Mar 12, 2020

March 12, 2020 10:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time LONDON--( BUSINESS WIRE )--Accuity, a leading global provider of financial crime screening, payments, and know your customer (KYC) solutions, and part of RELX, announced today that it has acquired Apply Financial Limited (Apply Financial). The acquisition supports Accuity’s strategy of providing banks, corporates, non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), and fintechs with global and domestic payment and account validation solutions that reduce payment processing costs while increasing the speed of transactions. Apply Financial is a specialist provider of automated payment validation solutions that enable clients to lower the cost of payment processing, by improving straight through processing (STP) rates. Its flagship solution, Validate, uses proven cloud and API technology to help firms submit the correct bank account and payment details when processing a payment, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing the risk of a transaction failing. With the proliferation of faster payment schemes around the world and escalating consumer and business expectations, STP is no longer just an efficiency issue, but a competitive differentiator for firms. Accuity is an established leader in the payments industry; its Bankers Almanac for Payments portfolio delivers accurate bank and routing data that helps organisations drive efficiency throughout the payment process. The acquisition of Apply Financial will augment this existing capability with sophisticated and easy-to-integrate validation software to remove further friction from clients’ payment operations. David White, EVP Global Payments & KYC at Accuity, commented, “The payments industry is in the midst of a drastic transformation, with speed and efficiency at the forefront of its evolution. In the near term, Apply Financial’s advanced technology will enable us to offer clients a cloud-based, real-time payments and account validation solution to dramatically increase customer STP rates and provide payments certainty. In the longer-term, the technology will fuel our innovation and enable us to deliver the next generation of payments intelligence solutions to meet our customers’ requirements.” Mark Bradbury, Director and Founder of Apply Financial, said, “By joining forces, we will be able to share industry expertise, deploy our technology to a broader audience, and collaborate on innovative solutions that will support the industry now and in the future.” Novitas Capital Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisor to the shareholders of Apply Financial. ENDS About Accuity Accuity offers a suite of innovative solutions for payments and compliance professionals, from comprehensive data and software that manage risk and compliance, to flexible tools that optimise payments pathways. With deep expertise and industry-leading data-enabled solutions from the Firco and Bankers Almanac brands, our portfolio delivers protection for individual and organisational reputations. Part of RELX , a world-leading provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries, Accuity has been delivering solutions to banks and businesses worldwide for 180 years. About Apply Financial Apply Financial is a world leader in validating global bank payments and has grown to have around 700 global clients since inception. Clients include blue chip banks, foreign exchange companies and corporates, including ABN, HSBC, Barclays, Currencies Direct, World First, CaxtonFX, Virgin Media, GL Group and Specsavers. Apply Financial’s Validate API sits behind the payment process whether it is on mobile, desktop or browser and ensures that the person inputting a payment only enters the correct payment information. Validate API gives banking clients the ability to provide their clients with a seamless payment cleansing experience ensuring faster, error-free payments. Validate can proactively keep beneficiary details clean for Transfers, DD's, Payment Files and Mobile Payments saving them time and money. More information can be found at https://applyfinancial.co.uk/ . Follow us on Twitter @ApplyFinancial. About Novitas Capital Advisors Novitas Capital Advisors is a full-service corporate finance firm specialising in strategic exits of technology firms to global acquirers. Having concluded over 100 M&A transactions, Novitas brings together a wealth of industry, transaction negotiation and execution experience to provide a first-class offering to its clients. About RELX RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. The Group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs over 33,000 people, of whom almost half are in North America. The shares of RELX PLC, the parent company, are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX. The market capitalisation is approximately £31.2bn, €35.3bn, $39.7bn. www.relx.com . Contacts