Nov 23, 2017 -  Auckland based network monitoring technology provider Endace has appointed StarLink as its value-added distributor across Europe, Middle East and Africa to promote its network recording and packet capture tools writes Stuart Corner for Computerworld New Zealand. The move to boost is European presence follows Endace announcing in October 2016 a new feature dubbed Provenance, that it said would be needed to enable traders to comply with European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) upcoming Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II.

The directive requires traders to record all trade data and ensure trade events are accurately time-stamped to within microseconds of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) along with information about the reliability of the timing source.

StarLink, headquartered in Dubai, is growing rapidly in Europe through its UK based regional headquarters, according to Endace.

“The partnership will see Endace’s technology distributed by StarLink to help businesses mitigate risks from cyber-attacks and better manage the security of their critical network assets,” Endace said.

Endace CEO Stuart Wilson said network packet capture was essential to enable companies to quickly and accurately analyse security events.

“Network security is paramount in today’s connected world, especially given recent high-profile examples of costly hacks and breaches,” he said.

"Partnering with StarLink, with its deep channel relationships in this market, will enable us to extend our reach and continue to accelerate our growth in EMEA.”

Wilson said interest in Endace network recording solutions had increased dramatically as organisations grappled with how to handle breaches, highlighted by the recent Equifax breach, and in light of growing mandatory breach disclosure requirements.

Interest in Endace’s network recording solutions also increased dramatically last year when Wikileaks outed the company for its role in helping several national governments snoop on citizens' data.

Endace in July this year launched EndaceFabric, billed as a centrally managed, network-wide packet capture and recording fabric that, it said “gives network security and network operations teams the definitive, packet-level evidence they need to rapidly investigate, and respond with certainty, to cybersecurity threats and network or application performance issues.”

A year earlier, in July 2016, the company joined the Cisco Solution Partner Program, saying the move would enable it to quickly create and deploy solutions to enhance the capabilities, performance and management of the network to capture value in the ‘Internet of Everything’ (Cisco’s then preferred name for IoT).

| A ComputerWorld release ||  November 23,  2017   |||

Nov 22, 2017  -  In politics, timing is everything. So it might have been inopportune amid a faux furore over Auckland Council business-class travel spending for Mayor Phil Goff to have to made public the details of his two-week sojourn to Europe and Britain.  Goff, however, has been around too long in the public eye, and is too much of a swot, to allow his time astride the world stage to be portrayed as some cosy junket writes Tim Murphy on Newsroom.

Instead, in full-press workaholic mode, he has revealed in a written report to councillors an eye-watering work programme of research on transport and housing and of diplomacy on climate change and World War 1 commemorations.

His 15-page note supplemented by photographic evidence and graphs, even explains that both Goff and an adviser's return airfares to Europe and accommodation in France were paid for by the global Bloomberg philanthropic foundation. (For completeness, that charity deemed business-class appropriate for a travelling public official).

What did the mayor - and the public - learn from the former foreign minister's return to a jet-setting life?

* He may have uncovered a "major New Zealand expatriate investor who is interested in investing in large-scale, built-to-rent developments to help alleviate Auckland's housing shortage. Goff's report says Kent Gardner, of multi-billion dollar investment company Evans Randall, is returning to New Zealand and is interested in projects here similar to those the company developed in the UK. "His goal is to build good-quality long-term rentals with secure tenure, including some social housing. This could represent a major opportunity to increase housing stock to address Auckland's housing shortage."

* He met New London Architecture, an independent forum for discussion on design and planning for the city, which has used 3D technology to create a 12.5 long metre scale model of London, showing in miniature the city's full 85 square kilometres. Notably, Goff says the Auckland Design Office is working with AUT on a similar model for Auckland.

* He had four and a half hours with the chief executive of Transport for London, Mike Brown, and his officials, learning that rubber-wheeled trains that can run along roads without the cost of tram-tracks were not the cost savers some think, because roads have to be strengthened to take the weight of the trams, they need power and the rides are not comfortable. TFL's experience also helped persuade Goff that elevated light rail costs four times as much as grade-level light rail - and underground light rail cost ten times that on the ground. "These costs largely rule out these options for Auckland."

* From TFL, the mayor also learned that autonomous vehicles were "highly . . .

| Continue here to read the full article on Newsroom   ||  November 22,  2017   |||

Nov 22, 2017  -  Company to streamline business operations and support a drive for efficiency across the entire organisation.  Coda Group, one of New Zealand’s leading and most innovative logistics companies, has commenced deployment of Promapp’s cloud-based business process management software (BPM) to streamline business operations and support a drive for efficiency across the entire organisation.

Coda Group was established two years ago as a joint venture between Port of Tauranga and freight and logistics company, Kotahi, to boost the efficiency of New Zealand’s nationwide supply chain, remove wasted capacity and reduce the costs of consolidating the cargo necessary for big ships.

The joint venture brought together four of New Zealand’s leading freight brands, including DTL, Tapper Transport, Priority Logistics and MetroPack, each with their own processes, many of which were paper-based and held in a variety of formats. Many of these processes couldn’t be shared, accessed and updated across the entire Coda Group business operation.

“In order to support the overall business in driving continuous improvement, optimising freight flows and creating a leaner, more efficient organisation we needed to ensure that our processes across the business could be easily aligned with business objectives,” said Wendy Mallowes, Business Process Improvement Lead, Coda Group.

Coda Group has company-wide processes, including those involving freight management, import-export procedures, and health and safety. These need to be consistently adhered to while individual customer requirements also add to the complexity of processes and procedures with specific legal and compliance requirements.

David Choong, Coda CFO, says, “As the business has grown and gained momentum, we concluded that we needed a central repository of business processes and documents on anything relating to operations, from staff induction and everyday warehouse operation to import and export procedures. We needed these processes to be universally followed and updated by our 310 staff at any time and from any location."

Promapp was selected to support Coda Group’s requirements based on its ease of use, friendly graphical user interface and its central repository which enables individuals in an organisation to store and update processes, supporting continuous business improvement.

“Being cloud-based also means that Promapp gives us the ability to share processes with our customers and provide staff with the comfort that they are always working with the latest information,” said Mallowes.

“Promapp’s feedback options will support Coda Group’s approach to continuous improvement which will enable customers to provide feedback and remove waste from the logistics network, boost efficiency and help streamline operations."

Coda Group has also set its sights on deploying Promapp’s Process Variant Management (PVM) software which will help the company manage or eliminate process variations.

Coda Group will be able to standardise processes across the entire company, while simply incorporating process variations to meet the requirements of a specific location, product, or customer.

PVM will also enable Coda Group to customise activities and manage service delivery for key customers helping to improve customer service.

“Ultimately, Promapp will support our strategy to remove wasted capacity, reduce the cost of consolidating freight and create real change in the logistics network. The end game is to provide greater value to our customers and logistics partners and to meet our target to handle more than five million metric tonnes of containerised cargo annually,” said Mallowes.

Promapp will be gradually rolled out across all Coda Group business units during 2018.

| About Promapp

Established in 2002, Promapp (https://www.promapp.com) works with hundreds of organisations worldwide to foster a thriving business improvement and process management culture.  Promapp’s cloud-based business process management (BPM) software makes it easy to create, navigate, share and change business processes, enabling continuous improvement, risk management, quality assurance and business continuity. Providing an intuitive online process repository, an integrated process mapping tool, and a process improvement toolset, Promapp’s proprietary software supports the development of smarter and safer ways to work, while encouraging sharing of information by operational teams rather than limiting it to process analysts and technical specialists.

Promapp’s wide range of public and private sector customers includes: Coca-Cola Amatil, Air New Zealand, WesTrac, Lumo Energy, Toyota, Ricoh, McDonald's, Audi Australia, Department of Justice, Victoria, Adelaide City Council, Waikato District Council and Southland Regional Council. The company is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand. www.promapp.com

| A CSO release  || November 22,  2017   |||

Nov 22, 2017 - Scott Technology outbid an overseas buyer when it bought Dunedin-based engineering firm DC Ross out of receivership, a six-monthly report from the receivers shows.  DC Ross, which supplies precision metal formed parts, was tipped into receivership in September 2016 and in June this year Scott Technology said it had entered an unconditional agreement to purchase all the assets of the company for a total purchase price expected to be less than $500,000.

In its annual report, Scott Technology, also based in Dunedin, said it paid $375,000 for DC Ross, and its tool room and tool design capability has already enabled it to undertake significant work for an appliance manufacturer in Australia.

It also noted the inventories, plant and equipment of the DC Ross business were purchased from DC Ross’ receivers for an agreed total value which was less than market value, resulting in a fair-value gain on acquisition.

In today's report, DC Ross's receiver Malcolm Hollis of PwC said they had corresponded with multiple interested parties and attracted an overseas buyer. He did not identify the company and was not immediately available for comment. However, prior to settlement, it received a "large offer from a third party," he said in the report. "We consulted with our appointer, who agreed this was the best possible offer received to date and retained employment for all staff," said Hollis.

Hollis also said the receivers are in negotiations with third secured creditor Fletcher Steel regarding the quantum of its purchase money security interest claim - which gives it the right to receive debtor proceeds up to the value of steel contained in the part sold. According to the report, Fletcher Steel is owed $609,670.

"Once we have undertaken a review of the calculations we intend to make a final distribution to Fletcher Steel," said Hollis.

The first secured creditor is Bank of New Zealand, which is owed $4.3 million while the second secured creditor is Aorangi Laboratories, owed $13.8 million. According to Hollis' report "based on the realisations to date there will be a significant shortfall to the secured creditor and therefore no funds available for a distribution to unsecured creditors."

Scott Technology shares last traded up 1.4 percent at $3.70 and have gained 70 percent this year.

|  A Sharechat release  ||  November 22,  2017   |||

Nov 22, 2017  -  The number of online job advertisements rose slightly with an increase of 0.1 per cent in October 2017 and 8.2 per cent over the year, according to the latest Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Jobs Online report.  “Job vacancies increased in five out of eight of the industry groups, with the largest contributor being the medical and healthcare industry, with an increase of 1.1 per cent. Other significant increases were a 2.2 per cent increase for machinery drivers and a 1.6 per cent rise for labourers,” says Stuart King, MBIE’s acting Labour Market Trends manager.

“In October, low-skilled occupations grew the fastest with a 1.0 per cent increase, with semi-skilled and highly-skilled occupations also increasing 0.5 per cent.”

Over the month, the strongest regional growth was in Otago/Southland with a 1.5 per cent increase, followed by Waikato and Nelson/Tasman/Marlborough/West Coast which all increased by 1.2 per cent.

“Over the year, the number of vacancies increased in all ten regions,” says Mr King.

| A MBIE release  ||  November 22,  2017   |||

Nov 21, 2017  -  CALHOUN, Georgia, Nov. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mohawk Industries, Inc. (NYSE: MHK) today announced that the Company has agreed to acquire Godfrey Hirst Group, the leading flooring company in Australia and New Zealand, further extending Mohawk's global position. Mohawk presently operates a comprehensive warehouse and sales network in Australia and New Zealand to distribute the company's wood, laminate, LVT, vinyl and carpet products.

Godfrey Hirst is the most vertically integrated flooring operation in Australia and New Zealand, providing broadloom, modular carpet and hard surface products for both residential and commercial applications. Godfrey Hirst's sales were about US$334 million in their most recent fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2017. The transaction is expected to be completed during the first half of 2018, pending customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Mohawk anticipates that the transaction will be accretive to EPS in the first twelve months.

Established in 1865, Godfrey Hirst is the premier flooring manufacturer in Australia and New Zealand as well as the market leader in design and innovation. The company has been owned and operated by the McKendrick family for the last 50 years and will continue to be led by R.G. (Kim) McKendrick, the CEO and Chairman.

"This is a great opportunity for Godfrey Hirst, our employees, customers and suppliers," said McKendrick. "Mohawk and Godfrey Hirst share a long history as flooring industry leaders and a commitment to product innovation, design, and superior customer service. This common heritage in our cultures, performance expectations and focus on excellence will enhance our growth opportunities in both soft and hard flooring."

After decades of strong growth in Australia, Godfrey Hirst acquired Feltex, which was the leading carpet manufacturer in New Zealand in 2006. Today, Godfrey Hirst's state-of-the-art operations and distribution assets are the most vertically integrated in the region. The company produces premium carpets of wool, nylon, polypropylene and triexta to satisfy all channels and price points. Its products are sold under the well-known Godfrey Hirst, Feltex and Hycraft brands through specialty retailers, home centers, architects and designers. In recent years, Godfrey Hirst has expanded its product offering to provide a wide range of globally-sourced hard surface products, including LVT, wood and laminate.

Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum, Mohawk's chairman and chief executive officer, stated, "Mohawk's strategy in Australia and New Zealand has been to build a leading position in the flooring market. Godfrey Hirst's marketing, manufacturing and distribution leadership will complement our current hard surface distribution and strengthen our portfolio. We will leverage our global flooring resources and talent to support Godfrey Hirst's outstanding management and accelerate their growth strategies."

Lorberbaum added, "Mohawk is using its strong management team and balance sheet to increase its participation in the global flooring market. With Godfrey Hirst, Mohawk will become the leader in flooring products in both Australia and New Zealand with a platform for significant growth."

Certain of the statements in the immediately preceding paragraphs, particularly anticipating future performance, business prospects, growth and operating strategies and similar matters and those that include the words "could," "should," "believes," "anticipates," "expects," and "estimates," or similar expressions constitute "forward-looking statements." For those statements, Mohawk claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements will be accurate because they are based on many assumptions, which involve risks and uncertainties. The following important factors could cause future results to differ: changes in economic or industry conditions; competition; inflation in raw material prices and other input costs; energy costs and supply; timing and level of capital expenditures; timing and implementation of price increases for the Company's products; impairment charges; integration of acquisitions; international operations; introduction of new products; rationalization of operations; tax, product and other claims; litigation; and other risks identified in Mohawk's SEC reports and public announcements.

ABOUT MOHAWK INDUSTRIESMohawk Industries is the leading global flooring manufacturer, which creates products to enhance residential and commercial spaces around the world. Mohawk's vertically integrated manufacturing and distribution processes provide competitive advantages in the production of carpet, rugs, ceramic tile, laminate, wood, stone and vinyl flooring. Our industry-leading innovation has yielded products and technologies that differentiate our brands in the marketplace and satisfy all remodeling and new construction requirements. Our brands are among the most recognized in the industry and include American Olean, Daltile, Durkan, IVC, Karastan, Marazzi, Mohawk, Mohawk Group, Pergo, Quick-Step and Unilin. During the past decade, Mohawk has transformed its business from an American carpet manufacturer into the world's largest flooring company with operations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, India, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia and the United States.

| released by PRPresswire  ||  November 20,  2017   |||

Nov 21, 2017  -  The FMA has today published KiwiSaver data in an interactive format to prompt discussion, engagement and debate on the relationship between investment risk, returns and fees.  The FMA KiwiSaver Tracker uses the information KiwiSaver providers give investors through their quarterly fund updates and via the Companies Office’s Disclose Register. These updates are a legal requirement and the Tracker will automatically incorporate the new information every three months.

The Tracker is part of the FMA’s ongoing focus on using disclosure to drive good conduct by providers and informed investor decision-making. The tracker complements other existing independent sources of KiwiSaver analysis, like Sorted’s Fundfinder.

The Tracker allows people to arrange and sort the data. It shows:

• The risk profile, returns and fees for each fund.
• A percentage figure for how much of the return is paid to the fund manager in fees (excluding fixed management fees) and how much is paid to investors.
• Data that currently covers the past year and average five-year returns.
• Funds that have been invested for less than a year and restricted schemes are excluded.

Paul Gregory, FMA Director of External Communications and Investor Capability said, “We regularly encourage investors to look carefully at who is managing their money and what the results and costs are.

As KiwiSaver matures, balances are increasing and more people are looking at what’s inside their KiwiSaver. This will increase demands for transparency. The market is also changing, with new lower-cost entrants, the potential impact of robo-advice and policy changes requiring fees to be disclosed in dollar amounts.

The information in the KiwiSaver tracker about fees and return is an important factor in considering your investment, but it is not sufficient information to make an investment decision. This is why we link to providers and the Fund Finder tool to discover further information.” Mr Gregory added.

Investors involved in early tests of the tracker showed particular interest in the scatter plot of KiwiSaver fund fees and returns.

Mr Gregory said, “People like to see where their fund and other similar funds sit in a plot. Over 5 years, there certainly seems to be a link between higher risk investments and higher returns. However, the link between higher fees and higher returns is, apart from in the case of a couple of standout funds, far less obvious.”

Investors are encouraged to talk to their provider if they have questions about KiwiSaver in general, or their specific fund. The contact details for each fund are provided in the Tracker.

The Tracker has been designed to enable users to embed it within their own website. The FMA also welcomes feedback, suggestions and comments on the Tracker.

The tracker can be found here. 

| A Financial Markets Authority release  ||  November 21,  2017   |||

Nov 21, 2017  _  On October 20, 2017, Mastercard announced that developers would be able to access its blockchain technology platform via its Mastercard blockchain API published on Mastercard Developers writes Giulio Prisco on nasdaq.com.

The new service was launched during the Money20/20 Hackathon in Las Vegas after testing and validation had been completed. According to the company, Mastercard's blockchain solution "provides a new way for consumers, businesses and banks to transact and is key to the company's strategy to provide payment solutions that meet every need of financial institutions and their end-customers."

Mastercard wants to provide an easy-to-use, permissioned platform to its network of developers and partners, designed for privacy, flexibility and scalability. According to the company, Mastercard's blockchain technology platform provides privacy by ensuring that transaction details are shared only amongst the participants of a transaction while maintaining a fully auditable and valid ledger of transactions; flexibility by providing the blockchain APIs and a wider suite of Mastercard APIs, with software development kits available in six different languages; and scalability to commercial processing speed. Mastercard emphasizes that its blockchain technology is integrated into the company's widely popular payment network.

At this moment, the Mastercard blockchain website for developers states that, due to an overwhelming amount of interest in Mastercard's blockchain, "We are limiting access to our API documentation to a select audience at this time."

Besides specific use cases such as Proof-of-Provenance and vehicle service history, Mastercard notes that the global market opportunity for peer-to-peer (P2P) bank transfers is $16 trillion. Mastercard intends to take advantage of blockchain technology and the Mastercard Settlement Network to transfer funds between bank accounts.

"The Mastercard Settlement Network reads the blockchain and will transfer the funds between two banks," stated Mastercard. "It then writes a confirmation of transfer to the Mastercard blockchain."

According to Mastercard, the company operates the world's fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. Besides developing its own blockchain platform, Mastercard had previously filed for over 35 patents related to blockchain technology, invested in Digital Currency Group and joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to explore the possibilities of Ethereum technology across a wide range of potential use cases.

"This move comes as a bit of a surprise, as Mastercard previously issued a blanket rejection of Bitcoin," reads a commentary published in Futurism . "Still, Mastercard's blockchain service heralds what Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin described to be blockchain's potential to replace credit cards."

It appears that the payment processing giant, realizing that blockchain technology is here to stay and disrupt the credit card industry, is accelerating its blockchain-related plans. Last week, Mastercard filed a new patent for a " Method and System For Instantaneous Payment Using Recorded Guarantees ."

While it may seem that Mastercard is trying to patent blockchain technology itself, the filing is more specific and targets fast, verifiable and guaranteed payments on a blockchain network.

Mastercard noted that, while fiat currency enables merchants to receive instant payments, it may take several days for a merchant to receive electronic payments due to processing, clearing and settlement times. On the other hand, credit cards are more convenient for consumers. Therefore, according to the filing, there is a need for a technical solution that allows merchants to receive instantaneous, guaranteed electronic payments while maintaining a high level of consumer convenience.

| A Nasdaq release  ||  November 20,  2017   |||

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc. 

Brought to NZ by National Business Review founder

20 Nov 2017 | MSCNewsWire | Truth never changes and neither does effective benefit selling. Only the techniques of transferring this information from the seller to the buyer change.

Drayton Bird (pictured) regarded as the Westminster sphere’s greatest and most seasoned expert on direct selling is to tour New Zealand with this message.

17 Nov 2017  -  The Reserve Bank today published a consultation paper proposing an enhanced mortgage bond standard aimed at supporting confidence and liquidity in the financial system.  This follows a review of domestic and international mortgage bond collateral standards. When the Reserve Bank lends to banks and other counterparties it does so against ‘eligible collateral’ (usually lower risk financial assets). Mortgage Bonds are a key form of eligible collateral in many countries with the Reserve Bank first accepting them in response to the global financial crisis when its lending to the banking system increased significantly. In New Zealand mortgage bonds are not generally traded. The Bank believes that a more standardised and transparent framework for mortgage bonds would improve their quality and make them more marketable. The Bank has developed a proposed new format for mortgage bonds, called Residential Mortgage Obligations (RMO). The Bank believes the proposed new collateral standard would:    · improve the risk position of the Reserve Bank by promoting the use of higher quality and potentially more liquid, mortgage bonds as collateral in the Bank’s lending operations;    · support New Zealand market lenders by creating an additional funding instrument for residential mortgages; and    · promote a deeper capital market through the availability of simple, comparable and transparent mortgage bond instruments. The proposed standard is consistent with international policy guidelines aimed at promoting simpler and safer secured bonds. The Reserve Bank is seeking feedback on the terms under which it should accept mortgage bonds as collateral and the proposed new RMO standard. The consultation closes at 5.00 pm on 16 February 2018. More information:Review of mortgage bond collateral standards

| A RBNZ release  ||  November 17, 2017   |||