Knox Offers Free, Premium Options and Easier API Integration

Knox Offers Free, Premium Options and Easier API Integration

KnoxPayments_homepage_June2015

What’s better than 18-cent ACH transactions?

For many users of the innovative, ACH-based payments platform from Knox Payments, the answer is “free.”

Knox Payments announced it is now offering both free and premium options for users of its payments platform. Users will be able to make up to 50 transactions a month for free. After that, Professional and Enterprise subscriptions will be available for $40 a month for up to 1,000 transactions a month for Professional, and $100 a month for unlimited monthly transactions at the Enterprise level. All subscribers get real-time reporting; top-tier bank access; PCI/US Patriot/SSAE 16 compliance; and a new feature, the Knox Button, that provides easy integration with the platform.

Knox_FS2015_stage

Knox CEO and founder, Thomas Eide demonstrated Knox Assured and Knox Verified at FinovateSpring 2015.

Professional and Enterprise subscribers will also get recurring payments functionality and API access. Enterprise-level customers also will be able to add features like balance updating and next-day deposits as well, for additional monthly fees.

Knox also offers a “Good Funds” subscription of 0.5% per monthly transaction volume. The rest of the feature-set for Good Funds subscribers is identical to what is offered at the Enterprise level.

Knox has demonstrated its technologies at both Finovate and FinDEVr conferences. The company’s most recent Finovate appearance was a demonstration of its Knox Assured and Knox Verified solutions at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose. See the company’s FinDEVr San Francisco 2014 presentation here.

Are you a fitness developer, builder, or hacker? FinDEVr returns to the Bay Area 6/7 October 2015 for two days of insightful presentations and high-caliber networking with some of fintech’s most innovative technical talent. Find out more at out FinDEVr page. Tickers are on sale now.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Klarna Hires former American Express Exec as New CCO
  • Knox Payments Offers Free, Premium Options and Easier API Integration
  • Finovate Debuts: A Look at Stratos’ Digital Card Issuance Platform

Around the web

  • PYMNTS.com looks at the launch of MasterCard’s MasterPass in Belgium.
  • Benzinga’s Jim Probasco interviews AlphaClone CEO Maz Jadallah on “investing like a hedge-fund billionaire.”
  • Adhil Shetty, founder and CEO of BankBazaar.com, comments on handling finances after a job loss in The Economic Times.
  • RIA Biz features BrightScope and its new plan to provide mutual fund data with the launch of Fund Pages.
  • SunGuard chooses Heckyl Technologies to provide sentiment and real-time news analysis for its MarketMap terminal.
  • A look at fintech innovation in Poland features mBank.
  • Management Today profiles Zopa CEO Giles Andrews.
  • Interxion partners with Microsoft Azure to enable users to connect directly to Microsoft Azure in the data center over a secure, high-performance private network.

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.

ACH-based Payments Innovator Knox Payments Presents Knox Asssured and Knox Verified

ACH-based Payments Innovator Knox Payments Presents Knox Asssured and Knox Verified

This post is part of our live coverage of FinovateSpring 2015.

KNOX symbolKnox Payments, an ACH-based payments company, is introducing two new innovations: Knox Assured and Knox Verified.

Knox Payments is a payments and security service that allows merchants to conduct ACH payments. These are transactions wherein customers can pay directly to merchants using their bank accounts. What differentiates the service from its competitors is its primary focus on speed. In addition, Knox Payments does not offer user accounts, and simply functions as a tool for fast online checkouts.

Presenters: Thomas Eide, CEO and founder, and Julius Gartner, director of business development

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Product distribution strategy: Direct to Consumer (B2C), Direct to Business (B2B), through financial institutions, through other fintech companies and platforms

HQ: San Francisco, California
Website: knoxpayments.com
Twitter: @KnoxPayments

Alumni News– December 18, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgFinovate Debuts: Knox Payments Leverages ACH to Reduce Payment Costs for Merchants.
  • Financial Times’ Ian McKenna takes a look at his “gadget of the fortnight”: True Potential Investor.
  • Wired.co.uk features digital fingerprinting technology from Trustev.
  • GoBank users now able to activate cards through banking app without starter kit.
  • FreeAgent expands Self Assessment filing to ease pain for SMEs.
  • Google Cloud Platform releasing SDK in Java for using Cloud Dataflow under an open-source license.
  • American Banker names online marketplace lending, such as Lending Club and Prosper, the innovation of the year.
  • InComm partners with Edenred UK, an employee benefits and solutions provider.
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.

Finovate Debuts: Knox Payments Leverages ACH to Reduce Payment Costs for Merchants

KnoxLogo_BOX_FinDEVr2014.jpg

The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. At FinovateFall 2014, Knox Payments demoed its platform that leverages ACH to provide cheaper, more efficient payment options for merchants.

Knox Payments reduces interchange fees and cart abandonment with its cost-effective and fast checkout system.

The Stats
    • Founded in February 2014
    • Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia
    • Raised more than $1.5 million in funding
    • 25 employees
    • 70 customers
    • Thomas Eide (CEO) and Thomas Nicholas (President) are co-founders
Getting to Know Knox
Sometimes innovation is a matter of using old tools in new ways. That may be one way to think about the innovation Knox has created.
“We are reducing interchange costs by doing bank payments via ACH,” explained Thomas Nicholas during a pre-FinovateFall 2014 conversation. Running payments through ACH has been possible conceptually, he adds. But until Knox’s technology, the process was too cumbersome.
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“We get rid of barriers,” Nicholas added. “Routing numbers, account numbers, verifications, and the wait time. We eliminate all that.” The goal is to give merchants a payment system that is fast and efficient, lowers costs, and maintains a high level of security. All for 18 cents for payments more than $2. Transactions for less than $2 are free.
One interesting aspect of Knox is that while the process cuts the card companies out of the picture, the use of ACH means that banks are front and center. Nicholas explained that one big issue is that consumers make credit card payments, but banks never have access to key e-commerce data embedded in those transactions. Knox changes that, by “bringing transactions back to the banks.” They use the example of the technology deployed as part of a banking app and helping to increase customer engagement and loyalty as the app becomes a shopping tool. “Banks are going to be powering payments going forward,” Nicholas said.
The Technology
Onboarding with Knox is a four-step process. Find and choose your bank from the list of currently supported FIs (23 banks supported as of this writing). Then login using the same login credentials you use with your online bank account and choose the specific account, checking or savings, to be used and the merchant is ready to begin processing payments
“Usually signing up to accept payments is a really painful process,” Nicholas said from the Finovate stage this fall. But with Knox we do it in a couple of minutes with just a couple of steps.”
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Knox can also be used to quickly and cheaply fund accounts and digital wallets. The company’s partnership with Forex.com (more on that below) will make it much easier for traders and investors on the foreign exchange trading platform add funds to their trading accounts. 
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Where Knox’s technology shines is the way it negotiates the typical three to four-day payment lag in ACH transactions. Knox conducts a real-time balance check to assure funds are present, which allows it to provide next-day funding to the payee. “Knox is the only alternative to the credit card network that will actually underwrite transactions instantly for half a percent and 18 cents,” Nicholas said.
The Future
There are 23 banks integrated right now – all US-based. But the company expects that number to grow into the hundreds soon. The technology itself is “very portable.” Compliance and regulation remain the main barriers to speedier expansion. 
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(Above: Knox Payments President and Co-Founder, Thomas Nicholas demoing at FinovateFall 2014)
Many of the company’s earliest successes have been with currency-related companies – from forex brokerages to digital currency platforms. Knox announced a partnership to power the funding of trading accounts at forex broker Forex.com. With funding by credit card soon to be banned on forex platforms, and other funding options too slow and/or expensive, this service will be a time and money savings for FX traders.
Knox is also working with digital currencies. Many payment processors can’t risk-rate digital currencies, Nicholas said. But Knox’s platform is “robust enough” to do the risk rating. To this end, Knox announced in October that it had formed a partnership with payment processor, Vogogo, that will make it easier its U.S. digital currency clients to accept payments from U.S. bank accounts. And a December agreement with ChangeTip will enable instant Bitcoin payments via ACH.
As Knox sees it, businesses love credit cards because people know how to use them and the funds are guaranteed. Businesses love ACH because it’s cheap. Knox takes what merchants love about cards and what they love about ACH and, with some of their own innovations added in, have created a compelling alternative, especially for digital currencies working their way into the mainstream. 

Watch Knox Payments demo its platform at FinovateFall 2014.

Alumni News– December 9, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgCachet Financial Solutions to offer Mitek’s Mobile Photo Account Opening SaaS suite.
  • CrowdFlower CEO Lukas Biewald writes personally about the relationship between startups and their boards of directors.
  • Investor Junkie reviews roboadvisor, iQuantifi.
  • Knox Payments partners with ChangeTip to support bitcoin transaction via ACH.
  • CardNotPresent takes a look at Klarna’s US expansion plans.
  • Yodlee introduces transaction data enrichment service.
  • Fox News compares funding of Wealthfront, Personal Capital, Betterment, and SigFig.
  • Blackhawk Network’s closed loop gift cards available at some USPS locations.
  • VentureBeat: App Annie now tracks stats from Windows and Windows Phone stores.
  • SecondMarket wins 48,000 Bitcoin in U.S. Marshals auction.
  • Actiance extends security capabilities to email.
  • TechCrunch: Trustev Uses Fraud Detection Software to Crack Down on Internet Trolls.
  • Dashlane launches one-click password changer.
  • BehavioSec Lands $6 Million Led by Northzone and Octopus Investments.
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.

Alumni News– November 17, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgBoku announces a pair of C-level appointments: Ingo Lippert as CBO, Christian Hinrichs as CFO.
  • Zopa partners with AltFi Data; plans to open loan book to the public in Q1 in 2015.
  • The Sunday Times profiles TransferWise founders Kristo Kaarmann and Taavet Hinrikus.
  • Bolstr surpasses $200,000 in 2014 investor payouts
  • Expensify featured in Slate. Check out the video.
  • Billhighway’s 523% Four-Year Growth earns it the #193 Spot on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 List.
  • ChicagoInno features Arroweye Solutions and Rippleshot for their listings on the FinTech Forward Rankings.
  • Check out Finovate Debuts: Minetta Brook’s Knewsapp.
  • MetaIntelli and Arxan Technologies partner to help developers mitigate mobile security and privacy risks.
  • Venmo gets Touch ID security, tagging, and direct linking to bank accounts.
  • MyBankTracker examines how 1U is using Hoyos‘ facial recognition security technology.
  • InComm launches New eCommerce Site for B2B Bulk Gift Cards.
  • Bluefin joins the New York Bankers Association.
  • Google Compute Engine now features intelligent horizontal Autoscaling.
  • Wharton Fintech blog features Knox Payments.
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.

Alumni News– October 30, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgTemenos announces availability of its new mobile banking app.
  • Mitek reports more than 3,000 FIs have signed up for its mobile deposit solution.
  • BBVA Compass partners with Dwolla to bring real-time payments to bank customers.
  • Personal Capital announces $50 million series D round.
  • xconomy profiles anti-fraud innovator, Trustev.
  • Fiserv launches Popmoney for Disbursements.
  • Insuritas to open and manage turnkey insurance agency for Heritage Community Credit Union.
  • Knox Payments recognized in emerging startup category at Venture Forum RVA event.
  • Cardnotpresent.com features how SimplyTapp uses host card emulation (HCE).
  • Lendio partners with The UPS store to help SMBs.
  • Cardlytics pulls in $70 million in Series F round, prepares for IPO.
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.

Alumni News– October 29, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgSmall Business Computing features Flint Mobile in its short list of small business financial apps.
  • MasterCard announces launch of MasterPass in Taiwan.
  • Segmint raises $9 million in new funding.
  • Vaamo raises $3.2 Million, Launches Out of Private Beta.
  • Coinbase adds multi-signature tech to its Vault for high net worth Bitcoin holders.
  • Vogogo partners with Knox Payments to enable its future US clients to accept payment from any US bank account.
  • Google Cloud Platform announces Beta For Local SSD.
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.

FinDEVr 2014: Knox Revolutionizes Payments with its New Approach to ACH

FinDEVr 2014: Knox Revolutionizes Payments with its New Approach to ACH
KnoxLogo_BOX_FinDEVr2014

This post is part of our live coverage of FinDEVr San Francisco 2014.

Knox Payments demoed its technology that leverages ACH rails to make transactions cheaper for merchants.

ACH That Doesn’t Suck: No Account and Routing Numbers Needed
Developing ACH processing the traditional way is horrible. Your users don’t know their account and routing numbers and you don’t know if they actually have the money. Knox has solved these problems with the ease of just logging into your online banking, making ACH cheaper, safer, and easier.
Presenter: Tommy Nicholas, Co-Founder
Knox_homepage
About:
Knox allows people to make ACH payments using only their online banking login information, providing the cheapest, safest, and easiest way to accept payments.
Twitter: @knoxpayments

Day Two at FinDEVr: A Festival of Fintech Innovation

Day Two at FinDEVr: A Festival of Fintech Innovation
FinDEVrLogo

FinDEVr, the first event for fintech developers, is right around the corner. For the past few weeks we’ve introduced you to some of the innovators who will be presenting, demoing, and holding workshops on Day One.

Today, we’re happy to help you get to know some of the companies that will be showcasing and sharing their APIs, SDKs and more on Day Two.

There’s still time to save your spot. Pick up your tickets today and we’ll see you in San Francisco next week!


BCLLogo_FinDEVr

BCL Technologies develops APIs for Financial Text Extraction that unlock Big Data in unstructured documents and websites, enabling FinTechDevelopers to easily extract structured Financial Triplets from any source.

Presentation: Unlocking Financial Text
Explore the different use cases for BCL’s Financial Data Extraction APIs for unstructured text, to generate structured data Triplets.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
Automated Financial Extraction APIs to extract Financial Triplets
  • More Quickly
  • More Accurately
  • Without Human Intervention
Unlock Financial Text fast and with high accuracy.


BionymLogo_FinDEVr

Toronto-based Bionym is a team of experts in cryptography, biometrics, and security. Our first product is the Nymi, a wearable device that enables the user to authenticate once via unique cardiac rhythm and securely and seamlessly assert Persistent Identity to any system.

Presentation: Here I Am: Revolutionizing FI and Banking Experiences with Persistent Identity and the Nymi
Balaji Gopalan is presenting the Nymi Persistent Identity vision and User flow and will review key aspects of the SDK and Developer offering. In addition, he will propose and inspire discussion on select use cases in FinTech where the Nymi can improve engagement, security, and customer satisfaction.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • Increases both security and convenience
  • Enables the creation of new personalized experiences
  • Light, shallow yet robust API for all major OSes
The Nymi platform allows Users to be recognized and authenticated for service, workflows, or transactions simply by being present – completely safely and securely.


Print

Blockchain is the world’s most popular, web-based Bitcoin wallet and the most highly trafficked Bitcoin website. Blockchain is the defacto search engine for the Bitcoin community. Blockchain has over 2 million wallets and our footprint continues to grow quickly.

Presentation: Blockchain: The Core API for Bitcoin Development
Blockchain’s API’s power most of the Bitcoin companies in the ecosystem, Utilizing our APIs, you can start a Bitcoin business in minutes. From wallet creation to transaction verification, Blockchain’s APIs have you covered.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • Most popular Bitcoin API
  • Wallet Creation API
  • Transactions submitted with our API have fast network propagation time (3-5 seconds)
If you’re wanting to build a Bitcoin product, Blockchain is the one stop shop API for your development needs.


CrowdCurityLogo_FinDEVr

CrowdCurity is a web security marketplace. We connect businesses with security testers. We do bug bounty programs-as-a-service. Bitcoin First.

Presentation: How to Invite Hackers to Your Website
Too many websites are being exploited, and we need to rethink web security. The best way to stay secure and ahead of the bad guys is to invite good, white-hat hackers to test your security. We have made it easy to connect businesses to a crowd of security researchers.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • No bugs, no cost. Don’t pay for expensive consultants.
  • Leverage the knowledge of the crowd
  • Agile security around the clock


EntersektLogo_FinDEVr

Entersekt is an innovator in transaction authentication and mobile app security. Our one-of-akind approach to harness the power of electronic certificate technology with the convenience of mobile phones providing financial institutions and their customers with full protection from online and mobile banking fraud.

Presentation: Securing Mobile Applications Through Transport iLayer Diversity
Mobile security is becoming increasingly important as more functionality is shifting to these devices. But how do we ensure the integrity of the phone and the server we’re connecting to? This is a common problem and has been addressed by recommending out-of-band authentication schemes.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • Avoids the open Internet of SMS for user and transaction authentication
  • Provides end-to-end encrypted communication
  • Counters phishing, man-in-the-middle/browser attack
Harnessing the power of public key infrastructure, Transakt transforms almost any mobile phone into a powerful weapon in the fight against account takeover fraud.


GoogleCloudPlatformLogoFinDEVr

Google Cloud Platform enables
developers to build, test, and deploy applications on Google’s highly scalable and reliable infrastructure. This suite of services allows developers to choose from computing, storage, and application services for web, mobile, and backend solutions.

Presentation: Big Data on Google
Google has been the most innovative Big Data company in the World, having paved the way for highly distributed parallelized workflows. Technologies like Hadoop, Flume, Dremel, and HBase were made possible by Google’s research and development efforts. Now Google is outsourcing its own Big Data secret.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • Seamlessly scale into petabytes of data and dozens of thousands of servers
  • Simplicity and ease of use
  • Performance
Google’s BigQuery and Dataflow services are the next generation of Big Data tools, allowing you to focus on solving your Big Data problems rather than building systems.


GreenAddressITLogo_FinDEVr

GreenAddress IT is a leader in securing bit coins and providing instant clearing confirmations. It supports desktop, mobile, and web apps, and offers a very featureful and secure wallet as well as APIs to enable third party developers.

Presentation: GreenAddress: Instant and Secure Bitcoin
The presentation is introducing bit coin’s multi signature features. These features allow users to radically improve the security of bitcoin wallets, as well as create new services like instant confirmation allowing for faster arbitration between exchanges.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • Available for all platforms and easy to use
  • Instant confirmation for super smooth transactions
  • Vastly improved security model via multisig and two-factor authentication
GreenAddress’ API gives 3rd parties the ability to securely manage and receive instant confirmations without having to wait for transactions.


Kiind

Kiind helps businesses reward their employees and customers with gift cards., With Kiind, you can easily send personalized offers to multiple contacts, and Kiind’s technology allows you to defer when you pay for rewards and gifts, thereby saving you money.

Presentation: Making Gifting Easy
We’ll touch on Kiind’s API and where it is headed as well as our marketplace
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • Measurable tracking and reporting
  • Branding
  • Offer a choice between gifts
Send measurable gifts and only pay for what is used. Kiind makes your gifting easy so you can focus on what you know best.


KnoxPaymentsLogo_FinDEVr

Knox Payments allows people to make ACH payments using only their online banking login information, providing the cheapest, safest, and easiest way to accept digital payments.

Presentation: ACH That Doesn’t Suck: No Account and Routing Numbers Needed
Developing ACH processing the traditional way is horrible. Your users don’t know their account and routing numbers and you don’t know if they actually have the money. Knox has solved these problems with the ease of just logging into your online banking, making ACH cheaper, safer, and easier.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • No account and routing numbers needed
  • No new accounts for your users
  • Guaranteed overnight funds for ACH
ACH sucks and credit cards are expensive: Knox fixes that without needing your users to create any new accounts.


masspay_black_cs5

MASSPAY is m-payments for every(f)one. If you know how to dial, you know how to pay. It’s simple and convenient. You don’t even need a smartphone with a data plan – you can use it with an NFC QR code. MASSPAY is the first solution dedicated to emerging and developed markets with minimum investment.

Presentation: Mobile Payments for Every(f)one
How to pay using a feature phone or a smartphone without any app. Why MASSPAY is a perfect solution for developed markets as well as emerging or developing countries. Why MASSPAY is for every phone and everyone.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
With MASSPAY you can process:
  • Any transaction
  • From any phone (with or without application or data plan)
  • In a single easy scenario
If you know how to make a phone call, you know how to pay. With minimum of investment and maximum of simplicity and convenience, from any phone.


MorpheusLogo_FinDEVr

Morpheus Aiolos is a company based in Spain that has developed financial software since 2012. We have two featured products: an API to extract bank transactions and a clone of Mint, which uses the API.

Presentation: API for Banking
Our API standardizes the way an application can extract information form any bank account. We’re describing how it works, with some examples.
Why it’s Great for Developers:
  • First API that works in countries where there is not a standard for banking
  • Already tested in a production environment
  • 5,000 users in Spain
We can add banks to adapt the API to other countries in a matter of days

Knox Payments Leverages ACH to Deliver Cost-Effective, Speedy Online Transactions

Knox Payments Leverages ACH to Deliver Cost-Effective, Speedy Online Transactions
KnoxPaymentsLogo_FF2014

This post is part of our live coverage of FinovateFall 2014.

Knox Payments is our next presenting company. Knox leverages the ACH network to facilitate transactions online.

“Knox Payments facilitates payments for merchants online, allowing them to transact with their customers/users, who never have to create accounts or enter their bank routing and account numbers, let alone input their address and other information when transacting online. End users simply log in to their online banking to make a payment, and we instantly verify their account, all for just $0.18/transaction (paid by the merchant). Knox means less cart abandonment, more security, and increased conversion. all while saving on payment processing fees.”
Presenting: Thomas Nicholas, President & Co-Founder
KnoxPaymentsHomepage_LiveBlog
Product Launch: February 2014
Metrics: Raised $1,555,000 to date; 25 employees (13 in United States and 12 in India); 70 customers (and adding more each day)
Product distribution strategy: Direct to Business (B2B), through financial institutions, through other fintech companies and platforms
HQ: Richmond, VA
Founded: February 2014
Twitter: @KnoxPayments