NEWS
Iceland
strengthens
emergency
preparedness
with nationwide
alerting system
CashFlows and SmartDebit
partner to enhance
payment choice
E
verbridge, a global leader in critical event
management, has announced that its
deployment of Iceland’s national alerting
system has gone live and is operational.
In light of a recent EU mandate requiring
European countries to have a population-
wide alerting system in place by June 2022,
Everbridge is now the first population alerting
provider to support four European countries:
Greece, Iceland, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Everbridge Public Warning leverages existing
telecom infrastructure, with no end-user
registration or opt-in required. All mobile
phones located within a specified geographic
area can be notified by government
emergency authorities using location-based
information from local cell towers.
Within Iceland, the Everbridge Public
Warning solution is being used to provide
population-wide alerting to reach Iceland’s
360,000 residents and approximately 2
million annual visitors.
Local residents and visitors alike are able to
receive location-based SMS notifications
on their mobile phones if they are within
an area where a sudden critical event has
occurred such as fire, volcanic activity,
extreme weather or a terror attack. Public
Warning also allows Iceland emergency
authorities to seamlessly engage in two-
way communication with people to check
on whether they are safe and to receive
requests for assistance.
“This new location-based alerting system
allows us to turn around information very
quickly,” said Tómas Gíslasen, Deputy CEO at
112 Iceland, who has been instrumental in
advancing the use of localisation technology.
“Within minutes we can reach large portions
of the population, leveraging a system
with proven scale. This can be of great
importance to anyone who finds themselves
in a disaster area or who needs support to
find a relative.”
18
INTELLIGENTCIO
O
mni-channel payments specialist,
CashFlows, and SmartDebit – one
of the UK’s leading Direct Debit service
providers – have announced a strategic
partnership. The alliance will introduce
seamless payment processing options
to UK organisations collecting recurring
payments. Both firms share priorities
on payment automation, customer
choice and corporate agility which have
paved the way to create this mutually
beneficial partnership.
Terry Jones, SmartDebit CEO, said:
“Automating the Direct Debit collections
process and providing customer service
excellence is what SmartDebit does
best. Organisations need to offer a
range of payment methods that can
respond to changing customer needs.
Choosing to work with CashFlows, whose
technologically advanced systems
match our own, enables us to offer more
flexibility to UK organisations and help
them to process direct debit and card
transactions to drive both revenue and
customer loyalty, whether that’s for
subscriptions, memberships, donations or
regular payments.”
Jonathan Bennett, CashFlows’ Chief
Commercial Officer, commented: “We
are constantly building out our payments
services through a combination of
in-house technology, innovation and
strategic partnerships with market-
leading businesses like SmartDebit.
“We will only partner with businesses that
are unhampered by legacy issues and
that mirror our commitment to ensuring
faster, more successful transactions
based on customer demands. SmartDebit
meets that criteria and more – so we’re
delighted to announce this partnership,
which we know will deliver an unrivalled
payments experience to our existing and
prospective customers.” n
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