Now, DMA will elevate its multifaceted payment solution suite even further by offering Everyware’s Pay by Text and two-way messaging solution into their mix.

“We’ve known text communication and billing were on the rise and have been planning to extend our SMS services for some time now. So we’re very excited to bring this new pay by text solution to our providers and their patients.” - Cleve Shultz, President, Data Media Associates.

The best healthcare billing organizations today already offer a mobile billing option. The forward-thinking ones, however, recognize growing demand for business-to-consumer texting. This includes billing via text message and accepting SMS payments alongside paper or other methods. Sending an invoice text ahead of a paper statement, following up with automatic reminder text, alerts and gives patients the chance to take care of their bill from their phone easily.

“Our healthcare clients have been surprised to be able to connect with patients they couldn’t contact by other means. With pay by text they hit the bullseye, got paid, and even re-engaged with patients wanting to schedule new appointments.” - Larry Talley, CEO & Founder, Everyware

With more people looking for frictionless, contactless payment methods to avoid touching cash, mail and plastic, Everyware’s Pay by Text is growing fast because it gives patients a way to pay from anywhere.

About Everyware

Everyware is a conversational payment gateway enabling Pay by Text and two-way messaging with customers. Making text communication a part of the purchase process improves the customer experience and helps companies get paid faster. Get started with Everyware for Healthcare, watch the Everyware Pay by Text video and follow Everware on Linkedin for the latest updates.

About DMA

Data Media Associates (DMA) LLC, founded in 1975 by Bob Murphy, is one of the largest independently owned and operated print and mail businesses. DMA services the medical community across the country with print and mail services for patient statements, collection letters, paper claims, and special notes. Service also features acceptance of electronic claims which are processed in real time, giving an immediate electronic remittance to submitted claims. To learn more, visit http://www.dma.us.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,Technology,U.S

Smart2Pay Adds Ant Financial’s HUABEI Credit Card To Its Payments Portfolio

Smart2Pay, the company with the world's largest coverage of online alternative payment solutions, has added Huabei credit solution to its 200+ payment methods portfolio.

With this new feature, Smart2Pay offers its Merchants an additional means to tapping into the Chinese market, besides the popular methods like Alipay, Wechat Pay and UnionPay that Smart2Pay already offers.

Huabei is Ant Financial’s virtual credit card for its Chinese users. Some internal shareholders estimated that, of Alipay’s 900 million Chinese users, more than half have created Huabei accounts. Huabei literally means ‘just spend’ and is generally perceived as a microlender.

Huabei may be used for all online and offline purchases via Alipay wallet. Users of Alipay can set Huabei as their default payment option, meaning that their purchases are first made with credit before funds are debited from their Alipay account. As well, when Huabei is used to shop, the user must return the amount of the payment on the 9th of the next month. There is an interest-free period of up to 41 days. Merchants offering Huabei can see conversion increase by up to 40%.

Huabei was launched in April 2015 by Ant Financial as a way for users of its wallet solution Alipay to fund purchases on ecommerce platforms run by Ant Financial’s affiliate, Alibaba group, such as Tmall and Taobao. Huabei’s main user base is made up of individuals born after the 80s and 90s, accounting for around 80% of the total users. Since Huabei’s launch, Ant Financial has been expanded the service to more online and offline merchants.

James Flinterman, CEO of Smart2Pay: We are proud to add Huabei via Alipay to our already extensive Chinese payment methods portfolio. We constantly improve and expand our services in direct relation to market dynamics. We are confident that, with this latest addition, our Merchants and partners will successfully expand further their business in a very digitally-oriented and lucrative market like China.

About Ant Financial’s Alipay

Alipay is a mobile payment method founded by Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group in 2004 and which allows users to create a digital wallet to store, top up and pay online or in store for products and services. It is one of the most popular methods of payment in China and is also available in many Asian markets, as well as in Europe, US and Canada.

Ant Financial’s chairman and CEO Eric Jing said on Alibaba’s 2019 Investor Day, held in Hangzhou, that Alipay (900m users) and its international e-wallet partners (300m users) have collectively served around 1.2 billion users worldwide.

About Smart2Pay

Smart2Pay offers a single API for all payment services to international Merchants, covering credit card and local payment options throughout the world! By using Smart2Pay, you will be offering the preferred local method of payment to your global Customers, thus significantly boosting your sales!

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,Technology,U.S

Global Banking & Finance Review® Accepting Entries for Their Prestigious 10th Annual Awards

Over three million people read Global Banking & Finance Review annually, counting on us for our well-respected news, views, and analysis. This stretches across quite diverse areas touching on everything of solid importance in the extended international banking and financial spaces. A major highlight the platform delivers every year is the Global Banking & Finance Awards

In exciting news, we have recently announced that we are accepting entries for 2020’s awards and encourage interested parties to fill out a submission form on the platform’s official website. Entering is quick, easy, and completely free. By nominating, you stand to boost your company’s awareness, reputation, and leadership. Winning is universally considered a sign of quality for companies in the banking and financial world and is highly sought after.

“We are always excited for this time of year and getting to see who enters our Award competition,” Wanda Rich, Editor from Global Banking & Finance Review. “Every year more companies enter, and the competition becomes more and more competitive. Determining the top choices is something we take very seriously.”

The Awards reflect the innovation, achievement, strategy, progressive and inspirational changes taking place within the Global Financial community. The awards were created to recognize companies of all sizes which are prominent in particular areas of expertise and excellence within the financial world.

The entire Awards process from start to finish is free of charge. This includes nomination, selection and announcement of the winners on the website https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com and on the print magazine. 

The 2020 Awards are likely to be the most competitive yet, along with carrying the largest amount of recognition for winners.

For more information be sure to visit www.globalbankingandfinance.com.

Posted in: Business,Finance,Media & Communications,Technology,Telecom

San Francisco Bay Area-based Lifestyle Agencies af&co. and Ellipses Merge

Fresh on the heels of the successful launch of its partner branding and creative services agency, Carbonate, the evolution of af&co. (formerly Andrew Freeman & Co.) continues. The award-winning agency has officially announced its merger with Ellipses Public Relations, becoming one full-service communications agency. Operating as af&co., the 17-person firm is headquartered in downtown San Francisco and specializes in lifestyle, hospitality, food and beverage marketing and public relations, serving the Bay Area and beyond. Andrew Freeman continues his role as president and chief executive officer, and Ellipses founder and CEO Diana Haven fills a new chief operating officer position at the growing agency.

“Our two agencies have been close collaborators and referral partners for some time, and Diana and I have been friends for 15 years," said Freeman. “The merger of our two firms was the next step in the evolution and growth strategy for af&co. In addition to having amazing connections with the media, Diana and the team she has brought with her have deep experience in digital strategy, consumer packaged goods marketing and lifestyle public relations. This move gives us the opportunity to not only expand our offerings to new market segments but solidifies our place as one of the leading lifestyle firms in the Bay Area and nationally. As af&co. celebrates its 15th anniversary, the time was right and the combined talent of our teams is incredible. This is truly a merger of the minds and takes full advantage of our respective strengths as leaders and entrepreneurs.”

“It’s been incredible to watch both of our businesses thrive over the years, and this merger makes perfect sense. We’ve each built successful and respected agencies, and I feel the joining of the two is a game-changer for the Bay Area’s lifestyle PR and marketing industry. The merger is an incredible move for us, our teams and our clients, and I’m very excited to help lead the business into the 2020s and beyond,” said Haven.

About Andrew Freeman

A native of New Jersey, Freeman learned the restaurant business by working through the ranks at several legendary New York venues. At Windows on the World, Andrew was vice president of public relations and marketing and responsible for its relaunch after the World Trade Center bombing in 1992. At the Russian Tea Room, Andrew opened the Cabaret which became the toast of the town after only six months. He also spent six years as vice president of public relations for the Rainbow Room, working with restaurant legend Joe Baum. Prior to opening af&co., Freeman was vice president of public relations and strategic partnerships for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. He spent ten years with Kimpton, launching over 40 hotels and restaurants as well as the global brand. During his tenure there Andrew helped spearhead the LGBT travel program, which has garnered numerous awards and positioned Kimpton as one of the top companies for LGBT employment in the country. In 2002, Kimpton became the first hospitality company to receive a 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index.

A dedicated philanthropist, Andrew sits on the boards of CUESA, Dress for Success San Francisco and The Richmond Ermet AIDS Foundation. He is a former board member of Meals on Wheels San Francisco, the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Anti-Defamation League, and was an advisor for the American Airlines LGBT Committee. From 2016 to 2019, af&co. has been named by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the Top 50 LGBT-Owned Businesses in the Bay Area.

About Ellipses and Diana Haven

Ellipses was founded in December 2007 after Haven’s 15-year career in public relations and television, which took her from promoting the performing arts in the early 1990s to working with tech clients in the “dot-com boom” of the late 1990s, then to TechTV as booking manager and producer from 1999 to 2002. Prior to Ellipses, she was the public relations director at The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay from 2003 to 2007. Her award-winning efforts, which included an outdoor concert series, celebrity chef and culinary classes, and an annual silent auction, contributed to significant increases in top-line revenue and international acclaim for the resort by driving annual media impressions from 600 million in 2003 to 1.2 billion in 2005.

A boutique agency headquartered in Oakland, Ellipses has represented more than 100 clients in the hospitality, travel, food, beverage and special events industries, launching over 40 restaurants and destinations throughout the greater Bay Area including The Culinary Institute of America at Copia, Fog City, Dumpling Time, La Marcha, Urban Putt, Lord Stanley, Niku Steakhouse and the Butcher Shop by Niku. Clients moving with Ellipses to af&co. include OCHO Candy, The Berkeley Boathouse and Altamirano Restaurant Group.

About af&co.

Celebrating its 15th year in 2020, af&co. is an innovative lifestyle marketing and media relations agency with clients across the country. The af&co. team has launched over 150 restaurants and hotels, provided ongoing marketing, public relations, and operations consulting for more than 200 others, and created unique culinary events of all sizes, from intimate dinners to food and wine festivals of over 10,000 people. In early 2020, af&co. launched Carbonate, a brand strategy and creative services agency. af&co. and Carbonate are known for bringing a fresh approach with bold results, with an emphasis on hotels, restaurants, food, wine, spirits, travel, and destinations.

Among the agency’s current clients are 4505 BBQ, Bluestem Brasserie, Duende, E & O Kitchen and Bar, Evolution Hospitality (Vespera on Ocean/AC Santa Clara/AC Sunnyvale), Golden Gate Restaurant Association, Gott’s Roadside, Mr. Espresso, One Market, Palette, Perbacco and barbacco, Ramen Nagi, River Terrace Inn, Roman Spa & Hot Springs, TCHO Chocolate and Virgin Hotels SF. For a complete list of current and past clients, please visit http://www.afandco.com.

Posted in: Business,Finance,Hospitality,Law & Legal,U.S

Kabbage Launches Kabbage Insights™, Allowing Small Businesses To Take Control of Their Cash Flow With Just a Few Clicks

Kabbage, Inc. today launched Kabbage Insights, a fully automated tool that calculates and predicts cash-flow patterns to help small businesses identify cash surpluses and deficits. With the launch, Kabbage addresses one of the most vexing problems faced by small business owners. The new product comes just one month after the public launch of Kabbage Payments™, continuing the company’s rapid innovation to build a suite of integrated products that simplify cash-flow management for U.S. small businesses.

In less than 10 minutes, any small business can connect their real-time financial data to Kabbage Insights and access an analysis of their company’s historical, current and future cash-flow 24/7. The product continually evaluates the transaction activity of a customer over a 90-day period and organizes it in an easy-to-understand dashboard, allowing customers to quickly visualize their net growth without taking the time to calculate it themselves. Kabbage’s customer base of over 220,000 small businesses has immediate access.

As a leader in predictive analytics and artificial intelligence for small businesses, Kabbage Insights produces personalized forecasts to predict the future cash position of a business. Customers can then set a desired low-balance threshold and receive automated alerts if accounts are predicted to dip below it, empowering small businesses to identify, act upon and prevent cash deficits before they occur.

Paired with the Kabbage Small Business Revenue Index, Kabbage Insights is also the first product available that allows small businesses to compare their company’s performance to similarly-sized businesses operating in their state and industry. The result is an unparalleled cash-flow tool that’s free for small businesses, helping them to anticipate changes, benchmark their growth, plan ahead and make more confident business decisions like when to cut expenses, invest or borrow.

With Kabbage Insights, small businesses can:

• Review cash-flow on the go via the intuitive mobile dashboard.
• Analyze daily performance and review money movement at a glance.
• Borrow strategically with forecast data to inform funding decisions.
• Save time, as studies show 91 percent of small business owners spend as many as 20 hours per week manually calculating cash flow.

 

“As a small business owner for many years, I spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out whether I’d have the cash to pay my various expenses, including payroll at the end of the month and it’s been a mission of mine to solve this ubiquitous problem for all small business owners ever since,” said Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein. “Kabbage is pleased to launch Insights, taking on this burden for small business owners and providing them with cash flow analyses that large enterprises have at their fingertips. We will continue to level the playing field for the small business owner.”

About Kabbage

Kabbage, Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, is a data and technology company providing
small businesses cash flow solutions. Its suite of products includes Kabbage Payments, helping small businesses get paid and access the money they earn faster, Kabbage Funding, providing access to flexible lines of credit in minutes, and Kabbage Insights, a powerful and predictive tool to calculate cash flow. To date, Kabbage has provided more than 220,000 U.S. small businesses access to over billion of working capital. Kabbage is funded and backed by leading investors, including the SoftBank Vision Fund, BlueRun Ventures, WildCast Venture Partners, Thomvest Ventures and others. All Kabbage U.S.-based loans are issued by Celtic Bank, a Utah-Chartered Industrial Bank, Member FDIC. Kabbage Payments, LLC, a subsidiary of Kabbage, Inc., is a registered Payment Service Provider/Payment Facilitator sponsored by Fifth ThirdBank, N.A., Cincinnati, OH. For more information, please visit http://www.kabbage.com.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,U.S

Fidelity Funding Announces Creative Financing Solutions For Diverse Lending Situations

Fidelity Funding has been operating in the Real Estate Financing market for over 15 Years and competes against Hard Money Lenders, Investors, and Other Mortgage Lenders throughout the nation. They have been able to make such a strong impression on the market and gain reputation by their honesty and transparency in each transaction, with the primary goal being to help their customers instead of manipulating and them to make money like many others. They offer loan products that fit the client and dedicate time and effort to help them instead of immediately turning them away. They offer creative financing through a broad spectrum of loan products from hard money, foreclosure bailout loans, bad credit loans, non-traditional income loans, stated loans, reverse mortgages, foreclosure bailout reverse mortgages, construction loans, fix and flip loans and so much more for both residential and commercial properties.

Nazeli Kerkorian, Fidelity Funding's Senior Director of Underwriting, spoke about its recent recognition, expanding on some of the decisions and motivations that led the business to the level it's currently reached.

"When Fidelity Funding was founded, it was made abundantly clear we wanted to be the kind of company that was known in the market for our creative lending solutions and our ability to fund what others can't or won't fund. One of the biggest concerns we have, which is actually what we strive against, is the amount of clients that approach our company frustrated about the misrepresentation they've received from other lenders and the financial burdens they've endured because of it. The time that was wasted by these lenders should have been used by a firm to help the borrowers, not dig them in a deeper hole. These bad experiences cause borrowers to lose trust and become agitated, and as a finance professional myself, it's disappointing. Fortunately, with some good people behind us, our dedication, unwavering knowledge and ability to perform our services as presented to our customers allows us to re-establish the trust los and enables us to meet the client's expectations that were previously not met by the other lenders. We are straight forward about what we're able to deliver to our customers from the start and are able to overcome every obstacle and really hit our stride."

Nazeli Kerkorian also mentioned Fidelity Funding 's future plans are to extend their services and unique loan products offered to borrowers across the nation. It's the hope of the company to bring awareness to borrowers in need of the help they've been deprived of and let them know they’re a company willing to and able to assist in financing their loans when others have denied them or turned them away.

Fidelity Funding plans to maintain its position at the forefront of Foreclosure bailout loans, fast funding hard money loans, bad credit mortgage loans, non-traditional income loans, foreclosure bailout reverse mortgages and more for years to come, building on its success, finding new ways to serve its community, customers and the world at large.

Posted in: Finance,Personal Finance

Cornerstone Research Promotes Seven to Vice President and Principal

Cornerstone Research, a leading provider of economic and financial consulting and expert testimony, has advanced five senior staff to the role of vice president: Mike DeCesaris, Zoya Marriott, Sachin Sancheti, Gary Schmirer, and Paul Zurek. DeCesaris, who leads the firm’s data analytics practice, has been named vice president, data analytics.

The firm also promoted two staff to the role of principal: Matthew Armstrong and Penka Kovacheva.

“These exceptional colleagues exemplify our firm’s commitment to excellence, to our clients and experts, and to our people and culture,” said Yesim Richardson, Cornerstone Research’s president. “We are proud to recognize their leadership, and I am confident that they will continue to make lasting contributions to the success of our firm.”

Vice President

Mike DeCesaris directs Cornerstone Research’s data analytics practice. DeCesaris has been instrumental in building the firm’s industry-leading capabilities in sophisticated data management and analysis. He oversees complex projects requiring advanced empirical analysis of big data and data science techniques such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and text analytics. He has worked with counsel and clients to efficiently manage data analytics projects in the context of litigation, investigations, merger reviews, and non-litigation consulting. DeCesaris is based in San Francisco.

Zoya Marriott, a leader in the firm’s life sciences practice, focuses on antitrust, intellectual property, product misrepresentation, false claims, and breach of contract matters. Marriott has addressed class certification, liability, and damages questions in litigation for both branded and generic manufacturers and involving both small molecule and biologic drugs. She has particular expertise with Hatch-Waxman disputes and has provided deposition and trial testimony on commercial success issues. Marriott is based in Boston.

Sachin Sancheti leads teams in merger reviews, as well as product misrepresentation and intellectual property disputes. Sancheti worked on the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, as well as United States v. AT&T Inc. et al. and Commercial Metals Company’s Acquisition of Certain Assets from Gerdau S.A. He has also assessed class certification claims and damages, and consulted on lost profit assessments in various industries. Sancheti is based in New York.

Gary Schmirer specializes in financial matters arising from shareholder lawsuits, investment management disputes, and mergers and acquisitions, as well as in internal and regulatory investigations. Schmirer has directed analyses for five high-profile insider trading trials in the Southern District of New York. With particular expertise in addressing loss causation, valuation, damages, and sampling issues, his industry experience includes financial institutions, life sciences, technology, and real estate. Schmirer is based in Boston.

Paul Zurek specializes in matters related to financial markets, securities, risk management, valuation, complex data, and statistical and econometric analysis in U.S. and international venues. Zurek has more than a decade of consulting experience, including as an expert witness testifying in civil litigation and in regulatory investigations. His industry expertise spans banking, hedge funds, investment management, manufacturing, private equity, pharmaceuticals and biotech, retail, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. Zurek is based in San Francisco.

Principal

Matthew Armstrong specializes in securities and financial institution matters. He has extensive experience analyzing market efficiency, loss causation, and damages in Rule 10b-5 and Section 11 cases. In matters involving large, complex datasets, he has estimated damages arising from market timing in mutual funds and analyzed options trading issues at the class certification stage. Armstrong is based in Silicon Valley.

Penka Kovacheva specializes in litigation and regulatory investigations within the life sciences and healthcare industries. Kovacheva focuses on economic and statistical issues in antitrust matters involving drug pricing and competition; reimbursement disputes between government and healthcare providers; and intellectual property disputes between drug manufacturers. She assessed upstream and downstream competitive effects of the vertical merger of Cigna and Express Scripts. Kovacheva is based in Los Angeles.

About Cornerstone Research 

Cornerstone Research provides economic and financial consulting and expert testimony in all phases of complex litigation and regulatory proceedings. The firm works with an extensive network of prominent faculty and industry practitioners to identify the best-qualified expert for each assignment. Cornerstone Research has earned a reputation for consistent high quality and effectiveness by delivering rigorous, state-of-the-art analysis for more than thirty years. The firm has over 700 staff and offices in Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Washington.

http://www.cornerstone.com
Twitter: @Cornerstone_Res
Facebook: @CornerstoneResearchInc

Posted in: Business,Finance

Top Dubai Property Investment Projects, Trusted Developers, High ROI & Easy Payment Plans

Since Dubai opened up its 100% ownership real estate market, the city has become home to an unbelievable and incredible number of real estate projects. With the total number of available off-plan property in Dubai, it can get unclear when it comes to conclusive where to invest your hard-earned money. This is why we’re taking a look at the top best off-plan projects in Dubai, as per searches conducted by hausandhaus.com users.

1. Ruba at Arabian Ranches 3

3 & 4 Bedroom Townhouses for sale in Ruba at Arabian Ranches 3

Location: Arabian Ranches 3

Developer: Emaar Properties PJSC

Development Type: 3 & 4 Bedroom Townhouses

Completion Date: March 2023

Prices from: AED 1,400,000

View Payment Plan:

https://www.hausandhaus.com/new-developments-details/3-4-bedroom-townhouses-for-sale-in-ruba-at-arabian-ranches-3/12225

For More Information on Project:

Rennie Sanger

Off Plan & Investment Consultant

+971 56 553 3220

2. Elan at Tilal Al Ghaf

3 & 4 Bedroom Duplex Townhouses for sale in Elan at Tilal Al Ghaf

Location: Al Ghaf

Developer: Majid Al Futtaim

Development Type: 3 & 4 Bedroom Duplex Townhouses

Completion Date: December 2022

Prices from: AED 1,259,000

View Payment Plan:

https://www.hausandhaus.com/new-developments-details/3-4-bedroom-duplex-townhouses-for-sale-in-elan-at-tilal-al-ghaf/12198

For More Information on Project:

Ben Brooks

Off Plan & Investment Consultant

+971 56 950 1782

3. Al Furjan, Villas & Townhouses

4 BR Villas & 3 BR Townhouses for sale in Al Furjan, Villas & Townhouses

Location: Jebel Ali

Developer: Nakheel

Development Type: 4 BR Villas & 3 BR Townhouses

Completion Date: January 2018

Prices from: AED 3,059,000

View Payment Plan:

https://www.hausandhaus.com/new-developments-details/4-br-villas-3-br-townhouses-for-sale-in-al-furjan-villas-townhouses/12148

For More Information on Project:

Mohammad Rashidkhani

Off Plan & Investment Consultant

+971 52 188 0006

4. Burj Crown by Emaar

1, 2 & 3 Bedroom Apartments for sale in Burj Crown by Emaar – Launch Offer

Location: Downtown Dubai

Developer: Emaar Properties PJSC

Development Type: 1, 2 & 3 Bedroom Apartments

Completion Date: October 2023

Prices from: AED 1,068,888

View Payment Plan:

https://www.hausandhaus.com/new-developments-details/1-2-3-bedroom-apartments-for-sale-in-burj-crown-by-emaar-launch-offer/11988

For More Information on Project:

Mohammad Rashidkhani

Off Plan & Investment

5. SEVEN Palm Residences

Studio, 1, 2 & 3 Bedroom Apartments for sale in SEVEN Palm Residences

Location: Palm Jumeirah

Developer: Seven Tides International

Development Type: Studio, 1, 2 & 3 Bedroom Apartments

Completion Date: March 2021

Prices from: AED 616,888

View Payment Plan:

https://www.hausandhaus.com/new-developments-details/studio-1-2-3-bedroom-apartments-for-sale-in-seven-palm-residences/3531

 

For More Information on Project:

Rennie Sanger

Off Plan & Investment Consultant

+971 56 553 3220

 

Visit www.hausandhaus.com for more off plan & ready properties.

Posted in: Finance,Real Estate,Retail

Briana Pelland Joins Mortgage Team at Ideal Credit Union

Briana Pelland has joined the Mortgage team at Ideal Credit Union as a Mortgage Loan Advisor. Pelland started her career with Ideal in February of 2018 and served as a Member Service Representative prior to moving to the Mortgage department. She has 8 years of experience in the financial services industry.

“Briana is a welcome addition to our team and brings great energy and enthusiasm to her new position,” said Faith Tholkes, VP of Mortgage Lending Operations. “As a Mortgage Loan Advisor, she is looking forward to guiding members through the home buying process, working with them to achieve their homeownership goals and to assist them in living their Ideal life.”

Ideal Credit Union offers a full range of mortgage solutions to fit the needs of borrowers, including fixed rate, FHA/VA, adjustable rate, refinancing options and more. Ideal CU also offers the HomeAdvantage® program, an exclusive, free service that can help users search, buy, sell and save on their next home. HomeAdvantage provides the tools and expertise needed to find and finance a home, and offers an attractive a rebate program that enables homebuyers to earn cash back at closing. In 2019, the HomeAdvantage program paid out over ,000 in rebates to hundreds of Ideal CU members. The average rebate per transaction is ,450.

Founded in 1926, Ideal Credit Union is a member owned financial institution that is dedicated to providing financial services driven by a sincere and personal interest in the needs of our employees, members and community. Ideal CU offers a complete range of services, including a full suite of digital banking products, savings, checking, loans, mortgage products, exclusive VIP member payback, business services, investment services and more. Offices are located in Eagan, Hugo, Inver Grove Heights, North St. Paul, Stillwater and Woodbury. Visit idealcu.com for details and directions. Ideal has been voted “Best Credit Union in the East Metro” three years in a row by readers of the Stillwater Gazette and was named a 2018 Star Tribune Top 150 Workplace. Equal Housing Lender.   

Posted in: Finance

Homeopaths and Pharmacists Collaborate to Release First and Only X-energy CBD Water

Silver Springs Water, Inc. facilitated the wellness project that combined the health benefits of CBD and alkaline water for maximum health benefits through homeopathic methodologies.

Alkalized water has a high pH, facilitating negatively charged ionized water at bottling, which introduces antioxidants into the body’s system with a quick absorption rate. While alkalized water has been a homeopathic product for a long time, X-energy CBD Water is the very first alkalized water that also includes CBD.

X-energy CBD Water is the culmination of research and collaboration between Silver Spring Water, Inc., and pharmacists, homeopaths, and hemp experts spanning years. Each bottle contains an average of 10mg of CBD extracted from hemp seed and integrated into X-energy CBD Water through serial dilution and rapid agitation. Hemp is not simply added to water, it is infused into the water through this process.

Pure CBD Hemp, which is a cannabinoid that contains under 0.3% THC, is no longer a controlled substance and does not need approval by the FDA. Although “homeopathic” products are not strictly governed by the FDA, claims of health benefits of CBD are. Health benefits, including inflammation reduction, stress and anxiety relief, seizure reduction, ease digestion and more from CBD are not approved by the FDA and are purely anecdotal. Alkalized water has been found to have anti-aging properties, support the immune system and increase skin health. When combined with CBD, these benefits may be enhanced.

People taking X-energy CBD Water have done so for a wide range of purposes. Their claims of success are based on how it is ingested, and at which quantities and intervals. Direct comments from users recommend drinking the bottle in 2-3 minutes for a quick energy boost. If the goal is “general” body maintenance, one to two bottles a day are recommended. If the goal is significant improvement in overall health, immunity, or to address specific issues, drinking 2-3 bottles each day is recommended to get the necessary negative ion and CBD energy intake to meet accelerating health and wellness goals.

For more information on X-energy CBD Water, call 877-453-6223 or visit www.xenergywater.com.

Robert Quinn, PharmD, FAAO, ABAAHP

Co-Founder, President; Kohana Pharmacy and Center for Regenerative Medicine

181 Tank Farm Road Ste 120

San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

Office (805) 542-0864

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,Fitness,Science

Scott Ryser appointed to Woodsboro Bank’s Board of Directors

Scott is the Founder and CEO and Board Member of Yakabod. Yakabod is a leader in secure software development, founded in 2001 and headquartered in downtown Frederick. Scott has technical knowledge, a head for business and an entrepreneurial spirit. His current focus is on Yakabod’s corporate strategy, culture and operations. His background includes designing, building and managing technology initiatives ranging from small pilot projects to enterprise overhauls.

Scott is passionate about his community and seeing it prosper. He is active in the Frederick tech and business community through various board roles, including TechFrederick, FITCI, New Spire Arts and Crossed Bridges.

Scott holds an MSEE from the Johns Hopkins University and a BSEE from The University of Akron.

“We are thrilled to have Scott on our Board and know he will bring impeccable insight,” said Steve Heine, President and CEO of Woodsboro Bank.

Posted in: Finance,Marketing & Sales

Nomis Solutions Announces Agenda and Keynote Roster for 2020 Banking Growth Forum

On April 29 to May 1, 2020, executives from the world’s top retail banks and emerging fintech companies, along with some of the industry’s leading experts, will convene at the Banking Growth Forum 2020. Nomis Solutions has just announced the line-up of industry luminaries who will challenge banking executives to outperform in 2020.

Over the course of three days at the stylish Langham Hotel in Chicago, attendees and faculty will analyze the trends shaping the financial services sector and learn how to apply the latest data-driven techniques to better understand and predict their customers’ needs.

“The retail financial services industry is experiencing an unprecedented level of disruption,” said Frank Rohde, president and CEO of Nomis Solutions. “To chart a course through these shifts, we’ve assembled some of the industry’s brightest minds to lead conversations on how to drive sustainable, customer-centric growth in a dynamic market.”

Data-driven customers require data-driven banks

For more than a decade, financial services professionals have attended Banking Growth Forum for actionable advice on growing their portfolios through advanced analytics. This annual event has welcomed bankers, lenders and influential industry experts from around the world as both attendees and presenters, making it one of the most valuable opportunities for networking with industry peers while learning the latest techniques in data-driven pricing from experts that include include:

• Steven Levitt – economist and co-author of the best-selling book Freakonomics and its sequels. The Wall Street Journal famously said, “If Indiana Jones were an economist, he’d be Steven Levitt.”
• Bob Phillips – founder of Nomis Solutions and director of pricing research at Amazon.
• For the latest speaker line-up, visit the event website.

Make the move from average to agile

BGF2020 will equip attendees to outperform in spite of today’s restrictive environment by exploring topics that include:

 

• Beyond optimization – Once your price is set, now what? How can you more holistically evaluate pricing to ensure you are taking advantage of all available levers to optimize your results.
• Identifying the growth pockets – Steps you need to take to become more customer centric and ultimately recession proof.
• The new normal of lending – Find opportunity for on-going value creation in today’s hyper-competitive lending market.
• Owning your deposits growth in 2020 – How to negotiate tradeoffs between balance growth or maintenance, net interest margin, and the interactions between financial products in a falling rate environment.
• Harnessing greater insights to find your edge – How leveraging precise and timely insights into deposit/lending demand, competition, and price elasticity allows you to reduce interest expense while maximizing balance acquisition and retention.
• It’s time to re-examine our business models – Hint: it’s not always about rates!
• Impact of regulatory reform – How will recent regulatory changes shape the home financing landscape?
• Next-generation pricing analytics – Learn how to apply advanced analytics to determine optimum in-market pricing that best positions your products.

To learn more about the 2020 Banking Growth Forum and register to attend, visit the event website.

About Nomis Solutions
Nomis is a fast-growing fintech and price optimization pioneer that is enabling the world’s smartest financial institutions to drive sustained, profitable growth through end-to-end customer-centric pricing capabilities. We do so through our market-leading, cloud-native Nomis Platform™ and team of experts, bringing together cutting-edge big data, machine learning, AI and mission-critical software with deep expertise in consumer behavior, pricing and the financial services industry. The Nomis Platform manages over .5 trillion in transaction volume, quotes a price every 60 milliseconds, empowers 14,000+ bankers, and generates nearly 0 million in value annually. To learn more, visit nomissolutions.com.

Posted in: Business,Finance

The Edge Makes Acquisition While the Catalyst Space is Alpha in 2020

Value investing is dead and The Edge Group is predicting the Catalyst Space as the new trend for 2020.

The Edge Group LLC, the global leader in Catalyst, Special Situations and Spinoff research, has acquired substantially all of the assets of WhiteSand Research LLC.

As a timely ideas factory, The Edge Group works with renowned activists worldwide and has a strong track record calling shorts like UBER in 2019, which had a -34% decline. The prediction of AT&T's break-up also came from The Edge in March 2019, and subsequently Elliott Management became active in October gaining a +40% return. These calls can be found on CEO Jim Osman's Forbes page.

Jonathan Duskin, CEO & Partner of Macellum Capital, spoke about his firm's activist intervention in Bed Bath & Beyond during The Edge's ideas conference, and it has surged +38% since November.

The acquisition of substantially all of WhiteSand's assets offers money managers even greater access to unique market intelligence in the niche Catalyst, Special Situations and Spinoff space. Activists benefit from The Edge’s independent perspective and have the opportunity to seize and trade global catalysts, special situations and Spinoffs.

In addition to WhiteSand, The Edge has brought on board Paul McCann as Head of Partner Relations, who said on joining the team, "I'm all about finding opportunities for my clients. The Edge has the expertise and knowledge I was looking for to help my clients win. Finding timely opportunities is the key and now I'm able to increase these by looking at both Spinoffs and Special Situations." Further details on partnering with The Edge can be found by contacting Paul directly at pm@edgecgroup.com or +1-630-808-8649.

By keeping costs low for funds, The Edge helps money managers by offering a proprietary model which consistently outperforms indices.

Jim Osman (CEO and founder of The Edge Group) said, “Value investing is dead. Catalyst investing isn’t. It’s part of the market which uses intelligence and skill beyond automation. No companies offer clients the expertise we can, and our timely unique ideas produce real returns.

“Acquiring substantially all of WhiteSand's assets was important because it grows our business as well as giving a whole new pool of investors access to ideas they can make profit from. As master stock-picker Peter Lynch said, ‘If you only invest in an index, you’ll never beat it.’ The catalyst space is sure to provide alpha in 2020.”

Posted in: Finance,Shopping & Deal

Chattanooga-based Reliance Partners Appoints Wiser Chief Marketing Officer, Continues Rapid Growth With Office Expansion in Tampa, Florida

Reliance Partners (Reliance), a leading provider of commercial insurance products and services for transportation and logistics clients, appoints Brenda Wiser to the position of Chief Marketing Officer and announces expansion into Tampa, Florida, to accommodate rapid growth while leveraging the area’s strong industry presence.

Wiser is an accomplished insurance professional maintaining both her TRS (Transportation Risk Specialist) and CIC (Certified Insurance Counselor) designations. She also serves on the board of the Motor Carrier Insurance Education Foundation (MCIEF) and speaks regularly around the country educating industry associates on motor carrier insurance coverage and programs.

“Brenda adds 30 years of transportation insurance insights to the team,” says Reliance COO Laura Ann Howell. “We’re thrilled to have her on the team and excited to draw inspiration from her expertise to improve our processes and refine our client experience along the way.”

Reliance’s new location marks the company’s eighth branch office to be located at 2202 N Westshore Blvd, Suite 200, Tampa, FL 33607. The office will join existing locations in Austin, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Birmingham, Alabama; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Victoria, Texas, Sacramento, California, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Teo Cardenas, previously charged with leading the agency’s first Florida office, in 2018, will remain at the helm in Tampa.

Reliance strategically selected the new location to accommodate an increase in market demands due to factors like the expansion of the Panama Canal, trade agreements with Cuba and other emerging Caribbean and South American economies, and I-4 emphasis as a freight corridor.

“The I-4 corridor has the 10th largest economy in the U.S. with a GDP of more than 0 billion,” says Reliance President Chad Eichelberger. “And with truck freight volumes in the Tampa Bay area projected to increase by as much as 65% by 2040, we’re poised to provide solutions for safeguarding the supply chain networks, like this one, that drive the American economy forward.”

ABOUT RELIANCE PARTNERS
Chattanooga-based Reliance Partners is America’s fastest-growing, privately-held insurance agency focused on the transportation and logistics space. Through the company’s commitment to service excellence and continuous process innovation, Reliance shields thousands of customers against costly risk and accelerates sustainable business growth.

Reliance has been awarded Best Workplace by Inc. magazine every year since 2016, voted 8th Best Workplace in America by Fortune magazine, named one of the most innovative and disruptive companies in freight by Freight.Tech100, and ranked Top 10 private companies in the U.S. for fastest growth according to Inc.com.

Reliance is hiring! To join an award-winning team, please visit our careers page.

For more information, please visit http://www.reliancepartners.com

Posted in: Finance,Personal Finance

blumshapiro Announces Heather B. Bearfield Appointed Partner in Advisory Services Group

blumshapiro, the largest accounting, tax and business advisory firm based in New England with offices in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, announced today that Heather B. Bearfield has joined blum’s Advisory Services Group as a partner. She will be based out of blum’s Boston, Massachusetts office beginning December 2019.

Bearfield has more than 15 years of experience in leadership roles managing risk and building information security management programs. Heather has extensive experience in IT Risk Management Consulting, Information Security Governance, Corporate IT Audit and Corporate Operational Risk functions. In her new role, she will serve as a blum Partner for Cyber and IT Risk Services. She will be responsible for managing risk and building information security management programs for blum clients.

“We are pleased to have Heather join our Advisory Services team. Heather brings a strategic, results-driven skillset and a proven track record in helping businesses enhance their risk capabilities. She has been extremely successful in building best practice IT governance, risk and cybersecurity control management tools and processes and is fully committed to blum’s focus on enhancing client value,” said Joseph Kask, chief executive officer of blumshapiro.

“Joining blumshapiro is a wonderful opportunity for me to bring my extensive cyber and IT risk management skills to a firm focused on expanding its advisory services throughout the Northeast and beyond. I look forward to working with forward-thinking, experienced professionals focused on providing clients with world-class expertise in the ever-growing area of global security and intelligence,” said Bearfield.

Prior to joining blumshapiro, Bearfield served as Principal of Cyber and IT Risk Services, National Service Line Leader at Marcum LLP based in Boston. Bearfield has a record of performance, reliability and success at identifying process and control weaknesses, analyzing complex systems and working with clients to streamline operations. A sought-after speaker for many industry events, Bearfield led global and nationwide IT assessments in numerous vertical markets inclusive of manufacturing, banks, financial services, colocation hosting facilities and application service providers. She previously led a security practice involving the execution of Internal/External Vulnerability Assessments, Penetration Testing, Wireless Assessments and Social Engineering.

Bearfield’s professional affiliations include membership in the Information Systems Auditing and Control Association, the Institute of Internal Auditors, Cambridge’s Who’s Who, the Boston Chamber of Commerce Women’s Advisory Board and Nichols’ College Board.

Bearfield is also a national leader in diversity and inclusion programs and has helped develop the Women’s Initiative and Diversity Awareness, among others.

Bearfield received her Masters of Business Administration in 2001 from the University of Vermont (UVM) School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 2000 from UVM.

She is resides in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

blumshapiro is the largest regional business advisory firm based in New England, with offices in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The firm, with a team of over 500, offers a diversity of services which include auditing, accounting, tax and business advisory services. blum serves a wide range of privately held companies, government and nonprofit organizations and provides non-audit services for publicly traded companies. To learn more visit us at blumshapiro.com.

Posted in: Finance,Personal Finance

Safe Harbor CPAs Announces New Post on Tax Preparation for San Francisco, California Residents for 2020

Safe Harbor CPAs, ranked one of the best CPA firms for the Bay Area community, is proud to announce a new timely post as the firm gears up for tax season 2020. Local businesses and individuals might feel sideswiped by new changes surrounding the State and Local Tax Deductions, or SALT. Revised caps on local deductions can derail plans for a smooth filing for 2020. Business owners and individuals can benefit from the expertise of a CPA well-versed in current tax law.

"In the tax world, things change all the time. Right now, we see several updates in the tax code affecting our clients," explained Chun Wong, Managing Partner at Safe Harbor CPAs. "Many businesses and individuals are still not fully aware of how the deductions around state and local taxes or SALT have impacted California residents. We are here to help the Bay Area sort through the current changes and focus on what they can write-off now to stay in the black."

The Bay Area community can review the new informational page by Safe Harbor LLP at http://www.safeharborcpa.com/you-cant-do-anything-about-sales-tax-but-you-can-about-income-tax-in-california/. Recent federal tax changes, including a cap on SALT tax deductions might mean large tax payments for Californians. Smart tax preparation by professionals in San Francisco could help. A team of skilled accountants knowledgeable in tax law can review itemized deductions to help meet the proper limits for a legally-sound tax return. The CPA's support both small business and corporate tax preparation as well as; S-Corps, C-Corp's, LLC's, and Sole Proprietors can all turn o the CPA firm for tax and financial advice. For example, interested persons can read the newly update page for individual tax return preparation at http://www.safeharborcpa.com/individual-income-tax/.

NEW ‘SALT’ LAWS CHALLENGE TAX PREPARATION FOR SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENTS

Here is the background on this release. San Francisco locals might dread the upcoming 2020 tax preparation season. Accountants are primed to help the community with stifling new laws designed to pull back deductions. Newly enacted tax rules could destroy a well-crafted filing plan and put a business or individual in the red. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 limits itemized deductions for both state and local taxes. The timing runs from 2018 through 2025. Californians might already deal with the burden of increased costs, including gas, raised toll fees, and sales taxes. Individuals and businesses could struggle to remain solvent after losing specific itemized deductions on top of the added state costs.

For these reasons, Safe Harbor CPAs has announced a new informational post just as the firm gears up for a busy tax season 2020.

ABOUT SAFE HARBOR LLP – A PROFESSIONAL CPA FIRM IN SAN FRANCISCO

Safe Harbor LLP is a CPA firm that specializes in accounting and tax services for individuals and businesses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and greater California. Safe Harbor CPAs help both individuals and businesses with tax preparation, IRS audit defense, and audited financial statements. The firm prides itself on friendly yet professional service and utilizes state-of-the-art Internet technology to provide quality customer service.

Safe Harbor CPA
http://www.safeharborcpa.com
Tel. 415.742.4249

Posted in: Business,Finance,Personal Finance

Nebraska School Receives ,500 School Lounge Makeover From California Casualty

The staff at Palmer Public School in Nebraska will now have a quiet place to relax and recharge during the school day, thanks to a ,500 School Lounge Makeover® from California Casualty. The new lounge was unveiled Tuesday.

“We are very appreciative to California Casualty for providing this for us,” said Palmer Schools’ Superintendent, Dr. Joel Bohlken. “This will make a big difference because we really didn’t have a place for our staff to go for a moment to unwind and relax before heading back to the classroom,” he added.

Palmer English teacher and school librarian, Mary Gregoski, submitted the winning entry for the makeover. “This means we will now have a place of our own to get a short break before we return to the teaching environment. We are just so grateful that California Casualty thinks about educators,” she said.

The new staff lounge at Palmer School features a TV, two massage chairs, soothing “bubble water wall art,” coffee station, new tables, a refrigerator, and colorful paint and accessories. EON Office designers maximized the area for comfort.

The ,500 School Lounge Makeover giveaway was created to provide educators a more conducive environment to take a break, share time, and revitalize during their long days at school. This is the 13th School Lounge Makeover provided by California Casualty since the program began in 2011.

“We’ve seen the dedication of administrators, teachers and staff firsthand and we’re proud to show our appreciation,” added California Casualty Sr. Vice President, Mike McCormick.

California Casualty has other giving programs that benefit public schools and educators, including:

• “Keep On Course” safe driving campaign where educators who take a pledge to avoid distracted driving can register to win a new Jeep Compass, http://www.WinAJeepCompass.com/NEA.
• ,500 Academic Award, providing money for educational materials and projects, http://www.EducatorsAcademicAward.com/NEA
• Thomas R. Brown Athletics Grants, providing ,000 to ,000 to middle school and high school sports and athletic programs in need, http://www.calcasathleticsgrant.com
• California Casualty Award for Teaching Excellence, in conjunction with the NEA Foundation, honoring exceptional instructors across the nation, http://www.neafoundation.org/for-educators/awards-for-teaching-excellence/california-casualty-awardees/
• 0 New Teacher Shopping Spree, http://www.WinWithCalCas.com
• 0 Music and Arts Grants, http://www.calcasmusicartsgrant.com
• 0 Help Your Classroom Grants to provide for classroom materials that benefit students, http://www.calcas.com/Help-Your-Classroom

 

Learn more about California Casualty and its giving programs at http://www.calcas.com/newsroom.

Founded in 1914, California Casualty provides auto and home insurance to educators, law enforcement officers, firefighters and nurses across the country. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, with service centers in Arizona, Colorado and Kansas, California Casualty has been led by four generations of the Brown family. More information about California Casualty can be found at http://www.calcas.com.

Posted in: Finance,Personal Finance

Safe Harbor CPAs, San Francisco Accountants Managing High Income Tax Preparation Services for Individuals, Announces Alert on SALT

Safe Harbor LLP, San Francisco's leading accounting firm for high income Bay Area taxpayers at http://www.safeharborcpa.com/, is proud to announce an alert to the public regarding preparations for the upcoming tax season. New state and local tax (SALT) guidelines could affect deductions an individual expects to write off on a federal tax return. A district court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by four states' against the federal government, ruling that the ,000 state and local taxes federal deduction cap is not unconstitutionally coercive.

"Throughout the year, wealthy Bay Area residents plan what to deduct on their tax returns and spend with that idea in mind. Due to new tax reform legislation, the rules have changed," explained Chun Wong, Managing Partner at Safe Harbor LLP. "Some states may be fighting the new rules in court, but right now, we have to plan for how things are at the moment. The community must understand this. We are ready to help and make sure they get the best returns possible based on this year's tax guidelines."

Bay Area residents and business owners can review the new alert on Safe Harbor's page at http://www.safeharborcpa.com/san-francisco-tax-preparation-cpa-salt-cap-not-unconstitutionally-coercive/. The San Francisco CPA firm focused on tax preparation services for affluent individuals posted an informational piece about the new state and local taxes (SALT) cap guidelines. Sweeping tax reform legislation in 2017 passed a ,000 cap on deductions for state and federal income tax. A current district court dismissed a lawsuit to challenge the SALT cap. The ruling can affect high-income residents this tax season. Bay Area locals can learn more about individual tax return preparation at http://www.safeharborcpa.com/individual-income-tax/. In all cases the best course of action is to reach out to a trained accountant in San Francisco for a one-on-one tax consultation; no two individuals are alike and only a detailed, evidence-based consultation can be the foundation of a tax strategy in light of SALT restrictions.

SAN FRANCISCO’S TOP CPA’S RELEASE CAP ALERT PRIOR TO YEAR-END TAX PREPARATION SERVICES FOR INDIVIDUALS

Here is the background on this release. The current presidential administration has not wasted time on implementing tax reform legislation. The goal to rein in deductions has impacted wealthy individuals throughout the United States. Current state and local taxes (SALT) cap guidelines could negatively affect San Francisco residents. Bay Area CPA's managing tax preparation services for individuals of high net worth are sharing the information before the end of the current tax season.

For these reasons, Safe Harbor is announcing an alert for the Bay Area. The San Francisco CPA team is ready to implement strategies in 2019 to help manage tax preparation services for individuals in a higher income bracket. A plan to stay within deduction boundaries can help Bay Area residents avoid triggering a tax audit.

ABOUT SAFE HARBOR LLP – A PROFESSIONAL CPA FIRM IN SAN FRANCISCO

Safe Harbor LLP is a CPA firm that specializes in accounting and tax services for individuals and businesses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and greater California. Safe Harbor CPAs help both individuals and businesses with tax preparation, IRS audit defense, and audited financial statements. The firm prides itself on friendly yet professional service and utilizes state-of-the-art Internet technology to provide quality customer service.

Safe Harbor CPA
http://www.safeharborcpa.com

Posted in: Finance

Department of Justice Filing Motion Allowing Uncollected Taxes in Healthcare Industry to Continue

Posted in: Finance,Government & Politics,Health & Medicine,Services,U.S

SmartBuyGlasses Offers Huge Discounts for Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2019

Only a few days left before the biggest sale of the year and SmartBuyGlasses is offering huge discounts on designer eyewear this Black Friday! Save up to 70% on selected frames and get a 12% sitewide discount on all eyewear products. The offer continues all weekend into Cyber Monday with additional discounts during the following week, such as 50% off on blue light blocking lenses and 50% off on mirrored lenses, to name a few. 

So save the date from the 29th of November until December 6th to find fantastic deals on more than 200 designer brands like Ray-Ban, Oakley, Versace, LMNT, Tom Ford, Gucci, and many more.  

SmartBuyGlasses Black Friday and Cyber Week sale includes these amazing discounts:

• Up to 70% off on selected designer eyewear.
•  Save more with 12% off sitewide on all eyewear products (contact lenses not included) with the code: BF12OFFC
• Get 40% off on your prescription lenses with the code: BF40OFFC
• 50% off on Blue Block Lenses, Polarized Lenses and Mirrored Lenses with the following codes: BLUEBLOCK50C, POLARIZED50C and MIRRORED50C
• 20% 0ff on Arise HD Summit Prescription Lenses with the code: ARISEHD20C
• Get 20% off on progressive lenses with the code: PROGRESSIVE20C
• 10% off on all our ski goggles with the code: SKIGOGGLES10C

Get the best deals on designer eyewear products at SmartBuyGlasses this Black Friday and Cyber Monday!

Don’t waste time standing in line. SmartBuyGlasses takes your online shopping experience to another level with the latest eyewear technology : 

• With the 3D Virtual Try-On, you can try on your eyewear before buying it.  
• Not sure what your prescription is? No problem! SmartBuyGlasses’ cutting edge Lens Scanner App allows users who already have prescription eyeglasses to extract their prescription directly from their phone, anywhere and anytime. 

Whether you are buying the perfect Christmas gift, or simply treating yourself to some stylish new frames for the new year, with SmartBuyGlasses’ Black Friday and Cyber Week Deals, you are sure to find the perfect pair for you! 

 

About SmartBuyGlasses

SmartBuyGlasses Optical Group is the world’s leading designer glasses e-commerce company. With operations across Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Americas, our portfolio of domain properties are market leaders in over 20 countries, including SmartBuyGlasses.com in the US and VisionDirect.com.au in Australia.

Posted in: Fashion & Beauty,Finance,Lifestyle,Shopping & Deal,U.S

Total Server Solutions Completes .5M Capital Raise

The New Financing is comprised of a .5 Million debt capital facility from Crestline Investors and an additional Million equity capital from Layer 7 Capital, proceeds of which will be used to refinance the current J.P Morgan Chase credit facility and provide growth capital for the company's next stage of growth.

Atlanta, GA. November 12, 2019. Total Server Solutions (“TSS” or the “Company”) today announced the closing of a .5 million credit facility provided by Crestline Investors, a Ft. Worth-based specialty finance lender, and a million Series B equity facility from Layer 7 Capital LLC (“Layer 7”), a boutique merchant bank based in White Plains, NY focused on the cloud computing sector. Combined with Layer 7’s initial Series A investment, Layer 7 has now invested million of equity capital into the Company. Since the closing of the Series A financing in December 2017, the Company has successfully acquired and integrated operations of Zero Lag, a managed e-commerce specialist based in Los Angeles, CA, and NationalNet, a managed hosting service provider based in Atlanta, GA. The proceeds from the financing's will be used to refinance the Company’s existing credit facility from J.P. Morgan Chase and to provide expansion capital for the Company’s future growth. Layer 7 Capital acted as the Company’s exclusive placement agent for the debt capital raise and DLA Piper provided the company with legal representation.

“We have covered a lot of ground with acquiring and integrating two great companies since Layer 7’s initial investment, more than doubling our geographic footprint, tripling the talent on the team, and completing our base platform layer which provides capacity and automation for rapid growth around the globe,” said Gary Simat, CEO of Total Server Solutions. “We will continue executing on our focus on helping mid-market companies with their digital transformation initiatives in ways that best fit their goals, be it over our global cloud and bare metal platform, which resides directly on internet exchange points within major markets, commodity cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, and GCP, or emerging edge solutions partners.”

“We are very pleased to be working alongside TSS at this major milestone for the Company,” said Steve Lee, Managing Director of Layer 7 Capital. “We believe that TSS is well-positioned in its evolution as a hybrid edge computing solutions provider and we look forward to continuing our exciting journey together.”

“We are excited to work with the TSS team to provide capital to assist them in further developing their leading cloud solutions,” said Will Palmer, Managing Director at Crestline Investors. "Data infrastructure is a key area of specialization for Crestline, and we are excited to use this knowledge to help support TSS’ continued growth."

About Total Server Solutions
Total Server Solutions (https://www.totalserversolutions.com/) is a premier hybrid cloud and edge solutions company with nodes in 25 major metros in North America, Europe and Asia. TSS helps midmarket businesses manage, secure, and back-up mission-critical applications.

TSS specializes in providing highly managed and network optimized IaaS in a hybrid environment. The company takes a consultative approach to design and provision a combination of hosted private cloud, bare metal, and third party commodity cloud infrastructure.

TSS’ self-managed network connecting all of its 25 nodes allows its customers to follow where their customers consume their services. All of the Company’s compute nodes are located directly within global interconnect hubs owned and managed by Tier 1 data center operators such as Equinix and Digital Realty, who offer direct cross-connect to hyperscale cloud providers such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. Given the geographic positioning and performance transit network, TSS can provide superior application performance with the lowest latency possible for its clients’ workloads. Applications and workloads can be positioned quickly and easily using a single vendor, pricing, and orchestration stack.

TSS specializes in providing application management for eCommerce, with approximately a third of its business coming from managing eCommerce platforms such as Magento, X-Cart and Pinnacle Cart. TSS also offers a geo-optimized edge WordPress Platform-as-a-Service for more demanding enterprise clients who grow out of a simple hosted CMS service that focus on ease of use over performance and connectivity. As a Global Strategic Level partner for Veeam,

TSS provides enterprise-grade back-up solutions for on-prem, hosted and cloud-based (Sharepoint & Office365) data.

About Layer 7 Capital
Layer 7 Capital (https://www.layer7capital.com/) is a boutique merchant bank focused on providing advisory services to companies within the Software-as-a-Service (B2B, B2C), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Data Centers, Hosting, Cloud), Managed Services (Managed Applications, Managed Infrastructure, Managed Network Services, Managed Security, Outsourced IT), Internet-of-Things and Artificial Intelligence / Robotics verticals. Layer 7's advisory services include buyside and sellside M&A, strategic planning, valuation analysis and debt capital placement for sector companies and their current and potential investors. Through its affiliate Layer 7 Management LLC, Layer 7 also makes select investments in its focused sectors.

About Crestline Investors, Inc.
Crestline Investors, Inc., founded in 1997 and based in Fort Worth, Texas, is an institutional alternative investment management firm. Crestline specializes in credit and opportunistic investments, including financing and restructuring solutions for mature private equity funds. In addition, the firm manages a multi-PM equity market-neutral hedge fund and provides beta and hedging solutions for institutional clients. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, the company maintains affiliate offices in New York City, Chicago, London, Toronto and Tokyo.
For more information, please visit https://www.crestlineinvestors.com.

Posted in: Finance,Services

Beachside Gardens Convenience Suites Boutique Hotel Changes Hands

Deerfield Beach, FL- October 30 – Rick Tobin of Premier Hotel Realty announced today that Beachside Gardens Convenience Suites, a 12-unit hotel, was sold Friday, October 25^th, to a buyer from New York, for just over $ 2 million.  Beachside Gardens Convenience Suites is located one block from the beautiful Atlantic Ocean and is a favorite of seasonal travelers because of its proximity to the beach, and to Deerfield Beach’s popular downtown shops and restaurants. 

 

The seller enlisted the help of Premier Hotel Realty to present the property to qualified buyers who would appreciate the increasing values and economic stability in this seaside community. 

 

Rick Tobin, Broker for Premier Hotel Realty and a Director of the Greater Pompano Beach and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Chambers of Commerce said, “Lately, there’s tremendous interest from international buyers looking for a local beach-area real estate.  Investors from around the world are noticing the long term value of our area.  This is one of the many recent hotel sales that I’ve been involved in.  I'm honored to be playing a part in bringing new owners to the area and only wish I had more properties for eager buyers."

 

About Premier Hotel Realty

 

Premier Hotel Realty, led by Broker, Rick Tobin, is based in Pompano Beach, Florida and globally markets a wide variety of commercial properties.  Premier advises on hotel and other commercial transactions in South Florida's beach communities.  Tobin also markets local apartment buildings, industrial properties and other types of commercial real estate, often marketing to investors from around the world, most recently including Canada, Sweden, the Ukraine, Denmark, Israel and various countries in South America.

For more information contact Premier at info@PremierHotelRealty.com or call 954-543-5411. 

Posted in: Finance,Real Estate,U.S,World

Solariant Capital Closes Financing on a 50 MW Biomass Power Plant Project in Ibaraki, Japan

On September 30, 2019, Solariant Capital, along with its equity partners, Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc., Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Co., Ltd., and Bio Fuel Co., Inc., have closed financing on a 50 MW biomass power generation project, developed by Solariant Capital, in Kamisu City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

The biomass plant project will be constructed, operated and managed through Kamisu Biomass Power Generation LLC, a joint venture project company among the four partners with a senior project debt arranged by Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Ltd. and mezzanine debt through Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Co., Ltd. The 50 MWp plant will be utilizing biomass fuel, primarily palm kernel shell (by product of palm oil) and wood pellets to produce approximately 350 GWh’s of electricity annually, which is equivalent to an amount consumed by 110,000 households in Japan. The fuel for the biomass plant will be provided based on long-term supply contracts with 4 Japanese trading houses. The plant will also utilize wood pellets produced by Lumino Biomass Fuel, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Solariant Capital LLC.

The EPC general contractor is a joint venture entity between Hitachi Zosen and Okumuragumi with the CFB boiler and the generator from General Electric Co and Toshiba Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems Corp, respectively. The O&M contractor is JERA, one of the largest independent power producers in Asia. The construction of the plant will begin at the end of 2020 and is scheduled to start operation in July 2023. The energy generated by the power plant will be sold to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) at a fixed rate of 24 yen plus value added taxes per kWh for 20 years under the current feed-in tariff program (renewable energy subsidy program). Japan enacted its current renewable energy subsidy program in July of 2012.

About Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc. Chubu Electric Power is a Japanese utility company established in 1951 and headquartered in Nagoya, Japan. It is one of the top three electric utility companies in Japan in terms of power generation capacity, electric energy sold, with a total assets of over 5.4 trillion JPY as of March 2019.

About Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Co., Ltd. Founded in 1971, Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance leverages its flexibility as a nonbank and its knowledge of various products to address a diverse range of customer needs by expanding upon the functions we offer, from lease finance, corporate finance, service provision, business participation, to business operation.

About Bio Fuel Co., Inc. Founded in 2005, Bio Fuel is a Tokyo based company that handles planning, design, and construction of fuel production facilities as well as the development of renewable energy resources and consulting on natural energy.

About Solariant Capital LLC/Co., Ltd. Solariant Capital is a utility scale renewable energy project development and finance company, focusing on solar and biomass projects in Asia and North America with its offices in Pasadena, California, Tokyo, Japan, Manila, Philippines, Seoul, Korea, and Hanoi, Vietnam. Solariant Capital and its wholly owned subsidiary Lumino Capital are currently developing a number of solar and biomass projects in Japan, Philippines and the U.S., as well as energy wood plantations and biomass pellet plants in S.E. Asia.

For further information, contact:    

Daniel Kim, CFA        
Managing Director
Solariant Capital, LLC
+1 213-364-1414
+81-80-3986-6554
Pasadena, CA / Tokyo, Japan
dkim@solariant.com

Posted in: Business,Finance

Contract Logix Announces Powerful New Contract Data Management, Tracking, and Analytics Functionality

Contract Logix, a leading provider of intelligent contract management software, today announced the addition of new data management and intelligence functionality to its Premium™ and Express™ platform. The new capabilities enhance an already robust data management suite by giving customers the flexibility to truly customize how they capture, track, display, and manage contract data to match their business and individual needs.

Highlights of the new release include:

• Enhancements to the configuration tool to allow users to completely adapt and customize records such as contracts, contacts, etc. to align with their organization’s use cases and business requirements
• New contract line item creation and tracking capability for buy-side and sell-side contracts
• Extended the integration of industry-leading electronic signature provider DocuSign to the Premium and Express platform

 

Contracts contain a wealth of extremely valuable and insightful data such as dates, terms, organizations, contacts, and related documents. With its latest release, Contract Logix has revolutionized the ability to leverage this data by providing full adaptability and control over how all contract-related information is visualized, curated, and reported through easy-to-use drag and drop fields that can be tailored to any contract management use case or departmental need. This new and innovative functionality is simple and intuitive for customers to configure without the need for complex and costly implementation services.

“We believe that data is our customers’ most valuable contract management asset,” said Tim Donaghy, CTO of Contract Logix. “Therefore, it’s critical that our technology lets customers quickly and easily transform that data into actionable and valuable business insights they can use to improve processes, uncover opportunities, and mitigate hidden contract risks. The new functionality we’ve just launched further strengthens our unique position to deliver on those promises.”

In addition, the recent enhancements provide the ability to easily create and track contract line items for buy-side and sell-side agreements. The new feature gives customers tremendous visibility into their contracts and streamlines the entire contract line item tracking process. Contract Logix users can simply add custom data fields within the platform that allow them to capture and monitor the details of exactly what they are buying, selling, or specifying in their contracts such as products, services, providers, payers, approved contractors, payment terms, delivery schedules, insurance requirements, etc.

Contract Logix has also announced that it has extended the integration of industry-leading electronic signature provider DocuSign to its Express and Premium platform. In today’s digital age, the use of electronic signatures to execute agreements is a critical component to improving the security, mobility, and overall user experience of any contract management process. Electronic signature technology helps organizations reduce risk by capturing an electronic signature verification and legally binding audit trail.

About Contract Logix
Contract Logix is a longtime leader, innovator, and provider of intelligent contract lifecycle management software. The company’s software empowers legal, administration, IT, procurement, finance, and sales professionals across dozens of industries to draft, negotiate, approve, execute, and manage their contracts. Hundreds of brands have partnered with Contract Logix to automate their contracting processes while minimizing risk, increasing compliance, and driving profitability. For more information about Contract Logix, visit https://www.contractlogix.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

Posted in: Finance,Law & Legal

Counsel Financial Continues Longtime Sponsorship of Mass Torts Made Perfect

Counsel Financial announced today that it will continue its long-standing commitment as the headline sponsor “Business of Law” program at the Mass Torts Made Perfect™ seminar (MTMP) in Las Vegas. The featured program will jumpstart the fall seminar which includes three days of continuing education, cutting edge information on the latest litigations and networking with the nation’s preeminent attorneys. More than 1,000 plaintiffs’ attorneys from over 500 of the top firms in the country will be in attendance.

The conference is focused on mass tort litigation and those attorneys looking to enter the practice area or expand their existing case portfolio. MTMP brings in a wide variety of prominent speakers to impart insight and knowledge on emerging litigations, much of which is specific to contingent-fee practice. Adding to and diversifying your caseload, lien resolution, financing, marketing and lead procurement are just some of the topics covered. Networking is also a strong focus, with the opportunity to convene with trial lawyers from across the nation, as well as highly regarded vendors and service providers.

Director of Counsel Financial, Joseph DiNardo, Esq., will speak on Tuesday, October 22 at 10am on financing solutions for the challenges of a contingency practice. The presentation will specifically discuss how proper case financing leads to a demonstrated increase in successful resolution for contingency fee clients and their law firms. The pros and cons associated with forming joint ventures, acquiring cases and refinancing when necessary will be discussed in-depth. Of the opportunity, Mr. DiNardo commented, “I’m honored to again be invited to speak at this premier event. There are so many resources available to mass tort attorneys. Having a secure and reliable financing source that truly understands your practice, is no longer an option, but a necessary component of success in this fast-paced arena of litigation where the environment is constantly evolving.”

Counsel Financial provides innovative financing solutions specific to the needs of plaintiffs’ attorneys, including those looking to add a mass tort component to their portfolio or firms who are heavily involved in mass tort litigation. With enhanced flexibility and better terms, it can now meet any law firm need with financing options from 0,000 to million+. The attorneys and professionals on staff work with each individual law firm client to ensure provide financing that is custom tailored to each specific situation and the challenges that a firm is facing.

About Counsel Financial
Counsel Financial is the largest provider of working capital lines of credit to plaintiffs’ attorneys in the industry, having loaned over .5 billion exclusively to plaintiffs’ since inception. Counsel Financial sets the standard for innovation and flexibility in its loan offerings, structuring terms that are conducive to the unique demands of contingency-fee practices. Leveraging 200+ years of internal legal experience, Counsel Financial has financed the growth of firms in every area of plaintiffs’ litigation, including personal injury, mass torts, class action and labor and employment. The company is exclusively endorsed by multiple national and state trial organizations, including the American Association for Justice and The National Trial Lawyers.

Posted in: Finance,Law & Legal

China Chang Ming Mining Signs with Star Global Group to Expand Global Business

(Ankang, China) On August 26, 2019, Chang Ming Mining hosted the signing ceremony between Ankang hanbin district Chang Ming mineral products Co., Ltd. and Star Global Group.  Around 300 representatives attended the ceremony including Shaofeng Wang, Chief Engineer of the Ankang Development and Reform Commission, Huachu Tang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Biying Ecological Holding Group, Jing, Li CEO of Starr Global Group (SGG), Jeff Zhou, MD of investment banking, Jinjun Lu,President of Ankang Henan Chamber of Commerce. Tianzhi Huang, Hanbin District President of the Wenzhou Chamber of Commerce. Zhongming Ding

Chairman of Chang Ming Mineral Products Co., Ltd., Zhuobin Ren, Chairman of Chang Ming Industrial Management Holding Group of the United States, Haiyang Zhang, president of the company’s US listing operation in charge of Chang Ming’s US listing.

Zhongming Ding, Chairman of Chang Ming Mineral Products Co.Ltd.delivered a welcome speech and introduced the market prospects and business philosophy of Chang Ming Mining to guests at the ceremony. He also explained his outlook on the direction and goals of Chang Ming Mining after entering the US capital market.

Jinjun Lu, President of Ankang Henan Chamber of Commerce, congratulated the successful partnership of the two global companies.

Haiyang Zhang, President of Shaanxi Chang Ming Mining’s US listing service gave a speech on Ankang District Chang Ming Mining Products Co., Ltd.’s US OTC market listing and future development plans.

Jing, Li, CEO of Star Global Group, shared her good experience on Chang Ming Mining's field trip and vision on their cooperation. She also expressed her confidence in their partnership.

Mr. Zhongming Ding, Chairman of Ankang Chang Ming Mining and Ms. Li Jing of SGG signed the strategic partnership agreement. The audience gave a lot of applause to the signing parties.

Mr. Huachu Tang, chairman of the board of directors of Biying Ecological Holding Group, congratulated Chang Ming Mining on its successful signing and shared his vision and analysis on the prospects of mineral resources.

Chang Ming Mineral Products Co., Ltd. was established in Ankang hanbin district, Shannxi Province in October 2010.  It is a privately-owned company with shareholder structures. It is a key commercial investment enterprise assigned by Ankang city government to allow private owners to buy and operate local mines. The company mainly operates mineral processing, sales and vanadium mining businesses, with a registered capital of 390 million RMB.  Chang Ming Mining obtained the mining right through a public bidding and registration process.

It legally completed registration, photographing, water and successfully completed the government registration by the Development and Reform

Commission. The environmental assessment, water protection, forestry, and safety supervision departments all gave Chang Ming construction approvals.  Chang Ming is now in the mining construction and exploring period. The mining area is about 2.06 square kilometers and the average amount of vanadium can reach 0.815 %. The company's total reservation report shows the ore reserves are 60.94 million tons with a value of approximately 9.14 billion RMB, and the value of vanadium pentoxide is about 84.43 billion RMB.

On March 3, 2019, Chang Ming Mining successfully listed on the Nasdaq OTC market in the US.  The stock trading symbol is CMIM and the opening stock price was 1.08 US dollars.

The second-largest shareholder of Ankang Chang Ming Mining is Biying Ecological Holding Group, a US-listed company. Its core business is ecologically efficient agriculture, and its star products are "four treasures" walnuts, rich in "calcium iron zinc selenium". Biying Ecological Holding Group focuses on the technical aspect of the walnut planting and production field, development of walnut processing industry, walnut industry's culture and industrial chain. Their pioneer "small walnut" project is being promoted in China.

In addition to Chang Ming Mining, which is a mining integration platform, Biying Ecological Holding Group also owns LOONG new energy vehicles. LOONG vehicles rely on the core technology of super-capacitors and extenders which LOONG developed independently. After three years, it successfully built a matrix horizontal augmentation engine and negotiated with major operators and local governments to cooperate in the construction of a new energy automotive industrial park. LOONG strives consistently to achieve greater breakthroughs and development.

Another major innovative business of Biying is HSDK Entrepreneurship Hospital, which helps businesses solve problems. The hospital carries out diagnosis and treatment for companies. Wastak also creates practical solutions, support systems, and works to resolve business difficulties to help more companies succeed. Their aim is to build and expand more global business.

Posted in: Energy & Environment,Finance,Finance Market,India

United Way of Frederick County and FCPS Stuff the Bus School Supplies Seeks New Businesses to Host Collection Drive

United Way of Frederick County (UWFC) and Frederick County Public School’s (FCPS) 11th annual Stuff the Bus school supplies drive kicks off on July 8th. We will be sending fifteen buses throughout Frederick on August 14th to collect Stuff the Bus bins filled with school supplies for students in need.

We are currently seeking businesses/organizations to host a school supplies collection drive at their sites. Interested businesses can sign up to collect supplies at http://www.unitedwayfrederick.org/stuffthebus.

Beginning the week of June 24, we will start to “paint the town yellow” by parking yellow school buses in various strategic locations throughout the community to promote and create awareness about the program. On August 14, the fifteen school buses will make their way around the community to pick up the collected items.

Ensuring that all students have the supplies they need to do their homework, take tests, and complete science and art projects is a simple but important way we can help them get their education and succeed in school. Over 10,000 FCPS students are in need of school supplies and financial assistance, based on free and reduced meals numbers for the total FCPS total student population.

In 2018, over 7,500 FCPS Maryland students benefited from the drive, more than 130 collection sites were set up, and 85,000+ items were collected in twelve school buses.

For more information about Stuff the Bus, visit https://www.UnitedWayFrederick.org/StufftheBus or contact Joyce Kwamena-Poh at jkwamenapoh(at)uwfrederick(dot)org.

About United Way of Frederick County 
Since 1938, United Way of Frederick County has been fighting for health, education and financial stability for every person in the Frederick County community. United Way produces the ALICE (Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed) Report which shows that approximately nearly 40% of households can no longer afford to live in Frederick County. Our investments and programs are aligned to support and increase the financial stability of these households.

United Way of Frederick County partners include global, national and local businesses, nonprofits, government, civic and faith-based organizations, along with educators, health providers, senior citizens, students, and others. The organization provides grants to local nonprofits, offers programs such as free tax preparation and matched savings, mobilizes volunteers, and engages in public policy advocacy. To learn more about United Way and how you can get involved, please visit UnitedWayFrederick.org.

Posted in: Education,Finance,U.S

AEC provides a ,500,000 factoring facility for Canadian-based property maintenance company

Advanced Energy Capital provided a factoring line for Pristine Property Management, Ltd (PPM) to enhance their working capital position. Pristine Property Maintenance is a mid-size company that has years of experience providing grounds-keeping and landscape maintenance services throughout the Greater Toronto Area. Their focus and expertise lies largely in the grounds and snow and ice maintenance for condominium townhomes and municipal properties.

  The 1,500,000 facility was completed and funded on January 17, 2019 and provided significant working capital over and above Pristine’s incumbent lender’s line of credit.

“As a company that invoices in advance of our service and under long term contracts, we needed a capital provider who was comfortable with our operating history to structure a working capital facility that provides us the ongoing capital to propel PPM to the next level.” said Adam Watson, CEO of Pristine.

“Adam’s cooperation, history of corporate success and blueprint for long term growth made our job easy in closing and funding this cross-border transaction” Reported Richard Rudy, Principal at AEC.  “We look forward to a long term relationship with Adam and PPM as they continue to execute on their business plan” said Steven Feldman, Managing Director of AEC.

About AEC:
AEC is a commercial finance company which provides working capital financing ranging from 0,000 to ,000,000 to small and middle market manufacturers, distributors, and service companies nationwide. Based in New York, AEC is committed to helping businesses increase their capacity for business transactions. AEC’s programs provide companies with capital in a fraction of the time it would take to process a loan through the bank and in many cases provide significantly higher proceeds than the traditional factoring companies and asset-based lenders, while taking on assignments the traditional commercial finance market ignores.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,News & Current Affairs,Real Estate,U.S

Longxing Platform Gets listed on Exshell, Kicks Off A New Era of Mineral Digital Trading

Singapore 2019. Mar.1- Longxing Global Mining Assets Digital Trading Platform attended The Block Challenge Event held by Dubai World Trade Centre(DWTC) in Singapore. During the event, Longxing announced that Longxing is officially listed on ExShell (token: LXS). The Longxing platform is the first digitized trading platform for mining assets based on blockchain in the world. Relying on blockchain technology, the Longxing platform recognized the upgrade from the traditional local offline trading mode to global online trading mode.

Depending on the technical advantage of the Longxing platform, cross-border transactions can be realized, purchasing qualifications can not be relied on, transaction thresholds can be lowered, liquidity and transaction efficiency can be improved, and transaction cycles can be shortened. As digital money payment has formed a good ecological environment, online iron ore, digital assets trading and linking to global mining assets intermediaries can not rely on traditional currency. In the future, with the help of the Longxing trading platform, online trading of iron ore, coal mine, non-ferrous metals, rare technology and other resources, will all launch on the blockchain and trading can be completed only with digital money.

Combining the latest technologies such as blockchain, Internet of things and AI, Longxing has cooperated with taoken bitcoin company to develop the global blockchain mining digital trading platform system. Based on the characteristics of mining, generating sales business process and mining assets, two blockchain systems are developed respectively: the system of business chain and the system of assets chain. Among them, the business chain system mainly needs to display company information, financial data, business and technology, production data, etc., and at the same time, give senior investors a real-time view of production and operation data; Assets on the chain system mainly include the creation of equity, audit and issuance functions, as well as information bulletin functions. Distributed nodes are located in issuers, law firms, accounting firms and all private investors, etc., providing investors with a transparent and untamable platform for operating data and assets.

“ExShell is a global leading digital financial exchange founded by two ex-senior executives of Huobi. The listing on Exshell is a new milestone for Longxing, it marks that  the company is entering into the capital market and a new stage of development. We will make persistent efforts to constantly climb the peak.” Said by Oliver Ran, Chairman of TokenBit & Secretary General Director of Longxing.

For more information, you can follow us on Telegram at?https://t.me/lxtoken, or visit our business system? http://www.dysysep.com and our assets system?http://www.dysysgp.com .

Posted in: Business,Energy & Environment,Finance,Science,Technology

CalcXML Introduces FIST Score: A Comprehensive Financial Health Index

CalcXML, the leader in online calculators, is pleased to announce their latest product called FIST® Score, a revolutionary financial health index used to gauge and improve financial stability. FIST is available to companies and consumers through a SaaS dashboard application. Chris Brockbank, the president of CalcXML, believes this unbiased personal financial index is going to modernize the financial world. “FIST® Scores will become as commonplace as FICO® Scores. FIST allows financial institutions to connect with their patrons like never before. As individuals better understand the “why” of sound financial planning the “what” follows naturally, through choice and without coercion. Trust is always key in relationships and the integrity of FIST® allows for that trust to happen!”

FIST® (FInancial STabilty) Score is similar to a credit score, but evaluates all aspects of a person’s financial health not just one’s debt levels and credit worthiness. This straightforward index (0-100 scale) can be used to help individuals quickly and accurately identify shortfalls in insurance protection, retirement accounts, and emergency funds. By answering a handful of questions users are able to pinpoint where the financial vulnerabilities lie within the categories of liquidity, debt, retirement and insurance. A colorful dial displays one’s calculated score in each category on the personal dashboard with the ability to compare scores against others nationally.

The user’s experience doesn’t end there, using AI technology, industry-standard interest rates and income replacement assumptions, the FIST® tool gives suggestions on how to improve one’s score and overall financial health. Users are able to follow the recommendations, set and track financial goals, and generate colorful PDF Action Plans on their way to improving their scores. FIST® also comes with personalized videos, advanced planning tools, customizable boxes for promotion of company product/benefit offerings, as well as single sign-on capability. Other features include administrative tools, marketing reports, target email lists and company-defined database queries. FIST® Score is now available for licensing and branding to employer groups, brokerage firms, insurance companies, banks, credit unions and other financial verticals.

Click to watch a short promo video of FIST.

Posted in: Business,Finance

Stephen Ray Joins Factoring Company Charter Capital as VP of Business Development

Charter Capital announced today that Stephen Ray has joined the factoring company to further develop their growing portfolio of accounts receivable factoring services. Stephen Ray comes with a wealth of experience within the factoring industry in underwriting and business development.

Stephen joins Charter Capital to continue success in providing accounts receivable financial services to many of the top industries it serves. Stephen says, “I'm thrilled to join the Charter Capital family and cherish the journey that I have before me."

Keith Mabe, Senior Vice president of Charter Capital says, “We are delighted to have Stephen join Charter Capital and look forward to him helping grow our client portfolio.” 
Charter Capital is a Texas based factoring company that has provided funding for small to medium sized businesses nationwide since 2001.

The unique aspect of Charter Capital is not only its flexibility in financing various industries, but also its ability to assist startup businesses. Funding programs are designed to provide a fast and steady source of working capital funds to businesses in need of an alternative to borrowing from traditional banks or costly online lenders. With a company mindset dedicated to fast, solution-oriented funding, Charter Capital fills the void created by limited access to traditional sources of working capital and gives small businesses a more reasonably priced option for funds than is typically offered by online lenders. Charter Capital offers factoring lines starting at ,000 up to million to customers in most industries.

To learn more about Charter Capital call 1-844-838-1424 or visit the website at https://www.CharterCapitalUSA.com.

Posted in: Business,Finance,News & Current Affairs

Maritime Insurance International Hires Two Experienced Marine Agents as Director of Sales in both Northeast and Southeast Regions

Maritime Insurance International, an independent marine insurance agency, has hired two Marine Insurance industry guru’s to expand their East Coast footprint. The independent marine agency brought on Adam Meyer as Director of Sales – Southeast and Rod Clingman as Director of Sales - Northeast, respectively, as of November 1st, 2018.

For the last 19 years Rod has worked strictly in the marine insurance industry. Starting his insurance career as an underwriter for a P&C company, then moving into sales and product / policy development. He has worked with some of the country’s leading marine agencies and marine insurers. Prior to joining Maritime Insurance, Rod was a program manager for Berkley Recreational Marine (W.R. Berkley Co.)

Adam Meyer graduated Wake Forest University School of Law in 1996, then started his marine insurance career in Cincinnati as a Marine Loss Control Specialist with St. Paul Fire & Marine. He then went on to Chicago to specialize in Mega Yacht and Commercial Marine underwriting as an Ocean Marine Underwriter for St. Paul / Travelers. After 5 years in marine loss control and underwriting, Adam moved back home to North Carolina, where his passion led him to the agency and sales side of marine insurance. Since 2000, Adam has built an impeccable reputation as a specialist marine producer, and led two successful marine divisions.

Both Directors will focus on boat, yacht and commercial boat insurance in their respective regions, further expanding the East Coast and National presence of Maritime Insurance. “The experience and knowledge these two individuals add to our team, on both our products and industry, made this a natural fit for us all. We are excited to have them join our niche agency.” said Maritime Insurance Vice President Garrison Rudisill

About Maritime Insurance International

Maritime Insurance specializes in Boat, Yacht, Marina, Boatyard, Boat Dealers, & Boat Builder insurance solutions. MII has amassed over 100 years of collective experience in the marine industry and has a group of professionals that are unmatched in this niche insurance industry. They pride themselves on providing clients responsive and personal service coupled with competitive markets throughout the relationship. The agency is licensed in 46 states with offices in four port cities.

Offices are located in Charleston, SC; Annapolis, MD; Mystic, CT; and Wrightsville Beach, NC. For more information call 843-606-5270 or visit http://www.maritimeinsuranceinternational.com.

Posted in: Finance,Personal Finance

Platinum Risk Advisors Launches the Ultimate 10-Minute Outsourced CECL Solution for Banks and Credit Unions

Platinum Risk Advisors (PRA) announces the launch of Loan Portfolio Analytics (LPA), an innovative outsourced solution to assist banks and credit unions in complying with the Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) accounting standard. Dubbed the “10-minute CECL Solution,” LPA brings the industry’s first fully outsourced analytics tool for adopting and complying with CECL that also provides its users with valuable insights into the inherent risk in their loan portfolios and the performance of their loan officers.

Issued in June 2016 by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), CECL is the new “expected loss” accounting model for estimating the Allowance for Loan and Lease Losses (ALLL) to replace the current “incurred loss” model. CECL compliance takes effect in 2020 for SEC-filing and other banks considered a Public Business Entity under FASB standards, and in 2021 for all other financial institutions.

LPA is a complete outsourced solution that maps between the bank or credit union’s data processing system and PRA’s platform, enabling lenders to: 

• Calculate the ALLL using three widely accepted methods under CECL as well as the lender’s existing methodology. PRA’s clients can evaluate which method or combination of methods for calculating CECL works best for them.
• Generate various reports and graphs to assess the inherent risk in their loan portfolios as well as the performance of their loan officers.
• Obtain valuable insights from a team of CPAs, former bankers, actuaries, and risk management consultants. PRA’s clients will obtain verifiable evidence to support the subjective adjustments in their ALLL calculations as well as strategies on how to manage and price for risk within their loan portfolios.

The 10-Minutes CECL Solution

The impact of PRA’s loan portfolio analytics platform is immediate as lenders will spend less than 10 minutes a month to receive the valuable information provided by PRA’s solution. The LPA platform is stored on a SSAE#16 SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliant hosting solution that will keep a client’s borrower and institutional data confidential.

“LPA is the ultimate loan portfolio risk management tool for lenders,” says co-founder Toby Lawrence. “To our knowledge, it is the first CECL solution developed using the assistance of actuaries and provides users with additional information on risk, growth and profitability as well as loan officer performance." That’s a key point because as Lawrence explains, “with PRA’s solution, board of directors and senior management can finally have the information they have always wanted to strategically evaluate and manage their institution’s lending functions.”

As a CPA who was both a former senior partner in two of the nation’s largest certified public accounting firms, and a bank president and CEO, Lawrence knows first-hand how long and wide this industry gap has been, until now.

By understanding the concerns banks and credit unions would struggle with to implement and transition to CECL; the uncertainties surrounding what data is needed, what upgrades or new systems will be required and if existing internal staff will have the time to comply with CECL, served as the launch pad for the LPA platform versus the finish line to fully address the impact of CECL to each institution’s capital position and future earnings.

For a comprehensive sampling of LPA’s capabilities and a comparison to other CECL solutions, visit http://www.CECLadvisors.com. To schedule an individual or group demonstration contact Toby Lawrence at (319) 202-4365.

About Platinum Risk Advisors

Platinum Risk Advisors combines more than 100 years of expertise and experience across accounting, regulatory, lending, actuarial science, risk management, loss reserve setting and model development.

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market

China Customer Relations Centers Announces Plans to Go Private and Return to A-share Market in China

Chinese government has implemented policies to encourage companies to return to A-share market. With the fast growth of China’s economy, China concept stock’s privatization is increasing in 2018 after a number of companies including WuXi AppTec, Mindray and Cheetah mobile went private to China’s A-share market.

On November 11, China Customer Relations Centers, Inc. (CCRC) has announced plans to go private to A-share market in China. 

CCRC’s announcement has led to more discussions by the capital market on privatization. Earlier this year, General Office of the State Council of China quoted China Securities Regulatory Commission’s (CSRC) policy during National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that based on China’s law and market policy, they encouraged innovative companies to issue stocks in China, especially industries with new technologies and strategies such as biotech, cloud computing, AI and high-tech manufacturing.  

On October 19, 2018, CSRC announced during its press conference that they have taken steps to help restructure work including making reasonable prices to protect small and medium sized investors; actively supporting quality overseas listed companies to list in A-share market and treating overseas companies the same as domestic entities as well as eliminating barriers to entry.

Sources say, call centers and third-party providers of e commerce customer services are industries supported by Chinese government. This industry is labor-intensive with light assets and high tech. CCRC has advantages in this field. 

Based on Chinese internet research data, the total market size of Chinese domestic call center is about 630 billion RMB or 91.1 billion dollars in 2017. Because of the large industry size and the market stability, its annual growth rate is about 8.4% and after 2020, it is estimated to be 5.5%. Currently, call center system is transitioning from local servers to cloud servers. Cloud call centers has become the majority of this growing market.

Many industry experts consider CCRC an absolute pioneer in China’s call center and e commerce service third party provider industry, especially during this era that Chinese government encourages domestic listing of quality overseas companies. The business model will be easier to be recognized by investors in the A-share market than Nasdaq. It will also provide more growth in value in the future.

Links

http://m.nasdaq.com/symbol/ccrc

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-customer-relations-centers-inc-134300033.html?.tsrc=applewf&from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,Telecom,U.S

Gingkoo Shares Its Vision to Empower Economy by Using Blockchain at the UN GA

(Oct 30, 2018 New York) Gingkoo Technology of Shanghai presented its vision on being a leading blockchain company in China during the Cryptocurrencies & Blockchains Forum at the 73th UN General Assembly.  Gingkoo’s founder and CEO William Zuo gave a speech on how blockchain has been applied to the economy at the global conference in New York.

                                      Gingkoo founder William Zuo speaks at UN

Representing Georgia, France and Germany, the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development invited experts from government and private sectors to provide insight into blockchain technologies and the potential impact on development.  Blockchain technologies are critical to finance the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Gingkoo’s founder, William Zuo shared his vision on blockchain with government officials, experts and entrepreneurs. He pointed out that blockchain technology should serve society from five tiers of the economy: government, financial institutions, large corporations, small and medium size enterprise (SME) and individuals. 

Zuo says, “Blockchain should have two core values: one is the trust machine, with trust by coding and programming.  The other is to build the next generation value internet.”

Gingkoo, the Shanghai based fintech company has successfully applied blockchain technology to serve government and financial institutions clients worldwide.

In Guangzhou, Gingkoo has guided local government in adopting a blockchain solution to improve government affairs and transparency, which has been awarded as the top 10 Blockchain Application by China Ministry of Information and Industry. They also created a garbage classification solution by using blockchain+IOT technology for the local governments. The company deployed a food traceability project from northern china to address the problem of food safety concerns in China.

In the financial services arena, Gingkoo’s cases include payment and tax solutions, supply chain finance and Regtech solutions. Gingkoo’s clients include major commercial and central banks such as HSBC, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and UBS etc.

As the biggest solution provider for CIPS, China cross border payment system of China central bank, Gingkoo has been a key player to support the country’s  one Belt one Road Initiatives and to develop blockchain-enabled cross-border, cross-currency and cross-asset payments and logistics solutions, which could revolutionize the supply chain finance sector worldwide.  

Meanwhile, David Ritter, CEO of Penta and co-founder of Gingkoo, Florie Zheng joined the meeting and shared Penta’s work progress on blockchain.  Penta, a public chain, is leading the solution of identity issues for the homeless population in US west coast cities. In July 2018, Penta was the first blockchain crypto startup to complete acquisition of shares of AXS listed Australian IOT tech Company, CCP Technologies, using Penta’s PNT Cryptocurrency.

(L-R)  Florie Zheng, David Ritter of Penta at UN

Zuo pointed out the other advantage of blockchain is to resolve the trust issue among SME. Gingkoo has used blockchain technology in Xiamen City to help SME financing and individual credit information sharing. This case was one of the first successful attempts in its field and was shared by Zuo at the Berlin World Bank SME Financing Summit in Nov. 2017. 

As Gingkoo aims to be the first blockchain application solution provider in China, Zuo shared his vision on the future of blockchain, “I think blockchain should be green, inclusive and productive. I think everyone in the future will deserve opportunity of the blockchain.” His speech has been applauded by hundreds of attendants at the UN event.

On September 4 and 5, Wiliam Zuo gave a speech as an honored guest at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s first ever Blockchain Policy Forum in Paris, which was considered one of the high-level discussions with a range of public officials and private leaders from all over the world.

William Zuo Gingkoo CEO speaks at OECD Blockchain Policy Forum in Paris

OECD Picture

About Gingkoo and Penta

Gingkoo Technology (www.gingkoo.com) is a Shanghai based leading Blockchain technology company established in 2014. It helps build complete blockchain solutions in banking, financing and government.  Gingkoo has raised about 23 million dollars or 160 million RMB led by Zhongnan Investment Group (SZ.000961). 

As a member of China's Ministry of industry and information and the National Standardization Management Committee, Gingkoo Technology participates in the formulation and compilation of several national standards of blockchain, and several district chain experts have been selected as members of the ISO/TC307 international standard specialist group. Gingkoo is the first company to receive the prestigious Million RMB Award for Blockchain from the Shanghai municipal government, recognizing Gingkoo’s outstanding contributions to blockchain development. In explaining their decision for the award, the government cited Gingkoo’s credit chain as a groundbreaking project that enables SMEs to gain access to credit.

Penta (www.penta.global) is a joint project of permissionless chain by Gingkoo and an American team. The goal of Penta is to achieve a fast-decentralized infrastructure compared to ETH and EOS. Penta has raised 30 million dollars in private funding, invested by crypto funds including Draper Dragon, Node Capital, Block VC and LD Capital.

Video http://webtv.un.org/search/cryptocurrencies-blockchains-%E2%80%93-a-new-boost-for-sdg-financing/5841823227001/?term=BLOCKCHAIN&lan=english&sort=date

Image courtesy of UN and OECD

Contact

Florie.zheng@Gingkoo.com

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,Technology,World

KryptoGraphe is proud to be the first Cryptocurrency Portfolio Manager to be GDPR compliant!!

Dallas, TX: KryptoGraphe is pleased to announce that its cryptocurrency portfolio manager is compliant with the GDPR regulations. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most comprehensive EU data privacy law in decades. Besides strengthening and standardizing user data privacy across the EU nations, it will require additional obligations for all organizations that handle EU citizens’ personal data, regardless of where the organizations themselves are located.

The new regulations are designed to better reflect the interconnected nature of our world regarding consumer’s right to privacy, protection of personal data, and business usage of personal data across the European Union.

The team at KryptoGraphe has updated the app to implement the data protection and privacy policies.

• An updated Terms of Access and Privacy Policy to ensure transparency.
• The personal data of the user is anonymized.
• There is a provision to update the personal data
• The users are now able to export their personal information.
• The personal data will be deleted from the app’s records should the user choose to close their account.
• In case of a breach of security, all users will be notified within 72 hours.

Download the app for free at:

Google Play Store

App Store

Our partner and compliance administrator from Hummingwave, Amit Singh says: “KryptoGraphe has been trusted by thousands of its users with their cryptocurrency portfolio information due to its security, privacy, and transparency. Implementing GDPR makes these features so much more visible to users. Recent enhancements let users export their data in a machine-readable format to be used in any other system and to delete their account should they choose to.”

KryptoGraphe encourages safe investing and aims to provide a secure platform to track all cryptocurrency investments.

Posted in: Finance,Finance Market,Personal Finance,Technology,U.S

Insuranks looking for big name investors to join and disrupt the insurance market

Insuranks.com, the international startup technology company and marketplace platform is looking forward towards complete disruption of the insurance industry by continuously improving the insurance experience of all sides of the industry.  Insuranks is aiming towards creating as many simple, transparent, accessible, fast, reliable, secure and friendly user experiences for insurance consumers, agents, brokers and carriers. It currently has over 70 listed insurance companies and over 12,000 insurance agents on board.

The new Israeli technology startup is allowing consumers (also named Insurankers on the friendly platform) to request and compare quotes and purchase their insurance online with over 230 supported insurance types, manage it and later rank the level of service that they received from their chosen insurers.  Insurankers rank anything from customer service and claims experience to emotional intelligence, listening skills, trustworthiness, dedication and more in depth factors that are important to look for in an insurance service provider. Those rankings aggregate in to what is called Insuranks Score, an average ranking of all user rankings submitted for each insurance service deliverer. This ranking is displayed all around the platform for the benefit of the users, so when they get quotes they can find all the information they need about the insurance provider and make a wiser and more educated decision. Or when they simply browse through insuance companies and agents or look for the top 10 insurance companies and agents for over 230 insurance categories that the platform supports. It becomes the insurers reputation all around the platform.

On the other hand, it also provides full information on companies and agents and allows agents and brokers to deliver quotes online through the carriers they work with via the easy to use marketplace platform. The agents insurance marketplace is fast, reliable and user friendly and contains a stream of insurankers that are waiting for agents to give them bids and quotes for their insurance needs. Agents can also  manage their sold policies and clients online via desktop, tablets and mobile phones.

With a mission to create maximum remarkable insurance experiences worldwide while making insurance simple and accessible to anyone regardless of levels of income, education or location, Insuranks is now looking for big name investors and sponsors to support their efforts and become the ultimate one-stop shop for all insurance needs while offering consumers, agents and carriers the best insurance experience that they can possibly receive online.

 

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,Technology,U.S

Stankevicius MGM joins Congress-Realty as Leading PR and Advertising Partner

Congress the Real Estate 2018 together with Stankevicius MGM has prepared an exciting investment event with presents and new business opportunities for participants worldwide.

About the event

The organizers of Congress the Real Estate 2018 are preparing a worthy event to attend for investors. The event will cover crypto-assets, overseas properties, museum pieces, different investment projects, possibility to purchase gold bullion, possibility to deal with stock exchanges, IT-technology projects, developer’s programs. Event’s participants will as well include insurance companies, tax consultants, and lawyers. Representatives and delegations from over 20 countries will come to the Congress.

Each year the congress offers innovative technologies and conveniences for guests and participants. Among the offers, you can find the matching opportunity of the first online exhibition of the Congress on the platform by Online Expo. The exhibition makes direct contact between the visitor from around the world and participating company on the platform, Online Expo.

About Stankevicius MGM

Stankevicius MGM is the leader in PR and advertising field. The firm has consulted Fortune 500 companies and international small and medium-size enterprises. Stankevicius MGM has provided successful PR campaigns for ICO clients in result of raising over 300 million dollars for blockchain projects

Posted in: Business,Finance,Finance Market,Public Affairs,Technology

UK Cards and Payments Market Share and Growth Forecast to 2022

Posted in: Europe,Finance,Finance Market,Technology,Telecom

METRUMCOIN - THE NEW WAY TO DO REAL ESTATE.

Real Estate Blockchain Platform METRUMCOIN Announces Pre-sale

METRUMCOIN — is a new generation digital Real Estate market platform that unites B2B, C2C and B2C into a single worldwide net designed for simplicity of use.

About the platform

METRUMCOIN —  a multifunctioning, multilevel platform based on the Blockchain technology with the use of iDeals (the next generation of smart contracts). The platform is capable of bringing any participants’ business processes to life.  The main purpose of the platform is to remove geographical, bureaucratic and transactional barriers, while uniting all participants within a single digital space for the international RE market. It substantially simplifies the activities of buyers, brokers, investors, developers, construction companies, and all those who consider the RE business their lifestyle. We are making the market available in just a few clicks. Transparency, speed and safety are in METRUMCOIN’s DNA.

About the project

The idea of METRUMCOIN project belongs to Mr. Telman Abbasov, a specialist with more than 25 years of real estate experience, and the President of the World Council of Developers and Investors FIABCI 2015-2017. The project was presented to the public at significant industry events such as "MIPIM-2017" in Cannes and "BlokTex-2017" in Kuala Lumpur. It has sparked great interest among RE specialists, as well experts from the IT industry. A team of highly qualified RE specialists determines company strategy. In addition, leading international experts assist METRUMCOIN. In 2017, we obtained a patent, which protects our methodology for attracting investments in real estate objects with the help of crypto-instruments.

Why to participate?

Real Estate allows quick and safe capital investment. Unlike other assets, RE assets do not devalue. We are offering unprecedented opportunities for conducting business both online and offline. Never before has conducting deals and transactions in the RE market been so easy!  But that’s not all. Early participants of the project are guaranteed a 20% discount for purchase of METRUMS token.

Every single investment you make is your personal contribution towards the evolution of the RE market in the 21st century, as well as contributing to the project that will forever change the way business is conducted. 

For further information about our project and technical details of the platform we recommend looking at the Roadmap  and White paper.

Join METRUMCOIN’s pre-sale, and become the key to global RE market transformation

Posted in: Building & Construction,Finance,Professional Services,Real Estate,Technology

Don’tPayAll Listing American Apparel Promo Codes Offering Cash Back

Don’tPayAll is inviting companies to list their coupon codes on its website and help consumers save money. 

Coupon codes are continuing to be a key strategy for online merchants to pull in new customers and retain the old ones. 

“Who does not want to save a few bucks by applying coupons?” says a Dallas housewife. “I always look for American apparel promo codes while shopping for a hoodie for my dog”.
 
American Apparel has perhaps one of the largest garment factories in the United States. Its collection includes even canine wardrobe items.
 
Simply put, Don’tPayAll by listing coupon codes is making it easy for shoppers to find bargain deals.
 
This leading coupon code website is listing coupons from popular stores such as Udemy, Walmart, Sephora, Stereo, Vans, and more.
 
“SAS shoes are a favorite of my family,” says a sales rep of a pharmaceutical firm. “We always look for SAS shoes sales coupons for that bargain deal”. 

Don’tPayAll is a one-stop window for coupons. By adding thousands of new coupons every week, it is making available to consumers hot deals and special offers from thousands of online merchants.
 
Its user-friendly interface is remarkably easy for online shoppers to navigate and search for coupons they want. 

“We are different from other coupon traders”, says a rep of Don’tPayAll. “We put a great deal of effort while selecting coupons from vendors and affiliate marketing networks”.
 
The remarks from Don’tPayAll seem reassuring. The website asserts that they pre-substantiate the coupons to ensure their credibility.
 
“It can be a frustrating experience to apply the coupon code at the last leg of our buying process and find it isn’t working”, says a college sophomore. 

But coupon codes may not work for several reasons. There could be exclusions, restrictions, or the user may not have entered it correctly.

Don’tPayAll is making it convenient for shoppers to regulate their online spending. 

“Even though good deals are abundantly available online, promo codes must be obtainable at the click of a few buttons”, says an avid online shopper.
 
Don’tPayAll is doing this very well.
 
The website has daily deals, cash back stores, and top coupon codes from practically all categories of stores. 

100 million visitors to Don’tPayAll possibly cannot be wrong. 

Don’tPayAll is building its presence even stronger with subscribers and affiliates crossing the 10 million mark. 

About 

Don’tPayAll, a registered trade mark of BOGO COMPANY LTD., is a top firm in the coupon trading market. It provides a huge assortment of active coupon codes and deals from thousands of reputable brand names from across the globe.

 

Posted in: Business,Finance,Marketing & Sales,Retail,Services