Category: News

Changes affecting electronic payments from international customers

Here at MIDAS, we accept a wide variety of payment methods. This includes payment by credit/debit card, PayPal account, and via Electronic Bank/Wire Transfer.

From October 21st 2017 our BIC (Bank Identifier Code) and IBAN (International Bank Account Number) are changing. These are required for electronic bank/wire transfer payments made to us from outside the UK.

Why are BIC and IBAN changing?

After the recent global economic crisis, the UK Government put new rules in place to protect the economy and taxpayers in case something similar happens again.

The new rules state that banks have to keep their high street arms separate from their wholesale and investment banking divisions. This has been termed “ring-fencing”.

These new UK banking rules require all large UK banks to change their structure in the UK. Consequently, our bank is restructuring its operations to ensure it meets these new rules.

When do these changes come into effect?

The BIC and IBAN changes come into effect on 21st October 2017. We’ll be writing to all potentially affected customers in advance of this date.

Does this impact on electronic payments originating from outside the UK?

Yes – if you reside outside of the UK and make electronic payments to us, these are international payments which require BIC/SWIFT/IBAN numbers.

These numbers are changing. Any electronic payments made from 21st October 2017 will need to use the new numbers.

The new numbers will be present on all subsequent quotations, invoices, and on our website from 21st October 2017.

Until then, please continue to use our existing BIC/SWIFT/IBAN numbers.

Does this impact on electronic payments made from UK bank accounts?

No – our Sort Code and Account Number for making electronic payments from other UK bank accounts will not be changing.

The changes only affect electronic payments originating from outside the UK that require BIC/SWIFT/IBAN numbers to make an international payment.

Is anything else changing?

To coincide with these changes, we’ll also be taking the opportunity to update the postal address of our bank.

Our current bank branch recently closed, and accounts were transferred to a neighboring branch of the same bank.

No account numbers/codes or transactions were affected by this branch transition, and the old branch address continue to be accepted. However given the upcoming BIC/IBAN changes, from 21st October we’ll also be listing the new branch address of our bank.

For the avoidance of any doubt, our Bank, Sort Code and Account Numbers remain the same going forward. However, from 21st October 2017, new BIC/SWIFT/IBAN numbers and a different branch postal address will apply.

What if I mistakenly make an international electronic payment after 21st October using the previous BIC/SWIFT/IBAN numbers?

Our bank inform us that they’ll do all they can to ensure that payments made after 21st October using old BIC/SWIFT/IBAN numbers will still reach us. However, this is not guaranteed.

We would therefore encourage our international customers that any electronic payments made to us from 21st October onward should only use the new BIC/SWIFT/IBAN numbers.

What if I have further questions?

Please contact our sales team who will be happy to advise.


MIDAS v4.16 Out Now!

We love bringing new and improved features to MIDAS throughout the course of the year, and our latest update v4.16 is no exception!

If you frequent our website, blog, or social media channels, you’ll likely already be aware of some of the exciting improvements we’ve been busy working on for this update, but we’re now excited to announce the release of MIDAS v4.16!

Here’s What’s New & Improved in v4.16:

How To Get MIDAS v4.16…

New To MIDAS?

We are committed to fair and accessible pricing for all organizations regardless of size. We’re totally upfront and transparent about our pricing structure, and you can purchase MIDAS v4.16 securely through our website and be up and running in no time!

“Self Hosted” Customers:

Self-Hosted customers with ongoing Annual Support Subscriptions will be able to update to v4.16 in the next few days. It only takes a couple of clicks – simply log in to your MIDAS system and go to MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Update

“Cloud Hosted” Customers:

Cloud-Hosted customers don’t need to do anything! – All our active Cloud-Hosted MIDAS customers have now been automatically updated to the latest version of MIDAS!

We love hearing from our customers, so let us know what features you’d like to see in future updates to our software by voting on our feature request page!


Upgrading our servers to support HTTP/2

Network Switch

As part of our ongoing commitment to the services we provide to our “cloud hosted” customers, we’ll shortly be upgrading our client servers to support HTTP/2.

HTTP/2 is the first major new version of the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) for two decades. It will eventually replace the previous HTTP/1.1 protocol which was standardized way back in 1997.

The primary goal of HTTP/2 is to overcome many of the shortcomings of the twenty-year old HTTP/1.1 protocol, particularly in relation to how content is delivered over the internet.

HTTP/2 focuses on optimizing the communication and flow of content between web servers and web browsers. When a user connects to a web site, their browser negotiates an HTTP session with the server. The type of session created will vary depending on the features supported by the browser and the server. If both ends support the latest HTTP/2 protocol, the server uses the HTTP/2 protocol to shape and optimize traffic before it passes through the network back to the browser.

Once the browser and server agree to use HTTP/2, they can utilize additional features such as compression and multiplexing to optimize the connection. If either the web server or the user’s web browser doesn’t support HTTP/2, the connection will fall back to the HTTP/1.1 protocol.

Benefits of HTTP/2

One of the main improvements over HTTP/1.1 is that HTTP/2 uses simultaneous connections (or multiplexing). Previously only one resource can be fetched from the server at a time. However with HTTP/2 multiple resources can be fetched over a single connection concurrently.

Another benefit is header optimization. Every request over HTTP contains header information. With HTTP/1.1, many of these headers are repeated over a single session. HTTP/2 removes redundant headers while compressing the remaining headers, leading to performance improvements.

Benefits to cloud-hosted MIDAS users

In terms of MIDAS, the benefit of our client servers supporting HTTP/2 is that users will see notable improvements in page load speed and responsiveness when using MIDAS.

In our pre-testing, we saw page load times via HTTP/2 improve by some 20% over the same pages loaded via HTTP/1.1

When will the upgrade happen?

We’ll be upgrading our client servers to support HTTP/2 over the coming weekend (15/16th July 2017). Other than a quick server restart, no additional downtime is expected. For more information, check our dedicated Service Status site (which already supports HTTP/2!), and follow us on Twitter for updates.

Will I need to do anything?

No action is required on your part!

If you’re running a modern operating system and web browser, you won’t need to do anything. Your browser will already support HTTP/2, and you’ll still access MIDAS in exactly the same way. Once our servers are HTTP/2 enabled over the weekend, your browser will adjust accordingly.

If you’re not running an HTTP/2 compliant browser/operating system don’t worry, you’ll still be able to connect to your hosted MIDAS system over HTTP/1.1 as before. For an improved MIDAS experience though, you may like to consider upgrading your operating system & browser to one that supports HTTP/2.

  • Edge Chrome Firefox Current versions of Edge, Chrome, and Firefox browsers fully support HTTP/2.
  • Safari Current versions of Safari support HTTP/2 on OSX 10.11+
  • Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 11+ supports HTTP/2 on Windows 10 only

UPDATE: Our network is now fully HTTP/2 enabled, and we’re seeing some great performance improvements too!


Privacy Improvements

We care about privacy, which is why we’re introducing “Do-Not-Track” support in our forthcoming update, MIDAS v4.16.

“Do-Not-Track” – or DNT – is a setting present in most modern web browsers. If enabled, it instructs the web servers not to track you. This can mean not to track your visit, or not to tailor advertising based on your browsing habits, etc.

More and more websites are increasingly respecting this user privacy preference – but it’s fair to say that the vast majority still don’t.

As DNT is a voluntary standard, not all websites or online services have agreed to honor it. Even among those that have, not all have implemented the standard in the same way. Therefore, the effectiveness of DNT can vary depending on the website or service you are visiting.

Now, Ordinarily, the “Recent Activity” log in MIDAS – which records all user activity taking place in your scheduling system – also logs each user’s IP address.

Do Not Track (dnt) Support in MIDAS
Do Not Track (dnt) Support in MIDAS

For v4.16 we’re introducing a new “Honor user’s Do Not Track preference?” setting.

If enabled by an administrator, MIDAS won’t log user’s IP addresses in its Recent Activity log if the user has also enabled the “Do-Not-Track” setting in their browser.