Author: David Penn

12 Fintechs Innovating in Fraud, Risk, Compliance, and Trust Infrastructure

12 Fintechs Innovating in Fraud, Risk, Compliance, and Trust Infrastructure
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2026 Demo List Series

Most folks in banking and financial services do not enjoy talking about fraud and financial crime. This is not surprising. When it comes to fraud, there is rarely “good news.” Instead, it’s usually a matter of “no news” vs “bad news,” In this world, many can’t help but feel as if the “good news” is that the “bad news” hasn’t happened—yet.

While keynotes and industry stages dedicated to fraud and financial crime will be limited at FinovateFall 2026 next month, the world looks quite different from the demo stage, where a dozen companies will be showcasing their latest innovations to help banks, credit unions, and other organizations monitor their processes in real time, detect fraud before it causes emotional or financial damage, and provide procedures and strategies to help avoid similar attacks in the future. In other words, just because we don’t always hear C-suite executives from banks and financial services companies talking about fraud, do not for a moment believe that fraud and financial crime are anything but top of mind.

Today, in our latest FinovateFall 2026 preview post, we’re introducing you to these 12 fintech innovators that will be demonstrating their fraud prevention solutions live on stage on September 9 and 10.

Coynitt

Coynitt is a remittance and community savings platform built for Canada’s African diaspora that leverages the blockchain to settle international remittances in five seconds or less. Coynitt offers trustless, on-chain ROSCA savings circles with instant smart contract payouts. The platform features AI-routed payments, open-source smart contracts, and on-chain transparency to enable every contribution to be visible to every member.

Darwinium

Darwinium is an AI-powered fraud prevention platform that combines continuous monitoring with real-time decisioning to enable fraud teams to identify and respond to fraud attacks ranging from account takeover and API abuse to scams and mule activity. The company’s technology has delivered a 50% reduction in fraud and a 40% reduction in operational costs. Distinguishing trusted behavior from risky behavior—in both humans and AI agents—Darwinium provides fraud defense from the first interaction through high-risk actions and payments.

Illuma

A leader in voice security solutions for banks and other financial institutions, Illuma offers a voice authentication and fraud prevention solution, IllumaSHIELD, that replaces knowledge-based authentication practices with a seamless and secure, real-time voice authentication solution that enhances the caller experience, improves operational efficiency, and prevents fraud in contact centers.

Kita Technologies

Kita offers an AI-powered lending operations and credit assessment platform that transforms borrower documents into fraud-checked underwriting signals. Kita enables lenders to transition from scattered borrower documents and manual workflows to consistent, decision-ready credit analysis that keeps final decision-making in human hands. The platform’s trio of AI agents—Kita Capture, AI Credit Officer, and AI Underwriter—provides end-to-end underwriting for every kind of lending, from microfinance to SME lending and commercial loans.

Loquat

Loquat provides seamless KYC, KYB, fast onboarding, virtual cards, automated lending, back-office lifecycle management, and CALM Portal for credit unions and community banks. The firm’s Loquat IQ leverages an institution’s data to deliver contextual insights that drive strategic and operational success.

McCarthy Hatch

McCarthy Hatch is a regtech firm that helps financial institutions identify regulatory risks. The company’s FSAi is an AI-powered analytics platform that detects systemic consumer harm patterns in financial services by analyzing customer complaints. FSAi delivers real-time monitoring of risk exposure and enables strategic, proactive measures to significantly reduce compliance spending.

Omnisient

Omnisient offers a privacy-preserving data collaboration platform that enables financial services companies to access consumer behavior data directly from retailers and consumer brands. The company’s solution leverages secure collaboration and AI-driven analytics to empower businesses to build predictive models and data products to help them find and better serve future customers across industries.

Radar

Radar, a location infrastructure and intelligence software development firm, offers solutions to help organizations fight fraud, optimize operations, and engage customers at scale. Radar’s platform consists of three solutions: Protect, to stop fraud and verify user location; Optimize, which tracks pickups, deliveries, and field operations with real-time visibility; and Engage, which helps firms reach the right user at the right moment wherever they are.

RangersAI

RangersAI leverages real-time guidance, in-context education, and trusted digital interactions to help consumers avoid scams. The company’s ScamRanger solution is a customer-facing scam education platform that provides alerts and guidance for suspicious messages, helping stop scams before the emotional manipulation—and financial damage—begins.

Saris AI

Saris AI builds and launches AI agents to automate back-office workflows for credit unions and banks. The company’s technology automates 90% of lending, compliance, and operations tasks, and enables banks and credit unions to scale without adding headcount. Saris AI’s solution can be integrated directly into existing cores and LOS platforms, and requires no change management.

Veritus

An AI communications platform for financial services, Veritus deploys voice and text agents that manage loan servicing and collections at scale. The company’s technology drives application conversions, re-engaging abandoned applications via intelligent outbound calls, SMS, and chat, and boosts collections with proactive outreach to borrowers in early arrears with empathetic, compliant, contextual conversations.

Winnow

Winnow is a regtech platform that provides regulatory compliance solutions for legal and financial services firms. The company integrates modern AI technologies with practical compliance tools to offer prompt-driven compliance survey creation, intelligent chat-based legal research, and on-demand reference chart and compliance checklist generation.

Why Banks Should Care

Bank executives do not need to be reminded—much less informed—about the challenges of fraud and the costs of financial crime. In survey after survey, fraud, especially AI-powered fraud, is among the most frequently cited concerns by not only those who run and manage financial institutions, but also their customers and members. And it’s worth noting that the challenges to effective fraud fighting are not exclusively technical; as more than one financial crime expert has said, the human being, not the technology, is often the weakest link in the chain of defense.

That said, there are many challenges facing bank and credit union executives when it comes to enhancing their financial crime prevention efforts: from data management and legacy technology issues to budgetary constraints and limited availability of technical talent and expertise. And these are the problems that fintechs such as the ones showcased here—and coming to the FinovateFall 2026 demo stage in September—have dedicated themselves to solving for banks, credit unions, their customers, and their members.

Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Zeplyn Launches Agentic Account-Opening Workflow in Partnership with Schwab

Zeplyn Launches Agentic Account-Opening Workflow in Partnership with Schwab
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Zeplyn
  • AI-powered operating system for wealth management Zeplyn announced a new integration with Schwab Advisor Center to automate account opening and meeting preparation workflows.
  • The integration follows the company’s launch of a new platform capability, Advisor Coaching, that gives wealth management advisors actionable feedback on their client interactions.
  • Headquartered in New York and founded in 2023, Zeplyn made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025.

Zeplyn, an AI operating system for wealth management, announced a new integration with Schwab Advisor Center that expands the reach of Zeplyn Agent Nexus into two key workflows for wealth managers: account opening and meeting preparation. The integration enables advisors to open Schwab Advisor Services accounts in seconds, leveraging AI agents to automatically complete Schwab’s digital account-opening workflows while incorporating live Schwab holdings and transactions into Zeplyn’s AI-powered client briefs.

“Schwab Advisor Center is one of the most important platforms in wealth management, and we’re excited to bring the power of Zeplyn Agent Nexus into that ecosystem,” Zeplyn Co-founder and CEO Era Jain said. “This integration is a step toward a new way of working. By combining Schwab data with the intelligence firms already have, we’re enabling AI to complete work that has traditionally remained manual, giving advisors more time to focus on their clients.”

In a statement, Zeplyn noted that account opening and meeting preparation are two of the most time-consuming workflows in wealth management. Advisors are often required to source meeting notes, CRM records, documents, planning software, and custodian platforms to gather the information they need before they can act. In contrast, Zeplyn’s new integration eliminates many of these manual steps. Advisors can direct Zeplyn’s agents to open a Schwab account, gather client data across meetings, emails, CRM records, and documents, initiate the digital account open workflow, automatically complete all relevant data fields, and deliver a finished draft for human review and submission. Early pilots of the integration revealed that Not-In-Good-Order (NIGO) submissions were reduced by approximately 80%.

The integration also boosts Zeplyn’s AI-powered meeting preparation capabilities by incorporating live Schwab holdings and transactions into already-assembled client intelligence. This means that advisors can secure a complete, up-to-date view of every client’s holdings without having to collect the data manually across multiple systems and platforms. Here, early pilots revealed that advisors saved more than 12 hours a week with AI-powered meeting prep.

Zeplyn’s integration with Schwab comes less than a month after the company announced the launch of its Advisor Coaching capability. Advisor Coaching automatically evaluates, scores, and delivers actionable feedback on every client and prospect meeting an advisor has. The goal of the solution is to help wealth management teams deliver a consistent, quality experience for every client. The technology rates each client meeting against the company’s success criteria and provides contextual advice and suggestions to help advisors better serve their clients. As part of the Advisor Coaching capability, firm managers can use Ask Zeplyn to access company-wide performance reports to identify patterns that might be otherwise difficult or time-consuming to find.

“Wealth management firms have always known that consistent advisor performance drives client trust and retention, but they’ve never had a scalable way to measure it,” Jain said. “Advisor Coaching gives firm leaders the same level of visibility into client conversations that top sales organizations have had into their pipelines for years: objective, firm-wide, and available on demand. For an enterprise with hundreds of advisors, that’s the difference between hoping standards are being met and knowing they are.”

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in New York, Zeplyn made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Zeplyn Meeting Assistant: a compliant and secure agentic AI technology that captures client interactions via video, in-person, and telephone, accurately converting them into structured data in real time. Zeplyn Meeting Assistant also automates data entry into CRMs and powers other operations such as auto-drafting personalized emails, summarizing data into client recaps, and surfacing client and advisory trends and insights.

Photo by Yan Krukau from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

AltaOne FCU Launches Veep Software’s AnyTimePay Solution

AltaOne FCU Launches Veep Software’s AnyTimePay Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Veep Software
  • Earned wage access platform provider Veep Software announced that AltaOne Federal Credit Union has launched its AnyTimePay offering. AnyTimePay provides employees with access to earned wages before their scheduled payday.
  • The product launch comes at the same time that AltaOne Federal Credit Union announced a strategic investment in the Florida-based fintech.
  • Veep Software was founded in 2019. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025 in New York.

Veep Software announced that AltaOne Federal Credit Union has gone live with Veep’s AnyTimePay offering, an earned wage access solution that gives members access to their earned wages before their scheduled payday. AltaOne FCU’s launch of AnyTimePay comes at the same time that the California-based financial institution announced a strategic investment in Veep. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

Veep’s AnyTimePay platform is the company’s composable infrastructure layer for AI-driven, risk-aligned pay access. Built to support institutional deployment, governance, and scale, AnyTimePay combines structured controls, monitoring, and configurable deployment options to enable credit unions and other institutions to deliver modern earned wage access securely and responsibly. AnyTimePay uses AI to analyze member behavior and assess risk to help prevent over-advancement while encouraging responsible use of the service. AnyTimePay helps members enhance their financial security, improve money management, increase engagement with their credit union, and reduce the temptation to resort to high-cost, payday lending alternatives.

“AltaOne is exactly the kind of forward-thinking financial institution we built AnyTimePay for,” Veep CEO Drew Hyatt said. “They understand that the future of financial wellness is not just about offering more products. It is about showing up at the right moment, when members need access to liquidity and support. Their commitment to improving member financial well-being, combined with their decision to invest in Veep, is a powerful endorsement of both our technology and our mission.”

Veep notes that earned wage access is only a starting point for users of the platform. The platform architecture supports the integration of additional financial capabilities through its modular infrastructure, shared governance and policy frameworks, and reusable AI-driven decisioning.

“At AltaOne, we are always looking for innovative ways to strengthen the financial well-being of our members,” AltaOne CEO Stephanie Sievers said. “Too often, financial stress is not about whether someone is responsible; it is about whether the timing of their income matches the timing of their obligations. A bill may be due today, while a paycheck arrives several days later. AnyTimePay helps members bridge that gap responsibly by giving them access to wages they have already earned. We believe this solution can reduce financial stress and help our members avoid costly alternatives.”

AltaOne FCU is headquartered in Ridgecrest, California, a community located in the high desert of Southern California, directly adjacent to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. The financial institution was founded in 1947 as the NOTS Employees Federal Credit Union and today serves members in Kern, Inyo, Mono, and northern San Bernardino counties. AltaOne FCU has 58,000+ members and assets of more than $950 million.

Headquartered in Miami, Florida, and founded in 2019, Veep Software made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall 2025 in New York. At the conference, the company showed how its AI-driven, risk and wellness scoring platform assesses customer financial health and risk and enables real-time access to earned wages. The technology can be embedded directly into digital banking platforms to help community banks and credit unions boost deposit growth and enhance financial wellness for their customers and members.

Interested in companies developing innovative new solutions for credit unions and their members? Check out our latest look at the Credit Union Spotlight, coming to FinovateFall 2026 next month in New York!

Photo by Blue Arauz from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Credit Union Spotlight Returns to FinovateFall 2026

Credit Union Spotlight Returns to FinovateFall 2026
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Credit Unions, FinovateFall 2026

At a time of unprecedented competition and growing demand for more responsive, more personalized services, how are credit unions evolving to not only keep the members they have engaged, but also to grow and build their membership ranks? What are the most innovative fintech companies in the industry doing to help credit unions keep pace with digital transformation efforts, take advantage of innovations such as embedded finance, and make the most of investments in AI and cybersecurity?

FinovateFall 2026’s Credit Union Spotlight is an invite-only opportunity for credit union professionals and the fintech innovators who support them to network and discuss the challenges that credit unions are facing today. The spotlight will also showcase new solutions dedicated to helping credit unions meet those challenges: from growing memberships and deposits to launching new services powered by enabling technologies like AI.

The Credit Union Spotlight begins with an exclusive networking breakfast and coffee with your peers and colleagues in the credit union industry to facilitate dedicated conversations and networking. Next, a specially curated selection of fintechs will provide brief introductions and join assigned tables to discuss their solutions. After each conversation and discussion, the companies will rotate to a new table to ensure that every attendee has the opportunity to engage with our fintech innovators. Credit unions and fintechs are encouraged to follow up afterwards or arrange to meet during later networking breaks during the conference.

As Finovate VP and Informa Director of Fintech Strategy Greg Palmer noted on the importance of the Credit Union Spotlight: “A lot of fintech innovators are building solutions specifically with credit unions in mind; on the flip side, more and more CUs are looking to fintech companies to help them modernize and grow. The Credit Union Spotlight is a place for both sides to come together to share ideas, discuss new innovations, and talk candidly about where and how to deploy fintech to the greatest effect.”

Space at the Credit Union Spotlight is limited and only employees of credit unions are eligible to attend. To be a part of this exclusive session, reach out to session coordinator [email protected] to save your spot on the guest list.

And if you’re a fintech building solutions for credit unions and their members, the Credit Union Spotlight could be a great opportunity to showcase your innovation directly to credit union executives. Reach out to us at [email protected] to learn more.

Interested in hearing more insights from credit union leaders? Check out our roster of credit union executives who will be speaking on our main and industry stages at FinovateFall 2026 next month.

Wednesday, September 9

Sherry Wu, Chief Technology Officer, University of Michigan Credit Union, will share her insights on our Power Panel: Agentic AI Will Be Revolutionary—As AI Moves from Theory to Pilots, What Are the Opportunities? How FIs are Using AI to Make or Save Money. 5:15 pm—5:45 pm.

Thursday, September 10

Ben Maxim, Chief Digital Strategy & Innovation Officer, MSU Federal Credit Union, will join our Expert Debate: Show Me the Money—Proven AI Use Cases That Delivered ROI in 12 Months. 10:45 am—11:20 am.

Friday, September 11

Ning Duong, President and CEO, Financial Center First Credit Union, will share her insights as part of our Power Panel on our Customer Experience & Trust stage: Customer-Centric Banking & Experience Transformation—From Product Led to Life-Stage, Personalized, AI-Enabled Engagement. 11:25 am—11:55 am.

Darius Wise, President and CEO, Red Rocks Credit Union, will join our Power Panel: Distribution Wars—Deposits, Embedded Finance & Platform Economics. How Can Banks and Credit Unions Acquire, Retain, and Monetize Customers in a Fragmented Ecosystem? 2:10 pm—2:40 pm.

Ami Iceman Haueter, Chief Research and Digital Experience Officer, MSU Federal Credit Union, will be a part of our Power Panel: Bank—Fintech Partnerships: From Competition to Collaboration & Co-Creation. 2:55 pm—3:25 pm.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

True Potential Joins Origo’s Integration Hub, Giving Advisers Greater Access to Valuation Data

True Potential Joins Origo’s Integration Hub, Giving Advisers Greater Access to Valuation Data
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, True Potential
  • Wealth management firm True Potential has partnered with financial data infrastructure firm Origo, joining the company’s Integration Hub.
  • Joining the Integration Hub will put automated, daily investment and pension valuations directly into the existing workflows of financial advisers on True Potential’s platform.
  • Headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK and founded in 2007, True Potential made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014.

UK-based wealth management company True Potential has teamed up with Origo, a financial data infrastructure company that specializes in wealth management and pension schemes. True Potential will join the firm’s Integration Hub, giving advisers the ability to access automated, data-rich, daily valuations from multiple providers directly in their current workflows.

“For today’s advisers, choosing a back-office partner is about making a decision on where they want to be in five years and how to remove some of the obstacles that stand between them and their clients,” True Potential Adviser Services CEO Gregg Lang said. “Manual valuation requests are exactly that kind of obstacle—time-consuming, error-prone, and entirely avoidable. Our partnership with Origo, along with existing processes, will give advisers even more time to focus on what they do best—giving brilliant advice—and is the latest in a series of investments True Potential has made in the tools that allow advisers to run better businesses, serve more clients and grow with confidence.”

The Origo Integration Hub is a popular option for financial services providers, platforms, and adviser technology ecosystems, providing a single connection that delivers automated valuation data directly into existing workflows. By standardizing and routing everything from account opening, trading instructions and transaction histories to pension and investment valuations and remuneration data, the Integration Hub removes administrative complexity by eliminating the need for multiple point-to-point integrations. Currently live and available to True Potential’s Directly Authorized advisers, the new service can be activated on an opt-in basis by advisers at no additional cost and requiring no new processes or procedures.

“Advisers should not have to contend with fragmented, manual processes to access something as fundamental as valuation data,” Origo CEO Anthony Rafferty said. “We are delighted to welcome True Potential to the Origo Integration Hub, marking another important step forward as our network grows to more than 65 connected organizations across the industry.”

Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, Origo helps financial services companies improve performance, become more efficient, and reduce integration costs while enhancing financial outcomes for customers. The company’s Integration Hub delivers faster connections between advisers’ software systems, platforms, and providers—which can then share data between different parties connected to the Hub. The result is improved and simplified integrations between organizations and trading partners, as well as an extended market reach that helps smaller firms compete with larger ones. Origo also offers transfer services and tracking, asset migration, and mortality screening.

A Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateFall 2014, True Potential was founded in 2007. The company combines personal financial advice and leading technology to offer advisers a hybrid advice approach to helping people reach their financial goals. True Potential offers tax, savings, inheritance, and investment advice services as well as ISAs, pensions, and cash savings services.

True Potential began the year with an announcement that its True Potential Investments division had appointed Amundi as a strategic investment solutions partner for its Growth-Aligned fund management team. The partnership will include the provision of bespoke index-level funds for True Potential’s Growth-Aligned fund, streamlining portfolio construction and enabling greater client transparency.

“Delivering exceptional client outcomes is our number one focus, so we are always looking at how we can evolve and improve our investment strategy to deliver those outcomes,” True Potential Investments Chief Executive Officer Jeff Casson said. “This appointment is a strategic move that demonstrates our agile approach to investment management and will allow us to build on the top quartile investment performance we already deliver for our thousands of clients.”

Photo by Kamil on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Caribbean: Instant Payments, Digital Banking, and Credit Analytics

Finovate Global Caribbean: Instant Payments, Digital Banking, and Credit Analytics
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, Finovate Global, PayPal

This week’s edition of Finovate Global highlights recent fintech announcements from the countries of the Caribbean.

Belize Bank Inks Digital Modernization Partnership with Backbase

The biggest bank in Belize is also among the first financial institution in the Caribbean to embrace a full retail and business digital banking stack in addition to AI-powered lending and onboarding. Belize Bank Limited announced this week that it has partnered with Backbase in a major, six-year partnership to implement the company’s AI-native banking OS.

The financial institution, with more than $1 billion in total assets and the nation’s largest branch network, had sought a platform that would scale with its growing operations and provide consistently high-quality digital experiences across its customer base. Deploying Backbase’s AI-native Banking OS for both retail and business banking will enable Belize Bank to replace fragmented workflows with self-service, accelerated digital onboarding, and unified cash-flow visibility for business customers. Importantly, Backbase’s Banking OS sits above Belize Bank’s existing banking core, leveraging Backbase’s Connectivity Layer (Grand Central) to provide seamless integration with the bank’s existing systems.

“Belize Bank is exactly the kind of institution Backbase was built for—a market leader that takes its responsibility to customers seriously and wants technology that matches that ambition,” Backbase CEO Jouk Pleiter said. “Embarking on this comprehensive modernization across retail, SME and digital lending is a true reflection of the strategic discipline of the team at Belize Bank. We are proud to partner with them to architect the financial backbone of Belize’s future economy.”

Belize Bank Limited is both the country’s oldest and largest financial institution. The full-service commercial bank holds approximately 43% of the nation’s total banking assets and serves 100,000 retail and business banking clients. Headquartered in Belize City, Belize Bank was founded in 1987.

“Our strategic partnership with Backbase represents a transformative step toward delivering a new era of banking—one that is seamless, intelligent, personalized, and built around the evolving needs of our customers,” Belize Bank Limited Executive Chairman Filippo Alario said. “By combining Backbase’s innovation with Belize Bank’s commitment to excellence and customer-first vision, we are laying the foundation for a future where digital banking goes beyond transactions—creating more meaningful connections, empowering our customers, and transforming the way Belizeans experience banking.”

Four-time Finovate Best of Show winner Backbase was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Amsterdam. The company’s AI-native Banking OS transforms fragmented banking operations and workflows into a unified frontline in which customers, employees, and AI agents work as one across digital channels, front-office, and operations. More than 120 leading banks around the world use Backbase’s technology solutions across verticals ranging from retail, small business, commercial, and private banking to wealth management.

Creditinfo Group Acquires EveryData Group to Boost Caribbean Presence

UK-based Creditinfo Group has completed its acquisition of EveryData Group, a data, analytics, and software company operating in the Caribbean. The acquisition is the culmination of a long-term partnership between the two firms, and will enable Creditinfo Group to bring advanced technology and new data solutions to financial institutions and consumers throughout the region. The greater technology integration and shared infrastructure across Creditinfo Group’s global network will also benefit customers of both firms.

“This acquisition reinforces our commitment to helping build stronger financial ecosystems around the world,” Satty Saha, Group CEO at Creditinfo Group, said. “EveryData has built an impressive business with a strong reputation across the Caribbean, and together we are well positioned to bring greater innovation and value to customers throughout the region. By combining our global expertise with EveryData’s deep local knowledge, we can accelerate the delivery of new products and technologies that improve access to finance and support economic growth.”

The transaction fortifies Creditinfo Group’s international presence, specifically in the Caribbean, adding primary credit bureau operations across Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, and the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) of St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Anguilla, and Montserrat. The company noted that it will continue investing in technology, talent, and innovation throughout the region, helping leaders and professionals in financial institutions make better decisions while promoting financial inclusion and sustainable economic development.

Barbados Launches Instant Payment System BiMPay

Launched by the Central Bank of Barbados, a new instant payment scheme BiMPay is now available to individuals and businesses in the country. The new system operates 24/7, on weekends and public holidays, enabling users to send and receive money in seconds. BiMPay, according to officials, will help modernize the country’s financial system by making payments faster, more efficient, and more convenient. The first transaction on BiMPay was conducted by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who sent money to a local vendor.

“A modern economy needs a modern payment system,” Central Bank Governor Kevin Greenidge said. “People need to be able to send money quickly. Businesses need to be able to receive funds and have them available to spend. Vendors want to get their funds and access their money immediately. We need a space to innovate, to compete, and to build the fintech industry that needs to be built.”

The launch of BiMPay comes after months of testing with financial institutions and other stakeholders. Currently, six commercial banks and the country’s three largest credit unions are connected to the BiMPay system. Seven institutions are also linked to the BiMPay e-wallet, which enables users to make payments, request funds, and complete transactions using phone numbers, email addresses, or QR codes.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Israel-based payments and loyalty platform Nayax teamed up with mark-to-market credit and structured finance infrastructure company Zaria Systems.
  • One Zero, a digital bank based in Egypt, announced a new initiative to allow customers to use the AI agent of choice to receive financial information.
  • PayPal and stc pay Bahrain launched a cross border transfer service.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Creditinfo Group aquired EveryData Group to boost its presence throughout the Caribbean
  • Grupo Cibest acquired 100% of Colombian fintech Avista Colombia.
  • Belize Bank announced a new six-year partnership with Backbase to modernize its digital banking operations.

Asia-Pacific

  • Malaysian fintech and digital bank Boost launched its agentic AI banking platform.
  • South Korean fintech KSNet signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solana Foundation to jointly build next-generation digital asset payment infrastructure.
  • VNExpress looked at the evolution of Vietnam’s digital asset industry.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Lithuanian regtech solution provider iDenfy has added Czech Bank iD to its verification platform.
  • Wealth management platform FNZ announced plans to sell its German FNZ Bank business to Advent.
  • Cryptocurrency platform Bybit obtained an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license in Austria.

Photo by Jamie Tudor on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Tavant Integrates with Dark Matter’s Empower LOS

Tavant Integrates with Dark Matter’s Empower LOS
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Tavant
  • AI transformation specialist Tavant is integrating its TOUCHLESS AI mortgage automation platform with the Empower loan origination solution (LOS) from Dark Matter Technologies.
  • The integration is designed to reduce workflow fragmentation and manual handoffs, support faster decision-making, and a more connected loan manufacturing process.
  • Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and founded in 2000, Tavant most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego.

AI transformation specialist Tavant announced the integration of its TOUCHLESS AI mortgage automation platform with Dark Matter Technologies’ Empower loan origination solution (LOS). The integration brings Tavant’s AI-driven automation capabilities to the Empower ecosystem, enabling lenders to streamline underwriting, accelerate cycle times, boost loan quality, and deliver Tavant’s exception-based, data-driven, loan decisioning technology to Empower LOS users.

“Tavant is focused on helping lenders transform mortgage operations with classical, generative, and agentic AI-based automation that delivers measurable efficiency, higher levels of operational productivity, and a far better borrower experience,” Tavant Head of Fintech Products Mohammad Rashid said. “Our integration with Dark Matter extends that vision by augmenting the Empower LOS with TOUCHLESS automation capabilities, making it easier for lenders to adopt agentic workflows, exception-based processing, and automated underwriting and decisioning.”

The integration enables lenders to automate key stages of the mortgage lifecycle, including loan setup, document classification, data extraction and intelligent comprehension, processing, underwriting, conditions management, and pre-close quality checks. The solution provides lenders reduced cost per loan, automation of repetitive and time-intensive tasks, improved data accuracy and consistency. This is thanks to standardized, AI-powered automation and the ability to scale loan production without significant increases in headcount.

The partnership between Tavant and Dark Matter will also be a boon for borrowers, who will benefit from faster approvals, fewer requests for documentation, and a more predictable and transparent lending timeline.

“We designed Empower as an open platform so partners can connect their best ideas directly to our lenders,” Dark Matter CEO Vikas Rao explained. “Tavant’s TOUCHLESS integration is a strong example of the innovation an open platform makes possible, giving lenders more ways to automate and close faster.”

Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and founded in 2023, Dark Matter offers an integrated platform for modern mortgage operations that combines its Empower LOS, next-generation automation, and powerful servicing capabilities to streamline and simplify the lending lifecycle. In addition to Empower LOS and its loan servicing solution Elevate, Dark Matter also offers Exchange: a connected partner marketplace for compliant, secure integrated access to a range of service providers, and Aiva, which provides AI-powered automation for documents, income, asset, and post-close quality control.

Tavant made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2017 and most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. At the conference, the Santa Clara, California-based company demonstrated its LO.ai solution, an AI-powered platform that enhances loan officer productivity and borrower empowerment. LO.ai integrates generative AI, voice-enabled conversational AI, and advanced data security measures to lower costs, increase lead conversion, and guarantee compliance with industry regulations.

Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinovateFall 2026: My Top Five Agenda Picks

FinovateFall 2026: My Top Five Agenda Picks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2026

FinovateFall 2026 is just over a month away. Coming to New York’s Marriott Marquis Times Square, from September 9 through 11, this year’s FinovateFall conference will feature both the familiar—in the form of our signature, seven-minute live fintech demos and standout keynote addresses—and the new, as represented by initiatives ranging from our Credit Union Spotlight to our Executive Debates to our special IMPACT Funders and Founders event.

With so much on offer, it can be easy to miss or overlook a session, panel, or address. To this end, we’re going to spend the next few weeks highlighting some of the presentations we think you won’t want to miss. Today, we look at some of the mainstage addresses on the agenda across all three days of the conference.

Special Address: If You Already Own the AI, Then Why Are You Still Shopping

Featuring Melissa Solis, CEO of Inbenta, this presentation will discuss why most customer experience AI fails on the basics and how to tell apart a vendor that actually delivers from one that just demos. Solis also will offer a framework for auditing your customer experience against what you actually need rather than simply what you are being sold.

Headquartered in Texas, Inbenta offers an agentic AI platform, Encore, that serves financial services, e-commerce, healthcare, and travel with more than 98% accuracy, near-zero hallucinations, full auditability, and more than 850 integrations to help avoid vendor lock-in.

Wednesday, September 9: 10:10 am—10:25 am

Special Address: Introducing Madison—Agentic Workbench for Banks

This session, led by Siva Surendira, Founder and CEO of Lyzr AI, will show how Architect by Lyzr enables business users to describe a problem and get a working, governed AI agent in minutes. Surendira will also explain how thousands of those AI agents provide leadership with a live, crowdsourced view of where automation ROI truly lives.

Lyzr is a category leader in agentic AI infrastructure. The company’s technology powers the internal AI platforms of firms including Accenture and Prophet.

Wednesday, September 9: 3:15 pm—3:30 pm

Special Address: Trust at the Speed of AI

In this special address, Charlie Schilling, CEO of Macabacus, explains why trust rather than caution is what unlocks AI’s full value in finance: trust that the model being built is accurate, trust that the data is consistent across the pitch, and trust that every piece of content is on brand.

Based in New York, Macabacus is a productivity and brand compliance suite for investment banks, private equity, venture capital, financial planning and analysis (FP&A) teams, and consulting firms.

Thursday, September 10: 9:25 am—9:40 am

Quick Fire Keynote: Fraud in the Age of AI. How to Respond When the Attacker Has Better Tools Than You

Senior Director, Global Banking and Payments Intelligence for JD Power, Jennifer White, will share her insights on the challenges faced by banks, credit unions, financial services providers, their members and customers when it comes to the rise of AI-powered fraud and financial crime. White will discuss how fraud and financial crime are being increasingly globalized and industrialized, and how defenses against these threats must evolve in order to keep individuals and systems safe.

JD Power is a leader in business-critical data and intelligence that supports automated decision-making. The company’s proprietary data, advanced analytics, and deep industry expertise supply lenders, insurers, original equipment manufacturers, and other firms with guidance and intelligence about customer interactions with their brands, products, and services.

Thursday, September 10: 4:55 pm—5:05 pm

Out of the Box Keynote Address: AI-Enhanced CX to Create Trust and Loyalty

Jon Lakefish, Founder of the Lakefish Group, will deliver a practical guide to all the AI tools currently available to help enhance the customer experience and how to make the most of them. Lakefish will also host a special hands-on, interactive session in the afternoon (1:10 pm—2:00 pm) in which he will walk participants through real scenarios so they can experience firsthand how AI can save time and money, while enhancing decision-making.

Lakefish Group provides speaking and hands-on workshops, as well as consulting and training, to help businesses take advantage of modern, practical AI tools to enhance their marketing and branding initiatives.

Friday, September 11: 9:50 am—10:20 am

FinovateFall 2026 comes to the Marriott Marquis Times Square, September 9—11. Save up to $400 when you book your ticket by August 21.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

10x Banking Raises £40 Million from AshGrove Capital

10x Banking Raises £40 Million from AshGrove Capital
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: 10x Banking, Funding
  • Core banking platform 10x Banking has raised £40 million ($53.8 million) in funding from AshGrove Capital. The UK-based fintech will use the capital to drive sales and go-to-market activity.
  • The investment comes in the wake of the pair of major announcements from 10x Banking: becoming EBITDA-positive and topping the 10 million live account milestone.
  • Based in London, 10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. Antony Jenkins is Founder, Chair, and CEO.

SaaS core banking platform 10x Banking has secured £40 million ($53.8 million) from AshGrove Capital. The funding will fuel the UK-based fintech’s sales and go-to-market efforts and comes as the company reports becoming EBITDA-positive and surpassing the 10 million live account milestone. Additionally, in the last 12 months, 10x Banking has onboarded 10+ new financial institutions and boosted annual recurring revenue (ARR) by more than 30%.

In the company’s statement, the firm underscored that its recent positive financial outcomes are the result of growing demand from financial institutions seeking to modernize legacy infrastructure, drive continuous product innovation, or develop the data and flexibility necessary to support AI-enabled banking.

“Financial institutions have a clear ambition to innovate, but many remain constrained by infrastructure that was not built for real-time, digital banking,” 10x Banking Founder, Chair, and CEO Antony Jenkins said. “We created 10x to remove those constraints, enabling financial institutions to launch products faster, serve customers in real time, and compete more effectively. Our platform is now proving its value at significant scale. AshGrove’s investment is a strong endorsement of the progress we have made and will help us meet growing demand from banks around the world.”

10x Banking offers a cloud-native, core banking platform that enables banks to deliver new hyper-personalized products, services, and experiences to both retail and corporate customers faster, more efficiently, and more cost-effectively. The platform processes more than 10,000 transactions per second and runs at 99.99% uptime. Leveraging fourth-generation core banking, 10x Banking features a microservices architecture, real-time data screening, an API-first design, and a managed core that allows banks to configure rather than rebuild for each new offering.

“10x Banking has built one of the most compelling technology platforms in core banking today,” AshGrove Capital Co-founder and Managing Partner Phil Fretwell said. “Delivering a cloud-native platform at enterprise scale is exceptionally difficult, yet 10x has already proven its capabilities across millions of live accounts and with some of the world’s leading financial institutions. We believe the company is well positioned to benefit from powerful industry tailwinds as banks continue replacing legacy systems with more flexible, real-time, and AI-ready infrastructure.”

10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in London. At the event, the company demonstrated its 10x SuperCore Cards solution that enables banks to create a card proposition in minutes using the 10x Bank Manager interface. The technology empowers financial institutions to build and launch an enterprise-grade, full-stack, functional cards business solution in as little as 12 weeks. Founded in 2016, 10x Banking counts leading financial institutions such as Westpac and Chase UK among its customers.

Photo by Aron Van de Pol on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Ariel Leachman of Bluum Finance on the Rise of Embedded Investing

Ariel Leachman of Bluum Finance on the Rise of Embedded Investing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, Bluum Finance, Interview

Credit union members and community banking customers readily trust their credit unions and community banks with their capital when it comes to saving and borrowing. But what about investing? In most instances, those same members and customers will seek out other institutions and businesses when it comes to investing for the future and managing their wealth.

What if credit unions and community banks instead could keep those members and customers by catering to their investing and wealth management needs? How might this positively impact customer and member relationships and deepen engagement?

This week, our Finovate First-Timers series features Ariel Leachman, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Bluum Finance. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California and founded in 2025, Bluum Finance offers a unified platform for embedded wealth management and investing, providing brokerage and AI-powered advisory infrastructure via APIs. The company combines multi-asset, multi-market brokerage, custody, and reporting in a single integration, enabling credit unions, banks, and fintechs to offer seamless investing experiences for their members and customers. Bluum Finance made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. Co-founder Ope Sonusi is CEO.

In our conversation, Leachman discusses the opportunity that credit unions and community banks have by integrating investing and wealth management capabilities directly into their existing platforms. Leachman also explains how Bluum Finance streamlines the process for smaller financial institutions, delivering access to a range of asset classes and international markets via a single API. Finally, she shares her thoughts on what it will take to make cross-border investing as easy and commonplace as cross-border payments.

What problem does Bluum Finance solve and who does it solve it for?

Ariel Leachman: Credit unions, community financial institutions, and consumer fintechs have built strong relationships with their customers. The challenge is that when those customers are ready to start investing and building wealth, they often have to leave for another platform. Bluum enables fintechs and financial institutions to launch investing and wealth management directly within their existing platform, enabling them to expand their offering, generate new revenue, and strengthen customer relationships.

How does Bluum solve this problem better than other companies?

Leachman: Many embedded investing platforms focus primarily on trade execution. We take a broader approach by combining multi-asset investing, AI-powered wealth management, and the underlying brokerage infrastructure in a single platform. Rather than having to stitch together brokerage, custody, compliance, reporting, and portfolio guidance from multiple providers, our partners can launch through one API while we manage much of the complexity behind the scenes. Our platform also supports a range of asset classes and international markets, giving financial institutions a single platform to help their customers build diversified investment portfolios.

Who are Bluum’s primary customers and how do you reach them?

Leachman: Our primary customers are consumer fintechs, community banks, and credit unions that want to add investing and wealth management to their existing product offering without the high cost and operational lift of building a brokerage platform from scratch. Most of these institutions already have strong customer relationships and are looking for practical ways to expand their offering while keeping the experience simple for both their teams and customers. We primarily reach them through direct relationships, strategic partnerships, and industry events like Finovate.

Can you tell us about a favorite implementation or deployment of your technology, or a particularly valuable partnership experience?

Leachman: One of the most rewarding parts of building Bluum has been working with financial institutions that genuinely want to help their customers build long-term wealth. Credit unions, in particular, have earned a tremendous amount of trust within their communities. Helping them extend that relationship beyond everyday banking into investing feels especially meaningful because it allows more people to access wealth-building tools through an institution they already know and trust.

What in your background gave you the confidence to respond to this challenge?

Leachman: As co-founders, we’ve spent years working in financial services and technology before launching Bluum. My co-founder, Ope Sonusi, spent his career building fintech platforms for US and international markets, and I spent my career in investment banking and private equity, building deep expertise in capital markets, investment products, and financial institutions. As we spent more time speaking with financial institutions and fintechs, one thing became clear: many wanted to offer investing, but the infrastructure required to do it was too costly and complex. That insight became the foundation for building a platform like Bluum Finance.

You demoed at FinovateSpring in May of this year. How was the experience?

Leachman: FinovateSpring was a great experience. It gave us the opportunity to demo the Bluum platform and engage directly with credit unions, community financial institutions, fintechs, and industry leaders to better understand their priorities around investing, wealth management, and member engagement. The event reinforced our view that embedded investing and wealth management are becoming essential components of the modern digital banking experience, and that financial institutions are looking for simple, compliant solutions they can bring to market quickly.

You have talked about the opportunities in frontier and emerging markets and how the challenge is making cross-border investing as seamless as cross-border payments. Can you elaborate on this idea?

Leachman: Cross-border payments have become dramatically easier over the past decade. Today, a financial institution can enable cross-border payments through a single integration without having to build the underlying infrastructure. Cross-border investing hasn’t evolved in the same way. Offering investment access across markets still requires coordinating brokers, custody providers, regulatory requirements, and reporting, which creates a lot of complexity.

Our goal is to simplify that experience so financial institutions can offer access to both US and international markets without having to manage the high cost and onerous operational lift themselves. We believe the next evolution of financial services will make cross-border investing as seamless and accessible across global markets.

What are your goals for Bluum Finance over the balance of 2026 and into next year?

Leachman: We are focused on growing our partnerships with financial institutions, consumer fintechs, and credit unions. We’ve seen strong interest from institutions that want to offer investing but don’t want to build and operate the infrastructure themselves, so we’re focused on helping more partners bring those capabilities to market. We’re also excited about expanding the range of investment opportunities available through Bluum, including private markets and digital assets.

Photo by PiggyBank on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Connect Credit Union Turns to Appli for AI-Powered Smart Financial Calculators

Connect Credit Union Turns to Appli for AI-Powered Smart Financial Calculators
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Appli
  • Connect Credit Union, a Florida-based financial institution with $103 million in assets, has partnered with smart financial calculator builder, Appli.
  • Appli’s AI-powered calculators are designed to turn passive visitors into active financial consumers by enabling them to assess loan opportunities, calculate property values in real-time, plan for retirement, and more.
  • Founded in 2024 and headquartered in Cedar Hills, Utah, Appli made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025 in New York.

Florida-based Connect Credit Union has teamed up with Appli, builder of AI-powered smart financial calculators, to provide members with a new, interactive way to learn about their lending options, assess how best to save for future goals, and identify optimal savings instruments.

“Connect’s members are digitally savvy, and they expect that from every part of their credit union experience now, not just online banking,” Appli CEO Tim Pranger said. “Rolling this out right after their website relaunch means members will see it as part of one connected upgrade, not a separate tool bolted on later.”

Appli’s AI-powered smart financial calculators are designed to convert passive visitors into active financial consumers. Embedded in websites, mobile banking apps, and across marketing campaigns, Appli’s solutions deliver real-time, personalized experiences that boost consumer confidence and drive conversions, giving financial institutions the ability to guide customers and members through major loan and savings decisions.

The credit union will use Appli’s calculators for auto loans, personal loans, mortgages, and balance transfers. Scheduled to go live with the new offering in September, Connect Credit Union anticipates introducing smart calculators for other products over time. The partnership comes in the wake of the credit union’s website relaunch of its website, making the calculators part of the institution’s brand refresh.

“Financial decisions can feel overwhelming, particularly when members are trying to determine what fits comfortably within their budgets,” Connect Credit Union EVP/COO Cynthia Ryan said. “Appli gives our members an easy, interactive way to explore financial scenarios, better understand their options, and make decisions with greater confidence. This partnership allows us to combine the convenience of technology with the personal service and trusted guidance our members expect from Connect Credit Union.”

Connect Credit Union serves employees of the State of Florida, retirees of the Florida Department of Transportation, and those who live and work in Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, De Soto, Glades, Okeechobee, and Charlotte counties in south and central Florida. Founded in 1962, the financial institution has $103 million in assets and offers services and products including auto loans, mortgages, home equity and personal loans, debit and credit cards, as well as savings, checking, and money market accounts.

Founded in 2024 and headquartered in Cedar Hills, Utah, Appli made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Smart Financial Calculators and its newest loan lead generation platform. Appli’s technology is designed to capture high-intent shoppers, convert interest into action, and provide financial institutions with data-driven insights to help them grow deposits, increase loan volume, and secure long-term revenue growth.

Interested in companies that are developing innovative solutions for credit unions and their members? FinovateFall 2026 will feature a special credit union spotlight and networking session on Tuesday, September 8. Learn more about this unique, invite-only opportunity.

Photo by Roman on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Visa Acquires Behavioral Biometrics Innovator BioCatch for $2.4 Billion

Visa Acquires Behavioral Biometrics Innovator BioCatch for $2.4 Billion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Mergers & Acquisitions, VISA
  • Digital payments giant Visa has agreed to acquire fraud and financial crime prevention platform BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash.
  • The acquisition will add to Visa’s existing cyber, fraud, risk, and security solutions and provide greater defense against newer threats including account takeover and money mule fraud.
  • BioCatch was founded in 2011. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

Visa has inked a definitive agreement to acquire behavioral and device intelligence innovator BioCatch. Visa will purchase the company from funds advised by Permira and other shareholders for $2.4 billion in cash. The move will add to Visa’s current array of cyber, fraud, risk, and security solutions and is expected to be especially helpful in managing threats such as account takeovers, scams, money mules, and application fraud.

Subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of all relevant regulatory approvals, the acquisition is expected to close by the end of Visa’s fiscal Q2 of 2027.

“Real-time insights into customer intent continue to grow increasingly essential for institutions to establish trust within digital banking sessions,” BioCatch CEO Gadi Mazor said. “For more than a decade, we’ve demonstrated behavior’s unique ability to distinguish the criminal from the legitimate. In the last couple of years, we’ve shown how real-time intelligence-sharing networks between our customers can amplify the power of our behavioral intelligence further still. Together with Visa, we’re even better positioned to advance our mission of making the world a safer place to transact and protect consumers from financial crime.”

BioCatch offers AI and machine learning-based solutions that analyze thousands of application, behavioral, device, and network signals such as keystrokes and mouse activity, touch gestures, and device handling. This enables BioCatch’s technology to detect fraud and distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent users in real time. BioCatch’s models provide continuous monitoring to assess user intent and identify signs of potential coercion or manipulation throughout the digital banking session. More than 350 financial institutions around the world leverage BioCatch’s technology to protect 760+ million users from fraud and financial crime.

Visa’s acquisition of BioCatch comes at a time when AI, biometrics, identity, cyber defense, and fraud prevention are converging. To this point, in addition to this week’s transaction, Visa has launched its Visa Vulnerability Agentic Harness solution, an open-source, AI security tool to help customers spot and mitigate vulnerabilities at scale. Visa noted in a statement that, over the last five years, the company has invested more than $13 billion in technology and infrastructure to secure its payments ecosystem and drive fraud rates lower.

“Account takeovers and scams cost the global economy over $1 trillion annually and AI is enabling these attacks at unprecedented scale,” Visa’s president of value-added services Andrew Torre said. “BioCatch will help our clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment. This acquisition is part of our strategy to help clients prevent cyber threats upstream, building trust into every transaction.”

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in New York, BioCatch made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. In the years since then, the company has grown into a major financial crime prevention platform analyzing 18 billion user sessions per month and protecting 1.7 billion devices. In 2025 alone, BioCatch assessed more than $17 trillion in transactions and prevented $4 billion in fraud.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook