Author: David Penn

SumUp Partners with BancoEstado to Boost Mobile Card Acceptance in Chile

SumUp Partners with BancoEstado to Boost Mobile Card Acceptance in Chile
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: SumUp

SMEs in Chile have just won a new ally when it comes to making it easier to accept mobile card payments. The country’s largest national bank, BancoEstado de Chile, has partnered with SumUp to launch a joint venture that will give Chilean businesses the ability to offer “anytime, anywhere” mobile card acceptance without fees or contracts.

The joint venture, branded Compraqui, will be based in Santiago de Chile and leverages SumUp’s success in developing mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) solutions for more than 30 markets in Europe and the Americas. The companies believe that the combination of SumUp’s technology and BancoEstado’s history of providing financial services to Chile’s SME community will boost the number of card acceptance points to 1.5 million in the next three years.

“This is a milestone for the small business sector in Chile,” SumUp CEO Daniel Klein said. “We truly disrupt the existing market for card acceptance through Compraqui’s unique offering. It represents each company’s strong commitment to provide business owners with easy access to card payment technology to ultimately increase their revenue.”

According to Gerente General of BancoEstado Jessica López Saffie, the need for card acceptance solutions in Chile for small businesses is significant. “Together we address more than 600,000 SMEs and 1.2 million sole proprietors who currently cannot accept card payments,” she said, adding that the bank chose SumUp as a partner after a careful examination of the competition.

“We ran a comprehensive selection process, evaluating many card acceptance solutions,” López Saffie said. “With a proven business model and a market-leading end-to-end card acceptance solution providing highest security standards, SumUp came out at the top of this process.”

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in the U.K., SumUp demonstrated its mPOS technology at FinovateEurope 2013. The company unveiled its new online payments suite this summer, which added the ability to accept payments via SMS; a Virtual Terminal to enable online, CNP transactions; as well as a set of APIs and SDKs for additional payment integrations.

SumUp has more than $100 million in annual revenue, processes more than 100,000 card transactions daily, and 2,000 new businesses joining its service every day. With more than $44 million in total funding, SumUp includes Life.SREDA and BBVA Ventures among its investors.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Sensory Partners with Fujitsu to Bring Biometrics to Mizuho’s Mobile Banking

Sensory Partners with Fujitsu to Bring Biometrics to Mizuho’s Mobile Banking
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Sensory

Fujitsu has teamed with Silicon Valley-based Sensory to provide face biometric authentication for Mizuho’s mobile banking, reports Antony Peyton of Banking Technology (Finovate’s sister publication).

Mizuho is the first customer of the Fujitsu and Sensory partnership and it will be using TrulySecure. This solution’s features include the option to fuse voice and face biometrics recognition together; and it works with Android, iOS, Linux and other platforms.

It also has convolutional neural net technology running on the device – so it does not store biometric info in the cloud. In addition, TrulySecure’s “anti-spoofing approach” prevents unauthorized users from gaining access with photos or videos of enrolled users.

Michihiko Ejiri, VP of front digital service business division at Fujitsu, says working with Sensory has “allowed us to help our customers around the world improve the user experience provided by their apps by integrating face biometric authentication technologies into them”.

Left to right: Sensory’s Jeff Rogers (Vice President) and Todd Mozer (CEO and President) demonstrating TrulySecure at FinovateFall 2017.

Sensory reckons digital commerce and banking apps have moved toward mobile payment and wallet applications. In turn, this demand has created a need for fraud and theft prevention technology that is “frictionless to the end user”.

It also cites research from Markets and Markets that the global facial recognition market is expected to grow from $4.05 billion in 2017 to $7.76 billion by 2022, with banking, financial services, insurance, retail and healthcare being major growth areas.

“Supported by the rapid growth in adoption that our TrulySecure face recognition technology is seeing among banking apps, mobile phones, and more,” Sensory CEO Todd Mozer said, “our research has found that consumers prefer the user authentication experience offered by face biometrics.”  Mozer highlighted speed, accuracy, and convenience among the top reasons why customers appreciate Sensory’s technology.

Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Sensory demonstrated its TrulySecure bank teller chatbot with biometrics solution at FinovateFall 2017. The company announced last month that its TrulyHandsFree voice control technology would serve as an Alexa trigger for Garmin Speak. And in September, the company’s TrulySecure facial recognition technology was added to LG’s flagship V30 smartphone, as well as LG’s Q6 and G6 models.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Diebold, Fenergo, SumUp

On Finovate.com

  • SumUp Partners with BancoEstado to Boost Mobile Card Acceptance in Chile.

Around the web

  • New software and cash recycling technology from Diebold Nixdorf to support an upgrade of 400 ATMs by Turkey’s VakifBank.
  • ACI Worldwide teams up with Zelle to bring real-time payments to FIs.
  • BNP Paribas to deploy Fenergo’s Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) solution.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

 

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Digital Experience Specialist Configo Launches Cloud Environment

Digital Experience Specialist Configo Launches Cloud Environment
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Configo

Less than one year after making its debut at FinovateEurope, digital sales and engagement specialist Configo is taking its technology to the cloud. The company is making its Live Experience Platform – which gives FIs the ability to create customer-centric, personalized digital experiences – available as a SaaS solution.

Until now, Configo’s platform was installed on-premise. The new cloud environment duplicates the on-premise platform, providing the same capture, tag, and trigger, code-free interface that allows FIs to add automated, contextual, personalized messages to their mobile banking apps to boost engagement and drive sales.

“It gives you total control of the whole mobile experience,” Configo CEO and co-founder Yosi Dahan said during his Finovate demo in February. “It makes your mobile application dynamic and allows you to provide different audiences with the right content in real-time.”

Left to right: Configo co-founders Natan Abramov (CTO) and Yosi Dahan (CEO) demonstrating Configo Live Experience at FinovateEurope 2017.

Configo’s Live Experience Platform enables FIs to launch in-app campaigns without the long R&D process. Dahan explained that having to write additional code and submit apps to the app stores every time an institution wants to add a task or make an update to an app can be time-consuming and costly. In contrast, Configo leverages their unique technology that enables the user to manipulate UI images themselves, making app updates easier and faster to complete.

The company has picked up some positive feedback from early adopters of the technology, including a pilot project with an online travel booking system that used the solution to support a campaign to up-sell customers to business class. E-commerce trials like these, Dahan suggested, were especially valuable during the development process. “You cannot get the same feedback when you work with financial institutions,” he said.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Configo demonstrated its Live Mobile Experience at FinovateEurope 2017. The company introduced its Partner Program in July, and launched its Live App Editor in February. Check out our feature on Configo and find out how the company turns more than nine years of mobile app development experience into a platform that helps FIs get app changes to market faster.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Jwaala Acquired by Alogent

Jwaala Acquired by Alogent
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Jwaala, Mergers & Acquisitions

 

U.S. firm Alogent has acquired a Texas-based digital banking tech vendor, Jwaala, for an undisclosed amount, reports Antony Peyton of Banking Technology (Finovate’s sister publication).

Alogent, which is based in the U.S. state of Georgia, said it will continue to support Jwaala’s collection of solutions, which will be marketed under the new name, Alogent Digital.

Dede Wakefield, Alogent CEO, described the acquisition as “the next major step forward in our mission to digitize and automate the financial services world”, with Jwaala’s platform bringing a “significant foundational set of capabilities”.

“We believe deeply in our unique approach to digital banking,” Jwaala founding partner and CTO Andrew Taylor added. “And we expect tremendous new growth opportunities as part of a company as agile, innovative, and dynamic as Alogent.”

As reported last year, U.S.-based banking software vendor, Jack Henry & Associates, shed its deposit automation business, Goldleaf Enterprise Payments (formerly Alogent Corporation).

The buyer was Battery Ventures, a US/Israeli venture capital and private equity firm. With that deal, the company regained its former name – Alogent.

In terms of Alogent’s current back office software, this focuses on electronically capturing, processing and analyzing check data and images, including those captured on mobile devices.

Its customers range from small community banks and startups to top tier banks, and it is the latter segment that will be the company’s key focus with the arrival of Battery Ventures.

Founded in 2006, Jwaala demonstrated its MoneyTracker PFM solution at FinovateSpring 2009. In August, the company announced that Alaska USA FCU with more than 625,000 members and more than $7 billion in assets would deploy Jwaala’s Ignite platform. The company began the year with news that United Nations FCU had picked Jwaala’s Ignite as its new digital banking platform.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Backbase Omnichannel Banking Powers France’s Mobile-Only Orange Bank

Backbase Omnichannel Banking Powers France’s Mobile-Only Orange Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase

France’s latest mobile-only bank, Orange Bank, has gone live on Backbase’s Omnichannel Banking Platform, reports Antony Peyton of Banking Technology (Finovate’s sister publication).

Backbase said Orange is the only French bank to offer for free a service that provides real-time balances, mobile payments, and a virtual adviser that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Orange Bank was finally launched on 2 November after considerable delays.

Backbase CEO Jouk Pleiter demonstrating Your Everyday Bank at FinovateEurope 2017.

As Banking Technology reported in January 2016, Orange outlined its plans for a new bank. In April 2016, Orange made a significant stride in its mobile banking ambitions by acquiring a majority stake in financial services firm Groupama. At present, Orange owns 65% of the capital of Orange Bank and Groupama 35%.

However, there was a hitch in June, when Orange put the brakes on its plans after finding the proposition didn’t quite meet the standards.

In October, the drama appeared to be over as a spokesman for Orange said “the commercial launch will take place on 2 November,” confirming an earlier report by French newspaper La Tribune. They weren’t lying as it went live on that date.

In terms of the new bank, customers can subscribe directly from the mobile application, online, or in one of Orange’s 140 certified stores.

Naturally, Orange is looking to attract its 30 million customers in France to its new bank. In fact, it is present in 29 countries, and according to the group has a customer base of 263 million customers worldwide as of 31 December 2016, including 202 million mobile customers and 18 million fixed broadband customers.

Earlier this month, Orange Bank said it was getting its mobile payment and banking services underpinned by Wirecard.

The paytech vendor said it is providing “all the technical components integrated into the Orange Bank platform to manage their mobile payments”.

Backbase was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The company won a Best of Show award for its demo of Your Everyday Bank at FinovateEurope 2017, which showed how banks can leverage big data and artificial intelligence to create “next-generation customer journeys”. Earlier this year, Backbase partnered with fellow Finovate alum eWise, combining Backbase’s Open Banking Marketplace with eWise’s account aggregation technology.

Named to the European Fintech 100 and noted as a leader in digital banking solutions by Forrester, Backbase announced a partnership with Norway’s SSF Bank in June and a deal to power digital banking for Zensar Technologies in May. Jouk Pleiter is co-founder and CEO.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avoka, BBVA, Configo, Doxo, Fiserv, Meniga, Realty Mogul, VISA

On Finovate.com

  • Digital Experience Specialist Configo Launches Cloud Environment.

Around the web

  • Spanish bank IberCaja deploys digital banking technology from Meniga.
  • Fiserv to help prepare European banks for transition to real-time payments.
  • BBVA and Samsung partner to bring iris scanning technology to smartphones.
  • VISA announces bank partnerships in preparation for Visa B2B Connect commercial launch in 2018.
  • Everest Group names billpay service specialist doxo to list of Top 40 FinTech Trailblazers.
  • FST Media interviews Avoka Chief Experience Officer Derek Corcoran.
  • RealtyMogul wins Gold Stevie Award for Company of the Year in the Consumer Services category.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Coinbase Custody Helps Institutional Investors Securely Store Digital Assets

Coinbase Custody Helps Institutional Investors Securely Store Digital Assets
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Coinbase

 

Who knows how much more appreciation in the price of bitcoin will be required to encourage notorious crypto-currency skeptic and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to endorse investing in digital assets. But when he does, a new company launched by Coinbase called Coinbase Custody will be there to make sure he does it the right way.

“By some estimates there is $10B of institutional money waiting on the sidelines to invest in digital currency today,” Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong wrote in a blog post this month. He highlighted the number of hedge funds that have been set up solely to trade and invest in bitcoin and other digital assets, as well as the growing number of family offices, sovereign wealth funds, and others examining ways to add digital currencies to their portfolios. He also noted that the primary obstacle to broader investment in these assets is the ability to store client’s digital assets safely.

With Coinbase Custody, Armstrong has set out to meet a set of factors – ranging from strict financial controls with audit trails to multi-user accounts and exceptional cyber and physical security – he believes FIs require in order to trust a digital asset custodian. He pointed out that because Coinbase “already store(s) billions of dollars worth of digital assets” for its customers – and currently serves “thousands of institutions” on its U.S. digital currency exchange, GDAX – Coinbase is an ideal partner for FIs looking to securely store digital assets. “Our goal with Coinbase Custody is to help dramatically accelerate the flow of institutional money into digital currencies over the coming years,” Armstrong wrote.

Institutions that sign up for Coinbase Custodian will get access to an early version of the solution to be released in 2018. The product is exclusively for institutional investors with a minimum of $10 million in deposits. Coinbase presently charges an initial set-up fee of $100,000 plus a fee of 10 basis points per month on assets stored.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Coinbase demonstrated its Instant Exchange platform at FinovateSpring 2014. In August, the company closed a $100 million Series D round led by IVP, which took Coinbase’s total funding to $217 million and a valuation of $1.6 billion. Named to KPMG/H2 Ventures Fintech 100 for 2017’s Leading 50, Coinbase introduced its Instant Purchases option in October, which enables users to buy digital assets directly using a U.S. bank account.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

ForwardLane Launches New AI APIs

ForwardLane Launches New AI APIs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ForwardLane

ForwardLane has introduced a pair of new artificial intelligence APIs that apply natural language processing and deep learning AI to help financial market professionals better manage research data as well as improve communication among advisors and end investors.

“The two APIs empower the world’s leading asset managers, wealth mangers, and insurers augment the capabilities of their star performers and bring a consistently high-quality, personalized experience to their clients,” ForwardLane CEO Nathan Stevenson said in a statement. “It ties humans with machines for exciting new solutions.”

ForwardLane CEO Nathan Stevenson demonstrating the company’s wealth management solution at FinovateSpring 2016.

The two API frameworks are Personalized Insights and Expert Conversation. Personalized Insights helps professionals working in advisory, sales, and distribution automate and augment the research and preparation process ahead of client meetings. The API leverages natural language processing to read client profile information and complies configurable human business data with commentary. This provides “high-touch customization” for all of an asset manager’s clients while giving professionals a prioritized client list, and guidance on which research content to share and why.

Expert Conversation is designed for institutional finance and enables on-demand access to company and market intelligence. Financial professionals and individual investors can use the technology to query the firm about how market-related issues and the company’s investment strategies can affect their portfolios.

Headquartered in New York City, ForwardLane demonstrated its cognitive productivity solution for wealth management at FinovateSpring 2016. The company’s technology combines “massively scalable” machine intelligence with institutional-grade risk analytics supported by more than 14 years of actionable investment insights derived from the company’s data aggregation platform. The result is a system for RIAs, IFAs, family offices, and other wealth managers that learns over time, providing the kind of “personalization at scale” that has enabled users to boost client loads up to 3x.

A graduate of the FinTech Innovation Lab’s mentoring program, ForwardLane has raised more than $1 million in funding, and includes Thomson Reuters among its investors. The company was founded in 2015.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Blend, Coinbase, Ellevest, Featurespace, ForwardLane, Kabbage, Overbond, PayPal, Unison, WealthForge

On Finovate.com

  • Coinbase Custody Helps Institutional Investors Securely Store Digital Assets
  • Kabbage Expands Small Business Funding with $200 Million Credit Facility.

Around the web

  • Overbond offers U.S. corporate issuers and institutional investors real-time access to its platform.
  • PayPal and Synchrony Financial expand strategic consumer credit relationship.
  • U.K.-based Featurespace to open office in Atlanta in November.
  • WealthForge Debuts Its First Regulation A Offering with New Investor Workflow
  • GoBankingRates features Blend, Unison, and Ellevest in its 10 Startups to Watch in 2018 list.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

PayStand Scores $6 Million in Series A Funding

PayStand Scores $6 Million in Series A Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, PayStand

In a round led by BlueRun Ventures and featuring participation from Cervin Ventures, Serra Ventures, TiE, and Capital for Founders, B2B payment platform PayStand has raised $6 million in Series A funding. The company says that it will use the additional capital to build up its account receivable systems and help launch its new free accounts payable product line – which entered beta availability today. The Series A takes PayStand’s total capital to more than $8 million.

With self-driving cars and rockets to Mars on one side of the balance and paper checks and spreadsheets on the other, PayStand founder and CEO Jeremy Almond made clear which side of history his company was on. Pointing out that “most U.S business payments still run on manual, pre-internet systems,” Almond said, “PayStand takes the best of automation, customization, and blockchain technology to finally bring B2B payments into the Digital Age.”

PayStand CEO and founder Jeremy Almond during his FinDEVr presentation, Comparing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Payment Types.

BlueRun Ventures General Partner Jonathan Ebinger added that PayStand’s emphasis on back-office payments in the enterprise “melds seamlessly into our investment themes of digital transformation.” Saying “we see big things ahead for PayStand,” Ebinger added that PayStand represents many of the best practices and “key financial processes that are vital to our economy.”

PayStand also announced the beta availability of its new AP solution. The technology automates the accounts payable process, eliminating the need for paper checks while providing full data tracking throughout the entire cash cycle to maximize visibility and control. The early-access AP release is free to all beta participants.

Founded in 2013, PayStand leverages blockchain and SaaS technologies to provide a smart billing and B2B payment network based on digitization and automation. The company’s Payments-as-a-Service helps businesses lower time-to-cash, cut costs, and generate additional revenue. Headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, PayStand participated in our first developer’s conference, FinDEVr 2014 in Silicon Valley. At the event, Almond presented “Comparing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Payment Types,” as an introduction to his company’s multi-payment network technology.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

KPMG, H2 Ventures Unveil Fintech 100 for 2017

KPMG, H2 Ventures Unveil Fintech 100 for 2017
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AdviceRobo, AutoGravity, Coinbase, Kabbage, Kensho, Klarna, Kreditech, Lending Club, Leveris, Moneytree, Nubank, On Deck Capital, SecureKey, Sensibill, SoFi, Stash, ThetaRay, Token, Trusona, VATBox, Wave, Xero

It’s that time of the year once again: KPMG and H2 Ventures have teamed up to introduce their Leading Global Fintech Innovators roster, the Fintech 100 for 2017. The judges for this year’s Fintech 100 included more than 20 professionals from KPMG and other organizations with expertise in IT, data analytics, capital markets, financial services, and more.

This year 11 Finovate/FinDEVr alums made the Leading 50, with another 12 alums making the Emerging 50. New entrants to the KPMG/H2 Ventures roster include SoFi and Revolut among the Leading 50. All 12 the alums on the Emerging 50 are making their first appearance. See the full list.

Some of the highlights from the 2017 Fintech 100 include the observation that five of the roster’s top 10 companies are from China, as are the top three companies on the list: Ant Financial, ZhongAn, and Qudian (Qufenqi). The U.S. has a pair of companies in the top five: Oscar and Avant, and Europe and the U.K. each have one company in the top ten: Kreditech and Atom Bank, respectively.

Speaking of Asia, the Asia-Pacific region has 30 fintech companies in the top 100. The United States has 19 companies – the most from any single country – and the U.K. and EMEA areas have 41 companies in the list. The U.K. and EMEA region are also responsible for the highest number of companies on KPMG/H2 Ventures’ Emerging 50 list with 26.

With regard to sectors within fintech, the Fintech 100 breaks down as follows:

  • 32 lending companies
  • 21 payments companies
  • 14 transaction and capital markets companies
  • 12 insurance/insurtech companies
  • 7 wealth management/wealthtech companies
  • 6 cybersecurity/regtech companies
  • 4 blockchain/digital currency companies
  • 3 data and analytics companies

Alums from the Leading 50

Alums from the Emerging Stars

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook