Core Banking
Backbase | January 12, 2024
Backbase, the global leader in Engagement Banking, has made an agreement with Danske Bank, a leading Nordic bank based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
This agreement provides Danske Bank with access to Backbase's Engagement Banking Platform, which will progressively be implemented across our digital channels in the coming years. This will enable Danske Bank to offer its customers a continuously improved digital customer experience, as the enhanced flexibility allows it to tailor its business operations around customer journeys.
Frans Woelders, Chief Operating Officer at Danske Bank, highlights: “This engagement is a testament to our customer focus and our commitment to ensuring the best digital banking experience for the future. A new platform that works across the web, mobile apps, and our adviser tools is one of the ambitions in Danske Bank’s Forward ’28 strategy, and the agreement with Backbase is the next step towards achieving that ambition.”
Our Engagement Banking Platform plays a pivotal role in achieving
Modernization and simplification of the existing IT landscape by reducing the number of silo-ed channel applications.
Mobile-first engagement model, establishing a customer-centric approach, seamlessly guiding customers between automated and expert advice.
Unified platform, consolidating data, business logic, and workflows into a single, customer-centric platform for efficient journey orchestration, benefiting both customers and bank employees.
Agility and freedom, enhancing flexibility to swiftly implement business capabilities and adapt to evolving market dynamics.
Christian Bornfeld, Head of Personal Customers and Financial Crime Risk and Prevention at Danske Bank, says: “This platform will allow us to take our interaction with customers through our digital solutions to the next level and to introduce enhancements at greater speed than ever before. It will thus enable us to provide market-leading convenience and personalization for our customers with great insights, increased proactivity, and easy access to assistance and advice.”
Jouk Pleiter, Founder and CEO of Backbase, shares, “We are thrilled to announce the engagement with Danske Bank, a visionary collaboration set to redefine the future of banking. Together, we will execute a bank-wide, digital transformation program and elevate Danske Bank's customer experience to new heights.”
About Backbase
Backbase is on a mission to re-architect banking around the customer.
Backbase created the Backbase Engagement Banking Platform – a unified platform with the customer at the center, empowering banks to accelerate their digital transformation. From customer onboarding to servicing, loyalty, and loan origination, our single platform — open and frictionless, with ready-to-go apps — improves every aspect of the customer experience. Built from the ground up with the customer at the heart, our Engagement Banking Platform easily plugs into existing core banking systems and comes pre-integrated with the latest fintechs so financial institutions can innovate at scale.
Industry analysts Forrester, Gartner, Celent, Omdia, and IDC continuously recognize Backbase’s category leadership. Over 120 financials around the world have embraced the Backbase Engagement Banking Platform - including AIB, Banorte, Barclays, BIAT, Bank of the Philippine Islands, BDO, Banque Saudi Fransi, BRD, Citibank, Citizens Bank, Discovery Bank, First National Bank, HDFC, Ila Bank, KeyBank, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, Navy Federal Credit Union, OTP Group, PostFinance, Raiffeisen, RBC, Standard Bank, Saudi National Bank, Société Générale, Truist, and TPBank.
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Financial Management
BlackRock, Inc. | January 15, 2024
BlackRock, Inc. and Global Infrastructure Partners a leading independent infrastructure fund manager, jointly announce that they have entered into an agreement for BlackRock to acquire GIP for total consideration of $3 billion of cash and approximately 12 million shares of BlackRock common stock.
A $1 trillion market today, infrastructure is forecast to be one of the fastest growing segments of private markets in the years ahead. A number of long-term structural trends support an acceleration in infrastructure investment. These include increasing global demand for upgraded digital infrastructure like fiber broadband, cell towers and data centers; renewed investment in logistical hubs such as airports, railroads and shipping ports as supply chains are rewired; and a movement toward decarbonization and energy security in many parts of the world.
Further, large government deficits mean that the mobilization of capital through public-private partnerships will be critical for funding important infrastructure. Finally, as capital has become more scarce in a higher interest rate environment, companies are exploring partnership opportunities for their embedded infrastructure assets to improve their returns on invested capital or to raise capital to reinvest in their core businesses.
BlackRock has a broad network of global corporate relationships as a long-term investor in both their debt and equity. These relationships will help us lead critical investments in infrastructure to improve outcomes for communities around the globe and generate long-term investment benefits for clients.
The combination of GIP with BlackRock’s highly complementary infrastructure offerings creates a comprehensive global infrastructure franchise with differentiated origination and asset management capabilities. The over $150 billion combined business will seek to deliver clients market-leading, holistic infrastructure expertise across equity, debt and solutions at substantial scale. Marrying the proprietary origination and business improvement capabilities of GIP and BlackRock’s global corporate and sovereign relationships provides a platform for diversified, large-scale sourcing to support deal flow and co-investment opportunities for clients. We believe bringing GIP and BlackRock together will deliver to clients the benefits of broader origination and business improvement capabilities.
Founded in 2006, world leading independent infrastructure investor GIP manages over $100 billion in client assets across infrastructure equity and debt, with a focus on energy, transport, water and waste, and digital sectors. GIP’s performance has been driven by proprietary origination, operational improvements, and timely exits. They have successfully scaled their global equity flagship series, with the most recent fully invested flagship fund in 2019 surpassing $22 billion.
BlackRock’s over $50 billion of infrastructure client AUM is comprised of infrastructure equity, debt and solutions, and has grown both organically and inorganically since inception in 2011. Top investment talent at BlackRock lead franchises that include Diversified Infrastructure, Infra Debt, Infra Solutions, Climate Infrastructure and Decarbonization Partners.
The GIP management team, led by Bayo Ogunlesi and four of its founding partners, will lead the combined infrastructure platform. They will bring with them talented investment, and operationally focused business improvement teams with a strong track-record of building and running high-performing private markets businesses. GIP’s founders and teams remain highly committed to clients, and we expect the integration with BlackRock’s broader platform will generate even greater opportunities. Subject to completion of customary onboarding procedures, BlackRock has also agreed to appoint Bayo Ogunlesi, GIP Founding Partner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, to the Board at the next regularly scheduled board meeting following the closing of the transaction.
“Infrastructure is one of the most exciting long-term investment opportunities, as a number of structural shifts re-shape the global economy. We believe the expansion of both physical and digital infrastructure will continue to accelerate, as governments prioritize self-sufficiency and security through increased domestic industrial capacity, energy independence, and onshoring or near-shoring of critical sectors. Policymakers are only just beginning to implement once-in-a-generation financial incentives for new infrastructure technologies and projects,” said Laurence D. Fink, BlackRock Chairman and CEO.
“I’m delighted for the opportunity to welcome Bayo and the GIP team to BlackRock, and happy to announce our plans to have Bayo join our Board of Directors post-closing. We founded BlackRock 35 years ago based on a unique understanding of investment risk and the factors and forces driving investment returns. GIP’s deep understanding of the factors and forces driving operational efficiency for long-term value creation have made them a global leader in infrastructure investing. Bringing these two firms together will create the infrastructure platform to deliver best-in-class investment opportunities for clients globally, and we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities ahead of us.”
“I’m excited about the power of this combination and the prospect of working with Larry and his talented team. We share with BlackRock a culture of collaboration, client focus, investment partnership, and commitment to excellence. Investors have adopted private infrastructure investing for its ability to provide stable cashflows, less correlated returns, and a hedge against inflation. Global corporates have turned to private infrastructure as a fast innovator and a more commercially agile owner of infrastructure assets that aren't core to their commercial businesses. This platform is set to be the preeminent, one-stop infrastructure solutions provider for global corporates and the public sector, mobilizing long-term private capital through long-standing firm relationships,” said Bayo Ogunlesi, GIP Founding Partner, Chairman, and CEO. “We are convinced that together we can create the world’s premier infrastructure investment firm.”
About BlackRock
BlackRock’s purpose is to help more and more people experience financial well-being. As a fiduciary to investors and a leading provider of financial technology, we help millions of people build savings that serve them throughout their lives by making investing easier and more affordable.
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Core Banking
Webull Corporation | January 30, 2024
Webull, a leading online broker for global investors, has launched an initiative to drive financial literacy, announcing its partnership with Dow Jones, a global news and business information services provider and the publisher of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The agreement aims to drive greater levels of financial literacy among retail investors by empowering Webull customers with curated award-winning content from The Wall Street Journal, including news, analysis, and essential insights on managing personal finances. The collaboration provides access to the publication's trusted and reliable journalism to help Webull users make better educated and informed decisions around their financial goals.
Webull users will receive a curated round-up of WSJ articles on its news feed within the app. New and renewing Webull customers will also receive a WSJ subscription.
"Webull was founded on the principle of democratizing investing and making it more accessible and inclusive - especially for first time investors. In this regard, we've already seen success, with a robust number of our active members being first-time investors," said Anthony Denier, Webull Group President. "Through this partnership with Dow Jones, we want to put the power of the world's leading financial publication straight into the hands of our customers with content that helps investors make better financial decisions with greater confidence."
"Financial literacy, powered by trusted and credible journalism, leads to better decisions," said David Martin, Chief Revenue Officer for Business Intelligence at Dow Jones. "We are delighted to work with Webull and look forward to putting the Journal's high-quality and award-winning business news, information and analysis at the fingertips of millions of Webull users on its platform to help elevate their decision making process."
Financial literacy has been identified as a key barrier to entry to investing for many people, with research from the World Economic Forum revealing that 40% of non-investors chose not to invest because they do not know how or find it too confusing. In addition, approximately 70% said they would be more likely to invest, or invest more, with expanded financial education.
With the trend of retail investors skewing younger, the initiative aims to address knowledge gaps by providing access to actionable and outcome-oriented information to help educate and shape the way new and existing users navigate fast-changing markets in an informed and responsible manner.
About Webull
Webull is a leading digital investment platform built on next generation global infrastructure. The Webull Group is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida and backed by private equity investors located in the United States, Europe and Asia. Webull serves tens of millions of users from over 180 countries, providing retail investors with 24/7 access to global financial markets. Users can put investment strategies to work by trading global stocks, ETFs, options and fractional shares, through Webull's trading platform, which is currently available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and Canada. Webull also offers investment education services, with lessons covering a wide range of topics.
About Dow Jones
Dow Jones is a global provider of news and business information, delivering content to consumers and organizations around the world across multiple formats, including print, digital, mobile and live events. Dow Jones has produced unrivaled quality content for more than 130 years and today has one of the world's largest news-gathering operations globally. It is home to leading publications and products including the flagship Wall Street Journal, America's largest newspaper by paid circulation; Barron's, MarketWatch, Mansion Global, Financial News, Investor's Business Daily, Factiva, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, Dow Jones Newswires, OPIS and Chemical Market Analytics.
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