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Office space start-up Convene seeks $150m as it mulls fund launch
 UPDATED, Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m.: Convene, the office-space startup backed by Brookfield and the Durst Organization is looking to raise another $150 million in venture funding in a Series D round and plans to launch a property investment fund in the future.

The company’s co-founder Ryan Simonetti said the firm already has “verbal commitments” from some existing investors for the Series D round but declined to name them. The firm has raised $119.2 million from investors to-date, most recently in a $68 million Series C round that included Brookfield, Durst, Conversion Venture Capital, ArrowMark Partners and Elysium Capital Management.

Founded in 2009 as Sentry Centers and renamed Convene in 2011, the firm manages meeting rooms and common amenities in office towers. “We’re running a hotel in an office building,” Simonetti said. The firm, which also manages flexible office space, currently has eight locations in New York City, including an event space on the 34th floor of One World Trade Center.

Convene also plans to launch a property investment fund in partnership with a private equity firm, Simonetti said. He claimed the firm has held preliminary talks with potential partners, but no deal is imminent.

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“Creating a side fund to buy properties is not on Convene’s near-term roadmap, but something we are thinking about forming in the future,” he said. “It would likely be used to invest alongside our landlord partners, not to be competitive with them.”

Earlier this year, Convene’s competitor WeWork launched a real estate investment fund in partnership with Rhone Group. Last month, the firms announced their first acquisition: the Lord & Taylor flagship store in Midtown.

Correction: Convene rebranded in 2011, not 2013.

Output: Office-space startup Convene is seeking a $150m cash injection as it looks to set up a property investment fund. Co-founder Ryan Simonetti said the company has "verbal commitments" from unnamed investors willing to add to Convene's $119.2m of capital already raised from the likes of Brookfield and Elysium Capital Management. Simonetti said that while talks on setting up a fund with a private equity partner had begun, no deal was imminent.


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Buy to Let Club, Landbay speed lending for new London building
 Earlier this week, Landbay and Buy to Let Club completed lending to a new building in Southgate, a suburban area of north London, in under two months. The initial case was reportedly submitted on the broker portal by Buy to Let Club on August 24th.

According to Mortgage Introducer, the lending was to an SPV, who owns seven other properties, with 75% LTV plus product fee added to the loan so that 76.31% of gross loan was the final deal. It also included an ICR of 125.55% at pirate on the gross loan amount.

Speaking about the deal and Landbay collaboration, Ying Tan, managing director at Buy to Let Club, stated:

“Providing an exceptional service is at the heart of everything we do at Buy to Let Club. We work hard to develop relationships with lenders who appreciate and share these values and are delighted by the speed and efficiency shown by Landbay in this and other cases we have placed with them. Their ability to make things happen quickly makes all the difference when time is of the essence and is certainly a stand-out factor for us when deciding which lender to use.”

Paul Brett, Managing Director of Intermediaries at Landbay, added:

“Whilst this case is exemplary, a quick turnaround is not uncommon for Landbay. We’ve worked to leverage our cutting-edge technologies to deliver streamlined solutions to these more complex cases.”

Back in September, Landbay reported it saw a total of £6.31 million lent across 31 mortgages. The news of that month’s success came after the online lender raised over £2.4 million through its latest equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. The lender was granted ISA Manager Status by HMRC and launched its propers-backed ISA earlier this summer.

Output: A collaboration between broker Buy to Let Club and peer-to-peer lender Landbay has resulted in the completion of lending within two months for a new building in the London suburb of Southgate. Buy to Let Club MD Ying Tan was quoted as being "delighted by the speed and efficiency shown by Landbay in this case". Mortgage Introducer reported that the loan, which represented 76.31% of the value of the building, was made to a company set up especially for the deal.


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Redrow Redrow appoints Paul Moore as managing director for the North West
 Redrow has appointed former Kier Living and Southdale director Paul Moore as its new managing director for the North West, replacing John Grime who joined Anwyl Homes in April.

Moore will be based at Redrow’s North West office at Daresbury Park near Warrington, and will cover Redrow’s developments in Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and North Wales.

He will replace John Grime, who left Redrow after 25 years in April to head up Anwyl Homes’ newly-established Lancashire division.

Anwyl Homes has since hired two more executives from Redrow to help grow the Lancashire division.

Redrow’s North West business is delivering 3,000 new homes across two garden villages in Woodford, and Ledsham in Cheshire, where the housebuilder secured detailed planning consent for 450 homes in March this year.

The housebuilder also plans to launch two projects in Nantwich and Congleton in its current financial year.

Moore said: “Redrow NW has an enviable land bank, including several large-scale new homes developments with considerable units in the pipeline.

“My focus is on managing this strong position to bring these and other schemes through the planning process and to deliver more award-winning homes and create new communities for our customers.”

Last month, Redrow was announced as Oldham Council’s construction partner for its Counthill School regeneration site, beating rival bidders Barratt, Countryside Properties, and Willmott Partnership Homes.

Output: UK housebuilder Redrow has appointed Paul Moore as managing director for the North West office. Moore, formerly of Kier Living, will be based at Redrow's Daresbury Park bureau, near Warrington, and will cover developments including more than 3,000 homes across Cheshire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and North Wales.


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Chinese companies back government plan for more city rentals
 News in other languages on CHINA VANKE CO., LTD.

Output: Alipay and property developer China Vanke are among the companies throwing their weight behind the Chinese house rental sector, set to be worth CNY4.2tn ($630bn) by 2030. The initiative, which aims to cool the country's overheated house-buying market, includes a recently introduced policy from Beijing addressing some of the obstacles to renting, including tenants' rights and living conditions. In addition, at least 10 cities have been allocated land to build rental properties, but analysts have warned the rental sector will require sustained support from the government to fully develop.


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New York-based Islamic robo-adviser to launch in UAE
 One of the world’s first Sharia-compliant “robo advisers” plans to start operations in the UAE in the next fortnight, as it looks to a US$2 million funding boost this week from the Dubai venture capital firm Beco Capital.

New York digitally automated investment adviser Wahed Invest launched in the US five months ago following a two-year incubation. Its chief executive Junaid Wahedna said the company was in the process of moving its senior management to a new office in Dubai it hopes will become the company’s new global headquarters.

Wahed Invest seeks to capitalise on pent-up demand for Islamic investment services among low to middle-income investors across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena). Subject to local approvals, the US securities and exchange commission (SEC) regulated company expects to start regional operations by mid-November, focusing initially on the UAE.

The news is a coup for this country, which is striving to become a global hub for the financial technology, or fintech sector, which is seen as a key driver of economic growth.

____________

Read more:

Another victory for robots as Hong Kong Exchange floor closes

What drives the "robot" fund that just can't stop buying?

Saudi Arabia entertains world's business chiefs with robots and future cities

____________

Financial free zones across the Emirates, including Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), have published fintech regulatory frameworks and developed strategies to lure fintech start-ups and related businesses to the UAE.

Robo-advisers offer automated, low-cost, investment and wealth management services via digital platforms. The industry is relatively nascent and exists predominantly in the US and Canada, where Betterment – the biggest robo-adviser with an estimated $10 billion of assets under management – and Wealthfront are the best-known examples. Others include Schwab, Vanguard and TradeKing.

Global assets under management by robo-advisors are expected to grow by 68 per cent annually to $2.2 trillion by 2020, according to a 2015 report by consultancy AT Kearney, and the industry is set to transform the investment management business – and wider banking industry – with its low-fees, low-overheads model.

Wahed Invest claims to be the world’s first Islamic robo-adviser in operation at present. The Malaysia private wealth management firm Farringdon Group said in June it would launch a Sharia-compliant robo-adviser, Algebra, later this year, but there is no such outfit in the Mena region.

“Our target for ethical, Sharia robo-advisory is the younger demographic, 25-35 years old, digitally savvy and educated millennials,” said Mr Wahedna.

“So when you look at the figures, the Mena region is one of the best places to be – especially when you look at the growth rates of internet penetration, it’s absolutely perfect for us and we’re going where nobody has gone before.”

Unlike conventional wealth managers, which require clients to have a minimum saving of $100,000 or more, Wahed Invest asks for a minimum of just $100 to enable it to tap into a broader customer base.

Mr Wahedna said he believed the company could grow much larger through operating in Mena. “There are 3 million Muslims in the US; in the Mena region there are 400 million, so you can see the scale of growth possible.

“The numbers in the US are bigger because they are higher income clients, so the average account size [in Mena] will be smaller. However, the total numbers should more than make up for that,” he said.

He said that, three months after launching in the US, Wahed Invest had already secured 1,000 clients, the same as Betterment and Wealth Front had acheived within a year. Wahed Invest plans to have 20 people in Dubai within the next month, six of whom are from its US management team, including Mr Wahedna and the company’s chief technology officer.

The VC firm Beco Capital will this week announce the $2m funding injection in Wahed Invest, in addition to Wahed’s latest $5m Series A fundraising round. Wahed also had an initial $2m seed funding for launch.

“This is a very large series A ticket for us – not the biggest we’ve ever made, but a sizeable cheque,” said Dany Farha, the chief executive and managing partner of Beco.

“We did this because it’s a Sharia-compliant robo-advisory. There’s nothing like this in the world.”

Output: Wahed Invest, a New York-based robo-adviser which offers a Sharia-compliant investment service, is set to launch in the UAE after receiving additional funding. The firm scored $2m from Dubai-based Beco Capital, which It will use to launch in the Middle East within the next two weeks, according to reports. The robo-adviser focuses on low- to mid-income investors and would reportedly be the first such platform introduced in the region.


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ETFs likely to cause a crash: Baillie Gifford exec
 Baillie Gifford partner and fund manager Charles Plowden has condemned exchange traded funds as “dumb money” and warned they are likely to lead to another crash like the one seen in the latest global financial crisis.

The manager of one of Baillie Gifford’s flagship funds, the £1.5bn Monks investment trust, compared index funds with the complex packaged trading instruments which were missold before the crisis 10 years ago.

Speaking at a conference in Edinburgh attended by Money Marketing, Plowden said investors are blindly buying ETFs without knowing what they contain.

He said: “Over the last five years we have seen there are more indices on the American stockmarkets than there are American stocks in the whole US stockmarket.

“The thing an ETF most closely resembles to me is when the industry came out with collateralised debt obligations and all of these abilities to package dodgy mortgages into triple A-rated bonds which were a statistical construct sold to people as a safe investment and no one knew or cared what was in it. And look at how that ended.

“There’s no interest [in what is in an ETF] because things are going to be there for only three months. Some ETFs turn over once a week. They don’t have time to be interested in the companies they are in. We tend to think of these index funds as dumb money, they are non-thinking money.”

Index funds make up around 30 per cent of the US market, a statistic that makes it “troubling” for the likes of Baillie Gifford to justify active management, said Plowden.

However, he argued active managers will be the survivors if ETFs crash, since this will create pricing inefficiency in the market.

He said: “I haven’t spent time to see how ETFs are structured, I am just observing that there is an enormous industry within the finance area and I suspect it is the same investment bankers that came up with CDOs in 2004.

“They’ve found a new bunch of suckers to suck up and they are all from investment banks. It is not contributing to anything to the wider economy.”

Plowden argued index funds are unfairly categorised as investments as ETFs have a built-in ability to buy and sell shares quickly and on a daily basis.

He said: “A definition that we would buy of investing is ‘the careful selection and long-term ownership of value created businesses’. That is what investing is. It’s backing successful businesses and then living off that cashflow and dividends for the next 30 years. So the selection and the time periods are absolutely vital to that.

“Whereas passive investing doesn’t know what’s in the package, and the main appeal of it is that it is cheap to get in and out of the package, which implies that there is going to be a lot of trading in and out, so almost by definition it is trading not investing.”

In May, Baillie Gifford adopted a tiered-based fee system on a number of its largest investment trusts in response to the FCA’s asset management market study. This means as the funds increase in size, fees will decrease.

In the case of Monks’s fund, fees will reduce to 0.33 per cent on assets over £750m, while below this amount annual management fees will remain at 0.45 per cent.

Plowden argued a problem with index trackers is that many ETFs might hold stocks that have performed well in the past but might see more disruptions in the future.

He said those ETFs that follow the US market are more exposed to financial sectors, which are a quarter of the global index, and are being disrupted by financial technology firms.

Output: A senior executive at Baillie Gifford has sounded off against exchange-traded funds, saying the products will likely lead to a market crash. Charles Plowden, who manages the firm's flagship Monk Investment Trust, likened ETFs to collateralised debt obligations mis-sold prior to the global financial crisis of 2008. Investors didn't care what was held within those offerings, and few are paying attention to what's in their ETFs today, said Plowden. An ETF-driven crash could spell good news for active managers, he added.


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HSBC plans holistic robo-advice product
 BI Intelligence

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Fintech Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

HSBC's head of retail wealth, Dean Butler, provided his perspective on automated advice, and the bank's plans for new products in the area, at the UK Robo-Advice Innovation Forum on Wednesday, attended by BI Intelligence.

Butler believes there are both positives and negatives associated with current automated investment products:

On the plus side, current products are affordable; easily accessible thanks to their digital format; and often educational, in that firms offering the solutions take pains to provide tailored marketing materials.

current products are affordable; easily accessible thanks to their digital format; and often educational, in that firms offering the solutions take pains to provide tailored marketing materials. On the other hand, Butler believes the sheer number of automated investment products available is confusing to consumers, as they find it hard to understand any differences between products. Additionally, he said the complex language associated with all investment products, which is often a requirement of regulation, is off putting.

HSBC is planning to launch a new product in 2018 that counters these downsides.HSBC’s new product, dubbed Robo-Advising 2.0 by Butler, will provide holistic financial advice, rather than just automated investment, helping it to differentiate. His vision for the product includes transforming an existing offering that “nudges” customers into saving more via simple notifications into a financial advice tool, in order to help customers better manage their entire financial life. Eventually, that will include recommending and managing additional products such as pensions and insurance.

HSBC’s goal is admirable, but it will have to move fast. It seems probable that customers will be more likely to take an investment product from their current bank than from an unknown startup, as a trusted brand would help alleviate the mistrust many consumers feel toward automated investing. Additionally, HSBC’s plan to enable customers to see all their financial details in one place will likely prove popular.

However, with open banking approaching fast, other banks will no doubt be planning similar propositions, and the new rules will make it easier for them to pull in ready-made investment products from startups, meaning HSBC will have to move quickly if it wants to benefit from a first-mover advantage.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together a detailed report on the evolution of robo-advising that scopes the current market for robo-advisors, providing an updated forecast through 2022. In addition, it explains the different types of robo-advisors emerging, details how startups and incumbents are working to ensure the success of their products, and outlines what will happen to the market over the next 12 months.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

BI Intelligence forecasts that robo-advisors — investment products that include any element of automation — will manage around $1 trillion by 2020, and around $4.6 trillion by 2022.

Startups offering robo-advisors are struggling to acquire AUM due to overcrowding in the global robo-advisory market and lower than expected customer uptake.

Incumbents are rolling out their own robo-advisor products, a trend we expect to pick up in the period to 2022.

North America remains the leading robo-advisory market, but we expect Asia to catch up and outpace the region in terms of AUM managed by robo-advisors in the period to 2022.

There will be a winnowing of the startup robo-advisory market as only a few firms remain stand-alone, while incumbents looking to launch their own products will profit from purchasing the technology of startups that have fallen by the wayside, at low cost.

In full, the report:

Provides a forecast for the volume of assets robo-advisors will manage by 2022.

Outlines the current robo-advisory landscape.

Explains how startups with robo-advisor products are evolving their business strategies.

Provides an outlook for the future of the robo-advising industry.

To get the full report, subscribe BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now

Output: HSBC is planning to introduce a robo-advice platform next year that provides financial advice rather than just automated investment portfolios. The firm is hoping to eventually expand the usage of this platform to help consumers manage other areas of their financial lives, such as pensions and insurance. The firm already has a financial advice offering that provides alerts to clients encouraging them to save more and put money to work in investments. It is reported this service will be integrated into the new platform.


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US legacy regulation makes insurtech enormous challenge
 The emergence of insurtech represents the biggest challenge facing regulators over the next decade, as lawmakers work to ensure startups comply with state provisions imposed on carriers while encouraging growth.

Individual state insurance codes, some dating as far back as the 1800s, also make insurtech business models difficult to grasp for regulators, according to Adam Hamm, who served as president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 2014. He argues established legal codes were written for an old paper-driven market, not a digital world where insurtechs produce data in real-time.

“Of course, legislature gets to meet, revise or add to a statute, but it’s built on the original model,” says Hamm, who was North Dakota’s insurance commissioner from 2007 to 2016. “Regulators have to either rewrite codes completely or tweak statutes to allow for these new business models.”

The NAIC Innovation task force established this year will play a big role in regulating insurtech going forward, Hamm predicts. By giving insurers and startups a seat at the table, regulators can better balance industry innovation with consumer protections and solvency requirements. In return, insurers and industry newcomers can communicate the pain points of current insurance codes.

“The task force is regulators trying to wrap their minds around how to eat this huge elephant one bite at time,” he added.

Finally, Hamm warns insurtechs are in for a “rude awakening” as they expand into new markets, as the majority of startups are unaware of the standards they are required to meet as part of the U.S. 50-state regulatory system.

“Not a lot grasp this will not be a one-stop shop,” he says.

Hamm now serves as managing director of Protiviti, a global consultancy firm. In this role, he educates insurtechs on how to make business models fit within current regulatory environments. Hamm also advises carriers on the pros and cons of their insurtech approach, which largely involve M&A activity or building emerging technologies in-house.

“Market share players understand regulation, but should know that regulators aren’t going to grant insurtechs shortcuts,” he said. “The same rules applied to carriers will be applied to startups.”

Output: Insurance codes in US states that date back decades, if not centuries, are making the regulation of insurtech a daunting task, according to Adam Hamm, former president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. In order for insurtech to be regulated properly many legal codes may need to be rewritten by regulators, he said. Hamm added that many codes adopted years ago were written for a paper-based insurance market. Certain codes date back to as early as the 1800s and many insurtech firms may not realise there are significant differences between the codes of each state, Hamm noted.


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Insurtech Haven Life connects users to emergency services via app
 Attendees use Samsung Electronics Co. smartphones at the company's extraordinary general meeting at the company's Seocho office building in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016. Lee Jae-yong, the crown prince of the founding family that controls the Samsung Group, officially joined a nine-person board at Samsung, whose botched roll out of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone has delivered a blow to a premier tech brand and cost the company billions of dollars in profit. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

Haven Life, an insurtech startup backed by MassMutual, has rolled out a one-touch emergency services mobile app for customers.

The new tool, LifeLink, is powered by four-year technology startup RapidSOS; leveraging cloud communications and data analytics to connect users with emergency dispatchers. Along with its one-touch 911 dialing feature, policyholders can also text or call for help on behalf of family members while viewing their exact location, according to the company.

LifeLink is free for one year for of iOS and Android users. Account holders will be required to pay up to five dollars a month for individual or family plans after, Haven Life says.

"Since launching, we've sought out ways to make life less hard outside of just financial protection,” said Yaron Ben-Zvi, CEO and co-founder of Haven Life, in a statement. “LifeLink is a transformative app that protects us, our partners, our children, our parents - anyone we love - no matter where we are."

The debut of its smartphone app follows Haven Life’s launch of a Facebook chatbot last week, designed to educate consumers on the real costs of life insurance. After a few questions, the startup’s AI chatbot will automatically calculate life insurance needs of a customer and generate a monthly rate for Haven Term coverage.

Output: MassMutual-owned insurtech Haven Life has introduced an app that allows users to easily connect with emergency services. The app, known as LifeLink, also allows users to alert emergency services on behalf of friends and family. The app is free to use for Haven Life policyholders for a one-year period, after which they will have to pay up to $5 a month. The app was developed in partnership with start-up RapidSOS.


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Bajaj Allianz launches India's first individual cyber policies
 In a first cyber cover for individuals, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has launched Individual Cyber Safe policy. The policy provides coverage for people who fall victim to threats such as cyber-attacks, cyber extortion and cyberbullying. And cover against financial loss, defence cost, prosecution cost, IT theft loss, restoration cost, due to identity theft, malware attack.

Anyone above 18 years of age can buy this policy for a cover ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore.

Any financial loss resulting from email spoofing and phishing, losses and expenses related to defence will also be taken care of by the policy. The policyholder will also have cover for prosecution cost related to identity theft, IT theft loss, restoration cost to retrieve or reinstall Data or Computer Program damaged by entry of the Malware.

The policyholders can also claim for expenses incurred on counselling services treatment, claim for damages against third-party for privacy breach and data breach, cyber extortion loss and transportation for attending court summons.

Announcing the launch, Tapan Singhel MD and CEO Bajaj Allianz, said "In an increasingly connected digital world, the amount of personal data being generated, transmitted, and stored on to various digital devices is growing at an exponential rate,"

"The critical nature of this data and the complexity of the systems that support its transmission and use, have created a gamut of cyber risks," he added.

Output: Bajaj Allianz has introduced personal cyber coverage policies in India. The policies cover cyber attacks, cyberbullying, or online extortion, as well as any legal costs involved. Policies can be purchased by any individual over 18-years-old. Identity theft is also offered as part of the coverage. The line of business was introduced due to the sheer amount of personal data being stored and transferred in India's modern economy.


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Fall in pre-revenue Australian fintech firms shows boom in sector
 Australian fintech startups are seeing median revenues of $95,000 a month, up from a median of $30,000 a month last year, the 2017 Fintech Australia census has found.

With the census based on a survey of 166 fintech companies across Australia, 24 percent of respondents reported they had seen annual revenue growth of 700 percent over the last year, though as the census points out many of these companies were likely to have been growing from a small revenue base.

A growing number of fintechs overall are making money, with the number of pre-revenue startups dropping to 29 percent from 43 percent in 2016.

With this growth, 54 percent of respondents stated they will be looking to expand overseas, or further their overseas expansion, within the next 12 months. The key markets for expansion are the UK, Singapore, and US.

Simon Cant, chair of Fintech Australia, said the growth of local companies highlights the fact Australians are embracing nascent fintech companies.

“The fact that the industry has experienced a tripling in median revenue is a strong sign that fintech firms are acquiring customers and making strong inroads into the traditional financial services sector,” he said.

“Equally so, it is exciting to see that fintech firms are now sufficiently comfortable with their domestic positions to be increasingly planning international expansions. This is another sign of a healthy and maturing industry.”

Of course, it’s not all smooth sailing, with respondents identifying a number of government policy-related issues they would like to see addressed to help do business better.

Among the chief concerns is improving the research and development initiative, capital gains tax relief, and more transparent access to the New Payments Platform.

Forty percent of respondents also highlighted the challenges they have faced in making efforts to collaborate with banks and other financial institutions, indicating this as an external impediment to their business.

Like the wider startup and tech landscape, access to talent across various roles is also an issue.

Thirty-five percent of respondents reported facing a talent pool shortage of sales professionals, up from 41 percent in 2016. Almost 30 percent found a shortage of marketing professionals, while 61 percent reported a shortage of engineering and software staff and 24 percent seeing a shortage in design and user experience professionals.

Gender diversity in the sector is also poor; the number of female employees at fintech companies grew only two points from 22 percent last year. Furthermore, 83 percent of fintechs have all-male founding teams.

Stuart Stoyan, deputy chair of Fintech Australia and founder of the census, said the organisation will look to focus on driving female participation in the sector.

“Our programs have included a speaker gender equality target at the Intersekt Festival, ensuring at least 30 percent of the FinTech Australia board are women and by promoting a Female FinTech Leader of the Year award at our annual Finnies awards,” he said.

The release of the census results follows the launch of Insurtech Australia late last month as a standalone division of Fintech Australia focused on representing insurtech startups and others working within the space.

The launch of the body, which is supported by partners including QBE, Suncorp, and IAG, comes as data from CB Insights shows Australian startups attracted just one percent of the almost US$1.7 billion invested in insurtech startups in 2016.

Brenton Charnley, cofounder and lead of Insurtech Australia, said one of the organisation’s key goals is to make Australia one of the world’s leading markets for insurance innovation.

“Insurtech is a rapidly growing sector worldwide, and Australia has the ideas and skills to compete. Insurtech Australia’s mission is to foster a diverse community of insurance, startup and technology leaders to help Australia become a world leader for insurtech,” he said.

Output: More than 70% of Australian fintech start-ups are generating revenue, with the number of companies describing themselves as "pre-revenue" dropping dramatically over the past 12 months, according to an annual survey of fintech firms. The number of companies surveyed that were described as being "pre-revenue" has fallen from 43% to 29%. Start-ups have a median monthly revenue of AUD95,000 ($72,891), up from AUD30,000 in 2016. A quarter of the 166 fintechs surveyed said they had achieved annual revenue growth of 700% over the past year.


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Sales of Australian milk powder surge in China
 The latest figures from Rural Bank’s Australian Dairy Update forecast milk powder exports by volume could increase as much as 43% year on year as China’s appetite for milk powder continues to grow.

The report also shows China’s import pattern has changed dramatically in the last few months with a 53% surge in Australian milk powder imports having been recorded for the January to August 2017 period.

Demand for Australian milk powder products has gone from strength to strength in recent years with the prevalence of daigou or shoppers for Chinese retail customers leading to many Australian supermarket chains enforcing local customer limits due to shortages of milk powder based baby formulas.

Rural Bank for general manager agribusiness, Andrew Smith, said the increase in Chinese demand for Australian milk powder was encouraging for Australian dairy farmers and could allow processors and producers to capitalise on any future increases in global dairy prices.

“The out of cycle rise in Chinese demand for Australian milk powder, combined with year-on-year increases in the value of dairy exports to Singapore and Malaysia, means that three of the five main Australian export markets are performing well despite lower global prices,” Mr Smith said

“This is good news for dairy farmers and highlights once again the strong appetite and demand for Australian dairy products throughout Asia,” he said.

According to the Australian Dairy Update, national milk production is also tracking slightly above this time last year, with South Australia and Victoria leading the way with 12.7% and 0.9% increases respectively.

Following an extremely dry September, welcome rains fell across most dairy regions of Australia in October. Weather conditions are expected to improve further in the coming months according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The agribusiness general manager said milk production increases will become more feasible as October rains support good pasture growth.

“There is also now a good chance of above average rainfall occurring across many dairy regions this summer,” Mr Smith said.

Output: Sales of Australian milk powder have boomed in China over the past few months, with a 53% rise in imports between January and August 2017, according to Rural Bank's Australian Dairy Update. China's import pattern for the product has been so fast – with predictions it could rise by as much as 43% year on year – that Australian supermarket chains have put in place local customer limits because of shortages.


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Buyers warned about fake mature whiskies at auction
 A bottle of Macallan 1878 Scotch whisky has been confirmed as a fake after a Chinese tourist paid nearly £8,000 for a single dram in a Swiss hotel bar.

Lab tests confirmed this week that the Macallan 1878 at the The Waldhaus Hotel Am See in St Moritz, Switzerland, was too good to be true.

A Chinese customer, named in press reports as 36-year-old writer Zhang Wei from Beijing, paid almost 10,000 Swiss francs (£7,700, $10,050) for a single glass of the ultra-rare Scotch whisky over the summer.

But, the hotel said that it subsequently sent the whisky for tests after suspicions were raised by experts following media coverage of what has been dubbed the world’s most expensive Scotch.

Rare Whisky 101, a Scottish brokerage and consultancy, commissioned analysis at the University of Oxford on the hotel’s behalf and found that the liquid inside the Macallan 1878 bottle was likely only created between 1970 and 1972.

More tests by Tatlock and Thomson lab showed the whisky was probably a blend of 60% malt and 40% grain; in other words, not a single malt Scotch whisky as claimed.

‘The result has been a big shock to the system, and we are delighted to have repaid our customer in full as a gesture of goodwill,’ said Sandro Bernasconi, Waldhaus Am See hotel manager and bar manager at Devils Place.

Bernasconi flew to Asia to refund the customer in person.

RW101 co-founder David Robertson said that the story was an example of rising concerns about counterfeits as greater amounts of mature whiskies are sold at auction and on the secondary market generally.

‘Over the past year, we have been invited by numerous bottle owners and auction houses to assess suspicious bottles,’ he said.

‘As with any purchase, we would recommend that each buyer does their research, assesses the bottle and its packaging presentation, and where they can afford to do so, send some of the liquid for technical evaluation and/or carbon dating.’

More stories like this:

Output: Buyers should look out for counterfeit mature whiskies being sold at auction and on the secondary market, David Robertson of Rare Whisky 101 has said. "Over the past year, we have been invited by numerous bottle owners and auction houses to assess suspicious bottles," he said. His comments followed news that a bottle of Macallan 1878 Scotch whisky was confirmed as a fake after Chinese tourist Zhang Wei paid $10,050 for a single dram in a Swiss hotel bar. Increasingly more people are investing into old and rare whiskies, which has heightened concerns about fake Scotch on the market.


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LendInvest and Citi enter long-term financing partnership
 ALTERNATIVE property lender LendInvest has announced a new long-term financing partnership with Citi, as it eyes the UK’s £40bn buy-to-let (BTL) market.

LendInvest has also revealed that it now manages more than £500m of lending capital on behalf of its institutional lenders, and more than £750m in total. Its investors have lent more than £1.1bn to help borrowers buy, build or renovate 4,000 UK homes.

The platform, which stopped describing itself as a peer-to-peer lender earlier this year, is now set to have the largest institutional lending base in UK fintech.

“Institutional capital coming onto our platform from some of the world’s largest institutions is the ultimate validation of the quality of the lending we do,” said Christian Faes, co-founder chief executive at LendInvest.

“This new funding line from Citi shows how our business has evolved from disruptive fintech startup to established scale-up business as we move towards the mainstream mortgage market.

“Citi’s backing equips us with the firepower to expand into longer-term lending, as we take our superior technology and processes into the professional portfolio landlord market. It also gives us an opportunity to work closely with a team that is world-class in the global mortgage market and a well-established player in the securitisation space.”

Read more: MarketInvoice, Funding Circle, Zopa, LendInvest make Fintech 250

The Citi partnership will provide LendInvest with a warehouse funding line that will be used to finance specialist BTL loans. These loans will be available on terms up to 30 years, marking a move away from the firm’s past focus on the UK’s short-term bridging finance market.

The news has been welcomed by MP Chris Philp, PPS to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said that the partnership is “a great example of major institutions getting behind UK fintech in a serious way.”

“LendInvest’s push into buy-to-let is a great example of fintech moving into more hard-to-disrupt markets that could be otherwise left behind by financial innovation,” he added.

Prior to the Citi partnership, LendInvest secured institutional investments from Macquarie Bank, Merseyside Pension Fund and a listed UK challenger bank. High-net-worth individuals and other corporate investors can also access its investment opportunities via the company’s online investment platform, a discretionary fund, and a £500m bond programme listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Read more: Oversubscribed, not stirred! LendInvest bond enters the stock market

Output: UK fintech firm LendInvest has "evolved from disruptive fintech start-up to established scale-up business", according to CEO Christian Faes, after he announced a long-term partnership with Citi. The latter firm will provide LendInvest with a warehouse funding line, including terms up to 30 years, for use in the UK's £40bn ($52bn) buy-to-let market. LendInvest, which started out as a short-term, peer-to-peer lender, is on track to have the UK fintech sector's largest institutional lending base, and has more than £750m total assets under management.


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SEC warns about legal dangers of celebrity endorsements of ICOs
 Celebrities and others are using social media networks to encourage the public to purchase stocks and other investments. These endorsements may be unlawful if they do not disclose the nature, source, and amount of any compensation paid, directly or indirectly, by the company in exchange for the endorsement. The SEC’s Enforcement Division and Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations encourage investors to be wary of investment opportunities that sound too good to be true. We encourage investors to research potential investments rather than rely on paid endorsements from artists, sports figures, or other icons.

Celebrities and others have recently promoted investments in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). In the SEC’s Report of Investigation concerning The DAO, the Commission warned that virtual tokens or coins sold in ICOs may be securities, and those who offer and sell securities in the United States must comply with the federal securities laws. Any celebrity or other individual who promotes a virtual token or coin that is a security must disclose the nature, scope, and amount of compensation received in exchange for the promotion. A failure to disclose this information is a violation of the anti-touting provisions of the federal securities laws. Persons making these endorsements may also be liable for potential violations of the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws, for participating in an unregistered offer and sale of securities, and for acting as unregistered brokers. The SEC will continue to focus on these types of promotions to protect investors and to ensure compliance with the securities laws.

Investors should note that celebrity endorsements may appear unbiased, but instead may be part of a paid promotion. Investment decisions should not be based solely on an endorsement by a promoter or other individual. Celebrities who endorse an investment often do not have sufficient expertise to ensure that the investment is appropriate and in compliance with federal securities laws. Conduct research before making investments, including in ICOs. If you are relying on a particular endorsement or recommendation, learn more regarding the relationship between the promoter and the company and consider whether the recommendation is truly independent or a paid promotion. For more information, see an Investor Alert that the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued today regarding celebrity endorsements.

Additional Resources

Investor Bulletin: Initial Coin Offerings

Investor Alert: Public Companies Making ICO-Related Claims

Investor Alert: Social Media and Investing – Avoiding Fraud

Output: The US Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC) has warned that celebrities who promote initial coin offerings (ICOs), in which the tokens are regarded as securities, must ensure they comply with federal legislation. In a statement, the SEC said the nature, source and amount of compensation received in exchange for the promotion must be disclosed. Celebrities failing to do so risk falling foul of the anti-touting provisions of federal securities laws. The statement also urged potential investors to seek professional advice on ICOs, as famous faces are not necessarily financial experts.


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Visa launches real-time payments platform in European market
 Visa is to bring its real-time payments platform to market in Europe after experiencing strong growth in other key markets globally.

Visa Direct enables person-to-person (P2P), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) payments with funds transfers to recipient accounts taking place within minutes.

For the European roll-out, Visa has partnered with Worldpay to equip merchants with the capability to send real-time payments to consumers. The card scheme is also releasing an API on its developer platform to help bank and merchant clients implement the technology.

To further push take-up, Visa in Europe has announced a mandate that requires card issuers to enable real-time payments by October 2018.

In other global markets where the technology is already available, Visa Direct saw volumes increase by 75% over last year. In the US, the platform enables push payments for a host of partners, including PayPal, Braintree, Square Cash, and Stripe.

Mike Lemberger, SVP of product solutions, Visa in Europe, comments: “Visa Direct is a proven platform that enables technology companies, businesses and financial institutions to meet the demand for real-time payments, backed by the ubiquity, cost-efficiency and speed of Visa’s global network.”

Output: After boosting volumes by 75% in other markets, Visa is bringing its real-time payments software, Visa Direct, to Europe, ensuring wide adoption by requiring all card issuers to enable such payments by October 2018. Visa Direct allows person-to-person, business-to-consumer and business-to-business payments to be made in minutes. Visa has partnered with Worldpay and is releasing an API on its developer platform to support merchants as they adopt the technology.


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China will surpass US in AI by 2025: Alphabet's Eric Schmidt
 In April, as Eric Schmidt watched a computer program defeat China’s top go player in a ground-breaking match in the Chinese city of Wuzhen, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company was struck less by the considerable innovations displayed by human and machine than by the audience: “To me the more interesting thing [was that] all the top computer science people in China had shown up.”

It showed, Schmidt said, the importance placed on AI development by both the Chinese government and its people, and was a postcard from the future competition for AI dominance.

“I’m assuming our [U.S.] lead will continue over the next five years and then that China will catch up extremely quickly,” the Google leader told the Center for New American Security’s Paul Scharre at the Artificial Intelligence & Global Security Summit on Wednesday.

Schmidt doesn’t like the term “arms race” to describe the U.S.-Chinese rivalry in artificial intelligence, in part because defining AI as a weapon is limiting at best and flatly inaccurate at worst. But it is a tool that can make one military, company, economy, and even nation much more effective than another. And China, he says, is positioning itself to devour the current U.S. advantage in just a few years.

In July, China unveiled a massive, national plan for the future of artificial intelligence, to guide both commercial and military development. Its timeline caught Schmidt’s attention. “By 2020, they will have caught up. By 2025, they will be better than us. By 2030, they will dominate the industries.”

For Schmidt, the take-home was clear: “We need to get our act together, as a country…This is the moment when the [U.S.] government collectively, and private industry, needs to say, ‘these technologies are important.’”

But, he said, the Trump administration isn’t doing that. In fact, several moves are putting the U.S. at a disadvantage.

For example, Trump’s 2018 budget request slashes funds for basic science and research by $4.3 billion, roughly 13 percent compared to 2016. (Trump’s military budget does increase money for basic science and research in the Pentagon, but only by $117 million.) While there’s lots of private and corporate money going into AI research, those funds don’t guarantee advantage on a national level.

“It feels, as an American, that we are fighting this conflict with one hand behind our back. What I would rather do is not adopt the Chinese policies, but...fund basic research. The Trump budget does reduce that. It’s the wrong direction,” Schmidt said.

The Google leader also slammed Trump’s multicountry travel ban and other immigration policies that would close America’s doors to smart students, researchers, and entrepreneurs who want to come study and start companies.

“Let’s talk about immigration. Shockingly, some of the very best people in AI are in countries that we won’t let into America. Would you rather have them building AI somewhere else or would you have them building here?” he asked. “Iran produces some of the top computer scientists in the world. I want them here. I want them working for Alphabet and Google. It’s crazy not to let these people.”

Schmidt has not been shy about his disagreement with Trump on immigration, but Wednesday marked the first time he cast the disagreement in terms of future national security and state-on-state competition. It’s an area he knows something about; the Google leader currently chairs the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, set up by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter. In January, the Board approved 11 recommendations to help the Pentagon better integrate technology and innovation into the way it buys and operates weapons. The future of those recommendations, and the board itself, is undetermined.

Related video:

Output: The US is heading in the wrong direction by cutting science and research budgets if it wants to prevent China from becoming a leader in artificial intelligence (AI), according to Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt. He made the comments during the Artificial Intelligence & Global Security Summit in Washington. Schmidt predicted China will match the US's AI capability by 2020 and added: "By 2025, they will be better than us. By 2030, they will dominate the industry." Schmidt, the chair of the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, also criticised President Trump's travel ban for preventing talented employees from entering the US.


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Fitbit and One Drop partner for diabetes management
 One Drop has teamed up with Fitbit to integrate fitness tracker data into its diabetes management platform.

The new alliance reflects growing competition in digital health, with many rival digital diabetes management services currently emerging.

One Drop is up against rival platforms such as MySugr (recently acquired by Roche) and Glooko, and all these services need to sign up and retain tens of thousands of patients in order to prove their long-term value.

The core of One Drop's offering is its mobile app, One Drop Mobile, which acts as a hub of information gathered from its blood glucose monitors and user input regarding medications, food intake, and activity.

The app analyses this data to provide insights into blood glucose trends, helping users better manage their condition.

Now thanks to a new partnership with Fitbit, data gathered from the firm's fitness trackers will integrate into the One Drop mobile app, giving a better idea of how activity impacts blood glucose.

The data will also be incorporated into One Drop reports - summaries of user information that can be shared with healthcare professionals via the company's One Drop Experts and One Drop Professional services. Physicians can then use this data can to inform more personalised care decisions.

One Drop will also be given the opportunity to analyse Fitbit data, in addition to its current 500 million customer base, with the goal to identify new insights into diabetes.

[caption id="attachment_22514" align="alignnone" width="150"] CEO and founder of One Drop, Jeff Dachis[/caption]

"We strive to provide our community with the most comprehensive set of data and tools to manage their diabetes or prediabetes. Working with Fitbit, the leading global wearables brand, was a natural next step for One Drop," said Jeff Dachis, CEO and founder of One Drop.

The partnership will also see data flowing from One Drop to Fitbit, specifically into an app created for its new Ionic smartwatch.

"Our mission is to help make the world healthier, and our new Ionic smartwatch is the health platform that allows us to deliver our most advanced health and fitness features to the market," said Adam Pellegrini, general manager of Fitbit Health Solutions.

"This holistic experience brings the power of Fitbit data together with One Drop's sophisticated care management technology to provide meaningful insights on the role of physical activity and how it can improve the health of those living with diabetes."

The partnership with Fitbit adds to a good year for One Drop. Since launching One Drop | Chrome at the end of 2016 - a sleek set of chrome diabetes devices to accompany its app platform - One Drop partnered with MannKind in August to investigate the firm's inhalable insulin, Afrezza.

Around the same time, positive results from a study published in JMIR Diabetes demonstrated a 1.1% to 1.3% absolute reduction in HbA1c levels among One Drop Mobile users after four months of using the service.

One of the most significant developments in the field this year was pharma giant Roche acquiring mySugr, a diabetes management app which already has 1 million users.

Output: New York-based healthtech One Drop has partnered with Fitbit to integrate data from the health tracker into its mobile app. The partnership follows One Drop's August collaboration with inhalable insulin manufacturer MannKind. One Drop's app monitors user activity, offers reminders to take medication and tracks basal rates, and will now include data from Fitbit devices, revealing how activity affects blood glucose levels. A recent study demonstrated a 1.1%-1.3% drop in HbA1c levels in participants after four months of using the One Drop Mobile app.


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UK publishers said to lose £500,000 a year due to ad-blocking
 Ad blocking has moved from exponential to linear growth: The sky might not be falling, but ignore it at your peril. Skewed metrics are a major distraction for publishers trying to tackle this problem, but focusing on the financial losses is one route to encourage all parties to find a solution.

The UK Association of Online Publishers aggregated data from 40 members — AOP members include Condé Nast, ESI Media, Global, the Guardian and The Telegraph — and found that the average U.K. publisher is losing £500,000 ($660,000) a year due to ad blocking.

“People should be getting more passionate about this,” said Nick Flood, product and commercial operations director at Dennis Publishing. “People need to take this more seriously.”

In order to learn more about ad-blocking behavior and recovery, Dennis Publishing, Bauer, Auto Trader and Haymarket plan to collectively run a hard ban on content early next year for ad-block users across their auto sites for a day. Hard blocks on general news sites tend to be ineffective because users can access the content elsewhere.

Dennis has had experience in banning ad-block users from accessing content. Flood said it’s seeing about 20 percent of its audience block ads, which is in line with other U.K. publishers. Dennis is asking ad-block users visiting site Carbuyer to disable their ad blockers or continue to view the site with ads. In recent tests, the publisher found that 70 percent of ad-block users continue to view the site with ads — the publisher uses an ad-recovery solution — while 30 percent disabled their ad blocker. It has also tested showing a 30-second video ad before people continue through to an ad-free site, which has had a 70 percent view-through rate, according to Flood.

“People will interact with you if you have content they want to engage with; you need to push that agenda,” he said at the AOP’s Inside Out conference in London this week. “You will lose people; 30 percent of our users bounced, but we weren’t monetizing them anyway.”

With the likelihood of more browser-based ad-blocking solutions around the corner and the anticipation that mobile ad blocking will grow, communicating with users is more effective than tackling ad-block developers and companies. “Rather than a cat-and-mouse game, it’s more like an in-browser knife fight,” said Flood.

Desktop rates in the U.K. appear to have stabilized. Studies from the Internet Advertising Bureau found that the percentage of U.K. adults blocking ads has held steady at 21 percent since February 2016. However, this could be because there has been a higher growth in ad blockers that block analytics, and mobile is accounting for more of publishers’ traffic.

“From a data perspective, I’ve always been concerned that we can’t accurately analyze our audience,” said Jo Holdaway, chief data officer at ESI Media. “It’s not just the loss of revenue but the loss of insight and inference about our audience.”

Around 20 percent of ESI Media’s audience blocks ads across The Independent and the Evening Standard. ESI Media has been monitoring ad-blocking rates before deciding on a firm strategy; it’s asking users politely to disable ad blockers, but the conversion is low. For Dennis, this soft approach only saw 3 percent of users engage.

Holdaway estimates that 30 percent of those who block ads are also blocking analytics. This corresponds with studies by Oriel, which provides ad-blocking solutions for publishers, across publishers using its technology. There has been a 125 percent increase from last year in analytics blocking, according to Oriel.

“On desktop, it might have stabilized, but don’t be complacent,” said Holdaway. “Ignore it at your peril.”

Output: A UK Association of Online Publishers survey of 40 of its members found they are losing out on an average of £500,000 ($664,000) annually because of ad-blocking. Auto Trader, Bauer, Haymarket and Dennis Publishing will begin refusing access for ad-block users from early 2018 in a test of the impact of so-called "hard bans" on their niche auto titles. Dennis Publishing has already found that 70% of ad-block users will view its site with ads via an ad-recovery solution, with 30% of users disabling their ad-blocker.


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Facebook's Q3 revenue passes $10.1 billion
 Facebook soared beyond Wall Street predictions in the third quarter of 2017, with advertising revenue topping $10bn for the first time and profits hitting $4.7bn.

Ad revenue saw a 49 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase compared to Q3 2017, with mobile ad revenue representing around 88 per cent of that total. Meanwhile, profits were up 79 per cent YoY.

Despite this, the company warned that future profitability could take a hit due to its investments in dealing with abuse and fake news on its platform.

“Our community continues to grow and our business is doing well,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “But none of that matters if our services are used in ways that don't bring people closer together. We're serious about preventing abuse on our platforms. We're investing so much in security that it will impact our profitability. Protecting our community is more important than maximising our profits.”

During an earnings call, Zuckerberg added: “I've expressed how upset I am that the Russians tried to use our tools to sow mistrust. We built these tools to help people connect and to bring us closer together, and they used them to try to undermine our values. What they did is wrong, and we are not going to stand for it.”

Away from the financials, Facebook’s daily active users (DAUs) and monthly active users (MAUs) saw a YoY increase of 16 per cent. DAUs were 1.37bn on average for September 2017, while MAUs were 2.07bn as of 30 September. Facebook’s photo sharing platform, Instagram, also passed 500m DAUs in the quarter.

“We have seen Facebook's stock price grow by over 50 per cent this year and it’s not showing signs of slowing. Recent projects like avoiding further ad saturation on the News Feed with ads on Instant Articles and Videos, and the platforms ever increasing 2bn user base makes it prime for rising digital ad revenue spend,” said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CEO at social media analytics firm Socialbakers.

“Facebook’s expansion into additional markets such as Asia Pacific, will further expand its reach and continue to keep the social giant far ahead of its peers in regard to sheer volume and therefore engagement and potential ad revenue. However, the company must remain mindful of oversaturation and subsequently irritating users,” he continued.

“As another arm of Facebook, Instagram has also emerged as an advertising powerhouse creating significant revenue for Facebook, as we are seeing more and more marketers shifting their focus towards Instagram for both their organic and paid activity. The introduction of the Stories function is enhancing its relevance among brands and will continue to galvanise market share in the photo sharing arena. Instagram has clearly contributed to Facebook's numbers this quarter and will continue to do so in the future.”

Join us at the 2017 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Ceremony, taking place in London on Thursday 16 November, to mix with the industry's best and brightest, and raise a glass to the year's best campaigns and solutions. To find out more, and to book your place, click here.

Output: Facebook's advertising revenue exceeded $10bn for the first time in Q3, with profits rising to $4.7bn. Advertising revenue rose 49% since the same period in 2016, with 88% of that due to mobile income. Profits rose 79%, but the social media giant has warned that future profits may not be as favourable as it puts money behind security efforts to clear the platform of fake news and abuse. Facebook's daily active users and monthly active users increased 16%.


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Private investment of $1tn means Paris climate targets in reach
 Creating Markets for Climate Business identifies seven industry sectors that can make a crucial difference in catalyzing private investment: renewable energy, off-grid solar and energy storage, agribusiness, green buildings, urban transportation, water, and urban waste management. Already, more than $1 trillion in investments are flowing into climate-related projects globally in these areas. But trillions more can be triggered by creating the right business conditions in emerging markets.

Learn more: Climate Investment Opportunities Report Series

Press Releases: English | Chinese | Spanish | German | Portuguese | Indonesian | Russian

Download Report

Output: At least $1tn of commercial investment around the world is going into sectors including energy efficiency, agri-business, public transport and renewable power, according to a report by the International Finance Corporation. This funding is making it possible for governments to meet the commitments they made under the Paris Climate Agreement, said the World Bank subsidiary. It estimated investments of $23bn a year in energy storage and off-grid solar could be possible by 2025 if governments back renewables over fossil fuels. Signatories to the agreement are meeting in Bonn this month to discuss its further implementation.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Private investment of $1tn means Paris climate targets in reach

At least one trillion dollars are being invested globally in ways to reduce the threat of climate change, including renewable power, energy efficiency, and public transport around the world.

The sums involved are likely to make it possible in future for the world’s governments to meet their commitments under the Paris agreement on climate change, provided the investment continues and is directed to the right ends, according to a new report.

The World Bank Group’s subsidiary, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), said on Thursday that the investment could hold the key to fighting climate change. Governments will meet in Bonn next week to discuss the next steps in implementing their pledges made at the 2015 Paris conference on climate change.

Philippe Le Houérou, chief executive of the IFC, said: “The private sector holds the key to fighting climate change. We can help unlock more private sector investment, but this also requires government reforms as well as innovative business models, which together will create new markets and attract the necessary investment. This can fulfil the promises of Paris.”

The IFC report, entitled Creating Markets for Climate Business, found that governments could work with businesses by fostering renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuels. For instance, IFC provided $653m (£492m) in debt financing to fund the construction of 13 solar plants near Aswan, in Egypt. Such financing can result in lower electricity costs for local people, as well as reducing carbon dioxide emissions and cutting down on air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

People in developing countries can also benefit from renewable energy installations, such as solar panels and wind turbines, that provide local power, removing the need for them to be connected to a national electricity grid to receive power – a distant dream in some countries, where the national grid is under-developed or prone to breakdown. The availability of power generated locally has multiple benefits, including safety and education, as it enables emissions-free light and power late into the night, instead of people being forced to rely on expensive and polluting kerosene burners.

The authors of the report estimated that investments in energy storage and off-grid solar of $23bn a year could be possible by 2025, if national governments favour renewable energy over fossil fuels.

However, in many countries, developed and developing, fossil fuel companies have the incumbent advantage, and in some cases policies have been developed to suit them. The International Energy Agency estimated fossil fuel subsidies at $325bn a year in 2016.

Making buildings more energy efficient could also reduce carbon emissions dramatically, according to the IFC report, but only if countries adopt better building codes and higher standards. Public transport is another area ripe for investment, which could yield billions of dollars in greater efficiency, and improve the quality of lives of people around the globe, but which has been held back by poor government involvement.

Christian Aid, the development charity, called on the World Bank Group to stop lending to fossil fuel projects. Funding by the group’s members for fossil fuel projects has increased to $4.7bn in 2016, according to the charity.

Fran Witt, senior climate change adviser at Christian Aid, said: “Despite aiming to champion clean energy, the World Bank Group actually continues to finance large volumes of dirty energy projects, which are driving climate change around the world. It is staggering that even after the Paris agreement the group is still investing most of its energy portfolio in dirty energy.”

Output: At least $1tn of commercial investment around the world is going into sectors including energy efficiency, agri-business, public transport and renewable power, according to a report by the International Finance Corporation. This funding is making it possible for governments to meet the commitments they made under the Paris Climate Agreement, said the World Bank subsidiary. It estimated investments of $23bn a year in energy storage and off-grid solar could be possible by 2025 if governments back renewables over fossil fuels. Signatories to the agreement are meeting in Bonn this month to discuss its further implementation.


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Climate change 'will cause major refugee crisis' within a decade
 This report focuses on one particular result from climate change – the negative impact on food security and how this factor contributed to the desperation and anger that manifested itself against the Al-Assad regime in Syria.

The Syrian war has resulted in more than 470,000 deaths. 6.6 million people have been internally displaced and nearly five million people are residing in camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon as well as an estimated 1.2 million seeking refuge in Europe.

Whilst the war was not solely a result of climate change, the intertwining effects of drought, rural to urban migration, and the increasing unrest due to a lack of government measures to avoid water scarcity, unemployment and growing inequality, are clear.

Output: Climate change will force tens of millions of people to abandon their homes, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, within the next decade, resulting in the world’s largest ever refugee crisis, according to a study by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). US military and security experts told the EJF that the number of refugees will far exceed that created by the Syrian conflict, causing vast challenges for Europe. The study, published on Thursday, calls for the creation of a new legal framework designed to protect climate refugees.


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Climate change 'will cause major refugee crisis' within a decade
 Tens of millions of people will be forced from their homes by climate change in the next decade, creating the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen, according to a new report.

Senior US military and security experts have told the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) study that the number of climate refugees will dwarf those that have fled the Syrian conflict, bringing huge challenges to Europe.

“If Europe thinks they have a problem with migration today … wait 20 years,” said retired US military corps brigadier general Stephen Cheney. “See what happens when climate change drives people out of Africa – the Sahel [sub-Saharan area] especially – and we’re talking now not just one or two million, but 10 or 20 [million]. They are not going to south Africa, they are going across the Mediterranean.”

The study published on Thursday calls on governments to agree a new legal framework to protect climate refugees and, ahead of next week’s climate summit in Germany, urges leaders to do more to implement the targets set out in the Paris climate agreement.

Sir David King, the former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, told the EJF: “What we are talking about here is an existential threat to our civilisation in the longer term. In the short term, it carries all sorts of risks as well and it requires a human response on a scale that has never been achieved before.”

The report argues that climate change played a part in the build up to the Syrian war, with successive droughts causing 1.5 million people to migrate to the country’s cities between 2006 and 2011. Many of these people then had no reliable access to food, water or jobs.

“Climate change is the the unpredictable ingredient that, when added to existing social, economic and political tensions, has the potential to ignite violence and conflict with disastrous consequences,” said EJF executive director, Steve Trent.

“In our rapidly changing world climate change – and its potential to trigger both violent conflict and mass migration – needs to be considered as an urgent priority for policymakers and business leaders alike.”

Although the report highlights to growing impact of climate change on people in the Middle East and Africa, it says changing weather patterns – like the hurricanes that devastated parts of the US this year – prove richer nations are not immune from climate change.

But Trent said that although climate change undoubtedly posed an “existential threat to our world” it was not to late to take decisive action.

“By taking strong ambitious steps now to phase out greenhouse gas emissions and building an international legal mechanism to protect climate refugees we will protect the poorest and most vulnerable in our global society, build resilience, reap massive economic benefits and build a safe and secure future for our planet. Climate change will not wait. Neither can we. For climate refugees, tomorrow is too late.”

Output: Climate change will force tens of millions of people to abandon their homes, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, within the next decade, resulting in the world’s largest ever refugee crisis, according to a study by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). US military and security experts told the EJF that the number of refugees will far exceed that created by the Syrian conflict, causing vast challenges for Europe. The study, published on Thursday, calls for the creation of a new legal framework designed to protect climate refugees.


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UK to see an extra 400,000 children in ‘absolute poverty’
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Debates over living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK are often hampered by the fact that official data on household incomes are available only with a significant lag. Currently, the latest statistics are for 2015–16. In this report, we attempt to fill this gap by estimating what has happened since 2015–16 to household incomes and poverty rates. We also look at how they might evolve up to 2021–22 if current tax and benefit policy plans are kept to and if the macroeconomic forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – for things such as earnings and employment – were correct.

Key findings

Real median income is projected to grow by around 5% between 2015–16 and 2021–22 – but this is highly sensitive to future earnings growth. Real median income in 2015–16 (latest data) stood 3.7% above its pre-recession level. We project that median income has grown by around 1% in total over the past two years and will grow by around 4% in total over the next four years. This is very slow growth by historical standards, and would leave real median income in 2021–22 around 20% lower than if growth since 2007–08 had continued in line with the long-run trend. But these projections depend upon what happens to pay: our previous report showed that for every percentage point (ppt) that earnings growth differs from the OBR expectation, median income growth differs by 0.6ppts per year.

While income inequality has fallen since the recession, it is projected to rise over the next four years. Between 2007–08 and 2015–16, real incomes rose by 7.7% at the 10th percentile but fell at the 90th percentile. However, this trend is projected to be reversed over the next four years, as real earnings growth boosts the incomes of high-income households and working-age benefits are cut. This is especially true if incomes are measured after housing costs have been deducted: we project that AHC incomes below the 20th percentile will fall in real terms between 2015–16 and 2021–22. However, the future path of inequality is highly dependent upon the distribution of growth in workers’ earnings, which is itself highly uncertain.

The official rate of relative AHC poverty is projected to rise by over 2ppts between 2015–16 and 2021–22. All of the projected increase in relative poverty is driven by relative child poverty, which is projected to increase by almost 7ppts. The relative poverty rates among pensioners and working-age non-parents are projected to remain fairly constant. Planned tax and benefit reforms account for about a third of the projected increase in relative poverty.

With real incomes of poor households stagnant or falling, the official rate of absolute AHC poverty is projected to remain roughly unchanged between 2015–16 and 2021–22, but to increase for children. These projections are somewhat sensitive to the path and distribution of future earnings growth, but tax and benefit policies also matter: planned reforms are projected to increase absolute poverty by about 1ppt. Absolute child poverty is projected to rise by around 4ppts, primarily due to the impact of planned reforms. Absolute pensioner poverty is projected to fall by over 2ppts, due in large part to the fact that beyond 2018 the basic state pension and pension credit are projected to rise in line with earnings.

Different regions face differing prospects for overall absolute poverty, but all are projected to see absolute child poverty rise between 2013–2015 and 2019–2021. Absolute poverty is projected to fall in southern regions, the East, Yorkshire & the Humber and Scotland, but rise in the North East, the North West, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Midlands. Although absolute child poverty is projected to increase in each nation and English region, the largest projected rises are in the North East, East Midlands and Wales, which see increases of at least 5ppts. With the exception of London, poverty is generally projected to rise more in areas where it is already higher. The relative fortunes of different regions could be different from our projections if there is significant geographical variation in future growth in rent or pay.

Differences in projected poverty trends across the country are partly driven by the share of income that low-income families get from earnings. Working-age families in poverty or just above the poverty line in regions such as London and the South East get over half of their income from earnings, whereas those in the North East get only about a third (with most of the rest of their income coming from benefits). Families that are more dependent on benefits are more exposed to benefit cuts, and gain less when real earnings rise.

The projected impact of upcoming tax and benefit reforms on poverty varies across regions, partly due to the differing effects of limiting the child element in tax credits and universal credit to the first two children in a family. This ‘two-child limit’ is projected to increase overall absolute poverty by a little under 1ppt and absolute child poverty by over 2ppts. Some regions are affected much more heavily than others: Northern Ireland and the West Midlands, with twice as many large poor families as Scotland and the South West, are projected to see a larger increase in poverty as a result of the policy.

There is, of course, significant uncertainty around any macroeconomic forecasts, and hence around any projection of future trends in household incomes based on those forecasts. Notably, the OBR has already indicated that it will downgrade its forecast for productivity – the key driver of earnings – at the Budget later this month. Such a downgrade would leave our projections for median income (based on the OBR’s March forecast) looking optimistic. However, our poverty projections, and those for relative poverty in particular, are less sensitive to forecast earnings growth.

Snapshot of our findings...

Output: The number of UK children in “absolute poverty” will rise by 400,000 within six years as a result of benefit cuts, according to a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The research, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, indicated that approximately 7.5 million low income households will have their benefits cut by over £500 ($653) per year, leading to a 4% increase in child poverty levels in the East Midlands, the north-east and Wales. “Absolute poverty” is defined as an income of less than 60% of the UK median average.


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TalkTalk Glitch in Talk2Go app causes mobile and landlines to ring at once
 Beleaguered TalkTalk customers are complaining that their landline and mobile phones ring at the same time, an issue that appears to be due to a glitch in the telco's Talk2Go app.

According to the TalkTalk community forum, the problem first occurred earlier this week. However, customers were still reporting issues this morning.

"The worst thing is that I get no mobile signal at all at work during the day, so calling our landline is instantly diverting to the mobile voicemail and nobody at home is able to answer the landline as it doesn't ring (as voicemail answered)," complained the original poster.

Many other customers have since piled in to report they are experiencing similar problems.

One customer deserved the issue as "another **** up from TalkTalk". He said: "I have emailed the CEO's office as its an absolute joke! My broadband hasn’t worked properly for 5 months and constant issues, they are still happy to take the payment every month.

"It has to be linked to the talk2go app as its the only way they had my work mobile number. but first line support in india didn't have a clue what I was saying!"

Another customer said that TalkTalk had informed them there was a known issue to the service.

One said they received a message from TalkTalk this morning via a Twitter DM, which read: "Apologies for any inconvenience caused Paul! Please let us know if you need anything." Customer: "Only the problem fixed (just confirmed that it's still broken)." TT: "Paul you're still having trouble with your service?" Customer: "Oh yes, same fault as reported, still unfixed."

He wrote: "I'm always amazed that a company that calls itself 'TalkTalk' use every method possible to avoid actually picking up the phone to customers who have faults and check that it's been fixed to their satisfaction."

TalkTalk has suggested it is keen to ditch its poorly performing mobile business and concentrate on broadband instead.

In September TalkTalk was named the worst UK internet provider in a biannual survey of providers by consumer charity Which? for the fifth time running.

Users named slow speeds, frequent connection drop-outs and poor customer service their biggest bugbears with the provider.

A TalkTalk spokesman said: “A handful of TalkTalk customers recently experienced concurring ringing to both their mobile and landline. We’d like to thank these customers for their patience whilst we resolved the issue and apologise for any inconvenience caused.” ®

Output: A technical issue with TalkTalk's Talk2Go app, which caused landline and mobile phones to ring simultaneously, has left customers furious. The glitch was unresolved days after first being reported. A spokesperson for TalkTalk said a "handful of customers" had experienced problems and offered an apology. The company has suggested it is looking to divest its mobile phone service and focus on offering broadband, although it was recently voted worst UK internet provider in a Which? survey.


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Hulu doubles its ad-sales research division to 12 people
 Hulu has been building an ad-sales research division. In the last 18 months, Hulu’s ad-sales research team has doubled in size to 12 people, pulling in people from TV networks, digital media companies, research firms and ad agencies. This included bringing on Julie DeTraglia, a longtime NBCUniversal sales and research exec, as Hulu’s first head of ad-sales research. Reporting to Peter Naylor, Hulu’s head of ad sales, DeTraglia and her team are embedded with Hulu’s sales teams in New York and Los Angeles — with frequent trips to the company’s sales offices in Chicago, Detroit and San Francisco.

“I’ve worked in sales and research organizations for a long time; sometimes [the sales and research teams] are separate,” DeTraglia said. “We frequently go on calls with sales — they consider it a real service. When we have new data to share, even if it’s not specific to a campaign or a media buy with that advertiser, we’re asked to join to show [our knowledge of] the landscape.”

In the world of movie and TV streaming services (at least in the U.S., since Hulu is not available internationally), Hulu occupies a unique role: It’s both an ad-supported and subscription streaming service — and it has a sizable audience.

Hulu’s lowest tier, which is available from $5.99 to $7.99 per month, features limited commercial breaks. This tier is included in Hulu’s live TV option, for which Hulu — like any other cable, satellite or internet-TV distributor — has some ad slots to sell across channels. (Hulu’s $11.99-per-month option is almost entirely ad-free.)

Last year, Hulu said it had 12 million subscribers across both plans. That number has grown by double-digit percentages this year, according to a Hulu source.

This year, Hulu said it would stop publicly reporting subscriber numbers, arguing that it was the wrong metric since its platform also has advertising, and advertisers care about video viewership. To that end, Hulu said this past summer that it has 47 million monthly unique viewers, with 33 million of those viewers watching from the ad-supported subscription tier.

Today, Hulu’s CPMs can be in the mid-$30 to $40 range when negotiating upfront deals. The prices can increase dramatically — twice or three times the upfront costs — if inventory is close to being sold out, according to one ad buyer, who requested anonymity due to ongoing negotiations with Hulu. “[Hulu’s] CPM pricing has gone up and moves faster than anything else,” this buyer said. “If you don’t do it upfront, it can be on par with national TV.”

With Hulu’s audience and advertising business growing, it made sense to build an ad-sales research team that can drill deep on areas such as ad effectiveness and attribution, as well as general consumer research on streaming consumption.

“Building out our ad sales research division was a focus for us not only to help better serve our advertiser partners, but also to drive the industry forward with new measurement capabilities and insight into the changing face of the viewer,” said Peter Naylor, svp of ad sales for Hulu.

The team’s work is supported by partnerships with other research firms and measurement vendors, including Millward Brown, Nielsen Catalina Solutions and Samba TV.

“The thing we talk about all the time is how right now about 78 percent of our total viewing is happening on connected devices in the living room,” DeTraglia said. “That posed a bunch of measurement challenges for us and the industry, as we had to figure out how to do ad-effectiveness research there and measure audience there. We also know it’s a blind spot for the industry, where there is no real third-party measurement. But we have a lot of great first-party data, and we can educate the industry about viewing habits there and what that means for marketing partners who spend with us and what it means for the TV industry as well.”

At any given time, the ad-sales research team is conducting a “couple of handfuls” of ad-effectiveness studies for clients, DeTraglia said. Simultaneously, Hulu is working on six larger custom research studies either in tandem with one of its partners or on its own. Some of this work is geared toward next year, as Hulu preps its next upfront presentation and talks about its follow-up to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which became the first show from a subscription streaming service to win best drama at the Emmys.

One big area of focus will be Hulu’s live TV product, which launched in beta earlier this year and has been able to grow to 300,000 subscribers, according to The Information. Early internal data shows that the more people watch live TV on Hulu, the more they’re likely to catch up on other stuff through Hulu’s subscription on-demand offering, DeTraglia said.

“It supports the notion of what Hulu wants to be, which is TV all in one place,” she said.

Output: US streaming service Hulu has doubled the size of its ad-sales research division to 12 people in response to its growing audience. The company reported 47 million monthly unique viewers during the summer, with 33 million from its ad-supported subscription offering. The ad-sales research team, headed by former NBCUniversal sales and research executive Julia DeTraglia, is working with partners including Millward Brown and Nielsen Catalina Solutions to maximise first-party data on viewing habits, as well as effectiveness and attribution.


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Video ad fraud grows alongside rising video ad spend
 This is the second article in an occasional series on ad fraud. The first entry examined why old fraud tactics won’t die.

Fraudsters are pivoting to video, which is bad news for publishers looking to siphon cash from the growing pot of video ad spend.

The ad industry’s massive growth in video ad spend has simply created a strong incentive for fraud. As BuzzFeed’s recent ad fraud exposé showed, the demand for video inventory is so great that hucksters can still depend on old schemes like sending traffic to garbage sites and domain spoofing to trick big brands into forking over some of their money. The distrust that these ad fraud operations create could potentially slow down growth in programmatic advertising.

Here’s what you need to know about the state of video ad fraud.

The key numbers

Ad spend on video in the U.S. nearly doubled in just a few years from $7.7 billion in 2015 to $13.2 billion in 2017, according to eMarketer. By 2020, video ad spend is expected to exceed $18 billion.

Video is associated with a disproportionate amount of fraud. While video accounts for 45 percent of total ad spend, it is tied to 64 percent of all ad fraud, according to Forrester.

Among different types of video inventory, fraudsters go after the most premium stuff. Bots drive just 4 percent of mobile web video traffic. But for over-the-top video — where CPMs are much greater than the mobile web — 20 percent of traffic is from bots, according to Pixalate.

Fraud is roughly twice as common in video as it is in display. About 10 percent of the video impressions that DoubleVerify scans in North America are fraudulent, while only about 5 percent of display impressions are tied to fraud. White Ops estimates that fraud accounts for 22 percent of video spend and 9 percent of display spend.

Why this matters for publishers

Since it is the money of advertisers that fraudsters are gobbling up, ad-fraud conversations are usually couched from a buy-side perspective. After all, no marketer wants a fourth of their ad budget going to waste. But video fraud also strains publishers by diverting money from them and lowering ad rates.

To entice ad buyers, fraudsters sell bot traffic and impressions tied to masked URLs at a discount. This creates a perception that buyers can obtain video inventory on the cheap, said Josh Cariveau, svp of global operations at video ad platform SpotX. But in reality, quality video inventory remains expensive.

“My concern is that because of fraud, premium publishers do not get the rates they deserve through the open exchange,” said Justin Festa, chief digital officer of feel-good publisher LittleThings.

What it means for the industry

Engineering programmatic platforms to have as deep of a pool of advertisers as possible has led to a byzantine ad-supply chain that provides fraudsters plenty of nooks to hide in. Although digital advertising is more than two decades old, its fraud problems still persist. For video specifically, fraud appears to have gotten worse over time.

“We have definitely seen a growth in video ad fraud,” said Matt McLaughlin, COO of ad-verification firm DoubleVerify. Since ad budgets grow in the fourth quarter as advertisers try to reach their annual goals just before the year ends, fraudulent activity will be higher than normal during the next two months, he said.

One ad buyer, requesting anonymity, said he only buys video through private marketplaces where he can work directly with publishers. Limiting buys to PMPs significantly reduces the amount of available inventory, but the fraud concerns on the open exchange aren’t worth the trade-off for more scale, the buyer said.

On the sell side, LittleThings has found that advertisers prefer PMPs for video, so they can get more transparency, Festa said.

“PMPs don’t fully solve the problem, though,” he said. “Long term, we need to clean up the open market and bring more transparency to video with initiatives like ads.txt.”

Output: The video ad industry needs a tool like ads.txt to combat the rising tide of fraud in the industry, according to Justin Festa, CDO of publisher LittleThings. He said bad actors exploiting the "byzantine" ad supply chain were preventing premium publishers from achieving decent rates on open exchanges. Meanwhile, DoubleVerify COO Matt McLaughlin warned Q4 would see an increase in fraud, as advertisers scrambled to hit year-end goals. Video accounts for 64% of all ad fraud, despite making up 45% of ad spend, according to Forrester.


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Snap Pixel allows marketers to track users across platforms
 Snapchat has launched a conversion tracking tool, enabling marketers to track people across mobile, tablet and desktop owned online environments.

Snap Pixel enables marketers to measure the revenue, performance, growth, and acquisition that Snapchat has driven across devices. This includes being able to measure website visits, purchases, and sign-ups.

Snap says it will introduce features such as custom audience creation and real-time optimisation in the coming months.

Pixels are generated directly in the Snapchat Ad Manager by advertisers, where they select a website to track. Once it has been setup, results are measured for up to 28 days after someone has viewed or engaged with an ad.

One of the first advertisers to trial Snap Pixel was the TechStyle Fashion Group, which boasts eCommerce brands such as JustFab, Fabletics and ShoeDazzle.

TechStyle is said to have seen its cost per purchase sit at 40 to 60 per cent lower than its goal across all its brands, just 24 hours after someone saw one of its ads. In addition, it achieved a cost per sign-up 30 to 50 per cent under its goal for each brand.

ShoeDazzle, alone, was able to drive a cost per purchase 63 per cent under goal, and a cost per sign-up 48 per cent under.

Join us at the 2017 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Ceremony, taking place in London on Thursday 16 November, to mix with the industry's best and brightest, and raise a glass to the year's best campaigns and solutions. To find out more, and to book your place, click here.

Output: Marketers can follow visits, purchases and sign-ups by using Snap's latest addition to Snapchat Ad Manager, Snap Pixel, to track websites. The feature functions across devices, and once activated, will continue measuring revenue, performance, growth and acquisition for 28 days after an ad is viewed. Early adopter TechStyle Fashion Group said 24 hours after an ad was viewed, its cost per purchase fell by 40% to 60% lower than its goal across its brands. Snap aims to add custom audience creation and real-time optimisation to Pixel in the coming months.