01.09.2023 | Featured Finance News

Evitec Covered Bonds 2.0 released – major technology upgrade now available

Evitec announces the availability of Evitec Covered Bonds Release 2.0. With major technology upgrade, new features, and improvements, covered bonds issuers and institutions using Evitec Covered Bonds stay up to date in terms of legislation, regulations, and reporting requirements.

New features include:

• issuance process module 
• potential search module 
• design tool module 
• support for green pools and bonds 
• improved criteria engine 
• more extensive pool data archive 
• modern cloud-based architecture 
• enhanced security features 

With new features in place, institutions engaged in mortgage banking lessen their operational risk and ensure new requirements, EU directives and regulations are always met.

— We now have 6 out of 10 banks in Finland as our customers, so it’s only natural that we now set our sights towards rest of Europe, says Head of International Business Development, Tino Silfver.

— As the finance industry is going through a cloud transition, the new version of our market-leading Covered Bonds solution will give years of cost-efficient, agile operation, says Head of products Janne Takala.

Evitec Covered Bonds automates reporting and other crucial processes. Solution can also be used by covered bonds issuers in their transition towards greener future. Evitec Covered Bonds makes available reporting dashboards that provide information how green a bond pool is based on chosen framework. In the future, information about sustainable bonds will be made available.

Evitec attends European Covered Bonds Council 33rd Plenary meeting in Munich on 13th September.

See also our Customer stories.

20.06.2023 | Featured News

Evitec publishes Sustainability Report 2022

Evitec’s Sustainability Report of 2022 is now published. The report includes statements of commitment from our CSO, CEO, and Chairman of the Board, reflection on our Sustainability Values, our EcoVadis score and action plan, and details about our Sustainability Journey from the time period of 2022.

As the world around us turns and evolves, we strive to be a part of the positive change, or the Sustainability Revolution, as we like to refer to it. Our Sustainability Report serves as a testament to us constantly working toward a smarter, stronger, and more sustainable tomorrow.

As our CEO, Mikko Pilkama, states in his commitment letter:

— There is no better moment than this to start building a more sustainable, and a more prosperous world for all of us.

Read more about our sustainability work and motivation in the newly published report.

14.06.2023 | Featured News

Evitec’s journey towards ISO 27001 certification: raising the bar of information security

Evitec is on its journey to achieve the Information Security Management System certification in compliance with the ISO/IEC 27001:2022* standard. Target is to obtain the certification during H1 of 2024.

Purpose with the ISO 27001 standard is to enhance the overall security posture as well as provide the company a 3rd party assurance of how information security is governed. In the financial sector, where security and bank secrecy have always been paramount, coupled with GDPR requirements for personal data protection, the importance of information security is well recognized.

– We can see EU (EU’s Digital decade**) putting pressure on this matter together with directives and initiatives such as DORA and NIS2. The eyes are directed towards the critical industries, and after that towards operators’ such as us. We need to meet these demands, and ISO 27001 standard is a good and straightforward way to do it. Moreover, the certification helps us to demonstrate our commitment to customers and stakeholders, states Harri Inkinen SVP, Information Security in Evitec.

Identify risks, and then treat them

The ISO 27001 is a standard, that defines the requirements for an information security management system. The challenge lies in determining the most optimal approach to meet those requirements.

– In practice, we estimate the company’s intellectual property as well as customers’ data we want to keep safe and available, what the possible threats and risks are, and then adopt appropriate measures to manage or minimize these risks, adds Inkinen.

Complying with an ISO standard is a process that requires continuous actions from the company.

Inkinen clarifies: – Risk management is a collective responsibility. With this I refer to the fact that every piece of our intellectual property has an owner, and owners should be able to constantly identify and report threats. ISO 27001 is a risk-based standard; what should be accepted and what should be mitigated. When that is acknowledged, we have a foundation to build on.

Looking ahead to 2024

The target is to obtain ISO 27001 certification during H1 of 2024. Prior that there will be external audits conducted by accredited auditors.

– Ultimately, putting effort in information security keeps us safe, of course, but it also makes us more trustworthy partner in the markets, opening up new exciting opportunities, concludes Inkinen.

*) ISO 27001 is an information security standard created by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

**) More information: Europe’s Digital Decade

05.06.2023 | Blog Featured Insights Technology

Painting the future with Microsoft Fabric – data landscape in one frame

The data world is abuzz with excitement as Microsoft launched into public a preview of its latest offering, Microsoft Fabric. This so-called all-in-one analytics solution has generated significant market hype across the data community, promising to revolutionize and simplify the data & analytics infrastructures and bring the “data into the era of AI”. What does this all mean in practice? Take a minute and let us tell you what the Fabric is all about.

Microsoft Fabric is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution wrapping all the different components of data landscape together under one package. With one licence you get it all what you need for your data environment: Data Factory, Synapse, Power BI and OneLake. You don’t need to buy the different resources separately anymore; it is all included into a single service and managed and governed centrally.

OneLake = centralized data storage for all your analytics data

OneLake is the other of the most remarkable features of the Fabric, as it aims to mitigate the need of data duplication within the whole solution. You, who have been working with data infrastructures, probably know that it is common that the data needs to be duplicated across the data solution’s layers for different analytical engines to support the different use cases of the data. In OneLake the data is stored in compressed parquet-format, and all the different analytical engines within the Fabric can query the same data efficiently.

To put this in context, both T-SQL engine for building a data warehouse and Analysis Service Engine for Power BI reports can use the same data as efficiently. Microsoft promises to extend this “One copy of data“ -paradigm further by enabling shortcuts for the data, so that different teams can use the same data for their specific purposes by creating virtual data products. In addition, OneLake offers a possibility to expand the lake into some third-party data storages, such as Amazon S3, without a need to move the data physically to the OneLake. Quite impressive.

Introducing AI to empower developers

The other remarkable feature of Fabric is the inclusion of the AI within the Fabric across the solution. This means introducing Copilot into all building blocks of the Fabric to assist you in your work to increase your efficiency. For example, in the future you can ask Copilot to build a HR report for you in Power BI. Interesting to see how well this feature is going to work. With Copilot Microsoft aims to empower the citizen developers to be more integral part of the data development process and thus promote the organizations to become even more data driven. Most of the Copilot features are still in Private Preview though, so we all must wait a bit longer to get our hands on these cool new features.

More sustainable tomorrow through innovation in resource efficiency

At Evitec, we have already begun exploring the capabilities that Microsoft Fabric offers. Our own OneLake is already up and running, and we are well in our way to uncover the possibilities of Fabric. While the service is still in preview mode, and some child-diseases are expected, many of the features seem promising. We truly are impressed by its ability to eliminate the need for data duplication.

As the volume of data continues to grow in the world, so does the carbon footprint of the data storage. And as we are thriving towards more sustainable tomorrow, it is important that also the data solutions are designed to be as resource efficient as possible, and here Fabric seems to make a clear difference by having the only one copy of the data. Given of course that the processing of the data does not lose the benefits gained by reduction of the storage.

Time will tell whether Fabric can claim all the promises Microsoft has made for it, but if it does, we think that Fabric is a real game changer in the data field. Join us to the journey to unravel the potential of your data with Microsoft Fabric!

16.05.2023 | Featured News

Mikko Pilkama appointed new CEO of Evitec, with Ilkka Starck joining the Board of Directors

The Board of Directors of Evitec has appointed Mikko Pilkama, MSc (Econ), as the new CEO of the Evitec Group (Evitec). Pilkama will take on his new role 1 June.

03.05.2023 | Featured News

Evitec joins United Nations Global Compact

Evitec has been accepted to join the United Nations Global Compact (later UN GC).

By being a UN GC participant, we commit to acting responsibly and aligning our strategies and operations with the UN’s  Ten Principles  on human rights, labour, environment  and  anti-corruption. Additionally, we commit to striving towards reaching the  UN Sustainable Development Goals.

UN GC is the world’s largest sustainability compact  and has over 21,000 participants ranging from companies to other organizations to countries. The UN GC accepts commitments from companies which act responsibly towards people and the planet. In the application process we committed to setting ambitious goals and reporting on our progress annually.

The aim of the UN GC is to  mobilize a global movement of sustainable companies and stakeholders to create a more equal, transparent, and prosperous world, while caring for the environment.

Our aim at Evitec is to modernise Nordic banks and insurance companies through automation, agile methods, analytics, and cloud computing. We believe that this modernisation will lead the way to a sustainable future.

Read more about our sustainability work.

See our profile at the United Nations Global Compact portal.

18.04.2023 | Featured News

Evitec Group reports steady growth in the fiscal year 2022 

Evitec Group’s financial statement for fiscal year 2022 has been confirmed. Revenue was 37 million euros and grew with 12%, compared to the previous year (2021: 33M eur).

– 2022 reminded us again how quickly the market and business can change. Despite of the uncertain geopolitical situation we were able to deliver a decent outcome which included a successful acquisition in Sweden as well as carrying out a brand renewal process across the Nordics. What we need to keep doing during these unprecedented times, is to serve our customers excellently and maintain the mutual trust, states CEO Ilkka Starck.

Evitec’s headcount has increased from 304 to 330. Outlook for the year 2023 is solid but uncertainty in the market remains.

– We need to be cautious and follow the market development closely while executing our growth strategy, ends Starck.

For further  information  please contact: 
Evitec, CEO Ilkka Starck, Phone. +358 9 681 731

29.03.2023 | Blog Featured Insights

Why is sustainability on the agenda of an IT Company?

Not long ago, I was having dinner with some friends, one working in the energy industry, other in banking. At some point the discussion turned to sustainability and environmental issues and one of my friends commented “Well, working for an IT-company, you don’t need to deal with these topics at work”. What? No – so wrong!

The whole perception of not all industries and companies needing to get involved in sustainability is wrong. Sure enough, when working in energy production or with sustainable financing, the scope of how much difference you can make, might be different. But then promoting sustainability isn’t a question of how much or little you can contribute with. Every action counts.

Development to ensure peace and prosperity for people and the planet

It’s a common misconception that sustainability is only about environment and global warming. This is righteously the largest challenge, and as the latest climate change report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights, there is much to do and not that much time. But, as the abbreviation ESG, environmental, social and governance, implies, sustainability does involve more and incorporates a profound human aspect.

Living in one of the most equal societies, with a strong labour legislation, we easily neglect topics like diversity and equity. Therefore, having documented policies like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Sustainable Procurement are important, as they clearly state the company’s standpoint to the subject, what employees can expect from the employer and on the other hand, what is expected of employees.

Coming back to environment, also in software and consultancy industry we do have numerous possibilities to promote environmental aspects. There are big ticket items, like Green Coding, by which we can directly impact on how much energy the code we develop uses. And there are small ticket items, like paying attention to energy consumption in our office and business travelling, exploring possibilities to extend the lifetime of the equipment we use and making sure we have recycling procedures in place.

Work in progress

Something I think we all can agree upon, sustainability is far from ready, we still have plenty of work ahead of us. Promoting sustainability is complex and manifolded. For the environmental aspect, the Paris Agreement sets a tough goal. And when sustainability is also surrounded by controversy, like greenwashing and questionable CO2 calculations, it will require long-term commitment from companies to scrupulously strive for genuine and credible sustainability.

During the past 1 ½ years I’ve had the pleasure of working part-time in our Sustainability team. This has been rewarding both as the topic is of personal interest for me, but also as it has been even more educating than I expected. It’s remarkable how a topic starts to evolve and grow when it’s a regular discussion point. The more my colleagues talk about the topic, the more new and interesting views and facts are brought to the table.

Looking back at our work so far, it was with great pride I could tell my friends that sustainability indeed is on the agenda of our company and something we daily work on.