Plaid Acquires Quovo in $200 Million Deal

Plaid Acquires Quovo in $200 Million Deal

San Francisco-based fintech app provider Plaid has made its first major acquisition with the purchase of competitor Quovo for $200 million, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Plaid hasn’t gone public on the price, but a source familiar with the deal spoke with CNBC to spill the financial beans. Plaid reckons the acquisition will make it easier for developers to build products that incorporate investment and brokerage data.

New York-based Quovo offers investment, insurance, and loan account coverage. Its platform is used by such firms as Betterment, Wealthfront and SoFi, as well as wealthtech companies like Stifel, Vanguard, Empower Retirement, and John Hancock.

Some of Plaid’s users include cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, robo-advisors Betterment and Wealthfront (same as Quovo), trading app Robinhood and PayPal’s digital wallet Venmo.

Plaid plans to build a single platform to let users “build any financial application – from payments to lending to wealth management.”

This deal follows on from last month when Plaid enjoyed a $250 million Series C funding round. With that investment, the start-up earned an impressive valuation of $2.65 billion.

Back in October 201, Plaid linked up with JP Morgan Chase to help the bank make a move toward open banking by enabling account holders to share their financial data with third-party fintech applications.

Prior to that, in May 2018, the company expanded to Canada as its first international market.

The firm was founded in 2013 and has got the backing of some big names. These include Goldman Sachs, Amex, Citi, and Google Ventures. About two years ago Plaid got a handy $44 million in funding led by Goldman Sachs.

Plaid CEO and co-founder Zach Perret presented API for Financial Infrastructure at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. Quovo is a two-time veteran of our developers conferences: sharing the stage with SoFi at FinDEVr New York 2017, and teaming up with Betterment at FinDEVr New York 2016.

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On Finovate.com

  • Braintri Drives Insurtech Innovation in Europe.
  • Plaid Acquires Quovo in $200 Million Deal.

Around the web

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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 Alumni News

On Finovate.com

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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.

Onist Teams Up with Quovo

Onist Teams Up with Quovo

Collaborative financial management platform Onist announced it is teaming with financial account analysis company Quovo. Onist will leverage Quovo’s data to provide a more reliable financial picture to its Canadian clients, making it the first company in Canada to use Quovo’s services.

The collaboration will allow Onist to pull in details from new Canadian accounts, credit unions, investment accounts, as well as common bank accounts, and credit cards. The Onist platform will provide a single place where consumers and authorized third party professionals can get a comprehensive view of their net worth and cash flow. By aggregating this data and facilitating access, Onist and Quovo aim to help clients make better informed decisions.

In the press release, Onist CEO Brad Kotansky said, “Onist is all about helping families and their advisors collaborate around household finances – and having access to your complete, reliable Canadian financial data is key to that. We are thrilled to partner with Quovo and feel strongly that we can help bring Canadians the same financial insight Americans have had for years. There’s never been a better time for Canadian families to be able see and digest all of their important financial information in one place.”

The idea of democratizing financial information is core to both companies. Quovo co-founder and CEO Lowell Putnam said that Onist’s efforts to offer consumers a clear view of their finances aligns perfectly with Quovo’s own mission, making Onist, as Putnam described, “an ideal early partner.”

Headquartered in Canada, Onist was founded in 2015 and showcased its financial management platform at FinovateSpring 2017. The company offers a virtual family office that facilitates collaboration among the family and their financial advisors, estate planners, tax professionals, insurance advisors, and accountants. Leveraging a second data aggregation partnership with Envestnet|Yodlee, the Onist platform enables users to aggregate all of their financial accounts and select the information they want to share with their planning professionals.

Quovo presented at FinDEVr New York 2016 and FinDEVr New York 2017, where it was awarded Favorite FinDEVr Alum. Earlier this spring, the company received an investment from Canadian VC firm Portag3 Ventures that intended to help Quovo enter into the Canadian market. Founded in 2010, Quovo serves hundreds of institutions, thousands of advisors, and millions of end-users. Lowell Putnam is co-founder and CEO.

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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.

Envestnet | Yodlee, Quovo, and Morningstar Unite On Secure Open Data Access Framework

Envestnet | Yodlee, Quovo, and Morningstar Unite On Secure Open Data Access Framework

For those who believe the benefits of GDPR and open banking-like policies can be achieved in the U.S. without the intervention of government regulation, the announcement that Envestnet | Yodlee, Quovo, and Morningstar have formed a joint initiative to support secure, open data access for consumers is welcome news, indeed.

“Through our involvement in existing industry groups focused on data access standards, we have noticed that consumers are not always as top-of-mind as they should be,” said Anil Arora, CEO of Envestnet | Yodlee. “The principles released today reiterate our belief that it is the consumer’s right to both access their data and permit it to be references through trusted third-party tools and applications, and that this consumer-permissioned access should not be limited or restricted.”

The Secure Open Data Access (SODA) framework is designed to promote transparency and accountability within the financial services ecosystem, and features four primary tenets:

  • Consumers must be able to access their financial account data for the purposes of using any legitimate application
  • Consumers must provide affirmative consent on the basis of clear and conspicuous disclosure regarding the use of their data
  • All entities who handle consumer account information must adhere to best practices for security standards and implement traceability and transparency
  • The entity responsible for a consumer’s financial loss must make the consumer whole. All stakeholders in the ecosystem have shared responsibility – this will start with traceability in the United States and move towards shared responsibility just like Europe.

Calling data sharing “a critical drive of innovation within financial services,” Quovo CEO Lowell Putnam added, “as custodians of financial data, we all have a duty to ensure that consumers are empowered to access their data safely, securely, and with full transparency into how it is being used. Our joint framework provides direction for the industry on how to fulfill this responsibility.”

The initiative’s full statement of joint principles for consumers, financial institutions, aggregators, and policymakers was published at the Envestnet | Yodlee blog.

A leading provider of intelligent systems for wealth management and financial wellness, Envestnet acquired Best of Show-winning financial data aggregation and analytics platform Yodlee in 2015 for $660 million. Together, Envestnet | Yodlee unveiled a single API solution to support PSD2 and open banking compliance earlier this year and forged partnerships with open banking innovators like fellow Finovate alum Token. Envestnet |Yodlee demonstrated its Financial Health Check solution at FinovateFall 2017, winning Best of Show honors.

Quovo participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr New York 2017, in partnership with SoFi. The data platform presented “How Quovo and SoFi Perfected Bank Authentication” at the event, explaining how its Authentication API for SoFi provided secure authentication of financial accounts while removing friction from the customer journey. Founded in 2010, Quovo is headquartered in New York City.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Envestnet | Yodlee, Quovo, and Morningstar Unite on Secure Open Data Access Framework.

Around the web

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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.

New Investment Helps Power Canadian Expansion for Financial Data Platform Quovo

New Investment Helps Power Canadian Expansion for Financial Data Platform Quovo

Quovo will enter the Canadian market thanks in part to an investment from Portag3 Ventures. The new investment takes the data platform provider’s total funding to $20 million.

Quovo CEO and co-founder Lowell Putnam said Canada was a source of “immense growth potential” for the company given the country’s “thriving fintech ecosystem and financial institutions hungry to adopt innovative technologies.” Putnam also highlighted a strategic element in Quovo’s relationship with Portag3 Ventures. “The decision to raise funding from Portag3 was about much more than capital,” he said. “Portag3 is well connected in the Canadian financial services industry and is helping us to hit the ground running as we work to establish ourselves in the market.”

Portag3 Ventures is a Canadian-based venture capital firm sponsored by Power Financial Corporation, IGM Financial Inc., and Great West-Lifeco Inc.

As part of the expansion, Quovo announced plans to partner with Canadian fintechs and incumbent financial services companies. The company’s Director of Quovo in Canada, Brad Joudrie, pointed out that the company had already added to its Canadian institutional coverage, and included Canadian financial account types into its data model. “We’re fully committed to building a sustainable business to support the country’s growing financial services sector,” Joudrie said. “The investment from Portag3 will enable us to build out a regional team, deliver on Canadian consumer requirements, and fuel innovation in Canadian financial services.”

The investment and expansion news comes on the heels of Quovo’s launch of two new data solutions to streamline ACH transactions and payment management. ACH Verification uses instant account verification or Quovo’s Autoverified Microdeposits to authenticate key account and account owner details and ensure frictionless ACH transactions. Payment Management enables monitoring of customer accounts to accurately determine the best time to debit accounts for steady payment flow and lower NSF fees.

“Our movement into payments demonstrates the utility of Quovo’s technology across a breadth of industries, and we’re excited to deliver solutions to some of the major obstacles faced by payment originators,” Putnam said. Both solutions were developed using Quovo’s Income + Expense and Balance Estimator products, introduced last month.

Quovo’s technology offers companies connectivity and insights for millions of consumer financial accounts across more than 14,000 different institutions. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in New York City, Quovo partnered with SoFi to present How Quovo & SoFi Perfected Bank Authentication at our developers conference, FinDEVr New York 2017. The previous year, the company teamed up with Betterment at FinDEVr New York 2016 to demonstrate the integration of Quovo’s account aggregation services with Betterment’s investment platform.

Last month, Quovo introduced a pair of solutions geared to enhancing critical processes in the lending value chain for loan originators and servicers. Back in December, the company launched Quovo PFM, a suite of embeddable personal finance management modules for FIs that complements the fintech’s account aggregation offering.

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  • New Investment Helps Power Canadian Expansion for Financial Data Platform Quovo.

Around the web

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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.

Quovo Unveils New Solutions for Loan Originators and Servicers

Quovo Unveils New Solutions for Loan Originators and Servicers

 

With a pair of new solutions announced this weekIncome + Expense and Balance Estimator, financial data platform Quovo is helping lenders improve key processes in the lending value chain.

Chief Product Officer for Quovo Niko Karvounis said the new solutions represented “an opportunity to optimize the way our data products work together to provide an improved borrowing experience.” Income + Expense gives lenders a more complete view of cash flow by analyzing and summarizing recurring and irregular income and expense streams. Balance Estimator predicts future account balances as far as 30 days in advance by leveraging historical cash flow data.

The two new solutions can be combined with Quovo’s other technologies – like Aggregation and Authentication – to build a complete, end-to-end, lending solution. Quovo announced its new products during an appearance this week at the Lendit Fintech USA conference.

Seeing significant opportunities for growth in the lending space, Quovo Co-Founder and CEO Lowell Putnam explained how the company would continue to leverage its technology to solve problems in a variety of markets. “We envision our solutions-based strategy, which combines our data products to address specific use cases across financial services, to be the future of our business,” Putnam said. “We look forward to continuing to develop more integrated products and finding interesting ways to package them together to alleviate pain points in lending and financial services more broadly.”

Quovo uses its industry-leading APIs, modular apps, and enterprise solutions to provide insights and connectivity for millions of financial accounts across thousands of institutions. The company participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr New York 2017, teaming up with SoFi for a presentation that discussed how the company’s Bank Authentication API enabled authentication for more than 200 financial institutions.

Quovo began 2018 with the launch of Cue, an alerts engine that uses data science to send notifications to financial advisors about specific account activity or milestones in the client’s life. Also this year, Quovo forged a partnership with Great American Life to integrate data for its fee-based annuity. Back in December, Quovo leveraged its API layer to launch account aggregation modules that give FIs the ability to add PFM functionality to their digital platforms. And last fall, the company introduced its new account authentication solution, Autoverified Microdeposits.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in New York City, Quovo has raised more than $15 million in funding. Napier Park Global Capital, F-Prime Capital Partners, FinTech Collective, and Long Light Capital are among the company’s investors.

Finovate Alumni News

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  • Quovo Unveils New Solutions for Loan Originators and Servicers.

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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.

Quovo Launches Modular PFM Widgets

Quovo Launches Modular PFM Widgets

Financial data provider Quovo is getting into the PFM game by launching account aggregation modules built on its API layer. The new modules will enable end users to track spending and saving, view their net worth, improve budgeting, and make progress toward their financial goals.

Because of the modular configuration, financial institutions can completely customize how they design their PFM offerings. Banks can opt to implement the full package or individual widgets to achieve the optimal mix of build vs. buy. The modules are designed for mobile use and can easily be white-labeled to fit a bank’s branding.

Niko Karvounis, Chief Product Officer and co-founder of Quovo said that account aggregation is a “must-have centerpiece for any digital strategy in fintech,” but that firms often struggle between building on Quovo’s API or buying a front-end, turnkey solution. Karvounis added, “With the launch of Quovo PFM, we now support the full spectrum of configuration options for deploying world-class account aggregation, including directly via our API, through embeddable modules, within a full dashboard — or even a combination of our approaches.

Founded in 2010, Quovo has presented at FinDEVr New York 2016 and FinDEVr New York 2017, where it was awarded Favorite FinDEVr Alum. Earlier this year, the company was listed on CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list. This fall, the company unveiled a new account authentication solution, Autoverified Micro-deposits. Quovo serves hundreds of institutions, thousands of advisors, and millions of end-users. Lowell Putnam is co-founder and CEO.