- August 09, 2022
- Tech
- Data
- Cloud
- Luxembourg
- Security
- Startup
- Development
- Digital
Finologee boosts professional payments with its latest platform: ENPAY
Fintech specialist Finologee has developed a robust system to automate professional payments and to enhance workflows, enabling Luxembourg’s financial industry and institutional players to optimise their processes, with a direct connection to the SWIFT network. The product’s development is supported by the Luxembourg Government through its research, development, and innovation programme. Crédit Agricole Life Insurance Europe (CALIE), one of Luxembourg’s leading life insurance companies, is the first client/end-user to integrate the new platform.
For many financial industry professionals and other
institutional players looking for business process enhancement and automation,
the lack of efficient bank connectivity is one of the key challenges. Relying
on paper-based payment instructions or authorisations through processes that
require manual data entry, transfer or signatures is a growing source of
inefficiencies and risk.
With today’s standards of versatile IT setups and
architectures, companies are looking for flexible and ready-to-implement
products that easily connect to their existing systems. This is a common
challenge for a majority of
institutional and financial industry players, but also for many corporations,
particularly those that prefer not to invest in their own in-house bank
connectivity stack.
The need for a complete yet adaptable product on the
market
A thorough analysis of market requirements led to the
conclusion that most products available in today’s market only partially cover
the feature range many companies are looking for, such as worldwide multi-bank
account connectivity without boundaries, modern API endpoints for their
in-house accounting or ERP system connection and well-designed web interfaces
reducing human error and increasing efficiency.
With the growing list of regulatory compliance requirements,
businesses are also looking for a product that includes specific features
adjustable to their needs, such as risk management and analysis,
industry-specific reporting, treasury optimisation and anti-money laundering
tools.
Creating a secure and reliable professional payments
platform
The digital finance specialist Finologee (www.finologee.com) kicked off the development of its
Enterprise Payments (ENPAY) platform last year to meet this market demand.
Leveraging its FinTech product design expertise and building up on the
high-performance infrastructure it operates, the company has developed a modern
and secure professional bank connectivity platform.
The initial product requirements definition was done
alongside the requirements of Crédit Agricole Life Insurance Europe (CALIE),
one of Luxembourg’s leading life insurance companies. CALIE is also the first
client/end-user to integrate Finologee’s Enterprise Payments platform. The
long-term goal of the platform is to build a mutualised and neutral
professional payments infrastructure in a hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
setup. This design enables financial industry and institutional players to
enhance their payment processes without requiring any specific software
deployment on their own IT infrastructure and to be flexible for their
selection of authentication and signature mechanisms. For payment network and
messaging connectivity with banks, Finologee chose to implement direct access
to SWIFT, the world’s leading provider of secure financial messaging services,
which connects more than 11,000 banking and securities organisations, market
infrastructures and corporate customers worldwide. User authentication and
manual transaction signature components are provided in partnership with
Luxtrust.
When designing the product architecture and roadmap,
Finologee relied on its know-how with this type of project stemming from the
other digital platforms the company and its founders have been involved in over
the last 15 years in Luxembourg: Mpulse, the country’s central SMS payments and
routing infrastructure and Digicash, the mobile payment product of the
Grand-Duchy’s retail banks. Today, Finologee is a technical provider for
operations of both platforms. Additionally, the company also addresses the
needs of dozens of banks, insurance companies and other financial industry
players as a central gateway for KYC and bank compliance products. It holds a
Luxembourg ‘Support PFS’ licence granted by the Minister of Finance in January
2019, and it has been ISO 27001-certified last year.
The Government’s support is a key success factor in
multi-stakeholder process optimisation projects
The scope and the impact of the collective digitalisation
challenge in professional payments goes far beyond the need of individual
players. This is a typical context where the Government can act as a catalyst
through its research, development and innovation co-financing schemes and
stimulate process and organisational improvements.
After evaluating co-financing options with the help of
Luxinnovation – Luxembourg’s innovation support and promotion agency – the
Luxembourg Government and Finologee signed a joint funding agreement covering
the years 2020-2023, supporting the process and organisational innovation goals
of this project which has the potential to make a significant impact in Luxembourg’s
bank connectivity infrastructure.
Franz Fayot, the Luxembourg Minister of the Economy,
said: “Luxembourg is the perfect breeding ground for digital products
addressing the needs of financial industry professionals. The country is well
positioned to trigger projects that combine regulatory, communications,
financial and technological aspects. The Luxembourg Government’s unique set of
research, development and innovation programmes and the encompassing ecosystem
provide the right toolset to support digital innovation projects efficiently.
Projects led by Fintech companies such as the Finologee ENPAY platform and
boosting their relationship with established businesses effectively demonstrate
how cooperation cannot only solve current business challenges but also reshape
existing technical setups to be ready for tomorrow’s challenges.”
Pierre Gramegna, the Luxembourg Minister of Finance,
added: “I salute the Enterprise Payment initiative ENPAY, which is another
successful illustration of the potential of cooperation between a traditional
player like Credit Agricole Life Insurance Europe and a new FinTech like
Finologee. By providing innovative financial solutions that benefit all actors,
such collaborations strengthen our ecosystem and thus fully reflect the philosophy
and vision that lies behind the LHoFT (Luxembourg House of Financial
Technologies).”
Raoul Mulheims, CEO of Finologee, concluded: “We
firmly believe that our Enterprise Payments platform can be the missing link
many financial service professionals and institutional players are looking for
to automate their payment processes and reduce risks. From the start, the
project received strong support from partners and stakeholders. We would like
to thank them for their contributions and encouragements, as well as our team
for its commitment and its expertise. We are eager to quickly build up this new
product and we are looking forward to establishing the foundations to a new
ecosystem that has the potential to have a genuine positive impact for many
businesses in Luxembourg.”
Bank network coverage
Through its SWIFT network connection, the Enterprise Payment product bank account connectivity reach will continuously increase over the next months. Accounts with a first set of banks are already connected, currently covering Indosuez Wealth Management, CACEIS, ING Luxembourg, Spuerkeess and BGL BNP Paribas. Additional banks will be connected over the coming weeks.
Press release by Finologee