Author: David Penn

PayQuicker Introduces Same-Day ACH for US Payees

PayQuicker Introduces Same-Day ACH for US Payees
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, Byne

Global payouts orchestration platform PayQuicker announced that it now offers Same-Day ACH for US payees. The expansion of the company’s real-time payout capabilities will be made available to select users across the firm’s key verticals including the gig economy, affiliate marketing, direct selling, and other industries where fast, secure payments are required.

“Timely compensation plays a critical role in driving payee engagement and ultimately business success,” PayQuicker VP of Partners and Relationships Kevin Zeman said. “With Same-Day ACH, we’re equipping our partners with a powerful advantage, enabling them to deliver faster, more reliable payments that drive loyalty, and meet the unique financial needs of payees across the globe.”

In its statement, PayQuicker highlighted the value of Same-Day ACH for a wide variety of industries, including clinical trials, where there is a direct correlation between fast and reliable compensation for trial participants and their retention and engagement. According to a report from Linear Clinical Research, participants in clinical trials can be forced to wait up to four business days for bank transfers. Same-Day ACH, in contrast, enables organizations to settle payments for trial participants within the same day, boosting both efficiency and participant satisfaction.

Same-Day ACH adds to PayQuicker’s suite of payments solutions, which include instant payments to cards and digital wallets. The company’s single API connects to multiple banks and payment rails, optimizing transactions for speed, cost-effectiveness, or both. The technology supports instant, hourly, and daily payouts, as well as on-demand earned wage access. Available as a white-label offering, PayQuicker’s technology enables payees to leverage branded debit cards, customizable portals, and mobile apps to help ensure that organizations are able to keep their brands top of mind.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Rochester, New York, PayQuicker made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demonstrated Payouts OS, PayQuicker’s in-market, payouts payment orchestration platform which determines and facilitates the fastest, most cost-effective payment routing across 210+ countries and in 80+ currencies.

Earlier this year, PayQuicker announced that it was expanding its instant payout and local currency solution for clinical trials across the UK and EU. The ability to provide real-time digital payouts in local currencies has enabled clinical trial organizations and trial sponsors to quickly and securely compensate trial participants while remaining compliant with local regulations and laws.

Thinking about attending FinovateFall next month, September 8 through 10, in New York? Register by Friday, August 29 and take advantage of big savings on the price of your ticket.

Photo by Parrish Freeman on Unsplash

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Finshape Acquires Loyalty Platform Realtime-XLS

Finshape Acquires Loyalty Platform Realtime-XLS
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Finshape
  • Budapest, Hungary-based digital banking solutions company Finshape has completed its acquisition of loyalty platform Realtime-XLS.
  • The acquisition will enhance Finshape’s expertise in customer loyalty with the addition of 60 new specialists, as well as expand the firm’s reach geographically.
  • Finshape made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in London.

Digital banking solutions provider Finshape has completed its acquisition of loyalty platform Realtime-XLS. Finshape bought the company from the Collinson Group and it represents Finshape’s first acquisition of a global product company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

There’s a lot to like in the move. The acquisition will boost Finshape’s expertise in the field of customer loyalty, giving the company 60 new specialists. The deal will also enable Finshape to extend its geographic reach courtesy of new offices in France and Singapore, and bolster its relationships with major banks in the UAE, Australia, Indonesia, and Singapore. In total, Finshape will consist of nearly 600 professionals supporting millions of end users across 100 banks around the world.

“This acquisition is a strategic milestone on our mission to transform the way banks serve their customers by unlocking the full potential of people and technology,” Finshape CEO Petr Koutný said.

Integrating the Realtime-XLS solution will give Finshape’s Digital Bank Operating System (DBOS) advanced loyalty capabilities, enabling banks to reward customer behavior, boost customer engagement, and generate additional revenue via cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. This will increase customer lifetime value, help banks secure a larger share of wallet, and make growth more sustainable.

“The loyalty solution will now form an integral part of our growing, customer-centric digital banking portfolio,” Koutný added. “Seamlessly integrated into our DBOS platform, it enhances the value we deliver by enabling banks to offer hyper-personalized experiences and build deeper, more meaningful relationships with their customers.”

Headquartered in Budapest, Hungary, Finshape won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateEurope 2022. At the event, the company showed how its platform combines digital banking and deep personalization capabilities to help financial institutions boost digital engagement, loyalty, and sales—especially among their micro- and small business customers. The company was formed in 2021 when Czech Banking Software Company (BSC) merged with Hungary’s W.UP (a three-time Finovate Best of Show winner).

Jenő Nieder, Deputy CEO at PortfoLion Capital Partners, the majority owner of Finshape that helped finance the merger between BSC and W.UP, praised the transaction as “perfectly aligned with the buy-and-build strategy” conceived when Finshape was founded. “This transaction not only incorporates a new loyalty platform but also adds new capabilities and true global coverage to an already strong company,” Nieder said.

Photo by Joseph Sun on Unsplash

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Endaoment Announces Partnership with Active Cause to Help Influencers Give Back

Endaoment Announces Partnership with Active Cause to Help Influencers Give Back
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Endaoment
  • A new partnership between Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) provider Endaoment and philanthropic advisory firm Active Cause will help creatives, athletes, entertainers, and influencers make charitable donations in cash, stock, crypto, and other assets.
  • A DAF works like a charitable investment account, enabling investors to make tax-deductible contributions and to recommend charitable grant outlays from the fund, while the assets grow in value over time.
  • Founded in 2020, Endaoment made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024 in San Francisco. Robbie Heeger is President and CEO.

Next-generation Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) provider Endaoment has teamed up with philanthropic advisory firm Active Cause. The partnership combines Endaoment’s DAF infrastructure with Active Cause’s experience in serving the philanthropic needs of athletes, creatives, entertainers, and other influencers. Active Cause clients will be able to leverage the Endaoment platform to set up their own personalized DAFs where they can make charitable donations in cash, stock, crypto, as well as other assets.

“Active Cause is leading a cultural shift in philanthropy by centering creatives, athletes, and entertainers,” Endaoment President and CEO Robbie Heeger said. “We’re proud to provide the technology and infrastructure that allows their members to give seamlessly and confidently, while tracking their impact in real time.”

A DAF is a financial vehicle that acts like a charitable investment account. Contributions to DAFs are irrevocable to the sponsoring 501(c)(3) organization, which gains legal control over the funds. And while funds cannot be withdrawn for personal use, contributors—donors—still retain advisory rights over how the funds are invested and ultimately distributed.

DAFs provide donors with immediate tax benefits, enabling them to deduct the full amount of the contribution from their tax bill. The invested assets appreciate and grow tax-free over time and donors can recommend grants from the fund to qualified charities as they deem appropriate.

The partnership will embed charitable giving options directly into Active Cause’s membership platform, empowering influencers to support the causes that matter most to them. In addition to providing streamlined, simplified philanthropic service and tax advantages for creatives with often high-but-unpredictable income streams, the personal DAFs also offer a degree of privacy to help keep charitable donations out of the headlines.

“Our partnership with Endaoment gives members access to a modern platform that makes giving easier, faster, and more transparent,” Active Cause Co-Founder and CEO Yonis said in a video statement posted on LinkedIn.

Active Cause has more than 20 athletes, artists, and creators who have launched funds through the company and granted more than $10 million to community organizations as of 2025. The company provides philanthropic strategy and impact monitoring on key metrics like tax savings and fund growth. Working with Active Cause streamlines philanthropic processes, cutting administrative time by up to 50%, and lowering administrative costs to as low as 1.5% for DAFs greater than $10 million.

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Endaoment made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024. Earlier this year, the company launched its Farcaster mini-app that helps users “convert emotional resonance into immediate impact.” The app enables users to find and donate to causes directly within their social feed and to share giving opportunities with those in their network. Donations can be made in USD, USDC, or ETH.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Boku, Casap, Expensify, Fintech Rundown, Jack Henry, Temenos

The fallout from JP Morgan’s plan to charge companies for access to client bank account data continues as—according to a report from Bloomberg—Visa has announced that it is shuttering its open banking unit.

We’ve got a lot to say about the fight for open banking next month at FinovateFall. For now, be sure to check in to Finovate’s Fintech Rundown for all the latest fintech news!

Payments

Dispute management and chargeback solution provider Casap raised $25 million in Series A funding. See the company demo next month at FinovateFall in New York!

Zil Money introduces a pair of AI-powered features for its virtual cards: receipt parsing and automated spending analysis reports.

Digital content monetization platform Coda completes its acquisition of prepaid payments platform Recharge.

Localized payment solutions provider Boku partners with visual communications platform Canva.

PayNearMe establishes Texas footprint with Dallas business district office.

Sightline Payments creates Sightline Debit, a solution for the gaming industry, in partnership with Cross River Bank.

Digital banking

HSBC launches HSBC Innovation Banking in Australia.

Cognizant inks five-year strategic engagement deal with banking technology company Tenemos.

Thread Bank selects Finxact from Fiserv to power embedded banking strategies.

Crypto and DeFi

Crypto wallet MetaMask launches its own native stablecoin, to be issued by Stripe’s Bridge.

Bitget unveils its RWA (Real-World Asset) Index Perpetual Contract, enabling investors to buy and sell tokenized traditional assets.

VersaBank launches tokenized deposit pilot program in the US.

Finastra and Circle forge strategic collaboration to bring stablecoin settlement to cross-border payments.

Tazapay lands strategic investments from Ripple and Circle.

Financial wellness

Financial wellbeing platform CredAbility launches its credit score builder.

Fraud prevention and digital identity

Digital identity specialist Prove teams up with FNBO (First National Bank of Omaha).

Australia-based digital lender MoneyMe partners with fraud prevention and AML compliance specialist SEON.

IDenfy teams up with ethical residential proxies and web-data collection tool provider Ping Proxies.

Lending and credit

AI-powered credit intelligence company martini.ai launches its Financial Autonomy Ladder, a framework for measuring an institutions evolution from manual to autonomous decision-making systems.

MeridianLink expands its partnership with Jack Henry, which will resell the suite of Meridian Link One platform solutions, including MeridianLink Mortgage and MeridianLink Consumer.

First Northern Credit Union selects Appli to modernize member lending experience.

Small business solutions

Expensify announces upgrades to its Expensify Travel offering including central billing, event management, and employee itineraries.

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

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Finovate Global: Workforce Management and Capacity Planning with Cinareo Solutions’ Karen Elliott

Finovate Global: Workforce Management and Capacity Planning with Cinareo Solutions’ Karen Elliott
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Cinareo Solutions, Finastra, Finovate Global, Mambu, MasterCard, Nubank

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features an interview with Karen Elliott, CEO and Co-Founder of Cinareo Solutions.

Headquartered in Ontario, Canada and founded in 2022, Cinareo Solutions complements workforce management platforms, helping them streamline contact center operations and mitigate risk by enabling precise resource allocation and decision-making that is driven by data.

Cinareo made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego, demonstrating how its SaaS solution provides scenario-based capacity planning for both contact center agents and support staff. The company’s technology leverages industry-recognized statistical models and simulations to help businesses meet customer demands as well as vital financial KPIs.

We caught up with Karen Elliott recently to learn more about the field of capacity planning, the role of enabling technologies like AI, and how Cinareo Solutions helps contact centers ensure that the right person with the right skills is in the right place at the right time.

What role does capacity planning have in workforce management? What makes it challenging and how does Cinareo help companies better meet those challenges?

Karen Elliott: Capacity planning is the strategic backbone of workforce management. It determines how many people you need with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time, to meet service levels without overspending on labor. In contact centers, capacity planning sits upstream of scheduling—it uses historical data, forecasts, and business assumptions to set headcount and budget requirements weeks, months, or even years in advance. Effective planning ensures customer demand is met efficiently and profitably.

The challenge is that unpredictable demand, scattered data, and outdated tools make planning a constant challenge. Most organizations resort to using Excel spreadsheets and spend hours or even days of manual labor and embedded formulas to try to figure out the optimal plan. Cinareo streamlines the process by ingesting your data and enabling rapid “what-if” scenario modeling and multi-skilling simulation to create optimized plans for both agents and support staff with the click of a button. 

Not only does Cinareo handle planning with ease, but the platform also creates financial budgets and recruitment and training plans so you know who to hire, and when, to ensure you meet your service targets.

Who are Cinareo’s primary customers? How do you reach them?

Elliott: Cinareo is an industry-agnostic platform for all contact centers.  We have customers worldwide in financial institutions, telecom, travel, utilities, retail, and even government.  We partner with CCaaS and WFM solutions to integrate directly into their platforms so that data can flow seamlessly into Cinareo.  Any organization with variable demand, labor-intensive operations and service or cost targets would get huge benefits from using a platform like Cinareo. 

We have a wide network of referral agents and ISV partners that recommend Cinareo to their clients when they see a clear need.  Cinareo offers webinars and monthly product showcases to demonstrate the power behind the platform—or can even arrange custom demos and proof of concepts to make sure potential customers truly understand the benefits of a modern planning platform like Cinareo.

What in your background led you to pursue innovation in this field?

Elliott: I spent 12 years at the IBM Innovation Center earlier in my career within the User Experience group with a key focus on user-centric software solutions.  After leaving IBM, I co-founded a professional consulting firm that specialized in contact center optimization that helped organizations improve their people, processes, technology, and knowledge. 

Years of consulting highlighted a huge gap in the market in regard to capacity planning.  We worked with countless private and public sector organizations that would build these complex spreadsheets to determine their optimal staffing and we decided there needed to be a better way, so we created Cinareo.  It was built to complement any CCaaS or WFM platform in the market and integrate into whatever was the customer’s platform of choice.  If customers switch platforms, they can take Cinareo with them—having a portable, agnostic solution was key to the design. 

Another important goal was designing a platform that was simple and intuitive based on years of experience in user-centric design.  We even have our customers as active members of the planning and design of the solution—this ensures that everything we build is focused on the needs and requirements of the people using the software.

What role do enabling technologies like AI play in developing innovative workforce management solutions?

Elliott: Capacity planning remains relevant in contact centers even if AI is involved, and it can take on a different but crucial role in optimizing the overall performance. While AI can now handle routine queries or simple updates, the reality is much more complex. Cinareo helps determine the right mix of AI-driven processes and human resources to meet the demand efficiently. Our customers are modelling their operations using Cinareo to determine the ideal balance of human agents vs bot and the ROI on an investment in AI as well.  

Incorporating AI into Cinareo is a given—we are already full steam ahead in our strategic plans to ensure that AI-driven capacity planning can make a dramatic difference. But true innovation in customer support isn’t about replacing the people—it is about giving people the ability to work faster and smarter – and we are doing that with Cinareo. 

You recently launched Flexible Monthly Planning. What is the value proposition with this new offering?

Elliott: We initially offered Cinareo as a strategic, long-term capacity planning platform where users could build 12-, 24- or 36-month plans.  However, as we continued to enhance Cinareo, our customers were telling us they wanted more flexibility in their planning, so we built in the capability to do weekly planning up to 52 weeks in order for contact centers to create tactical plans over the short or medium term. 

To continue to expand on Cinareo’s flexible platform, we recently launched more flexibility into our monthly planning as well, so customers can build a plan for any number of months up to 3 years in advance.  These enhancements were all driven by the needs of our clients since our goal is to have our software reflect “the voice of the customer” and truly be user-centric.

You made your Finovate debut at FinovateSpring earlier this year. How was the experience?

Elliott: We had a fantastic debut at FinovateSpring!  We generated a lot of great interest in the solution from the demo we provided. Prior to FinovateSpring, we had recently started onboarding more fintech clients and noticed an uptick in interest from banks, credit unions, and insurance agencies looking for a solution like Cinareo.  We thought FinovateSpring would be a great opportunity to demo Cinareo to a wider audience and get fintech companies to see the realm of the possible with a modern capacity planning solution. There is such a clear need in this sector for a solution that will not only improve CX and EX, but also provide important KPIs like the cost per contact to help with financial management.

What can we look forward to seeing from Cinareo in the months to come?

Elliott: We are excited over some of the new features that are set to launch in the months to come—we have been scaling up significantly to meet customer demand.  A couple new features that are soon to be released are multi-lingual functionality in addition to the ability to compare a plan with your historical data in a quick and easy way.  We will be offering our clients a way to see how their plan performed against their actuals in both performance and staffing—down to the 15-minute interval level.  This new feature will help our customers understand trends and patterns and be able to improve their planning moving forward.

That is just the tip of the iceberg—we have so many more exciting things planned over the next while. We would love to increase our customer base to have even more voices driving the future of our software! If you want to see how Cinareo can solve your capacity planning challenges, feel free to contact us.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Whish Money teams up with Mastercard to enable cross-border payments to Lebanon.
  • Bank of Algeria joined the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) launched by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
  • Qatar-based AlRayan Bank went live with Finastra Corporate Channels.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India celebrated National Fintech Day earlier this week.
  • Ukrainian fintech Fintech Farm launched its mobile banking service Tezbank in Uzbekistan.
  • The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) announced plans to unveil new Information Systems Audit Standards to enhance audit practices for startups, fintechs, and e-commerce companies.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Brazil-based digital financial services platform Nubank introduced Armando Herrera as new CEO of its Mexican operations.
  • Uruguayan cross-border payment platform dLocal teamed up with cross-border marketplace platform Tiendamia.
  • Puero Rico-based transaction processor and fintech EVERTEC announced plans to acquire a controlling stake in Brazilian fintech vendor Tecnobank.

Asia-Pacific

  • Japanese fintech JPYC announced plans to launch the first yen-denominated stablecoin this fall.
  • Thailand unveiled a new pilot program to enable visitors to convert cryptocurrencies into the local Thai Baht to facilitate purchases.
  • New Zealand-based small business management platform Xero partners with UAE-based Wio Bank PJSC.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Digital payments provider Peach Payments launched real-time clearance (RTC) payouts for merchants on its platform in South Africa.
  • South African fintech Street Wallet raised $350,000 in new funding.
  • African business bank Absa Business Banking selected Network International as its digital payments technology partner.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • OYAK ANKER Bank GmbH migrated its core banking systems to Berlin, Germany-based Mambu’s platform.
  • Turkish investment platform Midas raised $80 million in Series B funding.
  • Disruption Banking looked at the increasing popularity of crypto in Lithuania.

Photo by Derek Sutton on Unsplash

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Crypto Exchange Kraken Acquires Capitalise.ai

Crypto Exchange Kraken Acquires Capitalise.ai
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Capitalise, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Crypto exchange Kraken has announced its acquisition of no-code, natural language-based trading tools provider Capitalise.ai.
  • The acquisition will enable traders and investors on Kraken’s platform to build and execute complex trading strategies using everyday language rather than code.
  • Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Capitalise.ai won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2017.

Crypto exchange Kraken has acquired Capitalise.ai, an Israel-based fintech that provides no-code, natural language-based trading and analytic tools for investors and traders. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Capitalise.ai won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2017 in San Francisco. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its technology can translate a wide variety of data inputs—including financial, social, and weather data—into actionable investment ideas across equities, cryptocurrencies, currencies, futures, options, and more. Capitalise.ai provides automated trade execution and the ability to optimize investment strategies quickly to analyze, predict, and improve performance.

“This acquisition gives Kraken Pro clients a powerful new way to act on ideas in real-time—testing, optimizing, and executing bespoke strategies with unprecedented speed and confidence,” Kraken Head of Exchange Shannon Kurtas said. “Capitalise.ai’s technology transforms how people interact with financial data—breaking down barriers that have long kept scalable, advanced strategies in the hands of a few. This is a major leap forward in democratizing access to pro-grade trading tools.”

Capitalise.ai’s functionality will be integrated into the Kraken Pro trading app in a phased rollout later in 2025. The company’s co-founders CEO Amir Shiovich and CPO Shahar Rabin, along with members of Capitalise.ai’s product and engineering team, will join Kraken.

The acquisition comes as the evolution of Kraken’s Pro platform, with its advanced features, has increasingly required both technical skill and deep trading expertise in order for users to make the most of the solution. Capitalise provides an effective response to this challenge, enabling clients regardless of background to build, test, and automatically execute often complex trading strategies using simple, everyday language.

“I founded Capitalise.ai alongside my partner Shahar Rabin, with the goal of democratizing advanced capabilities that were once reserved for hedge funds—through a simple, intuitive text interface,” Capitalise.ai’s Shiovich wrote on LinkedIn this week. “Over the years, we’ve partnered with world-leading brokers, served thousands of clients, and supported the trading of billions of dollars. By joining Kraken, we now have the opportunity to scale and drive meaningful impact across the trading industry.”

Founded in 2015, Capitalise.ai is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. Earlier this year, the company announced an expanded partnership with FOREX.com that enabled FOREX.com’s customers in the EU and the UK to access Capitalise.ai’s platform.

Among the longest-standing cryptocurrency platforms in the world, Kraken offers trading in more than 200 digital assets and six different national currencies including EUR, GBP, USD, CAD, CHF, and AUD. Founded in 2011, the company has been a pioneer in spot trading with margin, parachain auctions, staking, regulated derivatives, and index services. Kraken supports more than 15 million clients in 190+ countries and has more than $207 billion in quarterly trading volume on its platform.

Photo by Angela García

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FinovateFall: Women in Fintech, Community Banking, and What You Need to Know About AI

FinovateFall: Women in Fintech, Community Banking, and What You Need to Know About AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2025, List series

How have the opportunities and challenges for women in fintech and financial services changed in recent years? What can community banks do to better compete in the “consumer deposit wars?” And what do banks, credit unions, and other companies in the financial services space stand to gain from effectively deploying AI in their operations?

FinovateFall’s Executive Briefings will tackle all these questions and more next month, September 8 through 10, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York. Check out our capsule summaries below. Then visit our FinovateFall registration hub to reserve your ticket. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve got in store this year!

Executive Briefing: Women in Fintech—How can we all make sure we are moving the needle?

Moderated by Michelle Tran, Founder, NYC Fintech Women, this Executive Briefing will examine a range of issues facing women in fintech and financial services. The conversation will include discussion on initiatives that are making a difference in growing and retaining female talent, the importance of diverse perspectives in AI development, and how to drive positive change in the industry. Mon, Sep 8, 10:20 am.

Featuring:

  • Sherry Wu, Chief Technology Officer, University of Michigan Credit Union
  • Pam Hannett, Vice President, Liberty Bank
  • Sarah Biller, Co-Founder, Fintech Sandbox
  • Vanessa Larco, Former Partner, Premise Ventures
  • Lily Page, Head of Embedded Payments, SVB, a Division of First Citizens Bank
  • Laura Sweet, VP of Marketing, Riva International

Executive Briefing: The Coming Storm for Community Banks

Moderated by Jason Henrichs, CEO, Alloy Labs, this Executive Briefing will investigate ways that community banks can develop a winning strategic plan that enables them to embrace innovation and better serve their customers. The panelists will share their insights on topics ranging from the so-called consumer deposit wars to the challenge of aligning culture, strategy, and execution when integrating enabling technologies like AI. Tue, Sep 9, 10:40 am.

Featuring:

Executive Briefing: The AI Competitive Imperative—The ten AI solutions you need to know about today

Moderated by Kate Drew, Partner, Director of Research, CCG Catalyst Consulting, this Executive Briefing will focus on real-world applications and use cases for AI in financial services. The panelists will discuss how to implement AI safely and within regulatory requirements, as well as share strategies to ensure that AI is aligned with the institution’s business and change management strategy. Tue, Sep 9, 10:40 am.

Featuring:

  • Kimberly Kirk, Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Queensborough National Bank & Trust Company
  • Jamie Twiss, CEO, Carrington Labs
  • Katie Quilligan, Investor, BankTech Ventures
  • Andrew Szabo, Head of Industry Vertical, Financial Services, UiPath

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Finzly Integrates with Q2’s Digital Banking Platform

Finzly Integrates with Q2’s Digital Banking Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Finzly, Q2
  • Payment infrastructure provider Finzly announced an integration with Q2.
  • Finzly will bring its payment experience to Q2’s Digital Banking Platform, enabling financial institutions to offer their customers greater payments capabilities.
  • Both Finzly and Q2 won Best of Show awards at our all-digital conferences in 2020.

Finzly has announced an integration with fellow Finovate alum Q2 that will bring its payment experience to Q2’s Digital Banking Platform. This will enable financial institutions to offer their customers the ability to send and track a variety of payments, including cross-border, domestic, and instant payments—without having to leave the platform.

“In today’s connected world, businesses and consumers expect their banks to deliver seamless payment experiences. With fintechs setting new expectations for simplicity, speed, and transparency, banks and credit unions must be able to meet these demands effortlessly,” Finzly CEO and Founder Booshan Rengachari said. “By integrating Finzly’s solution into Q2’s Digital Banking Platform, we’re providing financial institutions with a simple, efficient way to offer exceptional payment experiences—including international payments—that exceed account holder expectations, without the need for a complex overhaul.”

A payments infrastructure provider for financial institutions, Finzly offers a payment experience that delivers real-time visibility, competitive FX rates, and built-in regulatory compliance and fraud monitoring. Importantly, the technology is “rail-agnostic,” supporting FedNow, RTP, Fedwire, ACH, and SWIFT. Integrated into the Q2 Digital Banking Platform, Finzly’s technology will help financial institutions expand their offerings, generate new revenues, and grow their customer base.

The integration was made possible by the Q2 Partner Accelerator Program. The program is a component of the Q2 Innovation Studio and enables in-demand financial services companies that are working with the Q2 SDK to pre-integrate their technology into the Q2 Digital Banking Platform. This makes it easy for banks and other financial institutions to collaborate with these companies, buy their solutions, and quickly deploy the technologies for their customers.

A Finovate alum since 2011, Q2 won Best of Show at our all-digital conference in 2020. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Q2 offers a Digital Banking Platform that provides a range of secure, data-driven banking and lending solutions to banks, credit unions, fintechs, and other companies in financial services. Financial institutions using the company’s platform have reported 54% higher deposit growth, 48% higher loan growth, 27% higher revenue per employee, and 13% higher return on assets compared to companies that do not use the platform. This week, the company reported that Open Payment Network (OPN) has become the first integration partner for Q2 Instant Payments Manager, a solution designed to help financial institutions manage instant payments workflows.

Finzly made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019 and won Best of Show in its return to the Finovate stage the following year. Most recently demonstrating its technology at FinovateSpring 2022, Finzly showed how its bank operating system, FinzlyOS, can quickly launch a modern, digital bank equipped with direct connections to all the major payments networks—from ACH and wires to RTP, FedNow, and SWIFT. Earlier this month, the company announced that it is gearing up to support both stablecoin and tokenized deposits in response to a demand for these digital assets that the company described as “exponential.”

“The momentum behind stablecoins is undeniable, and we’re seeing remarkable interest from US banks who recognize this isn’t just a trend,” Rengachari said. “Financial institutions that prepare now with the right infrastructure will be positioned to capitalize on what could be a $2 trillion market by 2028, while those that wait risk being left behind in an increasingly digital financial ecosystem.”

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Finzly was founded in 2012.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

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Wio Bank Partners with Xero to Enhance Accounting for SMEs in the UAE

Wio Bank Partners with Xero to Enhance Accounting for SMEs in the UAE
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Xero
  • Small business management platform Xero has teamed up with UAE-based digital bank Wio Bank PJSC.
  • The partnership will enable Wio Bank’s business customers to access a range of business finance management and accounting solutions.
  • Xero is headquartered in New Zealand. The company made its Finovate debut in 2011.

A newly announced partnership between UAE-based digital bank Wio Bank PJSC and small business management platform Xero will help small and medium-sized businesses in the region streamline and simplify their accounting operations. Wio Bank’s business customers will benefit from ready access to seamless bank feeds, automated reconciliation, and real-time financial insights.

The integration will help businesses working with Wio Bank to leverage automation to reduce error-prone, manual data entry. The technology will also help enhance cash flow visibility thanks to seamless invoice matching. Real-time insights ensure an accurate view of overall financial health, making it easier for business owners to make more informed decisions.

“We’re pleased to work with Xero to bring effortless accounting to UAE businesses,” Wio Bank Chief Commercial Officer Prateek Vahie said. “This integration reflects our commitment to making business banking smarter, faster, and more efficient. By automating financial workflows, we’re giving business owners more time to focus on growth.”

Xero provides small and medium-sized businesses with financial management solutions—including accounting software and invoicing technology that helps them be more efficient. With more than 4.4 million users of its solutions around the world, Xero offers flexible subscription plans for businesses ranging from solopreneurs to established enterprises. Xero’s platform features solutions that facilitate invoicing, payment acceptance, inventory management, payroll, expense management, and more.

“Our integration with Wio Bank is a significant step towards supporting more UAE businesses with better visibility of their finances, helping them spend less time on admin and more time doing what they love, growing their business,” Xero Regional Director EMEA, Colin Timmis said.

Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Wio Bank PJSC serves individuals with a platform that helps them save, spend, borrow, manage, and invest. The institution also offers Banking-as-a-Service and embedded finance solutions to serve small and medium-sized businesses. Launched in 2022, Wio Bank is backed by shareholders including ADQ, Alpha Dhabi, e&, and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB).

Xero made its Finovate debut in 2011. The New Zealand-based company was founded in 2006. Earlier this summer, Xero announced its acquisition of SMB billpay platform Melio. Already available via the Xero App Store, the Melio platform makes payment workflows easy and flexible, providing a diverse range of payment methods to better serve customers and help vendors get paid faster.

Photo by David Rodrigo on Unsplash

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HSLC, Triad Bank Turn to Vine Financial to Enhance and Automate Lending

HSLC, Triad Bank Turn to Vine Financial to Enhance and Automate Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Vine Financial
  • Lending platform provider Vine Financial announced partnerships with a pair of financial institutions: HSLC of Ohio and Triad Bank of Oklahoma.
  • Both institutions will deploy Vine’s platform to manage the entire commercial loan lifecycle, including document reading, financial spreading, and document generation.
  • Austin, Texas-based Vine made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2024 in New York.

AI-powered lending platform Vine Financial has announced a new partnership with HSLC, a $227 million community bank serving customers in Ohio and Kentucky. The institution will leverage Vine’s technology to eliminate manual document processing in its commercial lending, equipment financing, and agricultural lending portfolios. Integrating Vine’s lending platform will enable HSLC to boost accuracy and reduce commercial loan processing time from days to hours.

“HSLC has a true dedication to their community and especially the businesses they serve,” Vine CEO and Co-Founder David Eads said. “A big part of our mission is freeing community bankers up to do what they do best: build relationships with their customers. Chris and his team are a great example of that, and we are proud to support the banks making a difference in their local economies.”

The partnership will give HSLC a single, unified system that covers the entire commercial loan lifecycle. Vine’s platform automates document reading, financial spreading, and document generation, replacing the costly and time-consuming manual processes that continue to plague commercial lending. Vine’s technology will provide HSLC not only with greater efficiency, but also with greater accuracy, as well. The company notes that institutions using its technology have seen accuracy improvements of up to 30%.

Headquartered in Kenton, Ohio, HSLC recently opened doors on new branches in Lexington, Kentucky, where the institution does the lion’s share of its lending to businesses. Founded in 1888, HSLC’s full name is The Home Savings and Loan Company of Kenton, Ohio, and is a mutual financial institution that is owned by its customers.

“When I first heard about Vine, I knew we had an opportunity ahead of us. If there was something out there that could truly cut our loan processing time down from days to just hours, we needed that,” HSLC President, CEO, and Director Chris Jones said. “Anything that streamlines our work and makes us more efficient is a win for us and for our borrowers. We’ve had a great implementation with Vine and look forward to working with them.”

Founded in 2019, Vine Financial is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall in New York, demonstrating its comprehensive Loan Lifecycle platform that uses AI to provide document import, financial analysis, and document generation. Vine Financial notes that its technology enables credit teams to work 5x faster and with 30% greater accuracy.

Vine’s partnership news with HSLC comes just a month after the fintech reported that Oklahoma-based Triad Bank had begun using its commercial lending technology to streamline its lending workflows. Founded in 1983, Triad Bank has $224 million in assets and a pair of branches in south Tulsa, including the institution’s headquarters.

“Vine offers a highly customizable loan analysis platform, allowing us the ability to tailor data inputs, risk metrics, and report outputs to fit our specific underwriting framework and portfolio review strategy,” Triad Bank, Tulsa, SVP Melissa Patocka said. “As a community bank with a credit policy different from a larger institution, Vine was able to adapt to our workflow, making it easy to align the platform with our specific underwriting and analysis needs.”

Photo by Jeremy Doddridge on Unsplash

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FinovateFall: Incentivizing Outperformance and Building Trust with Better Data

FinovateFall: Incentivizing Outperformance and Building Trust with Better Data
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2025

Check out some of the latest additions to our FinovateFall 2025 speaker line-up!

From leveraging AI to streamline workflows to incentivizing outperformance in financial services teams, this year’s crop of FinovateFall Special Addresses tackles many of the critical aspects that determine how well financial institutions engage customers, build and market new solutions, and grow their businesses. Take a look below at who will be speaking from the main stage in just a few weeks time.

FinovateFall 2025 comes to New York’s Marriott Marquis Times Square, September 8 through 10. Get your ticket. Book your room. And join us for three days of live tech demos, insightful keynotes, and networking with hundreds of fellow fintech and financial services professionals.

Growth Amid Uncertainty: How Financial Services Leaders Can Use Incentives to Outperform

Lindsey Bly, Senior Director, Product Marketing, CaptivateIQ, will talk about why outdated compensation structures are eroding growth, and what financial institutions can do to fix this problem. Mon, Sep 8, 11:05 am.

Bly will also explain how firms can use incentive compensation as a flexible tool to better manage market uncertainty, margin pressure, and evolving product priorities.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, CaptivateIQ offers a platform that combines quota, territory, headcount, and compensation into a single, AI-powered workspace that is built for agility, alignment, and scale.

Founded in 2017, CaptivateIQ bridges the gap between incentive compensation management and sales planning.

Sharpen Your Tech Stack: Boost Agility in a Shifting Landscape

Anna Van Erven, Strategic Awareness & Advocacy Lead, Progress ShareFile, will discuss how ensuring that your tech stack is lean and adaptable is key to controlling costs, automating low-value work, and keeping the focus on strategy rather than on software. Mon, Sep 8, 12:20 pm.

Van Erven will also share insights into how companies can audit their own tech stack to help build a resilient, adaptable foundation for the future.

Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, Progress ShareFile provides technology to streamline document and client-facing workflows.

The company’s automation, e-signing, and secure document sharing solutions help businesses become more efficient and collaborate more effectively.

The Hidden Threat in Identity Verification — Why the First Step is Everything

Bryan Lewis, President and Chief Executive Officer, Intellicheck, will explain why the first step in identity verification is the most important and how everything that follows this step is compromised if this initial step is wrong. Tue, Sep 9, 9:25 am.

Lewis also will talk about the key role of the barcode and why facial recognition alone is insufficient as an authentication strategy.

Intellicheck provides an identity validation and proofing service that leverages its proprietary analysis of Department of Motor Vehicles-issued identification documents to build trusted, real-time customer identity verification.

Headquartered in New York, Intellicheck was founded in 1994.

From Chaos to Clarity: A CIO + CEO Conversation on Confident Tech Decisions

UPSTACK’s Chris Trapp (Founder & CEO) and Josh Jewett (Operating Executive) will discuss lessons learned and share practical guidance on their experiences from both sides of the buying table when it comes to investments in everything from AI and cloud technology to CX and enterprise IT. Tue, Sep 9, 12:25 pm.

The two fintech veterans will talk about how financial institutions can cut through vendor noise to move from stalled evaluations to confident action.

Founded in 2017, UPSTACK is a full-service technology brokerage that helps businesses make smarter technology investments.

The company takes a vendor-neutral approach to offer expert advisory and execution across colocation, cloud, connectivity, networking, cybersecurity, AI, and more.

The State of Business Identity: Why Trust Starts with Better Data

Andrea Hong, Head of Product, Middesk, will talk about how fraud risks have never been higher for businesses and how the current identity infrastructure is failing to protect businesses from synthetic identities, shell companies, and more. Tue, Sep 9, 1:40 pm.

Hong will discuss how more companies are leveraging better data and workflows to detect fraud risks earlier and make better decisions across the customer lifecycle.

San Francisco, California-based Middesk offers simple and trusted business onboarding. The company’s technology enables firms to use instant, reliable insights to verify and onboard more business customers faster.

Founded in 2019, Middesk includes fintechs such as Affirm, Brex, Plaid, and Gusto among its customers.

Photo by Jopwell

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Minerva Brings More Control, Visibility to Sanctions Screening

Minerva Brings More Control, Visibility to Sanctions Screening
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, MinervaAI
  • Financial crime solutions provider Minerva announced two platform updates to give compliance teams more control and greater visibility when it comes to sanctions and watchlist screening.
  • The two new features are a screening analytics dashboard and a sanctions list source selection tenant configuration page.
  • Minerva made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Financial crime solutions provider Minerva recently unveiled a pair of platform updates designed to give compliance teams more control over and greater visibility into sanctions and watchlist screening operations. The company introduced a new screening analytics dashboard that gives users a view into the performance of their screening program. Additionally, Minerva launched a sanctions list source selection tenant configuration page for administrators that allows customers to customize their sanctions list coverage.

“I’m excited to share our latest product update,” Minerva Head of Product Jordan Bibla wrote on the company blog. “We released a new screening analytics dashboard to provide visibility into your screening program’s performance over time. We also rolled out sanctions list source selection to provide control over which underlying sanctions sources you screen against.”

Minerva’s new screening analytics dashboard now features a Current Snapshot view that provides point-in-time profile metrics including total profile count, monitored count, and escalation, acceptance, and rejection rates. This information will help compliance teams see exactly how well their screening program is performing. The dashboard also provides charts that show historical trends to let users see how profile statuses are changing over time. This feature enables compliance teams to more readily identify patterns and track performance.

The platform also now has a tenant configuration page to enable users with administrative access to empower customers to customize their sanctions list coverage based on their individual compliance requirements. The new page features Source Management, which enables administrative users to deselect sanctions lists that are not relevant for their screening program; Regional Filtering, which displays both active and inactive sources and can be filtered by geographic region; and Tenant-Wide Application, which enables selections to apply to the entire tenant for ongoing monitoring and risk assessment searches to provide consistency across the entire screening program.

Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Minerva made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its AI-powered AML platform provides accurate sanctions and watchlist screening, KYC, KYB, enhanced due diligence, and ongoing monitoring insights in seconds. Use cases for Minerva’s technology include not just AML compliance in banking, but also in industries such as real estate, law enforcement, cryptocurrency exchanges, payments facilitators, and more.

Minerva began the year with the news that it had partnered with financial crime and compliance automation platform Hummingbird to integrate Minerva’s screening data directly into the Hummingbird platform. This will enable Hummingbird users to access comprehensive global screening for sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEPs), open source intelligence (OSINT), and adverse media. This spring, Minerva introduced its Automated Screening Workflow solution that automates as much as 97% of screening activity.

Photo by Arturo Castaneyra on Unsplash

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