Terra raises US$32 million in seed funding

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30 (Bernama) – Terra has closed its seed funding round with an initial US$32 million (RM132.05 million) raised for creating the next generation of digital money. (1US$ = RM4.13)

Terra is designing a price-stable digital currency that will power the next-generation payment network on the blockchain.

In a rare event, the capital investment arms of four of the six largest cryptocurrency exchanges globally have signed on as lead investors, including Binance Labs, OKEx, Huobi Capital, and Dunamu & Partners (the investment firm of Upbit operator Dunamu).

An impressive list of leading global blockchain-focused funds, including Polychain Capital, FBG Capital, Hashed, 1kx, Kenetic Capital, Arrington XRP Capital and many others, have also joined as investors alongside major mainstream funds like TransLink Capital.

Terra will invest the initial seed capital in building the modern financial system on the blockchain.

The team aims to solve key barriers to the mass adoption of digital currencies by creating a price-stable cryptocurrency (‘stablecoin’) that can be readily used on Terra’s blockchain payment solution.

Terra is using a proven model that has worked tremendously well for payment platforms like AliPay and PayPal, which grew by capturing the rising transaction volumes of TaoBao and eBay respectively.

To drive the same kind of rapid adoption, Terra is integrating its payment system into the Terra Alliance – a formidable alliance of global e-commerce partners on an unprecedented scale.

To date, 15 companies along with TMON have joined the Terra Alliance, including Woowa Brothers, Qoo10, Carousell, Pomelo, and TIKI - some of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in Asia-Pacific servicing Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and other major markets.

With a total of US$25 billion (RM103.16 billion) in annual transaction volume and 40 million customers, the Terra Alliance sets the stage for Terra to become a medium of exchange at massive scale. More details on https://terra.money/

-- BERNAMA

NISSUI PHARMACEUTICAL LAUNCHES GLOBAL COLONY COUNTER SERVICE

TOKYO, Aug. 30, 2018 /Kyodo JBN-AsiaNet/ --

- Making Flexible Use of AWS Cloud Service and AI Technology -

Nissui Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. is carrying out the trial operation to count colonies cultured in the "simple culture medium for bacteria counting CompactDry (TM)" by using the Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud service and artificial intelligence (AI) technology for specific overseas customers from August 2018 as part of active investment in the new developing area. "CompactDry (TM)" is a major product of inspection reagents used for food quality inspection and sanitary control of manufacturing facilities.

(Logo: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/img/201808287290-O2-wypTURWL)

Simple culture medium for bacteria counting CompactDry (TM)
CompactDry (TM) is a dry and simple culture medium culturing with only 1mL of sample solution without requiring the preparation of culture medium. Given the circumstances, the company has established the global service of colony counter "@BactLAB (TM)" by improving the added value of products, with the aim to reduce the workload of food hygiene management, improve and network the QC and QA for suppliers, manufacturing sites and the company's headquarters. This service can make it possible for you to achieve the centralized QC/QA management.

Global service of colony counter (@BactLAB (TM)): You can use an APP to easily count the number of bacteria (colonies) cultured in CompactDry (TM) by using smartphones.

(Image: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/img/201808287290-O1-0umvOpE4)

After registering as a member on the APP or service web, users can photograph colonies cultured in CompactDry (TM) via a smartphone or PC, upload the photo, and then confirm colony counting several seconds later.

* This service is only provided for overseas customers.
* The counting result may have a deviation of around 8%, subject to the image resolution.
* Even if the colony count is "0", the result does not indicate "negative".

Official website for @BactLAB (TM):
https://www.nissui-pharm.co.jp/english/products/global/bactlab/
Application (Google Play/Apple Store/Online Service):
APPs on Android, iOS or PC are currently accessible by some specific customers.

- Google, Google Play, Android and other symbols are trademarks of Google Inc.
- Apple and trademarks of Apple are trademarks of Apple Inc. registered in the USA and other countries.
- Amazon and Amazon Web Service are trademarks or registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or other affiliated companies.

Source: Nissui Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

UNIVERSAL PROTOCOL ALLIANCE LAUNCHED TO BRING INTEROPERABILITY AND SAFEGUARDING OF DIGITAL ASSETS

Blockchain at Berkeley, Uphold, Brave, and Cred (formerly Libra Credit) announce a reserve standard for decentralized assets

SINGAPORE, Aug 24 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- A coalition of leading blockchain organizations, including Uphold, Cred, Blockchain at Berkeley, and Brave, announced a universal transparent reserve and custody standard that introduces ‘Proxy’ digital assets to the world via the Universal Protocol Platform (UP Platform). The UP Platform, which recently announced early backing by a group of leading institutional investors, serves as the hub for the creation and management of ‘proxy’ tokens and user features that will drive mass user adoption of cryptocurrencies.

The founding members announced today are:

• Uphold – Founded in 2014, Uphold has over 850,000 users around the world and has traded over $3.5 billion on its digital money platform and reserve ledger.
• Cred (formerly known as Libra Credit) – Founded in 2018 by a group of former PayPal executives, Cred has introduced a revolutionary lending protocol and platform for digital assets.
• Brave – From the creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla and Firefox, Brave radically improves internet browsing and leadership in the realms of privacy and digital advertising with the Basic Attention Token.
• Blockchain at Berkeley – An academic organization at University of California, Berkeley, that provides educational resources, consultancy, and R&D to some of the biggest blockchain projects in the world.

“The UP Platform solves real usability and familiarity problems faced by the next hundred million users of digital assets,” said Brendan Eich, co-founder of Brave and creator of JavaScript.

Currently, digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum exist on separate blockchain platforms and cannot interact with one another. This results in significant inefficiencies as separate blockchain projects are unable to collaborate in any meaningful way, without complex and often costly work-around solutions. To date, this has greatly hindered innovation in blockchain and the realisation of its vast potential to fundamentally disrupt a wide array of economic, social and industrial sectors. The UP Platform looks to solve this issue and allow all cryptocurrencies to become accessible on a single network through the introduction of Proxy Tokens.

Proxy Tokens are a digital representation of their underlying asset and can exist on other blockchains. Using these Proxy Tokens, the UP Platform creates a common universal language that allows distinct blockchains and token-based projects to interact freely and frictionlessly with each other. This technology enables Proxy Bitcoin, for example, to exist on Ethereum and be reasoned with directly by Ethereum’s preponderance of decentralized applications, decentralized exchanges and smart contracts.

“The early days of the internet were very similar to the world of blockchain today, with many different technology platforms fragmented and incapable of communicating with one other,” said JP Thieriot, President of the UP Alliance and Co-founder of Uphold. “We believe that the Universal Protocol Platform is a technology that has the potential to connect blockchain technologies, much like the breakthrough of the TCP and IP protocols that drove the internet towards mass adoption. 

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=32540

KINETICA MAPS FUTURE OF AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY POWERED BY EXTREME DATA

Company to Support Growing Need for Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Across the Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Value-Chain—from the In-Vehicle Experience to Location-based Services to Traffic and Smart City Management


SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 30 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- Kinetica, the insight engine for the Extreme Data Economy, is taking steps to bring advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and its GPU engine to the global automotive industry. The company announced today that it is becoming a silver member of The Linux Foundation and a bronze member of Automotive Grade Linux (AGL). With location analytics playing a key role in connected and autonomous car use cases, Kinetica also announced a new Mapbox integration which it will release to the open source community and which will dramatically simplify custom development for a new class of applications.

“The automobile industry is undergoing the most significant evolutionary leap since the first Model T rolled off the production line,” said Paul Appleby, Kinetica CEO. “Rapid evolutions in technology are impacting every stage of the automotive value chain. There is no doubt data will fuel the vehicle of the future, powering everything from navigation to entertainment, AI control to inter-vehicle networking. We are thrilled to join AGL to collaborate with automotive industry leaders to solve these complex data challenges.”

Building the Open Source Software Stack for Connected Transportation

AGL is a collaborative open source project that is bringing together automakers, suppliers and technology companies to accelerate the development and adoption of a fully-open software stack for connected vehicle services. With Linux at its core, AGL is developing an open platform from the ground up that can serve as the de facto industry standard to enable rapid development of new features and technologies for the automotive segment.

"We are proud to welcome Kinetica to the Automotive Grade Linux community,” said Dan Cauchy, Executive Director of Automotive Grade Linux at The Linux Foundation. “As we evolve the AGL platform beyond infotainment, support from companies like Kinetica is crucial. We look forward to leveraging their expertise in data analytics as we continue to develop solutions and support for telematics and vehicle-to-cloud services.”

Kinetica is enabling automakers, suppliers and related startups to accelerate how vehicle data insight is generated by combining the accelerated analytics of a GPU database, real-time location intelligence and the power of AI. Linux-based open source software will help to accelerate innovation and speed up time-to-market for automotive customers.

Additionally, as part of its automotive strategy, Kinetica is making Kickbox, its Mapbox integration, available to developers via GitHub. Mapbox is the location data platform for mobile and web applications, providing the building blocks to add location features like maps, search and navigation into any experience.

While Kinetica’s and Mapbox’s software already work together natively, the Kickbox integration abstracts away complexity and enables developers to more rapidly build location-based mapping solutions across any industry with minimal code. Kinetica is contributing the Kickbox code to the open source community to help support innovation in location-based analytics and visualization in the automotive industry and beyond.

Additional Resources:

Kinetica and Kickbox video demo

About Kinetica

Kinetica is the insight engine for the Extreme Data Economy. The Kinetica engine combines artificial intelligence and machine learning, data visualization and location-based analytics, and the accelerated computing power of a GPU database across healthcare, energy, telecommunications, retail, and financial services. Kinetica has a rich partner ecosystem, including NVIDIA, Dell, HP, and IBM, and is privately held, backed by leading global venture capital firms Canvas Ventures, Citi Ventures, GreatPoint Ventures, and Meritech Capital Partners. For more information and trial downloads, visit kinetica.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180829005217/en/

Contact

LEWIS Global Communications
Laurent Decosse, 1-415-432-2400
kinetica@teamlewis.com

Source : Kinetica

Empowered Consumers to transform global retail industry

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 (Bernama) -- New research has identified a new consumer type -- the Empowered Consumer, armed with technology -- who will change the future of the global retail landscape.

Empowered Consumers reads and writes product or service reviews, compares prices online and interacts with companies via social media.

According to Euromonitor International, a global market research company, 26 per cent of consumers worldwide are Empowered Consumers with 52 per cent of them below 35 years old.

The company said in a statement that the consumers young age indicates that their behaviors will continue as they age and will influence their children, the next generation of consumers.

Head of retailing at Euromonitor International, Michelle Grant said: “Convenience is important in Empowered Consumers’ shopping experience. They prefer internet-enabled devices to make their purchase, as 74 per cent of them make their purchases through smartphones versus 44 per cent of non-Empowered Consumers.    

She said they enjoy the ability to save time and order at anytime from anywhere. They also expect the same shopping experience in whichever way they choose to purchase, thus retailers must embrace omnichannel retailing to meet these needs.

The Empowered Consumers are five times more likely to write a product or service review than the non-Empowered Consumers -- companies that cannot meet the their expectations may suffer consequences even after purchase completion.

“Brands and retailers no longer control the information available about their products. Empowered Consumers can be your best customers and brand ambassadors, or they can be your worst nightmare, spreading negativity about your company,” Grant added.

The London-based Euromonitor International has presented a new analysis, “Retail in the Age of the Empowered Consumer,” at the Latam Retail Show -- the leading retail event in Latin America. More details on https://www.euromonitor.com/

RF IDeas appoints new International Pre-Sales Engineer

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 (Bernama) -- RF IDeas Inc has appointed Menya Nsanzumuco as International Pre-Sales Engineer, effective immediately.

RF IDeas is a leading innovator and manufacturer of employee badge and credential readers for in-building applications such as computer access, identification and secure print.

The company in a statement said Menya Nsanzumuco will be based in London to provide pre-sales technical and business support to new and existing customers, partners, distributors and systems integrators throughout the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC) regions. 

“Menya’s rich technical background paired with his innate ability to relate to customers makes him a strong choice for this role,” said Senior Vice President – Global Sales and Marketing, Tod Besse.

“As RF IDeas looks to strengthen our investment in the Europe and international markets, Menya’s role will be crucial in ensuring the satisfaction of our global clientele,” Besse added.

Menya has more than ten years experience in remote, field, installation and software technical sales. He worked for several Fortune 100 companies including Xerox Scanners, General Electric and most recently Philips Health Systems UK and Ireland.

He has a Master’s Degree in Electronics Engineering with Satellite Engineering from the University of Surrey and is fluent in English and French.

More details on https://www.rfideas.com

--BERNAMA

​TASCENT RAISES $19.5 MILLION SERIES B LED BY NEC CORPORATION AND TANO CAPITAL

Funding will accelerate advancement of multimodal biometrics

LOS GATOS, Calif., Aug 28 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tascent, Inc., the industry leader in intuitive biometrics, has raised $19.5 million in a Series B financing led by NEC Corporation and Tano Capital, with participation by Min Aik Technology Co., Ltd. The funding will be used to expand Tascent’s biometrics product and solution suite and extend its global footprint.

“The global market for biometrics is experiencing tremendous growth. We believe Tascent is uniquely positioned to provide biometric identity products and solutions that bolster safety and security, improve consumer experiences, and enable enterprise efficiency,” said Chuck Johnson, Managing Director of Tano Capital.

Tascent’s devices, software, and services utilize face, iris, and fingerprint biometric modalities to establish and verify identity in a way that is both accurate and simple to use. Deployed globally and serving tens of millions of people every year, Tascent’s products promote security and expediency in a wide variety of applications including consumer travel, enterprise access, employee identity, and government services.

“NEC has long delivered the benefits of multimodal biometrics with our industry-leading solutions, and we expect that Tascent’s expertise in technology innovation, solution development, and product design will help NEC to further grow the biometric identity market,” said Masakazu Yamashina, Executive Vice President, NEC Corporation.

“This is an exciting time to be innovating in biometrics and identity. Biometrics has become an important part of our daily lives, thanks to solutions that are both accurate and intuitive,” said Joey Pritikin, Founder and Co-CEO of Tascent. “Our global partnerships in technology, sales, and support have played a pivotal role in the company’s success, and the participation of NEC and Min Aik in our B Round will help drive Tascent’s future growth.”

About Tascent
Tascent harnesses the power of biometrics to enable the frictionless flow of people and transactions in a connected world. We focus on creating intuitive hardware, software, and services, providing comprehensive capabilities for tailored identity solutions. Through partnerships, we deliver the strength of trusted identity to positively impact travel, financial services, ticketing and events, workplace access, government services, and humanitarian efforts.

While many biometric companies offer single-modality products that are complex and unintuitive, Tascent makes it easy for our partners to integrate and deploy approachable yet robust multimodal biometric identity systems. Today, our biometric solutions serve tens of millions of people each year in some of the most challenging environments. We strive to innovate and create products that address unmet needs for critical-yet-routine identity processes, making lives simpler and easier.

Based in Silicon Valley, CA, Tascent supports customers and partners globally through our offices in Washington DC, Dubai, London, and Singapore. www.tascent.com

Erika Aase
+1 408-466-1603
eaase@tascent.com

Source : Tascent, Inc.

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=32558

Nestlé deal with Starbucks to market Starbucks products globally

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 28 (Bernama) -- Nestlé and Starbucks Corporation have closed the deal granting Nestlé the perpetual rights to market Starbucks Consumer Packaged Goods and Foodservice products globally, outside of the company’s coffee shops.

Both companies will work closely together on the existing Starbucks range of roast and ground coffee, whole beans as well as instant and portioned coffee besides capitalise on their experience and capabilities to work on innovation with the goal of enhancing Starbucks’ product offerings for coffee lovers globally.

President and chief executive officer (CEO) of Starbucks, Kevin Johnson in a statement said the global coffee alliance with Nestlé is a significant strategic milestone for the growth of Starbucks and helps the company to amplify the brand around the world while delivering long-term value creation for Starbucks’ shareholders.

Meanwhile, Nestlé CEO, Mark Schneider said the partnership demonstrates their growth agenda in action, giving Nestlé an unparalleled position in the coffee business with a full suite of innovative brands.

The agreement significantly strengthens Nestlé’s coffee portfolio in the North American premium roast and ground and portioned coffee business. It also unlocks global expansion in grocery and foodservice for the Starbucks brand, utilising the global reach of Nestlé.

It covers Starbucks packaged coffee and tea brands including Starbucks, Seattle’s Best Coffee, Teavana, Starbucks VIA Instant, Torrefazione Italia coffee and Starbucks-branded K-Cup pods. It excludes Ready-to-Drink products and all sales of any products within Starbucks coffee shops.

Approximately 500 Starbucks employees in the United States and Europe will join the Nestlé family, with the majority based in Seattle and London. The international expansion of the business will be led from Nestlé’s global headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland.

--BERNAMA 

COSCOI LAUNCHES SMART EDUTAINMENT APPS USING ITS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 'GO EAST'

Go East! Coloring and Go East! Xylophone, educational apps for kids

SEOUL, South Korea, Aug 27 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- COSCOI, an animation character development and digital contents company in Korea, announced that it has released two smart edutainment apps using ‘Go East,’ its typical intellectual property in animation.

‘Go East! Coloring’ and ‘Go East! Xylophone,’ educational apps for kids developed as part of ‘COSCOI Friends’ series, are launched on Google Play.

Go East! Coloring is a learning app that will let kids color cute characters of Go East, COSCOI’s intellectual property in animation, which is based on ‘Journey to the West,’ a Chinese novel. Children can use stickers as well as a wide array of pattern brushes that will make coloring even more fun. The app has “auto paint function” which will paint original character colors automatically. This is for babies and toddlers who may have difficulty choosing colors. About 40 different brushes, stickers and patterns kids can choose from will never bore them.

Go East! Xylophone will let kids play the xylophone together with lovely characters of Go East. Each time they play the xylophone, characters dance. Children can learn music naturally as they play the xylophone as they like. The app will be updated with a new easy-to-follow function. Using this function, kids can play songs just by tapping the xylophone keys in order of the notes appearing on the monitor.

The app series of COSCOI Friends are COSCOI’s first education business project under its vision of providing “global contents which will breathe new life into characters.” The apps are distributed to 135 countries at the same time. COSCOI has also completed the development of Mobile App Service (MAS), a mobile app management tool used to launch and manage various apps.

“We plan to release 11 new educational apps this year,” COSCOI Vice President Ja Keun Kim said. “We are in partnership with providers of famous educational contents and we are expecting to launch an educational video and audio platform soon.”

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=32555

A.M. Best affirms credit ratings of Korea P&I Club

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 28 (Bernama) -- A.M. Best has affirmed the financial strength rating of A- (excellent) and the long-term issuer credit rating of ‘a-’ of Korea P&I Club (KP&I) South Korea and the outlook of these ratings is stable.

KP&I was founded in 2000 under the Ship-Owners’ Mutual Protection and Indemnity Association Act. The club benefits from various support from the South Korea government pivoting on its strategic role in the long-term development of the country’s marine infrastructure, which serves as a positive rating factor.

The ratings reflect KP&I’s balance sheet strength, which A.M. Best categorised as strong, as well as its strong operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management.

A.M. Best said KP&I’s balance sheet strength is underpinned by risk-adjusted capitalization at the strongest level, as measured by Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio.

KP&I has maintained highly profitable operating performance with the five-year average return on equity of 10 per cent with a modest level of volatility.

However, the club experienced a sharp drop of net income in 2017 mainly due to the impact of exchange rate movement on its underwriting and investment performance.

With its business primarily concentrated in Korea, KP&I maintains about 16 per cent of market share based on premium within the domestic market.

Amid the prolonged recession in the shipping industry and increasing competition, multiple initiatives are on the way to secure its market position: strategic partnership with a member of International Group of P&I Clubs, new business opportunity under the government’s plan to build new vessels to support Korean shipping industry and overseas expansion plan.

A.M. Best is a global rating agency and information provider with a unique focus on the insurance industry. Visit www.ambest.com for more information.

--BERNAMA

SEVONE EXPANDS INDUSTRY LEADING SD-WAN MONITORING SOLUTION BY ADDING SUPPORT FOR VMWARE NSX SD-WAN

Monitoring Solution Will be Showcased at VMworld 2018 US

BOSTON, Aug 24 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- SevOne, a leading provider of network and infrastructure management solutions, today announced that its SevOne SD-WAN Monitoring Solution will now support VMware NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud. Based on the SevOne Data Platform, the SD-WAN Monitoring Solution, released earlier this year, increases operational agility of Managed Services Providers (MSPs) offering multiple, complex network services over their multi-tenant, multi-vendor networks.

The enhanced SevOne solution, scheduled for release in calendar Q4, will deliver the foundation of real-time and historical visibility into enterprise and service provider networks with customizable, persona-based dashboards for network operations/engineering, product owners and business executives. MSPs can easily extend the solution for visibility across their entire service delivery path including enterprise wi-fi from campus to branch, software defined datacenters and more. With the ability to create customized KPIs based on specific tenants, WAN paths and health indicators of their multi-vendor-based SD-WANs, MSP network operations and engineering teams now have greater insight into the network services running on them, helping ease MSPs transition from offering only MPLS-based services to new hybrid SD-WAN-based services.

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=32541

A.M. BEST UPGRADES CREDIT RATINGS OF HANWHA GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED

HONG KONG, Aug 24 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- A.M. Best has upgraded the Financial Strength Rating to A (Excellent) from A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating to “a” from “a-” of Hanwha General Insurance Company Limited (HGI) (South Korea). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable.

The ratings reflect HGI’s balance sheet strength, which A.M. Best categorizes as strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management. HGI’s ratings also consider the strategic importance to its parent company, Hanwha Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (Hanwha Life).

HGI’s strong balance sheet strength is supported by its risk-adjusted capitalization, as measured by Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), being at the very strong level after the issuance of hybrid bonds in July 2018. HGI has high but declining asset leverage and premium leverage ratios, as well as a relatively more aggressive investment strategy. The rating upgrades are based on HGI’s improved risk-adjusted capitalization in 2018 due to the issuance of hybrid bonds and an expected high net profit retention for the full fiscal year. The company reclassified a large part of its bond portfolio from available for sale to held-to-maturity in 2018, reducing the potential volatility that a rise in interest rates could bring to its capital and surplus.

HGI’s operating performance has improved over the past five years, mainly driven by increases in net investment income. In terms of underwriting performance, HGI’s loss ratio has declined to the lower range of the industry in 2017. However, its combined ratio remains elevated due to a high expense ratio, reflecting its relatively small premium base relative to its peers.

In regard to business profile, HGI is the sixth-largest non-life insurance company in South Korea. Its market share, in terms of direct premiums written, has slowly increased over the past five years and reached 7% in 2017. HGI benefits from the Hanwha brand and by being a subsidiary of Hanwha Life, South Korea’s second-largest life insurer in terms of premium income in 2017.

HGI is important to Hanwha Life in terms of business and earnings diversification. It has received capital support from Hanwha Life and the Hanwha Group upon issuing new shares. HGI also benefits from access to Hanwha Life’s distribution channel, and from cooperation in areas such as information technology, asset management and risk management.

Positive rating action is unlikely in the near term. Negative rating actions could occur if there is a significant deterioration in the company’s risk-adjusted capitalization. Negative rating actions also could occur if there is a significant decline in the parent company’s financial strength and credit profile.

Ratings are communicated to rated entities prior to publication. Unless stated otherwise, the ratings were not amended subsequent to that communication.

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

A.M. Best is a global rating agency and information provider with a unique focus on the insurance industry. Visit www.ambest.com for more information.

Copyright © 2018 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=32539

Air Canada Advances Its New Distribution Capability With NDC Exchange Connection

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 (Bernama) -- ATPCO and SITA announced that Air Canada has processed its first New Distribution Capability (NDC) production transaction via NDC Exchange -- a platform that simplifies the adoption of the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) NDC standard.

“As NDC continues to gain traction in the industry, ATPCO will provide the solutions that are cost-efficient and enable our customers to effectively incorporate new distribution channels into their business model,” said director of Products & Solutions for ATPCO, Graham Wareham.

Air Canada is able to simultaneously implement connections to multiple sellers using NDC Exchange including Verteil Technologies, Innfinity Software Systems and Zeno by Serko. This demonstrates, in real-world conditions the simplicity and scalability of NDC Exchange, a statement said.

NDC is a new standard aimed at enabling the travel industry to transform the way services are retailed to corporations as well as leisure and business travelers. It provides greater product differentiation, quicker time-to-market and delivers a more transparent shopping experience.

NDC Exchange facilitates the real-time connectivity between airlines and sellers to exchange messages easily and cost effectively. It supports shopping, booking and servicing workflows and enables the cross-selling of ancillary services between airlines and airlines and sellers.

NDC Exchange has seen robust industry interest with early-joiners Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) providing settlement support and Routehappy by ATPCO powering rich content capabilities to enhance merchandising.

ATPCO enables seamless management of the airfare data that makes industry run more efficiently while SITA is the communications and IT solution provider that transforms air travel through technology. More details at https://www.atpco.net or https://www.sita.aero.

-- BERNAMA

Workday named Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud HCM suites

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 (Bernama) -- Workday Inc -- a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources -- was positioned by Gartner Inc in the Leaders quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Cloud HCM Suites for Midmarket and Large Enterprises.

The recognition has been received by Workday as a Leader for the third year in a row and positioned the highest for overall ability to execute, a statement said.

Its Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) helps organisations to drive employee productivity and engagement, uncover richer workforce insights and keep pace with evolving business needs.

With more than 70 per cent of its 2,200-plus customers live and a customer satisfaction rating of 98 per cent, Workday continues to deliver the vision and innovation global organisations need to stay competitive with new developments.

The development includes greater openness and extensibility to run customers businesses. The Workday Cloud Platform enable early adopters to build and deploy applications, paving the way for other customers and partners to leverage APIs and its tools in the future.

Workday also enable more intelligent technologies to create a seamless experience for employees. This includes development of a conversational interface -- Workday Assistant -- using natural language processing capabilities to provide real-time information, recommendations and best practices to workers.

The Workday customer community -- representing more than 31 million workers worldwide -- continues to realise business value using Workday applications across more than 200 countries and in more than 30 languages.

It has advanced its global capabilities with the Workday Global Payroll Cloud program where customers can select the right local payroll providers for their needs while reducing the costs and time associated with deploying, integrating and managing third-party payroll solutions.

Workday delivers financial management, human capital management and analytics applications designed for the world’s largest companies, educational institutions and government agencies. More details at https://www.workday.com.

-- BERNAMA