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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
The first full week of October is bringing news of new product launches in the digital banking space, funding for continued innovation with stablecoins, and partnerships in payments and insurtech. Be sure to check back with Finovate’s Fintech Rundown all week long for the latest in fintech news!
Digital banking
Alkamiunveils its Digital Banking Conversion Toolkit (DBCT) to support financial institutions through their digital transformation journeys.
Bud Financiallaunches its Bud MCP server to facilitate the integration of AI applications with Bud’s platform.
Checkout.comsecures a Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank (MALPB) charter from the State of Georgia Department of Banking and Finance.
Dutch insurtech RISK has acquired Amsterdam-based savings app Dyme. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The deal will enable Dyme to boost its presence in the Netherlands as well as enter the German market. Courtesy of the agreement, both Dyme’s brand and management team will remain intact.
“From being featured on Dragon’s Den to becoming one of the largest finance apps in Europe and reaching profitability, our mission has always been the same: helping people take control of their money,” Dyme noted on its LinkedIn Page. “This step opens up some great opportunities for Dyme and its customers: expand the product, especially with great insurance packages and service, reach millions more people through the RISK ecosystem, and take Dyme international, beginning with Germany.”
Dyme currently has more than 600,000 consumers who have linked their bank accounts to the Dyme platform. The company’s app serves as a personal financial assistant to help users lower costs, and uses smart algorithms to automate subscription cancellations and provide financial guidance. Dyme announced its first profitable quarter in 2024, and has said that it has helped users save more than €40 million since inception. The acquisition will combine RISK’s market expertise and technological platforms with Dyme’s user-friendly financial solutions that enable users to easily manage their expenses, budgets, and more.
RISK offers an advanced IT platform, SureBase, that assists financial advisors, online labels, and insurers in product comparison and distribution. SureBase, according to RISK CEO Harm Vollmuller, will serve a key base for the new synergy between RISK and Dyme. “By combining that with our platforms and market knowledge, we can reach people at a time when financial breaking space is more important than ever,” Vollmuller said.
“This new facility is a testament to the trust and confidence Brand New Day Bank has placed in Factris and our vision for SME financing,” Factris CEO Brian Reaves said. “As we continue to scale across Europe, this partnership ensures we can meet the increasing demand for alternative financing and provide SMEs with the liquidity they need to thrive.”
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Amsterdam, North Holland, Factris specializes in invoice factoring for small and medium-sized enterprises. The company offers selective factoring to enable companies to decide which specific invoices to factor, fund availability within 24 hours of invoice submission, credit insurance to protect against customer non-payment or bankruptcy, and debtor management for collections and account receivables.
Brand New Day Bank is a Netherlands-based digital-first, challenger bank and fintech that began operating in 2010. The financial institution serves both individuals and small-to-medium sized businesses with savings accounts, investment and pension products, tax-advantaged savings and investment solutions, and annuity payment services. Brand New Day Bank has more than €8 billion in assets.
Digital banking experience platform Plumeryannounced a suite of new features and integrations designed especially for credit unions in Canada. These new capabilities will give these institutions the ability to provide personalized, compliant, and modern digital banking experiences for their members.
The Amsterdam-based fintech leveraged a collaboration with Aequilibrium, a digital services and technology consultancy headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, to make sure its Canadian-ready platform is built based on the way that Canadian credit union members prefer to bank. This includes not just hyper-personalized, mobile-first, and intuitive digital journeys, but also support for everyday payments and transfers including billpay and Interact e-Transfers, and Canadian savings and lending products like GICs.
Plumery’s move comes as Canadian banks and credit unions face a range of challenges including evolving customer expectations, fintech competition, and the pressure to modernize their legacy systems. More immediately, Canadian credit unions are scrambling in the wake of Central 1 Credit Union’s announcement that it will wind down its digital banking platform Forge (formerly MemberDirect). More than 170 credit unions across Canada had been relying on the technology.
“With Forge winding down, Canadian institutions have a rare opportunity to modernize on their own terms, rather than being tied to outdated systems,” Plumery CEO and Founder Ben Goldin said. “Our platform provides an immediate, future-ready option that puts control back in the hands of credit unions. By working with Aequilibrium, we are combining global banking innovation with local expertise to deliver experiences that meet the unique needs of Canadian credit unions’ members.”
Founded in 2016, Plumery enables financial institutions to offer unique mobile and online experiences on top of either their modern or legacy core banking platforms up to 80% faster. Plumery’s technology features foundations that are pre-integrated into its digital banking journeys that accelerate app development and shorten time-to-market while maintaining complete control over both design and functionality.
India’s Bank of Baroda launched its eRUPI Person-to-Person (P2P) gifting solution.
TBC Uzbekistan extended financial services to non-residents.
Indian fintech Kiwi unveiled its interest-backed EMI on UPI.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazilian digital banking giant Nubank has applied for a US national bank charter.
Unlimit announced securing Principal Membership with Mastercard and Visa in Peru.
Brazi-based proptech Lastro raised $15 million in Series A funding in a round led by Prosus Ventures.
Asia-Pacific
Cambodian MSME-focused bank Chief Bank teamed up with payment solutions provider BPC to launch its new Chief Mobile 3.0 mobile app.
The People’s Bank of China opened a digital yuan operation center in Shanghai.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) launched IADS Developer Hackathon to promote bank-fintech collaboration.
Account holder engagement specialist Larky has announced a strategic partnership with digital banking solutions provider Tyfone.
Courtesy of the partnership, Larky will integrate its nudge engagement platform into Tyfone’s nFinia digital banking solution.
Tyfone made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2008. Larky first demonstrated its technology to Finovate audiences at FinovateFall 2014.
Proactive account holder engagement company Larky has inked a strategic partnership with digital banking solutions provider Tyfone this week. The agreement will integrate Larky’s nudge platform directly into Tyfone’s nFinia digital banking solution.
“At Tyfone, we believe that elegant user experiences are only the starting point,” Tyfone CEO Siva Narendra said. “What truly sets us apart is our commitment to innovation, collaboration, and execution. Partnering with Larky extends that commitment, helping our clients engage their customers and members in meaningful ways that strengthen relationships and deliver lasting value.”
Larky’s nudge platform provides real-time personalized notifications to enhance the ability of financial institutions to connect with their account holders. The solution enables financial institutions to increase deposits and new loans, and prevent fraud with tailored, turnkey push notifications. Financial institutions using nudge leverage data-driven and location-aware messaging to secure customer and member engagement rates that are seven to ten times higher than with traditional marketing channels.
Via a pre-built integration with Tyfone’s digital banking technology, Larky’s notification capabilities are seamlessly embedded, empowering banks and other financial institutions to bring additional value by way of the mobile channel that customers use and trust. Financial institutions will be able to choose from either a library of pre-built campaigns or deploy Larky’s AI-powered solutions to create messaging that is customized for their specific audiences. This messaging can help banks and other financial institutions to encourage debit card use, boost fraud prevention awareness, announce the launch of new solutions, and more.
“We’re thrilled to launch our partnership with Tyfone and bring our nudge platform to more community financial institutions,” Larky CEO Gregg Hammerman said. “Tyfone’s focus on meaningful digital relationships aligns perfectly with our mission to help account holders receive relevant, timely engagement where it matters most.”
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Larky made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. More recently, the company has forged partnerships with core banking solutions provider VisiFi, and began this year teaming up with data analytics and business intelligence solutions company for credit unions Trellance. Larky has raised more than $4.5 million in funding, according to Crunchbase, most recently securing an investment from Reseda Group in 2023.
Portland, Oregon-based Tyfone has been a Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateSpring 2008. The company’s nFinia digital banking platform offers account management, fund transfers, and billpay services, as well as payment solutions and personal finance management (PFM) tools. The platform also features Penni AI integration that delivers conversational banking capabilities including smart tools and intelligent, personalized support, 24/7.
Tyfone’s partnership news with fellow Finovate alum Larky comes just days after the company reported collaborating with another Finovate alum, BioCatch. Last month, the two companies announced a strategic partnership that integrated BioCatch’s Account Takeover Protection solution into Tyfone’s nFinia platform.
“Account takeover fraud is one of the most pervasive threats in digital banking,” BioCatch Senior Director of Global Integration Partners and Alliances Jay Whoriskey said. “By embedding our behavioral intelligence into Tyfone’s digital banking platform, community financial institutions gain real-time protection, identifying and stopping fraud before any money leaves the would-be-victim’s account without compromising the user experience.”
Founded in 2004, Tyfone has raised more than $38 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. This figure includes the company’s $25 million venture round in 2023.
How is AI helping lenders make better loans to more qualified borrowers? How can stablecoins promote cross-border trade and help local merchants make more sales in more markets? How can banks overcome the limitations of their legacy systems and confidently embrace modernization? The latest round of interviews from Finovate VP Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast cover all these issues and more.
Here’s a look at the Finovate Podcast’s recently completed September slate. By the way, the first few podcast interviews with FinovateFall Best of Show winners have just begun to drop. If you want to get an early listen, check them out on our Finovate Podcast page.
Greg Sullins (LinkedIn), Head of the US Banking Center of Excellence for Newgen Software, talks with Greg Palmer about how AI is revolutionizing the lending process. Sullins explains why AI is especially valuable in the lending business, in part because it sits at the intersection of data intensity, risk management, and the customer experience. Episode 271.
Founded in 1992, Newgen Software offers lenders a low-code platform that provides end-to-end automation, AI-powered decisioning, configurable workflows, and enhanced customer experience capabilities. The company’s technology enables business analysts rather than programmers configure workflows and deploy changes quickly. This helps financial institutions modernize their legacy systems faster while remaining compliant.
Bridgit Antwi (LinkedIn), Head of Strategy and Planning at Flutterwave, talks with Greg Palmer about the rise of stablecoins, the importance of building strong relationships across the financial ecosystem, and what Flutterwave is doing to help local merchants expand their reach across borders. Episode 270.
Africa’s leading payments company, Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by Olubenga “GB” Agbola. The firm offers a single API platform that enables merchants to seamlessly collect payments across multiple countries, currencies, and payment methods. Flutterwave operates in more than 30 countries, holds licenses in 14 African nations, and maintains 35 money transfer licenses.
Rouzbeh Rotabi (LinkedIn) Chief Revenue Officer at Qolo and Greg Palmer talk about the challenge and opportunity of payment infrastructure modernization. With more than 20 years of experience in fintech and payments, Rotabi explains how the need to increase deposits, infrastructure limitations of legacy systems, and evolving consumer demands are pressuring banks to embrace new technological solutions. Episode 269.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo offers an all-in-one platform for card issuing, ledger management, and payment processing. The company helps businesses launch faster, lower costs, and secure real-time visibility into the payment flow.
Sales platform Xaver unveiled a range of new features that arm financial advisors with an Agentic AI workforce that “assists, advises, and acts.”
The new functionality reduces the number of hallucinations, features 24/7 call answering with AI-native advisors, and provides greater accuracy compared to popular Large Language Models (LLMs), the company said.
Founded in 2023, Xaver made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. Co-founder Max Bachem is CEO.
White-label, omnichannel sales platform Xaver has introduced a range of new features the company pledges will “open a new chapter for financial advisory with an AI workforce that doesn’t just assist, it advises, and acts.”
The new functionality includes three elements in particular that respond to key barriers that regulated businesses and organizations can face when looking to adopt AI-powered solutions. To start, Xaver has leveraged context engineering, a model-independent data ingestion layer, and multi-agent orchestration to reduce the number of hallucinations by 80%. This “safer by design” strategy makes the technology more appropriate for operation in high-risk, regulated environments with both auditability and human oversight.
Second, the company has shown through independent testing that its AI agents outperformed leading LLMs when it comes to regulated financial-advice accuracy. This is important insofar as companies in regulated industries have expressed concerns about AI being able to consistently achieve this level of accuracy. Third, Xaver has introduced 24/7 call answering with voice-native AI advisors who can resolve incoming questions, qualify interest into warm leads, and seamlessly transfer calls to a human agent, when appropriate.
“Powered by Xaver’s MCP-enabled investment infrastructure rails, our AI advisors do things no other AI can today,” the company noted on its LinkedIn page.
Pictured (left to right): Nigel Jankelson (COO) and Max Bachem (CEO & Co-Founder), Xaver
Xaver’s enhanced offering enables financial advisors to use the AI agents as “prep partners” to provide instant briefs, conduct prospect research, suggest next-best actions, and build both tailored playbooks and compliant document packs. The AI agents run in parallel to the client journey, “like a personal AI advisor at your side. Always on, cost-efficient, infinitely scalable,” the company explained. The new features also include the ability to conduct phone, email, and WhatsApp campaigns—including automated follow-ups—from first touch to booked meeting or sale.
Xaver made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. At the conference, the company demonstrated its sales platform that leverages specifically trained and compliant AI agents to handle a variety of tasks including financial analysis, data extraction, and the creation of personalized customer journeys. Fully ISO27001, GDPR, and EU AI Act-compliant, Xaver’s platform orchestrates multiple LLMs to deliver 24/7 AI-powered guidance via chat and voice. At the same time, the technology is able to introduce human advisors into the workflow as needed.
“This platform has four main components,” Xaver co-founder and CEO Max Bachem explained from the Finovate stage earlier this year. “First of all, we are providing AI-generated, tailored, personalized online journeys for each customer. Second, we have AI advisors who can compliantly advise customers and do conversational sales. But we have an omnichannel approach so, number three, we do seamless handovers from these digital channels … to your in-person financial advisor. And, number four, when you are with the in-person financial advisor, the AI is then acting as a co-pilot for that advisor.”
Bachem co-founded Xaver with Ole Breulmann (CPTO) in 2023. The company is headquartered in Cologne, Germany.
Lending platform EnFi has introduced EnFi Grid, its new AI-powered spreadsheet intelligence for lending solution.
The new offering brings full, AI-powered, spreadsheet functionality directly into the EnFi platform.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and founded in 2024, EnFi made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025.
AI-native lending platform EnFihas launched its new AI-powered spreadsheet intelligence for lending solution, EnFi Grid. The company, which offers technology that automates commercial credit workflows for financial institutions and private lenders, reports that the new offering brings full spreadsheet functionality directly into the EnFi platform, assisted with AI.
“This is a major launch for Team EnFi,” the company noted on its LinkedIn page. “EnFi Grid lets commercial lenders work in the familiar spreadsheet interface and models they know and love while taking advantage of the power of EnFi’s purpose-built commercial lending AI to add a layer of intelligence and scale to their efforts.”
EnFi Grid enables users to upload existing spreadsheets or start from scratch from within the platform. Users can build custom financial models, stress tests, and projects, as well as collaborate with AI to complete scoring models and trackers. EnFi Grid has a complete range of spreadsheet features including formulas, charts, pivot tables, editing, and more. Lenders can use the technology, for example, to complete a credit scorecard with a borrower’s most recent financial data, or to build a cash flow projection for a given construction project.
“At times like this—quarter end—where the crush of production goals collides with reporting requirements in a sea of cells, imagine being able to deploy an army of EnFi Grid Agents to ingest, analyze, and update your spreadsheets in minutes,” the company wrote.
Founded in 2024, EnFi made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025 in New York. At the conference, the Boston, Massachusetts-based fintech introduced its suite of agentic AI agents for data ingestion/extraction, automated spreading, and relationship management. The company also demoed orchestrations that combined agents into bigger automated workflows for deal screening, underwriting, and portfolio monitoring. Finally, EnFi showed how the platform can be tuned to provide customer-specific workflows for a variety of commercial credit types including CRE, C&I, SBA, and venture.
Named a “Startup to Watch in 2025” by the Boston Business Journal, EnFi began this year adding to its C-suite. The company hired its first chief revenue officer, Chris Aronis, a fintech executive with more than 20 years of experience, in January. Aronis has held leadership roles at Fiserv, Quovo, and Bottomline, and was chief revenue officer of business banking and lending for Numerated.
EnFi was co-founded by Joshua Summers (CEO), Scott Weller (CTO), and Michelle Hipwood (CFO). According to Crunchbase, the company has raised $7.5 million in funding courtesy of a June 2024 seed round led by Unusual Ventures.
Paytech ACI Worldwide announced that Berlin-based embedded finance platform Solaris SE will consolidate all SEPA payments onto ACI Worldwide’s ACI Connetic payment hub.
Unveiled earlier this year, ACI Connetic is a unified solution that integrates account-to-account (A2A) payments, card processing, and fraud prevention within a single, cloud-native architecture.
Founded in 1975, ACI Worldwide has been a Finovate alum since 2011.
Just months after launching its centralized payment hub, ACI Connetic, ACI Worldwide has announced that European embedded finance platform, Solaris SE, will consolidate all SEPA payments onto ACI’s cloud-native payments solution.
“ACI Connetic represents a significant step-change in our commitment to supporting financial institutions as they navigate the complexities of the global payments landscape,” ACI Worldwide CEO and President Tom Warsop said. “In an environment of increasing payments complexity and regulatory demands, ACI Connetic delivers the agility, resilience, and innovation required to drive digital transformations, sustainable growth, and long-term success.”
ACI Connetic is a unified solution that integrates account-to-account (A2A) payments, card processing, and AI-powered fraud prevention within a single, modular, cloud-native architecture. ACI Connetic helps financial institutions simplify their operations, innovate faster, and meet emerging regulatory and compliance requirements with greater agility and less cost.
Solaris SE joins a number of financial services companies around the world—including leading clearing and settlement systems—that are integrating their payment capabilities into ACI Connetic. These early adopters include the Bank of England, Swift, the US Federal Reserve, and The Clearing House. The company’s partnership announcement with ACI Worldwide comes at a time when the benefits of centralized payment processing are becoming more apparent to both financial services analysts and financial institutions.
“Migrating our instant payments capabilities to ACI Connetic marks a key milestone in Solaris’ digital transformation and growth journey,” Solaris SE CEO Carsten Höltkemeyer said. “It future-proofs our payments infrastructure, accelerates service innovation, and enhances the value we deliver to partners and their customers across Europe.”
Based in Berlin, Germany, Solaris SE was originally established as a part of incubator and accelerator, Finleap. As Solarisbank, the company secured its German banking license in 2016. The company rebranded to Solaris in 2022, a move which coincided with the firm changing its legal status from a German AG (Aktiengesellschaft) to an SE (Societas Europea or European company). Today, Solaris SE offers a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform that enables businesses—from SMEs to multinational corporations—to embed a wide range of financial solutions from digital banking and payments to cards and lending.
A Finovate alum since 2011 and an alum of our developers conference FinDEVr Silicon Valley, ACI Worldwide offers solutions that power intelligent, real-time, payments orchestration to enable banks, billers, and merchants to deploy modern payment technologies seamlessly and securely. The company serves the top 10 banks worldwide; enables more than 80,000 merchants directly and via PSPs; and provides thousands of businesses and organizations with billpay solutions. Founded in 1975, ACI Worldwide now processes 25 billion cloud transactions and more than 225 billion consumer transactions annually. The company is headquartered in Elkhorn, Nebraska.
The rebound in fintech funding that we’ve been looking for over the past few weeks earned further confirmation today after our review of the funding totals for companies that have demoed on the Finovate stage.
Nine alums have raised more than $566 million in the third quarter of 2025. This figure is the highest funding total for alums in a Q3 since 2022. In fact, given that the amounts of the investments in two instances this quarter (the fundraisings by AKUVO and Argyle) were not disclosed, it is likely that this year’s Q3 total is more than double the amount raised in the third quarter of 2023.
Previous quarterly comparisons
Q3 2024: More than $16 million raised by six alums
Q3 2023: More than $293 million raised by eight alums
Q3 2022: More than $1 billion raised by eight alums
Q3 2021: More than $1.1 billion raised by 14 alums
While this quarter’s tally falls short of the billion-plus we’ve seen in many third quarters in the past (2022-2019, 2017, and 2015 for example), the sizable figure is still a hopeful sign heading into the final quarter of the year that fintech funding is on the way back.
Top equity investments
The top equity investment for Finovate alums in Q3 2025 was far and away the $300 million announced by Quavo Fraud & Disputes in July. In fact, Quavo’s fundraising total represents more than half of the total quarterly funding for alums in Q3 2025.
Quavo’s growth equity investment came from Spectrum Equity and empowered the company, in the words of Co-Founder and CEO Joseph McLean, to “accelerate our AI-led product development initiatives and expand our go-to-market and client success teams to meet growing market demand.” The investment took the company’s total capital raised to $311 million, according to Crunchbase.
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, Quavo provides fraud and dispute management solutions to companies ranging from global issuers and fintechs to regional banks and credit unions. The company most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2025.
Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q3 2025.
If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the third quarter of 2025, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at [email protected]. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.
The challenge of modernization remains a daunting one for many community banks and credit unions. Faced with the expense and risk of a “rip and replace” strategy on the one hand and a seemingly endless series of quick fixes, workarounds, and complex third-party relationships on the other, some financial institutions remain in a limbo of inaction.
To this end, the latest innovations from banking technology platform company Nymbus are a welcome development. In our interview with Nymbus CEO Jeffery Kendall, shared here, we talk about the current state of core banking systems, the innovative “sidecar” approach to core modernization that Nymbus offers, and the transition toward vertical banking which helps community financial institutions deliver differentiated solutions to a wider range of customers and members.
“We are a United States-focused banking technology platform. We work with community banks and credit unions (that) tend to be in the one to ten billion asset size; those are the customers we are able to help the most. We provide a full banking stack that allows them to run their core processing, their digital banking experiences, onboarding experiences … from one unified platform.”
Chairman and CEO of Nymbus since 2020, Jeffery Kendall has more than 20 years of experience in technology and financial services. He succeeded Scott Killoh, who founded the company in 2015. With Kendall as CEO, Nymbus has secured more than $123 million in funding courtesy of Series C and D rounds in 2021 and 2023, respectively. The company launched a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) in 2021, and has forged partnerships with financial institutions like PeoplesBank, VyStar Credit Union, and MSU Federal Credit Union.
A leading provider of banking technology solutions for financial institutions, Nymbus offers a full-stack banking platform for US banks and credit unions that helps them accelerate their growth and enhance their market positioning. The company modernizes legacy core systems for both brick-and-mortar and digital-first institutions. Nymbus also supports vertical banking strategies and the launch of subsidiary brands with a sidecar core alternative. The company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.
AI-powered scam defense platform Charm Security has forged a strategic partnership with no-cost mental health service provider Give an Hour.
Charm Security will embed the experiences of scam victims as well as those of mental health professionals directly into its AI model training to help “break the scam spell” before losses—financial and emotional—accumulate.
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2024, Charm Security made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025.
Charm Security, an AI-powered scam defense platform for financial institutions, recently announced a strategic partnership with Give an Hour, a nationwide non-profit that provides access to no-cost mental health services. Courtesy of the partnership, Charm Security will embed the experiences of scam victims and their families, as well as clinicians and psychologists, directly into its AI model training. This integration will fortify Charm Security’s Human Vulnerabilities, Exposures, and Exploits model (HVE) and power real-time interventions that, in Charm Security’s parlance, “break the scam spell” before financial or emotional losses escalate.
In their statement, the companies cited a survey from Lloyds Banking Group that indicated that 69% of fraud victims reported experiencing significant mental impacts such as anxiety, as well as less trust in online platforms. The UK Home Office has documented fraud and scam victims experiencing depression and, in some cases, even suicidal thoughts or attempts.
“Scams exploit human vulnerabilities, not just financial systems,” Charm Security Co-Founder and CEO Roy Zur said. “By embedding victim and clinician experiences and voices into our AI, we can anticipate manipulative tactics, disrupt them in real time, and ensure prevention and healing go hand in hand.”
The integration will feature feedback loops to deliver insights back to Give an Hour’s national mental health network to provide victims with both prevention and compassionate care. The partnership will enable Give an Hour to deliver training to financial institution teams to help them better recognize and respond to the concerns of their customers when they are victims of scams and fraud. This training complements Charm Security’s AI scam prevention agents and copilots, which support frontline workers with real-time tools to assist in detecting and disrupting scams as they are happening.
“For nearly two decades, Give an Hour has provided free mental health care to those in need,” Give an Hour CEO Dr. Trina Clayeux said. “By partnering with Charm, we can ensure scam victims receive both better protection from cutting-edge AI-based technology and the compassionate support they deserve from their financial institutions.”
Founded in 2005, Give an Hour leverages the skills, experience, and compassion of mental health professionals, peer support facilitators, and others to provide no-cost mental health services to those in need. To date, Give an Hour has provided more than 400,000 hours of free mental health care to military servicemen and women, veterans, families, and communities.
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2024, Charm Security made its Finovate debut earlier this month at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the startup demonstrated how its AI agents help users and frontline employees proactively avoid scams, actively engage with users during transactions to “break the scam spell,” and provide immediate, personalized post-scam support, including incident reporting, evidence collection, and recovery processes.
Financial crime prevention company Arva AI has teamed up with FairPlay, an AI enablement company for financial services.
The partnership calls for FairPlay to use its Agentic Assurance Platform to validate the effectiveness and safety of Arva’s AI agents for AML and KYC use cases.
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Arva made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025.
Financial crime prevention technology company Arva AI has announced a partnership with AI enablement company for financial services, FairPlay. The partnership will enable FairPlay to validate the effectiveness and safety of Arva’s agentic AI solution for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Business (KYB) use cases using its FairPlay Agentic Assurance Platform.
“Financial institutions need assurance that their AI systems are not only powerful, but also safe, reliable, and regulator-ready,” FairPlay Founder and CEO Kareem Saleh said. “By partnering with Arva, we’re helping the industry deploy tested and trusted agents that can stand up to both business demands and compliance scrutiny.”
FairPlay’s Agentic Assurance Platform will provide scenario-based stress testing that uses realistic, multi-turn conversations and workflows to uncover hidden vulnerabilities. The platform has a control mapping engine that links observed risks to compensating controls such as prompt optimization, output filtering, and rollback options. Additionally, the solution features auto-generating documentation that is aligned with SR 11-7 model risk management guidance, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and emerging ISO standards.
Arva’s partnership with FairPlay comes at a time when a growing number of banks and financial services companies are seeing agentic AI as “the antidote to KYC/AML headwinds,” according to an August report from McKinsey. Noting that banks often “assign up to 10 to 15 percent of their full-time equivalents to KYC/AML alone,” the report observes that agentic AI provides a “paradigm shift” compared to other AI technologies. This includes productivity gains of 200 to 2,000 percent, according to McKinsey, as well as “a substantial positive impact on the quality and consistency of output.”
“At Arva, our mission is to transform financial crime prevention with cutting-edge AI,” Arva Founder and CEO Rahim Shah said. “FairPlay’s Agentic Assurance Platform provides the rigorous testing and evidence generation our customers need to trust and scale these technologies with confidence.”
Arva made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025. At the event, the company demonstrated its business verification solution that leverages AI agents to enhance compliance, accelerate review, and cut operational costs. Arva processes more than 100,000 alerts a month and notes that companies deploying its technology have seen an increase of more than 40% in straight through processing, with as many as 92% of reviews handled by the AI. Founded in 2024, Arva is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Arva began 2025 securing $3 million in seed funding. The round was led by Google’s Gradient fund and featured participation from Y Combinator, Amino Capital, and Olive Tree Capital.
For all of the innovations in the world of investing, fractional investing—which involves enabling investors to buy and sell portions of a single share of stock—is among the most significant. Fractional investing has helped democratize access to investments that historically have been out of reach for many individual investors. Fractional investing enables both lower minimum investment requirements as well as micro-investing to help investors with limited capital create diversified portfolios.
Bits of Stock, a New York-based fintech that won Best of Show in its return to the Finovate stage earlier this year at FinovateSpring in San Diego, is an example of a company that is bringing the benefits of fractional investing to a wider range of investors, including members of credit unions like Cardinal Credit Union. Last month, the not-for-profit cooperative announced a partnership with Bits of Stock to offer a new stock rewards program for Cardinal CU checking account holders aged 18 to 28.
The program enables these young adult investors to automatically earn stock rewards with every Visa debit card purchase. These rewards can then be redeemed into fractional shares in select publicly-traded stocks. The program leverages fractional stock ownership to help young adults begin to build wealth, develop good investing habits, and expand their understanding of finance.
This age range may be key to the successful adoption of stock rewards programs based on fractional investing. In their statement, Cardinal CU cited industry research that indicated that 67% of those in Generation Z (individuals aged 13 to 28), believe that the ability to invest with smaller amounts is a major factor in their decision to begin investing.
“We are helping student and younger members build a strong foundation while making investing accessible and rewarding,” Cardinal CU CEO Christine Blake said. ” There is tremendous value in this program as it encourages investors to learn about accumulating assets and building wealth in early adulthood.”
Mentor, Ohio-based Cardinal CU has integrated Bits of Stock into its digital banking platform, which is powered by Lumen Digital. Bits of Stock’s dashboard provides a brokerage account-like experience for users, helping them become more familiar with the standard tools used by traders and investors to buy and sell stocks in the market.
“Bits of Stock is redefining how people think about rewards and investing,” Bits of Stock CEO Arash Asady explained. “This initiative is a game-changer for younger investors, allowing them to start building wealth through everyday spending and to watch their investments grow.”
More recently, Bits of Stock announced that it had forged a strategic alliance with fellow Finovate alum Jack Henry. As with Cardinal CU, the partnership with fintech solution provider Jack Henry will involve embedding Bits of Stock’s fractional share-based stock rewards capability into a digital banking platform—in this case, Jack Henry’s Banno Digital Platform.
In their alliance announcement, the companies underscored the success that Credit Union One of Oklahoma experienced after launching a comprehensive three-tier checking account with embedded Bits of Stock capabilities. This enabled the institution to test a variety of offerings, from free accounts with round-ups to premium accounts that provided 1% stock rewards on all purchases.
“We were so impressed with member response during testing that we integrated stock investing capabilities into every checking account tier,” Credit Union One of Oklahoma President and CEO Tyrel McCain said. “It creates a natural progression where members can start with free entry points and graduate to earning stock rewards as they deepen their relationship with us. It’s driving both new account openings and fee income while helping our members build wealth through everyday spending.”
Founded in 1949 to serve employees working in a handful of state agencies, Credit Union One of Oklahoma became a community chartered credit union in May 2003. The institution today boasts more than 3,700 members and $48 million in assets.
