Alumni News

Finovate Global: Digital Banking in Romania, Alternative Lending in Latvia, ESG in the CEE

Finovate Global: Digital Banking in Romania, Alternative Lending in Latvia, ESG in the CEE
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global

This week’s edition of Finovate Global reviews the latest fintech developments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

This region features a diverse range of countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia. More than 250 million people live in the CEE, which has a combined GDP of $2.6 trillion.

Romania’s Salt goes live with Starling’s SaaS platform

Romania’s Salt Bank launched this month, giving the country its first 100% digital bank. Salt Bank reported that more than 80,000 people signed up in less than three weeks to be a part of the new financial institution.

“By launching Salt, we are not only bringing the first 100% Romanian neobank to the Romanian market, but we are also offering a unique perspective that combines technology and finance,” Salt Bank CEO Gabriela Nistor said.

Salt Bank currently offers 3% yearly interest on current accounts as well as on Spaces, Salt Bank’s savings account offering, as long as customers make payments of 1,000 lei/month or more (equivalent to $215). Customers also get a multi-currency card that enables transactions in 17 currencies around the world. Users of the Salt banking app can take advantage of money management tools, in-app card controls, as well as Apple and Google Pay in-app provisioning.

Headquartered in Bucharest, Salt Bank is owned by the Banca Transilvania Financial Group. The institution also offers its customers the opportunity to become founders of Salt Bank and, ultimately, shareholders in the event that the institution goes public. Salt Bank notes that its Salt Founders Community currently has 2,200 members.

Powering the launch is Starling’s SaaS platform Engine, which helped the digital bank onboard 100,000 customers in the first two weeks of operation. And although AMP Bank in Australia has also announced that it will deploy Engine, the institution is not scheduled to do so until 2025, making Salt Bank the first bank to go live with the technology.

“Our work with Salt Bank shows just what our platform is capable of,” Engine by Starling CEO Sam Everington said, “Starling’s feature rich and highly personalizable banking products can be deployed around the world to attract impressive customer volumes, while our operational experience and cloud-expertise can help build, launch, and run a bank in less than 12 months.”

Latvian fintech inGain raises EUR 650,000

inGain, a no-code SaaS loan management system based in Latvia, has raised $692,000 (EUR 650,000) in funding. Participating in the investment were VC funds Trind VC and Fiedler Capital. The Latvian Business Angels network and other business angels were also involved in the round.

The funding announcement marked the first publicly announced investment in a Latvian startup in 2024. The company will use the capital to complete work on its SaaS-based loan management system that helps facilitate lending for products that banks traditionally have been reluctant to finance. inGain Co-founder and CEO Armands Liseks explained how inGain works, using the example of a family trying to decide whether or not to commit to their child’s efforts to become the next Mozart.

“Some parents are ready to buy a piano, but what happens if they spend several months trying to persuade their kids to play the piano, but their kids still refuse to play it?” Liseks asked. “It is with this kind of situation in mind that the seller would like to offer piano leasing. For parents, this means that the payment for the musical instrument will be higher. However, this also gives them two options: either the piano is eventually purchased in full or can be returned to the seller at any time.”

Liseks added that inGain’s solution even benefits those who know they are ready to buy. “How can the bank offer leasing for the piano?” he said. “Most likely it will advise the customer to use a credit card or take out a consumer loan with 20% interest, which makes no sense whatsoever.”

inGain is headquartered in Riga. The company was founded in 2011.

Bulgaria’s Paynetics acquires UK neobank Novus

Here is some CEE-based acquisition news in the payments space that slipped beneath our radar this spring. Bulgaria’s Paynetics has acquired Novus, a neobank based in the U.K., for an undisclosed sum.

A B-corp certified digital bank – and self-described “impact neobank” – Novus enables customers to monitor their carbon footprint and get cashback when they make sustainable purchases via the app. Additionally, Novus automatically directs a portion of revenue from every transaction to an NGO of the customer’s choice.

For Paynetics, the acquisition will enable the company to offer carbon- and climate-conscious solutions to customers as well as expand “the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ecosystem across Europe.” Paynetics will also leverage the acquisition to help its clients achieve their social and environmental goals via its own embedded finance solution.

“This deal not only reinforces our dedication to ESG but also marks a significant leap forward in revolutionizing the financial sector with our cutting-edge embedded finance suite,” Paynetics noted in a post on LinkedIn.

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, Paynetics acquisition news comes a year after the firm was granted an electronic money institution (EMI) license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Last month, the company announced that it had promoted Hana Rolles from Chief Revenue Officer to U.K. Chief Executive Officer.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • U.S.-based payments provider Nium officially registered as a Financial Services Provider in New Zealand.
  • South Korea joined seven-nation, cross-border payments tokenization initiative.
  • Ant International announced plans to set up a new digital business center in Malaysia.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Pan-African payments provider Onafriq partnered with Mastercard to bring payment options to consumers and SMEs in Africa.
  • TechCrunch profiled Nigerian fintech LemFi, which provides money transfer services to African migrants.
  • South African fintech Float secured a $11 million funding facility from Standard Bank.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Core banking software provider Tuum announced its expansion to the Middle East and the establishment of a regional headquarters at ADGM.
  • Israel’s central bank reported that it will launch a sandbox to enable private sector entities to experiment with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
  • UAE-based digital fintech infrastructure firm Fils teamed up with digital banking solutions company Aion to advanced ESG in the MENA region.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Amazon Pay introduced credit services to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India.
  • Separate from Google Pay, Google Wallet readied to go live in India.
  • Indian home financing company Altum Credo raised $40 million in Series C funding.

Photo by Eduard Balan

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Bankjoy Teams Up with Account Activation Specialist Pinwheel

Bankjoy Teams Up with Account Activation Specialist Pinwheel
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Bankjoy, Daily news
  • Bankjoy, a digital banking provider for banks and credit unions, announced a partnership with Pinwheel this week.
  • Bankjoy will help its more than 70 bank and credit union customers integrate Pinwheel’s digital deposit switching (DDS) solution, Pinwheel Prime.
  • Pinwheel Prime has been credited with increasing direct deposit enrollment by 32%.

Digital banking provider Bankjoy has partnered with Pinwheel to help financial institutions remove friction from the account activation process.

Via the partnership, Bankjoy will enable its 70+ bank and credit union customers to integrate Pinwheel’s digital deposit switching (DDS) solution, Pinwheel Prime. Pinwheel Prime offers a two-click deposit switch that enables customers to set up their direct deposit in seconds rather than dealing with a multi-step process that requires customers to exit the banking experience.

“By seamlessly integrating from Bankjoy online account opening through various tightly-knit third-party integrations like Pinwheel, we can equip our clients to excel in the competitive deposit market,” Bankjoy COO Weiwei Duncan said. “Our goal is clear: to ensure that our clients not only compete but win the deposit war, leveraging technology to streamline processes and enhance user engagement.”

According to research from Pinwheel, solutions that make deposit switching faster and easier can significantly impact deposit growth. Pinwheel’s own deposit switching technology can enable FIs to boost direct deposit enrollment by 32%, and reduce the amount of time before a customer makes their first direct deposit by 65%.

“With this collaboration, we can bring the ability to easily switch direct deposit settings to an even wider set of consumers, facilitating a fairer financial systems with greater choice and portability,” Pinwheel Co-founder and CEO Kurtis Lin said.

Headquartered in New York and founded in 2018, Pinwheel began the year teaming up with Finovate alum Jack Henry to imbed its direct deposit switching (DDS) solution into Jack Henry’s Banno Digital Toolkit. Pinwheel has raised $77 million in funding according to Crunchbase, and includes Indeed and Franklin Templeton among its investors.

A Finovate alum since 2016 , Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall last year. At the conference, the company, in partnership with Panacea Financial, showing how the fintech helped the digital neobank provide financial services to medical professionals.

So far this year, Bankjoy has added two new financial institutions to its customer base: Oregon State Credit Union, which teamed up with Bankjoy in February, and Emporia State Federal Credit Union, which partnered with Bankjoy in March. Oregon State CU ($2+ billion in assets; 142,000+ members) will deploy Bankjoy’s online account opening solution as part of its strategy to fuel new member acquisition and grow deposits. Emporia State FCU, headquartered in Emporia, Kansas, launched its online and mobile banking app in March courtesy of its partnership with Bankjoy. Emporia State FCU has more than $130 million in assets and 7,800+ members.

Founded in 2015 , Bankjoy is headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Photo by Min An

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SoFi to Act as Sponsor Bank for Rapid Finance’s New Line of Credit Prepaid Card

SoFi to Act as Sponsor Bank for Rapid Finance’s New Line of Credit Prepaid Card
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile
  • Small business banking platform Rapid Finance is launching a Rapid Access Mastercard, a prepaid card through which small businesses can access their line of credit.
  • Rapid Finance’s card program is the first program sponsored by SoFi Bank.
  • Rapid Access Mastercard will be managed by Galileo, which SoFi acquired in 2020 in a deal valued at $1.2 billion

SoFi and its subsidiary Galileo are teaming up this week with small business banking platform Rapid Finance to launch the Rapid Access Mastercard. The new offering is a prepaid commercial card that allows Rapid Finance’s small business customers with a line of credit in good standing to access their funds.

The card will give companies using Rapid Finance’s line of credit a simple way to access the working capital they need, even outside of traditional banking hours. The company’s line of credit offers access to financing from $5,001 up to $250,000 with terms ranging from three to eighteen months.

“This card program underscores Rapid Finance’s commitment to empowering businesses with flexible and accessible financial solutions,” said Will Tumulty, CEO of Rapid Finance. “With the Rapid Access Mastercard, small business owners can better seize market opportunities, manage their cash flow and support their business growth in a way that is more convenient for them.”

This announcement is perhaps more notable for SoFi than it is for Rapid Finance. That’s because Rapid Finance’s card program is the first program sponsored by SoFi Bank. SoFi earned its banking license in 2022, but has since abstained from a pure-play BaaS agreement. The bank partnered with Pagaya in 2021 to offer lending-as-a-service, but the loans are underwritten by Pagaya, which means SoFi isn’t taking any credit risks.

While SoFi will serve as the sponsor bank for Rapid Finance, the prepaid card aspect will be managed by Galileo, which SoFi acquired in 2020 in a deal valued at $1.2 billion. Galileo was founded in 2001 and currently offers digital banking tools, card and lending products, cloud infrastructure, and more.

“This collaboration underscores Galileo’s commitment to helping small businesses do more with their money, faster,” said Galileo CEO Derek White. “We look forward to working together alongside SoFi Bank to help Rapid Finance quickly develop and scale this flexible payment program to support SMBs’ ability to gain swift, easy access to the funds they need to be successful.”

Photo by Leeloo The First

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Coinme and CiNKO Team Up to Boost Digital Asset Adoption

Coinme and CiNKO Team Up to Boost Digital Asset Adoption
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Coinme, Daily news, MoneyGram
  • Cash exchange network Coinme has partnered with digital payments platform CiNKO.
  • The collaboration will enable Coinme customers to send funds to CiNKO wallets and cash out at participating MoneyGram locations in Latin America.
  • Seattle, Washington-based Coinme made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022.

A collaboration between digital payments platform CiNKO and cryptocurrency cash exchange Coinme is designed to boost access to digital assets for millions around the world. Courtesy of the partnership, Coinme customers will be able to send funds to CiNKO wallets and pick up cash from participating MoneyGram outlets in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Our collaboration with Coinme represents a pivotal step towards advancing financial inclusion and democratizing cryptocurrency access,” CiNKO Co-founder and CEO Richard Douglas said. “By leveraging our platforms, we aim to establish a more accessible, secure, and cost-effective ecosystem for users globally.”

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Costa Rica, CiNKO innovates at the intersection of decentralized blockchains and inexpensive mobile technology to help provide banking and payment services to the unbanked and underbanked. The company offers a digital payments platform that enables cross-border transfers, payout distributions, and payment processing via traditional rails, stablecoins, and more. Available in 44 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the company boasts low fees, including no administrative or processing fees.

“Coinme is proud to be aligned with CiNKO in a vision that both companies share,” Coinme Co-founder and CEO Neil Bergquist said. “Our mission is to provide more individuals around the world with access to a better financial future via cryptocurrency. This partnership serves that mission and the millions of people who benefit from trusted access to cryptocurrencies.”

Coinme made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022 in San Francisco, California. At the conference, the company demoed its Embedded Crypto Finance solution, a crypto-as-a-service offering that “crypto-enables” fintechs and financial institutions, allowing them to add digital asset transaction and storage functionality to their platforms. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded in 2014, Coinme powers the world’s largest cash exchange, with more than 40,000 brick and mortar locations to facilitate instant transfers from cash to crypto and from crypto to cash.

Last month, Coinme introduced its latest cash-to-crypto experience. In addition to announcing new automatic fulfullment functionality via Coinme’s partnership with Coinstar, the company also announced higher purchasing limits. Users can now buy up to $9,500 in crypto daily and $60,000 in crypto monthly for cash transactions. Also in March, Coinme announced a major expansion of its cash network, adding 22,000+ ATMs to facilitate instant cash outs.

Photo by Pixabay

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Backbase, Baker Hill, Boss Insights, Chimney, Daily news, eToro, Fintech Rundown, Marqeta, Numeral, PayStand, Signicat

In the U.S., the tax deadline kicks off the week, but don’t let that get you down! Sit back, relax, and catch up on some of the latest fintech news headlines. Check back for real-time updates on how the fintech landscape evolves this week.

Digital banking

Backbase forges strategic partnership with EverBank to enhance commercial and treasury services.

Small business tools

Boss Insights earns spot in the FinTech Innovation Lab New York’s 2024 class.

Paystand brings full payments integration to Microsoft Business Central.

Aurora Payments launches ARISE, a one-stop payment platform for small and medium businesses.

Corporate credit card startup Ramp secures $150 million in a round led by Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund.

Wealth management

TIFIN appoints Rob Pettman as Chief Revenue Officer and President to accelerate growth.

Digital identity

Digital identity platform Signicat launches InstantKYC and InstantKYB.

IDnow launches video verification service, VideoIdent Flex.

Prove Identity launches solutions in AWS Marketplace.

Trading and investing

Trading and investment platform eToro enables AGM voting.

Fractional investment platform for luxury assets Konvi acquires alternative investing platforms Diversified and Fractible.

Payments

Berlin-based corporate card platform Pliant raises more than $19 million (€18 million) in a Series A extension round led by PayPal Ventures.

Payment service provider PXP Financial partners with dynamic payment orchestration solutions company Celeris.

Deblock, a current account for both Euros and cryptocurrencies, partners with Numeral to manage its SEPA payments.

Lending

QuickFi wins “Best Overall LendTech Company” at the FinTech Breakthrough Awards for the third time in a row.

Baker Hill introduces new Chief Human Resources Officer Sheila Simpson.

Proptech / mortgagetech

Finovate Best of Show winner Chimney earns one of six spots in NACUSO’s annual Next Big Idea Competition.

Embedded finance

Card issuing platform Marqeta teams up with financial wellness benefits provider Rain to deliver earned wage access.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto

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Satago Teams Up with Embedded Finance Innovator mmob

Satago Teams Up with Embedded Finance Innovator mmob
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, mmob
  • Embedded finance innovator mmob announced a partnership with U.K.-based fintech Satago.
  • The partnership will make it easier for lenders and corporations to integrate Satago’s cash flow and invoice financing solutions for SMEs.
  • mmob won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022.

Embedded finance specialist mmob has forged a partnership with U.K.-based fintech Satago. The partnership will help lenders and corporates more easily integrate and embed Satago’s Invoice Finance and Cash Flow solution – including its 3-in-1 Working Capital solution. This is courtesy of mmob’s hyper-efficient, “single snippet of code” integration that reduces the time required to embed Satago’s technology to “mere hours.”

After it has been embedded, the solution then enables SMEs to access Satago’s Invoice Financing, Risk Insights, and Credit Control offerings via their digital channels. Automatic, periodic updates ensure that the technology scales and optimizes as the business grows and expands.

“Satago’s invoice financing and cash flow management solution is a vital tool, and we are delighted to be able to help them integrate into SME-facing platforms at speed,” mmob Founder and CEO Irfan Khan said. “Mmob’s universal API adaptor removes the barriers of time and cost for companies who want to add a new solution for their customers, so now it’s easier than ever to work with Satago.”

Satago leverages real-time data, Open Banking, and API technology to help lenders and other businesses streamline operations, increase revenues, and improve the customer experience. Its 3-in-1 Working Capital solution combines invoicing financing, risk insights, and credit control to enable lenders to offer faster financing, control credit risk, and get repaid sooner. In February, the company announced that it was joining NayaOne’s Tech Marketplace. Founded in 2012, Satago was acquired by Oxygen Finance in 2017.

Headquartered in London and founded in 2020, mmob won Best of show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022. At the conference, the company showed its Intelligent Partnerships Infrastructure, which enables third-party providers to leverage no-code tools to build and deploy digital customer experiences. The solution includes an Analytics Module that allows companies to analyze both user behavior and revenue to further innovate and enhance the user experience.

mmob has raised $6.2 million (€5.8 million) in funding, according to Crunchbase. The company’s financial backers include high net worth individuals, banking executives, as well as angel investors.

Photo by Pixabay

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DataVisor and Mitek Team Up to Help Financial Institutions Fight Check Fraud

DataVisor and Mitek Team Up to Help Financial Institutions Fight Check Fraud
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DataVisor, Mitek
  • Fraud and risk platform DataVisor announced a partnership with identity verification company Mitek this week.
  • DataVisor will integrate Mitek’s Check Fraud Defender solution into its platform to offer FIs real-time check fraud decision orchestration.
  • DataVisor made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall in New York. Mitek has been a Finovate alum since winning Best of Show at its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2011.

AI-powered fraud and risk platform DataVisor has teamed up with identity verification innovator Mitek. Courtesy of the partnership, DataVisor will integrate Mitek’s Check Fraud Defender with its own advanced machine learning and real-time data analysis to give financial institutions comprehensive check fraud protection in a single platform. The partnership will enable financial institutions to execute real-time orchestration of check fraud decisions, minimize fraud losses, and boost operational efficiencies.

“Our vision has always been to create an end-to-end, comprehensive platform that effectively combats all types of financial fraud,” DataVisor CEO and Co-Founder Yinglian Xie said. “By joining forces with Mitek, we’re elevating our check fraud protection capabilities. It also streamlines the experience for our customers, eliminating the need to engage with multiple solutions in silo and therefore can address different fraud challenges more effectively with a centralized, holistic view.”

Mitek’s Check Fraud Defender puts AI and computer vision technology to work to visually evaluate distinct check attributes in real-time. The solution leverages a consortium model, which enables DataVisor customers to proactively flag future check deposits connected to stolen or fraudulent checks across participating institutions. Additionally, the combination of Mitek’s check image analysis and DataVisor’s analysis of check and customer lifecycle data will enable users to detect a wide variety of check fraud tactics including check kiting, remote deposit capture fraud, check washing, counterfeit checks, and identity theft.

“Together, we leverage our collective advanced technologies to safeguard financial transactions,” Mitek VP of Digital Banking Strategy Kerry Cantley said. “By combining DataVisor’s comprehensive platform with Mitek’s robust Check Fraud Defender consortium, we’ve created a top-tier solution, setting new standards in proactive fraud prevention.”

A Finovate alum since its Best of Show winning debut at FinovateSpring in 2011, Mitek has grown into a leader in digital access solutions. The company’s technology helps increase approval rates while keeping fraudsters at bay, and enables companies to meet compliance demands from AML and KYC to GDPR and PSD2. In addition to its solution for check fraud, Mitek also offers a low code identity verification solution, an biometric authentication solution MiPass, and Mobile Deposit, the company’s mobile remote deposit capture offering. Today, 99% of U.S. banks and 7,900 of the world’s largest organizations use Mitek’s technology for mobile check deposits.

Headquartered in San Diego, California, Mitek was founded in 1986. The company trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker “MITK,” and has a market capitalization of $673 million. Max Carnecchia is Chief Executive Officer.

Among Finovate’s newest alums, DataVisor made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall 2023. At the conference, the company demoed its Fraud & Risk Platform that enhances fraud detection and minimizes fraud losses via a combination of device intelligence, rules and decision engines, case management, and the ability to seamlessly integrate any data source, including third-party data.

DataVisor’s partnership with Mitek comes less than a month after the Mountain View, California-based firm launched its end-to-end anti-money laundering (AML) solution. The new offering integrates with the company’s fraud platform natively to provide additional support against emerging cybersecurity threats.

Founded in 2013, DataVisor has raised more than $94 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. The company includes TruStage Ventures and NewView Capital among its investors.

Photo by cottonbro studio

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Onboarding Automation Specialist Setuply Partners with CheckmateHCM

Onboarding Automation Specialist Setuply Partners with CheckmateHCM
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Setuply
  • Setuply and CheckmateHCM have announced a new collaboration.
  • Checkmate will deploy Setuply’s platform to help companies onboard new employees and enhance skill acquisition.
  • Setuply made its Finovate debut last May at FinovateSpring in San Francisco.

A strategic relationship between client onboarding automation specialist Setuply and human capital management solution provider CheckmateHCM will help new employees “adapt and excel in their roles swiftly,” Setuply CEO Rachel Lyubovitzky said in a statement.

“Observing our technology facilitate streamlined onboarding and creating opportunities for emerging knowledge workers is gratifying,”Lyubovitzky said. “This showcases the potential of our technology but also serves as a beacon of innovation and inspiration for the entire industry.”

Checkmate’s decision to deploy Setuply’s advanced onboarding technology comes amidst an economic backdrop of increased competition and low unemployment. This makes it a challenge for firms to hire and retain workers of all kinds, including B2B knowledge workers. Setuply’s platform not only helps bring new talent into organizations efficiently and quickly. The company’s technology also gives businesses the tools they need to close expertise gaps, provide advanced training, and accelerate skill acquisition. Using a project and template-based approach, with detailed instructions in multiple formats, the platform helps establish processes to accelerate job training that are both repeatable and testable.

“Leveraging Setuply for our client onboarding and support has transformed our approach to client onboarding and service delivery,” Checkmate CEO Josh Robinson said. “It has amplified our processes, enabling us to surpass our goals and expand our capabilities. Going beyond operational efficiency has sparked a new era of expansion for us.”

Setuply’s partnership news with Checkmate comes just weeks after the company announced the release of a suite of new features and enhancements to its platform. The updates include:

  • Questions functionality to centralize and streamline project communication between workflows.
  • User-friendly customizable data forms built natively into the product.
  • A secure data repository to simplify complex data management tasks.
  • Automated project creation to leverage comprehensive data integration to intelligently initiate new projects.
  • A customer engagement portal to enhance client interaction and project visibility.

“As companies navigate the complexities of digital transformation, the demand for intuitive and yet comprehensive solutions has never been higher,” Setuply Head of Product Kelly Blackledge said. “Setuply’s latest update responds to this need, providing innovative tools that streamline onboarding processes, enhance data management, and improve client interactions.”

Headquartered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Setuply was founded in 2022. The company made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateSpring 2023 and returned later that year to demo its technology at FinovateFall in New York.

Interested in demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May? We are happy to read applications from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateSpring hub today to learn more.

Photo by Seth Dewey on Unsplash

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Lucinity’s AI-Powered Platform Delivers Innovations in Workflow Automation

Lucinity’s AI-Powered Platform Delivers Innovations in Workflow Automation
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Lucinity

Regtech innovator Lucinity is starting to draw attention.

The company, headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland, made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateSpring in San Francisco. At the conference, Lucinity demonstrated its AI-enabled copilot, Luci, which enhances financial crime compliance via insight generation, report writing, and automation. The solution uses GenAI to streamline tasks for compliance professionals, enabling them to make informed, data-driven decisions and to address higher order challenges directly. The technology performs internet searches, background checks, fraud detection, sanctions screening, and more.

As the team explained at FinovateSpring last year, financial crime fighters spend a significant amount of their time reviewing fraud alerts to determine whether or not they are significant. A major challenge lies in the fact that accurately evaluating the risk of a given alert requires understanding a great deal about the context in which the alert occurred. Compounding this challenge is the reality that much of the information required to do this can be scattered across multiple systems, making the process both more complicated and more time-consuming. Lucinity’s technology helps financial crime professionals simplify and understand the data quickly; a tier 1 bank estimated that Luci could save them $100 million a year by slashing alert review times from an average of 2.5 hours to 25 minutes.

“What we are doing with Lucinity is taking different transactions, KYC information, etc. and creating a picture or story of what the possible financial crime could look like,” Lucinity Co-founder and CEO Gudmundur Kristjansson explained during the company’s demo. “And with that story, we’re enabling the financial crime investigators to take the investigation time from hours to minutes.”

The company’s innovations have been noticed. Just last month, Lucinity secured the Chartis Research Award for Workflow Automation. The honor recognizes the way the company’s technology leverages AI and automation to enhance compliance processes and remove inefficiencies. Lucinity was also named to Chartis Research’s top 50 Financial Crime and Compliance Companies (FCC50) for 2024.

“Through our focus on workflow automation, Lucinty is able to save thousands of hours from the investigation process, drastically reducing the cost of compliance for financial institutions,” Kristjansson said. “This means that banks can then shift resources to revenue-generating areas of the business, rather than pouring more resources into compliance.”

Lucinity enters 2024 with a host of new partnerships. Icelandic neobank indó, financial crime fighting platform Neterium, and fellow Finovate alum Trustly were among the firms Lucinity joined forces with in 2023. This year, in addition to the accolades mentioned above, the company announced the appointment of Theresa Bercich as Chief Product Officer and recognition of her as a Co-Founder. In a statement, Kristjansson credited Bercich for her work on Luci and for her contributions to the company as a whole. “Her journey from a data scientist to VP of Product, and now to CPO and Co-founder, mirrors the growth and dynamic evolution of Lucinity itself,” Kristjansson said.

Lucinity has raised more than $25 million in funding. The company’s total includes an investment of $17 million it raised in 2022. Keen Venture Partners led that Series B round.

Interested in demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May? We are happy to read applications from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateSpring hub today to learn more.

Photo by Marc-Antoine

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Wise Platform Powers New Global Account and Card Program for Brazilian Fintech Nubank

Wise Platform Powers New Global Account and Card Program for Brazilian Fintech Nubank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Nubank, Wise
  • Brazilian fintech and financial services giant Nubank has teamed up with Wise Platform.
  • Courtesy of the partnership, Wise Platform will power a new global account and international debit card for Nubank.
  • Wise Platform offers banks, financial institutions, and businesses the ability to leverage its infrastructure to make cheaper, easier payments.

Brazilian fintech Nubank has partnered with Wise Platform to power its global account and international debit card. Wise Platform, Wise’s infrastructure solution for banks, financial institutions, and businesses, now counts more than 85 partners around the world, including Bank Mandiri, Monzo, and Google Pay.

The partnership will power Nubank’s new global account and international debit cards for the fintech’s premium tier, “Ultravioleta,” customers. The collaboration will also enable Nubank customers to hold both U.S. dollars and euros, as well as use their card to spend in local currencies in 200 countries and territories.

“Through this partnership, we’re helping Nubank customers access fast, transparent payments and the ability to easily manage money across currencies,” Wise Platform Global Managing Director Steve Naudé said. “Across the sector, we are seeing a real push from banks and financial institutions to provide their customers with best-in-class international payments services. By working with Wise Platform, banks are able to achieve this in a matter of months or even weeks.”

Wise’s partnership with Nubank represents continued growth for the company in Brazil; Wise reports that it has issued more than one million Wise cards within 15 months of its going live in the country. For its part, Nubank has more than 90 million customers in South America, with more than 85 million in Brazil.

Nubank introduced itself to Finovate audiences in 2016 with its presentation at FinDEVr NewYork. In the years since, the company has grown from a financial services startup to the largest digital bank in Brazil and the second largest financial institution in the country. Late last month, Nubank announced that it has reached the four million customer milestone for its Nubank PJ offering, launched in 2019, which provides solutions for entrepreneurs. This week, the firm’s subsidiary, Nu Colombia, secured a $150 million loan from DFC, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, to help expand its services in the country.

Making its Finovate debut as TransferWise in 2013, the company rebranded as Wise in 2021 to reflect its evolution beyond its origins as an innovator in the international money transfer space. Today, the company supports three main lines of business: its global money transfer service and international account; Wise Business, a global business account with features such as mass payouts and multi-user access; and Wise Platform, which enables companies to give their customers easier, cheaper payments by leveraging Wise’s infrastructure. Co-founder Kristo Käärmann is CEO.

Photo by Caroline Cagnin

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Finzly Launches Account Galaxy Embedded Banking Solution

Finzly Launches Account Galaxy Embedded Banking Solution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finzly
  • Banking-as-a-Service provider Finzly launched Account Galaxy, a new embedded banking solution.
  • Account Galaxy allows non-banks and fintechs to launch virtual accounts with real-time transaction monitoring.
  • The virtual accounts exist alongside an organization’s current infrastructure within what Finzly calls a “sidecar core.”

Account Galaxy is the name of the newest solution from Finzly. The Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) solutions provider unveiled the new embedded banking solution in an announcement today that highlights how Account Galaxy can help banks participate in embedded banking.

Account Galaxy offers two main use cases to facilitate BaaS functionality: advanced payment processing and flexible accounting capabilities. These capabilities offer non-banks and fintechs virtual accounts where transactions can be monitored in real-time. The accounts not only provide reduced compliance risk, but also offer enhanced speed. Additionally, Account Galaxy helps small-to-mid-size banks attract commercial clients by embedding services into ERP, accounts receivables, and payables in an automated way.

“Embedded banking will have a significant impact on how banking services are provided to business and consumers,” said Datos Insights Strategic Advisor Enrico Camerinelli. “Providing tools to empower banks of all sizes to participate in this emerging industry will lead to greater innovation and ultimately better services for all.”

Account Galaxy’s virtual accounts are supported by a virtual ledger, enabling them to exist alongside an organization’s current infrastructure within what Finzly calls a “sidecar core.” This setup prevents new accounts from overburdening the organization’s existing systems.

“With Account Galaxy, banks can cost-effectively enable the integration of banking services into corporate systems and non-bank platforms, unlocking new opportunities for growth and innovation,” said Finzly founder and CEO Booshan Rengachari.

Finzly’s flagship offering, Finzly OS, enables clients to launch a modern bank from scratch. The company’s API connects to all U.S. payment rails, including Fed ACH, Fedwire, RTP, SWIFT, and FedNow. Founded in 2012 under the name SwapsTech, the North Carolina-based company recently landed $10 million in funding in a Series A round led by TZP Group.

Finzly most recently demoed at FinovateSpring 2023, and has taken home Best of Show honors for its demos at FinovateFall 2020 and FinovateSpring 2020. By the way, we’re still accepting applications from companies interested in demoing at our upcoming conferece, FinovateSpring 2024. Take a look at the event and find out more about what it takes to demo.

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

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Quantum Metric Launches AI-Powered Session Summarization Solution Felix AI

Quantum Metric Launches AI-Powered Session Summarization Solution Felix AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Quantum Metric
  • Digital analytics platform Quantum Metric released its new Gen AI-powered session summarization solution, powered by Google Cloud’s Gemini Pro.
  • The new offering will help users manage customer session replays faster and more efficiently.
  • Quantum Metric won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at our all-digital FinovateEurope conference in 2021.

Digital analytics platform Quantum Metric announced the release of a suite of new solutions to help organizations better listen and respond to the needs of their customers. Chief among these new offerings is Felix AI, the company’s new Gen AI-powered session summarization solution, powered by Google Cloud’s Gemini Pro.

Session summarization helps enhance the session replay process. Session replays are a critical tool in reviewing and refining the customer experience. But they tend to be both complex and time consuming. Leveraging Gemini Pro, Felix AI summarizes sessions in seconds to capture the exact experience of the customer. The technology simplifies digital customer listening by instantly quantifying session information. Felix AI is then able to ascertain the significance of each issue, as well as its potential impact on key business metrics. The solution also enables users to examine the details of individual customer experiences by asking clarifying questions, for example, about specific campaigns the customer has participated in.

Via API, Felix AI can be directly integrated into VoC feedback received from text, email, as well as social platforms like Slack. The solution can also provide role-based summaries to help call center agents quickly understand the customer’s concern before they’ve expressed it.

“In the past, our focus was transactional. How do we help the customer to make a purchase, book a flight, or open an account,” Quantum Metric founder and CEO Mario Ciabarra said. “The relationships we build with customers today are much more complex and span an entire lifecycle. To succeed, digital organizations need tools like Felix AI to simplify how they listen to their customers, and tools like Interactions and User Analytics to listen at scale and across their entire customer lifecycle. This is the beginning of a new generation of digital analytics tools and we can’t wait to see what our digital organizations can do to further the standards for a great digital customer experience.”

In addition to Felix AI, Quantum Metric also announced three other components of its spring release. These solutions are Interactions, which provides tools to help marketers and UX professional optimize page layout and content, and a pair of analytics solutions: User Analytics and Lightning Analytics. User Analytics provides new data visualizations such as retention and churn to interpret user behavior over time. Lightning Analytics lets users monitor, diagnose, and optimize workflows and apps built on Salesforce Lightning.

Founded in 2015, Quantum Metric is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The company won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at our all-digital European fintech conference in 2021. Quantum Metric returned later that year to demo its technology at our all-digital FinovateSpring event. The company has raised $251 million in funding according to Crunchbase. Uncorrelated Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst are among the firm’s investors.

Photo by Markus Winkler

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