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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
LidyaLaunches SME Lending Platforms for Poland and Czech Republic.
Around the web
CU Broadcast featuresLarky CEO and Co-founder Gregg Hammerman.
eToropartners with The TIE to develop unique sentiment-driven investment strategies for traders.
TrustlylaunchesTrustly Live to bring instant cashless payments to land-based casinos and sportsbooks.
Home Bank renews relationship with Baker Hill, adding Baker Hill NextGen CECL and Baker Hill NextGen Business Loan Origination.
Salt Edge to power PSD2 API for Habib Bank AG Zurich.
Chetuearns #3 for dollar growth and #15 for percentage growth at the SFBJ technology awards 2019.
Insuritas to power bank-owned insurance agency for Signature Bank of Georgia Partners.
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.
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.
Alternative banking provider Revolutannounced the roll out of commission-free stock trading on its app today. Starting today Revolut Metal customers in the U.K. and Europe can buy and hold shares of 300+ stocks listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ directly from the Revolut app.
The feature is powered by DriveWealth, which is registered as a full-carrying and clearing broker-dealer and will help Revolut navigate the complexities of brokerage. New Jersey-based DriveWealth offers a suite of APIs that allow companies across the globe to help their users invest in the U.S. stock market. The firm provides digital investment products for brokerages to offer clients as well as a brokerage service offering dollar-based, real-time investing.
Overall, Revolut is making stock market investing more inclusive. Trades are free, the annual custodian fee totals 0.01% (when others in the industry charge 0.25% to 1.5%), and there are no account minimums. At launch, all fees are waived for eligible customers during the beta period. The company did not specify when it plans to implement fees but said, “These will come into effect later, and we will communicate with you in advance about when that will be.”
Revolut said it is most proud of integrating the ability to buy partial shares of stock. Fractional share investing, one of DriveWealth’s flagship features, allows users to purchase a small portion of a stock. This democratizes investing by making a stock like Amazon, which trades at almost $1,900 per share, more accessible to investors with lower capital.
Another badge of honor is that trades can be made instantly, meaning users will pay the asking price of a stock when their order hits the market. And, specific to Revolut, users can fund their trading account in multiple currencies and benefit from the interbank exchange rate.
The trading feature not only helps Revolut compete with banks, but also helps the company build its user base for its Metal account. Launched last August, the Metal account offers users 100 free trades per month, along with a host of other features, for $14.99 per month.
In the future, Revolut plans to open trading to users outside of Europe, offer ETFs and other new products, and introduce European stocks. Additionally, the company will open up free trades to Premium and Standard customers, who will be able to make 8 free trades per month and three free trades per month, respectively. This variance is representative of Revolut’s tiered pricing model, which offers free Standard accounts while charging $9.99 per month for a Premium account.
Revolut debuted at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. The company’s CEO and founder Nikolay Storonsky showed off the app’s money transfer capabilities that help users avoid banking fees without actually using a bank.
Adding Revolut as a client is another notch in the belt for DriveWealth, which last month partnered with Sigma Securities and Trove Technologies to offer digital U.S. equities trading in Nigeria. Last August, DriveWealth collaborated with fellow Finovate alum Bambu to launch a white-label roboadvisory platform for U.S. wealth managers. Other DriveWealth clients include MoneyLion, Vested Finance, and INVSTR.
At FinovateAsia 2016, DriveWealth released a new API to enable partners to offer a robo advisory product suite and a self-directed equity investing platform. Robert Cortright is CEO.
PayStandLeverages the Blockchain to Document Proof-of-Action.
DriveWealthPowers Commission-Free Trading for Revolut Cardholders.
Around the web
Columbia Bank to leveragenCino’s Bank Operating System.
Fast Company highlightsLighter Capital as a competitor to Clearbanc.
Ezbobwins the Best Fintech Partnership category for its Smart Onboarding Engine in this year’s Banker’s Tech Projects Awards.
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.
BeSmarteeannounces direct integration with real estate document collaboration and recording technology solution provider Simplifile.
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.
As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
Central and Eastern Europe
VTB Factoring and Venture Engineering Lab introduces end-to-end multifactor digital supply chain finance platform, GetFinance, to Russian market.
Austrian telecom Hutchison Drei Austria teams up with Revolut to offer prepaid debit cards and banking services.
Coinspeaker profiles Slovakian cryptocurrency trading platform, StockPoint.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) announces four new fintech additions to its summer sandbox.
Morocco’s CIMR to useDaon to make sure its clients are still living.
Beirut, Lebanon-based ecommerce management platform Ecomz raises $4 million in Series A funding.
Central and Southern Asia
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to build blockchain-based banking platform.
New partnership between ICICI Bank and IndoStar Capital Finance to bring financing options to help underserved Indian SMEs purchase commercial vehicles.
Fidor Solutions inks memorandum of understanding with Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) to promote fintech innovation in Kazakhstan.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Ingenico ePayments to provide advanced payment services to online Latin American marketplace Linio Colombia.
Jamaican wealth manager Proven Wealth to deploy core banking system from ERI.
BNAmericas takes a look at the emerging fintech scene in Costa Rica.
Asia-Pacific
Japanese payment app Kyash raises $14 million in Series B round led by Goodwater Capital and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital.
Courtesy of a new partnership with Sigma Securities and Trove Technologies, global digital trading technology specialist DriveWealth is launching a new digital U.S. equities trading product for retail investors in Nigeria.
“Making U.S. securities available to investors of any size in countries all around the globe is an essential element of the mission of DriveWealth,” company CEO Robert Cortright said. “We are delighted to work with Sigma Securities and Trove Technologies on this effort to democratize investing in Nigeria by bringing to its retail investors the largest and most liquid, transparent financial market.”
Sigma Securities is a leading Nigerian brokerage firm, founded in 1995 and headquartered in Lagos. Trove Technologies is a financial app developer based in Nigeria that offers investors the ability to purchase stakes in U.S., Chinese, and Nigerian stocks, as well as government bonds and U.S. exchange-traded funds with as little as $2.80 (NGN1,000).
Leaders from both Sigma Securities and Trove Technologies highlighted the way the partnership would help “(break) through the trading barriers” in the words of Sigma Securities CEO Dunama Balami and “eliminate the longstanding bottlenecks” according to Trove Technologies CEO Oluwatomi Solanke. “Our partnership with DriveWealth and Sigma Securities brings the world’s largest stock market to Nigerian investors, regardless of spending power,” Solanke said. Balami referred to the partnership as “a groundbreaking feat” for the Nigerian capital markets.
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Chatham, New Jersey, DriveWealth demonstrated its platform at FinovateAsia 2016, following its Best of Show winning demo at FinovateEurope earlier that year. The company provides a suite of APIs that enable global investors to participate in the U.S. stock market at a reasonable cost, including the ability to purchase fractional shares. DriveWealth offers both digital investment products to help brokerages around the world provide broader options for their clients, as well as dollar-based, real-time investing via its brokerage service.
Recent headlines for DriveWealth include a collaboration with Investor Cash Management announced in May, in which DriveWealth will power new white-label cash management accounts that are linked to government money market and ultra-short term bond funds. DriveWealth began the year with an announcement that it would expand its partnership with Stake to bring commission-free trading in U.S. stocks and ETFs to investors in South America.
With clients and partners in more than 140 countries around the world, DriveWealth has raised $29.4 million in funding. The company includes Route 66 Ventures, Raptor Group, SBI Group, and Point72 Ventures among its investors.
Fiservunveils its new mobile bill presentment solution.
Digital identity solutions company Signicatacquires Norway’s Idfy.
Blackhawk Networkannounces payments industry veteran and former InComm executive Mark Singer as its new APAC Managing Director.
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.
Two wealthtech companies from opposite sides of the globe have built upon their partnership this week. New Jersey-based DriveWealth and Singapore-based Bambu have collaborated on the launch of a white-label, roboadvisory platform for U.S. wealth managers.
While the two have worked together for the past three years on products for overseas markets, this is their first joint offering in the U.S. Robert Cortright, DriveWealth CEO, described the new platform as “a streamlined product for wealth managers seeking to offer a unique, easy-to-use investing platform directly to their retail customers.”
The solution is the result of an integration between DriveWealth’s suite of wealth management APIs, which facilitate everything from customer onboarding to U.S. stock market ordering and reporting; and Bambu’s roboadvisory software, which automates financial planning, saving, and investing for end consumers. More simply, the new offering pairs DriveWealth’s fractional share technology with Bambu’s front-end user interface.
The new platform has three major components:
An advisor dashboard that provides an overview of client activities and alerts, and tracks invested capital and cash balances.
A CIO dashboard with portfolio-building capabilities that assist in simulating, creating, and rebalancing portfolios.
A client application that allows them to adjust investment goals, access investments, and perform investment analyses.
Ned Phillips, CEO of Bambu said, “We are confident that this end-to-end service for financial institutions in the U.S. will be a game changer in simplifying investing.”
Founded in 2012, DriveWealth’s clients include MoneyLion, a lending and wealth management app, and INVSTR, a U.K.-based stock trading application. At FinovateAsia 2016, the company released a new API to enable partners to offer a roboadvisory product suite and a self-directed equity investing platform. Earlier this year, DriveWealth closed a $21 million investment, bringing its total funding to $30 million.
At FinovateAsia 2017, Bambu won Best of Show for its demo of People Like Me, a tool that leverages machine learning to help users define their financial goals. Last month, the company raised $3 million in funding and earlier this year it expanded into London.
FeedzaiBrings Automated Machine Learning to the Fraud Fight.
DriveWealth and BambuJoin Forces on Roboadvisory Tool.
Around the web
Your Legacy Federal Credit Union to deploy core account processing technology from Fiserv.
CYBG (Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank) partners with The ID Co. to integrate DirectID into CYBG’s B mobile banking app.
Coinbaseunveils crypto plugin to make it easier for e-commerce merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments.
Bloomberg: Quantopianmakes $50 million allocation to one of its quants.
OurCrowdnamed Most Active Venture Investor in Israel by PitchBook.
Jack Henry & Associates and MastercarddeliverPriceless Surprises campaign to 1.8 million cardholders.
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.
Wealthtech company DriveWealth has closed a Series B round of funding this week. The $21 million investment was led by Raptor Group Holdings, SBI Holdings, and Point72 Ventures. Existing investor Route 66 Ventures also participated. This brings the company’s total funding to just shy of $30 million.
DriveWealth will use the funds to enhance its existing products. The New Jersey-based company offers a suite of APIs that help online brokers, digital advisors, and financial services companies access the U.S. securities market. DriveWealth also has an API that allows partners to integrate native investment experiences into their own mobile applications. Among the company’s investment offerings are real-time, dollar-based investing capabilities that enable any investor to own shares in U.S. equities, regardless of stock price or deposit size.
Robert Cortright, CEO of DriveWealth, said that the company’s mission is to “provide global partners low cost, frictionless access to wealth building products.” He added, “Our solutions provide our partners native integration into their customer facing, mobile applications and reimagine investing for the clients they serve.”
As you may expect, today’s investors had positive things to say about DriveWealth and its business model. Yoshitaka Kitao, Chairman of SBI Holdings commented: “As a pioneer of internet-based financial services, we are excited to add DriveWealth to the world’s first ‘financial ecosystem’ that SBI has now expanded from Japan to worldwide.” Pete Casella, Head of Fintech Investments at Point72 Ventures, said, “DriveWealth has built a world class tech-driven brokerage stack that allows fintech firms to incorporate a wide range of investments capabilities into their product offerings.”
Founded in 2012, DriveWealth’s clients include MoneyLion, a lending and wealth management app, and INVSTR, a U.K.-based stock trading application. At FinovateAsia 2016, the company released a new API to enable partners to offer a robo advisory product suite and a self-directed equity investing platform. In 2016, the company partnered with Alkanza to bring robo advisory solutions to Latin America.
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.
