Author: David Penn

NYMBUS Raises $53 Million in Series C Funding

NYMBUS Raises $53 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, NYMBUS

In a round led by existing investor Insight Partners, banking technology company NYMBUS has secured $53 million in new funding. The Series C round is the company’s largest funding to date, and will help it fulfill its mission of empowering banks and credit unions to leverage digital technology to create new revenue streams.

“As the pandemic has pushed digital to the forefront, more banks and credit unions have turned to Nymbus as their partner for growth,” explained Nymbus’ Jeffrey Kimball, who took the helm as the company’s CEO last September. “This new and significant investment validates a confidence in Nymbus to continue transforming the financial services industry with a banking strategy that buys back decades of lost time to speed digital innovation.”

As part of the funding, Insight Partners principal A.J. Malhotra will join Managing Director Peter Sobiloff on the Nymbus Board of Directors. In the funding announcement, Sobiloff underscored the ability of companies like Nymbus to help financial institutions bridge the gap between their digital goals and their legacy systems. “The shift to profitable digital banking is still in its early stages for many traditional institutions,” Sobiloff said, “and Nymbus fills a tremendous hole in the market for enabling these banks and credit unions to finally move beyond playing catchup and set up their businesses for meaningful growth.”

Nymbus noted that the capital – which takes the firm’s total funding to more than $98 million – also will support the launch of its Nymbus Labs initiative. The “soon-to-be-unveiled” project is designed to make it easier for financial institutions to “leverage niche digital banks” to better engage their customers, uncover new revenue opportunities, and drive innovation.

Nymbus most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2019. At the conference, the Miami Beach, Florida-based company demonstrated SmartLaunch, its full-service, standalone digital bank alternative. In the time since, the company has partnered with PeoplesBank to launch a digital-first alternative ZYNLO, teamed up with NYDIG to help the Bitcoin-based financial services firm offer Bitcoin banking, and announced a pair of C-suite hires: Sarah Howell as Chief Alliance Officer and Larry McClanahan as Chief Product Officer.

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Cirrus Helps Berkshire Bank Deliver on SBA and PPP Lending

Cirrus Helps Berkshire Bank Deliver on SBA and PPP Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cirrus Secure

One of the biggest impacts of COVID-19 in the financial services world has been to invigorate the relationship between banks and fintechs. This week’s news that Berkshire Bank has turned to cloud-based document management solution provider Cirrus to help it manage financial relief efforts for small businesses is another example of this trend.

“Cirrus’ portal plays a key role in expediting the process of managing SBA loans, enabling Berkshire Bank to collaborate remotely, execute rapidly, and scale quickly to efficiently address the influx in loan requests and alleviate the document chaos associated with SBA lending,” Cirrus founder and CEO David Brooks explained.

Challenged with a massive inflow of SBA loan requests, including 942 Paycheck Protection Program loans on the program’s first day, Berkshire Bank will also benefit from real-time transparency into the progress of each loan. The combination of automation and greater visibility via the integration make the overall lending process faster and more efficient, for both the bank and the customer.

This capacity, Brooks noted in an article written last month, is important. But so is scalability and the ability of businesses and the solutions they depend on to react and adapt to new potential challenges. “With a new administration in place, it is uncertain what additional relief programs may be on the horizon,” Brooks wrote. “By taking time to evaluate existing technology and operational workflows to ensure they are configurable and scalable to support PPP, financial institutions will be better positioned to accommodate future programs.”

Headquartered in Evergreen, Colorado, Cirrus works with banks and other businesses to help them better manage the document processing needs of their commercial and small business accountholders during onboarding and when seeking financing. The company made its Finovate debut last year at our all-digital conference, demonstrating version six of its front-end document management solution.

Founded in 2018, Cirrus includes The FIS FinTech Accelerator in Partnership with The Venture Center and Queen City Fintech among its investors.

Berkshire Bank operates 130 branch offices in New England and New York, and has $12.9 billion in assets. The bank is owned by Berkshire Hills Bancorp, a Boston, Massachusetts-based bank holding company.

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Mambu and Signicat Team Up to Digitize Identity Management in Europe

Mambu and Signicat Team Up to Digitize Identity Management in Europe
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global, Mambu, Signicat

A just-announced partnership between two Finovate alums – Mambu and Signicat – will bring digitized identity management services to banks, fintechs, and financial service providers across Europe. The collaboration between the SaaS banking platform and the digital identity company is designed to help institutions in the region leverage innovations in identity management to boost customer acquisition, enhance the customer experience, and defend against identity fraud.

The single-API integration between Signicat’s identity platform and Mambu will enable users to apply a variety of digital identity verification solutions to a range of processes, including onboarding, identity authentication, and e-signatures. In their joint statement, both companies highlighted abandonment as one challenge the new integration will help companies meet. They noted that 63% of consumers in Europe quit at least one financial app in the last year, citing research conducted by Signicat.

At the same time, the integration also will help companies deal with the new environment for cybercrime, particularly identity fraud, which has flourished in the work-from-home, COVID-19 era. “Identity fraud continues to be a major threat to businesses across the globe and damages trust,” Mambu Managing Director for EMEA Eelco-Jan Boonstra said. “And with everyone working from home – the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this. Therefore financial service providers are relying on customer trust and loyalty more than ever.”

Asger Hattel, who took over as Signicat’s CEO in January of last year, underscored the way the pandemic had accelerated pre-existing trends toward digitization. “Global lockdowns have turned a desire for digital services into an urgent need,” Hattel said. “Our research into consumer attitudes towards onboarding show that financial service providers are struggling to keep up with consumer’s digital demands – and it is costing them customers.”

Mambu’s partnership with Signicat comes in the wake of the Mambu’s $132+ million (€110 million) fundraising last month – which brought the company’s total valuation to more than $2 billion (€1.7 billion). Also last month, Mambu announced the addition of new Chief Financial Officer Langley Eide. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Mambu is an alum of both our Finovate conferences – debuting in 2013 at FinovateAsia – and our event for developers and engineers – FinDEVr New York, in 2016.

Based in Trondheim, Norway, Signicat specializes in providing identity assurance worldwide, enabling banks to leverage existing customer identity to accelerate onboarding, improve access to services, and connect users, devices, and more across channels and markets. A Finovate alum since 2017, Signicat has raised $8.8 million in funding from investors including Horizon 2020, Viking Venture, and Secure Identity Holding.

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Bitcoin and Wealth Building in the Black Community

Bitcoin and Wealth Building in the Black Community
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Diversity in Fintech

Can cryptocurrencies play a role in bringing the benefits of modern – or even post-modern – finance to underserved African American communities? Is it possible that bitcoin could be the key to enabling black Americans to close with wealth gap with their non-black fellow citizens?

Provocative as it sounds, this is the thesis of Isaiah Jackson, co-founder of KRBE Digital Assets Group. Jackson’s book Bitcoin & Black America makes the case that a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin has a number of features that make it an important ingredient in the kind of economic independence he believes would benefit black Americans. In an interview with Forbes’ Jason Brett last summer, Jackson noted that during the golden era of black-owned banking in the United States – the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War – the existence of multiple currencies played a significant part in supporting the development of community-based financial institutions. This, in turn, helped build the first black middle class in the U.S.

Jackson sees Bitcoin playing a similar role today. He approves of both Bitcoin’s deflationary nature, which he says encourages savings over spending, and its “circular economy” which – not unlike the economy of 19th century black banking – exists significantly outside of a traditional banking system Jackson decries as racist.

With a background as a computer scientist, as well as a Bitcoin consultant and trader, Jackson is nevertheless wary about a future in which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are common. To the extent that human nature endures, discriminatory practices like redlining, in his opinion, are likely to follow us into our digital future – with the moral (or immoral) panic of the day incentivizing regulators to monitor and restrict certain digital currency transactions from certain people or communities. And if history is any guide, the negative impacts of these restrictions are most likely to fall on those least able to manage them.

Nevertheless, when it comes to the potential for Bitcoin to make a difference for black Americans, Washington is a believer. “For the first time in history,” Washington told CNBC in an interview last month, “we have a Plan B option to the current financial system which has seen years of redlining, racial discrimination, and other egregious acts by retail banks to the Black community.”

The second edition of Bitcoin and Black America is currently available via pre-order. The new edition features seven additional chapters including information on Bitcoin specifically for small business owners, as well as a roster of more than 200+ black professionals working in the Bitcoin industry.

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Yoco Reaches 120,000 Served Milestone; Five Top Insurtechs in Vietnam

Yoco Reaches 120,000 Served Milestone; Five Top Insurtechs in Vietnam
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Yoco

The rise of insurtech – entrepreneurs and innovators looking to do for insurance what fintechs have done for financial services – is a global phenomenon. And one of the areas where insurtech is beginning to take hold is Vietnam. The country experienced a fintech mini-boom from 2017 to 2019 which, among other things, helped put the country’s nascent insurtech market on the map. This week’s Finovate Global Lists shares Fintech News Singapore’s roundup of insurtechs operating in the APAC market of Vietnam that are leveraging everything from mobile to machine learning to bring digital insurance to the more than 97 million citizens of the country.

INSO. Founded in 2018. Headquartered in Hanoi, INSO offers insurance products online as well as the ability to make claims online. The company was among the first in the country to offer flight delay insurance. Vũ Nguyễn Thuỳ Vân is CEO.

OPES. Founded in 2018. Headquartered in Hanoi, OPES Insurance Joint Stock Company is a pioneer in Vietnam’s digital insurance industry. OPES specializes in providing personalized insurance solutions to empower customers rather than brokers.

Papaya. Founded in 2018. Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Papaya offers a one-stop shop for employee benefits to promote health and wellness. Hung Phan is co-founder and CEO.

Save Money. Founded in 2013. Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Save Money is a B2B2C digital insurance platform for banks, hospitals, and telecommunication companies. Trần Quang Ninh is founder and CEO.

Wicare. Founded in 2018. Headquartered in Hanoi, Wicare is a lifestyle insurance company that leverage gamification to boost engagement and encourage customers to exercise. Quang Ngoc Nguyen is founder and CEO.

It’s been more than two years since Finovate launched its first conference on the African continent. In that time, we’ve seen a number of alums from FinovateAfrica in the fintech news headlines: Best of Show-winning digital wealth technology company Bambu raised $10 million, credit decisioning solution provider RISQ teamed up with Aion Digital, and this week, small business solution provider Yoco, headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, reported that it has reached a major milestone: more than 120,000 small businesses served.

“Through our platform and the results of a recent merchant survey, we have seen up to a 90% decrease in in-person transactions since the lockdown began,” Yoco CEO told TechGist Africa last year when it launched a trio of new payment solutions to support online transactions for small businesses. “We knew that the best way to support our merchants was to develop products that would enable them to do business online and keep money coming in through this period.”

This week for Finovate Global Voices we present Bradley Wattrus, Yoco CFO and co-founder, and Clayton Brett, Capital Product Owner, demoing the Yoco Capital solution for SMEs at FinovateAfrica 2018.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

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Dave “The Ambassador” Birch Joins Digital Jersey

Dave “The Ambassador” Birch Joins Digital Jersey
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Speaker series

Consult Hyperion’s Global Ambassador – and frequent Finovate keynote speaker – David Birch is bringing his diplomatic talents to Digital Jersey, where he has been named the Fintech Ambassador for the island-based technology hub.

“I’m delighted to take on this role with Digital Jersey,” Birch said in a statement. “After visiting the island many times over the last few years, I have seen first-hand the opportunities provided by the technology and regulatory infrastructure there. This, combined with its world-class connectivity with an agile, innovative mindset, makes Jersey an interesting proposition in the Fintech space. I’m looking forward to working more closely with the DJ team.”

The largest of the islands in the English Channel between England and France, Jersey is home to Digital Jersey, a state-supported economic development agency and association designed to help grow the island’s digital sector. Established in 2013, Digital Jersey offers a co-working space for technology workers (with both hot and dedicated desks), as well as a lab designed specifically for testing IoT solutions, Digital Jersey Xchange (DJX). In addition to promoting sustainable economic growth on the estimated 107,000-person island and creating a “connected, digital society and enhanced quality of life” there, Digital Jersey also seeks to establish itself as a world-renowned digital center.

“Dave has an excellent reputation built through decades of experience,” Digital Jersey CEO Tony Moretta said. “We know he fully understands the unique advantages we have here in Jersey and will help spread the message off-island that we are open for business in the fintech arena.”

Formally known as the Balliwick of Jersey, the 45 square mile island has been the site of a significant amount of technology innovation compared to its larger, neighboring jurisdictions. Jersey was a pioneer in bringing full-fiber broadband to every home and, in 2016, the Jersey Financial Services Commission, was among the first jurisdictions in the world to implement a virtual currency regime.

Hear David Birch talk more about Jersey and fintech innovation. And check out our most recent conversation with “The Ambassador”, discussing one of his most commonly-requested topics: banks, digital identity, and the challenge of Big Tech.

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PayKey Unveils New Embedded Banking Solution

PayKey Unveils New Embedded Banking Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: PayKey

Tel Aviv-based fintech PayKey, which won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at our London conference in 2019, announced the availability of its new embedded banking solution this week. The offering leverages PayKey’s smartphone keyboard to enable users to manage investments and apply for personal loans directly without having to leave their WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter app. PayKey’s embedded solution allows users to simply tap on their banks’ logo within the mobile keyboard and get instant access to their investment portfolios – as well as the ability to balance checks, pay bills, and make P2P payments – as seamlessly as a text chat.

“Embedded solutions like PayKey’s keyboard are vital to helping banks engage with customers at the right time and with personalized products,” said company CEO Sheila Kagan. “Investments and personal financing are just the beginning and we’re excited to continue expanding our embedded keyboard solution in the future to help banks support their customers financial health even further.”

The company sees the new functionality as a timely addition given the surge of interest in stock trading, most recently evidenced by the Reddit/Gamestop/Robinhood market frenzy early in the month. The offering also takes advantage of the embedded finance trend of enabling users to access a wider range of functionalities from a singular app or interface. The result is a smoother, more seamless experience, and a way for technology innovators to provide more features that customers want without overly complicating the process to access or use them.

PayKey’s technology has gone live with more than 20 leading banks around the world, including ING and Unicredit. Standard Chartered Bank Korea announced that it was launching the new solution within its SC Mobile Banking app back in August.

Founded in 2014 by Daniel Peled and Offer Markovich, PayKey has raised more than $26 million in funding.

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Digital Banking Innovator Narmi Tops $20 Million in New Funding

Digital Banking Innovator Narmi Tops $20 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

In a round led by New Enterprise Associates, a featuring the participation of more than twelve investors – including executives from Plaid – digital banking solution provider Narmi has raised $20.4 million in new funding. The investment represents the lion’s share of the New York City-based fintech’s total capital, and will be used to help power Narmi’s mission to enable regional banks and credit unions to compete with big banks and neobanks, alike.

“We started Narmi with the mission to help financial institutions thrive in a digital-first world and that mission hasn’t changed,” company co-founder Nikhil Lakhanpal said. “Since launching over four years ago, we’ve experienced over 100% revenue growth every year, launched four enterprise-grade platforms, and helped our partner financial institutions delivery transformational results.”

Also participating in the Series A round were Patriot Financial Partners, Picus Capital, Contour Ventures, and Firebolt Ventures.

Narmi’s cloud-based, API-powered platform gives financial institutions the ability to leverage its digital account opening, consumer and business digital banking, and administrator console platforms to boost growth, increase deposits, and make operations more efficient. The fintech’s customers have reported a 55% increase in new account applications from non-account holders, a 65% reduction in application time, and a 50% decrease in support volume, helping lower back office costs.

And like many fintechs in the digital banking space, Narmi has seen a dramatic uptick in interest in digital solutions with the onset of the COVID pandemic. The company reported a 70% increase in digital activity and transactions across its customer base.

Partner Radius Bank credited Narmi for helping it launch its online and mobile banking experience “50% to 70% faster” than its competitors. Radius Bank, named one of the Best Online Banks of 2021 by Bankrate, and one of the fastest growing banks in Massachusetts, was acquired by LendingClub a year ago for $185 million. Liz Landsman, General Partner at NEA, further praised Narmi for its “understanding of the challenges that regional banks and credit unions are facing to keep pace with an increasingly digitally-centric customer base in banking today.”

Founded in 2016, Narmi also includes Freedom Credit Union and Berkshire Bank among its customers.

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FinFirst Celebrates SuperApp’s Successful First Year

FinFirst Celebrates SuperApp’s Successful First Year
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, FinFirst, Funding

Two years after its debut at FinovateMiddleEast, Kuwait-based financial services aggregator FinFirst is celebrating a 2020 that saw the company facilitate millions of dollars worth of financing applications since the launch of its financial services app last summer. The company, founded in 2015 by CEO Abbas Hijazi, unveiled a financial superapp that serves as a marketplace for banks and financial services companies to offer auto, personal, student, and healthcare loans, as well as credit cards and Buy Now Pay Later installment loans. FinFirst promises a secure and fast, 20-click application process that averages less than 10 minutes to complete.

FinFirst also announced this week that it has secured a total of $4 million in equity investment. The investors were not disclosed. Hijazi said the funding “demonstrates the level of confidence in the market for a product which is simply transforming the face of the financial services sector.”

Since it began offering services to the small business community in March of last year – just before the COVID-19 crisis hit – FinFirst has received $40 million worth of financing applications from SMEs. FinFirst also has received $7.7 million worth of consumer financing applications since it began offering consumer-based solutions in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The majority of FinFirst’s personal finance customers are pursuing consumer financing – approximately 60% – while auto financing represents the remaining 40%. The company reports a high 90% lead conversion rate on its superapp, making the platform an attractive option for FinFirst’s financial services partners.

“These first-year results stand us in good stead to build upon a solid foundation of strong business and consumer appeal, which is enhanced by the speed and ease of our digital application app,” explained FinFirst Chief Operating Officer Afrah Al-Hubail. She added that FinFirst plans to spend 2021 enhancing its offering, collaborating with financial services providers and fintechs, as well as forging more partnerships and adding new products.

Among the more recent alliances announced by FinFirst is its partnership with Kuwait’s Boubyan Bank. An Islamic digital bank with total assets of more than $17 billion as of 2019, Boubyan Bank has the National Bank of Kuwait as its major shareholder, and is regarded as one of the up-and-coming banks in the Gulf region. The institution’s CEO and Vice Chairman, Adel Al-Majed, was named Arab Banker of the Year 2020 by The Union of Arab Banks.

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Visa to Enable Cryptocurrency Trading

Visa to Enable Cryptocurrency Trading
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Cryptocurrency, VISA

For those still waiting for greater institutional endorsement of digital assets, the news that Visa will enable cryptocurrency trading on its network should come as a welcome sign.

Visa CEO and chairman Alfred Kelly announced the plan in an earnings call last week. Kelly noted that not only would Visa allow buying and selling of cryptocurrencies on its platform, but also that the company was “uniquely positioned” to do so, and to do so safely and securely.

Visa’s plan is to divide digital assets into two categories: cryptocurrencies and digital currencies. Cryptocurrencies, per Kelly, represent the “digital gold” of the digital asset market insofar as they are not typically used as a form of payment. For these assets, Visa plans to work with wallets and exchanges to allow users to buy these currencies using their Visa credentials. Visa also plans to enable users to cash out of their cryptocurrencies onto a Visa credential to make fiat-money purchases wherever Visa is accepted globally.

With regard to digital currencies, Visa defines these assets as “fiat-backed digital currencies including stablecoins and central bank digital currencies.” These assets, per Kelly, could find use cases in global commerce “much like any other fiat currency” and could run on public blockchains as additional networks much like RTP and ACH rails.

Kelly noted that Visa already has a strong relationship with 35 digital currency platforms and wallets, including BlockFi and BitPanda. These partnerships, Visa claimed, represent potentially more than 50 million Visa credentials – a significant size advantage over the company’s rivals. “And it goes without saying,” Kelly added, “to the extent a specific digital currency becomes a recognized means of exchange, there’s no reason why we cannot add it to our network, which already supports over 160 currencies today.”

Visa’s positive news on cryptocurrencies comes on the heels of the company’s announcement that its planned $5.3 billion acquisition of fintech infrastructure provider and fellow Finovate alum Plaid is now off the table. Visa is an alum of both our Finovate conferences, making its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring ten years ago, and participating in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, four years later in 2014.

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Robinhood Raises $3.4 Billion in Whirlwind Weekend Funding

Robinhood Raises $3.4 Billion in Whirlwind Weekend Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news

It looks like the Merry Men of Ribbit Capital have come to the rescue of the social trading app named after the mythological bowman who robbed from the rich to give to the poor.

Between the final trading days of January and the first trading day of February, Robinhood has raised a whopping $3.4 billion in convertible debt financing. The financing was provided to help the brokerage firm manage the tidal wave of activity that the platform experienced during last week’s trading moshpit in shares of heavily-shorted GameStop.

And with the additional participation from Little Johns and Friar Tucks like Iconiq Capital, Adreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Index Ventures, and NEA, it looks like the social trading app for Millennials has more than picked up the requisite funding to continue its mission of serving its increasingly active trading and investing clientele. Note that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the company’s clearing house initially had requested $3 billion in margin deposits last Thursday, before lowering the requirement by more than 75% to $700 million.

“This funding is a strong sign of confidence from investors and will help us build for the future and continue to serve people through the exponential growth we’ve seen this year,” Robinhood’s blog read on Monday morning.

With more than 13 million users – and an alleged 600,000 new accounts added on Friday alone – Menlo Park, California-based Robinhood has become the face of retail trading in recent months. The company raised more than $1 billion in funding last year as a stimulus-fueled stock market – and an absence of opportunities for other financial-risk taking such as sports betting – helped drive short-term traders into the gamified, regular Joe-enabling, environment of Robinhood. The online trading and investing platform offers the ability to buy and sell stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), options, gold, and cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin – all commission-free.

“We’re witnessing a movement of everyday people taking control of their own financial future, many investing for the first time through Robinhood,” the blog post continued. “With this funding, we’ll build and enhance our products that give more people access to the financial system.”

As the frenzy in trading over Gamestop shares grew, Robinhood came under pressure for its decision to restrict trading in the shares, as well as in a number of other stocks that had experienced similar spikes in activity. Although Robinhood’s actions were clearly permissible given its Term of Agreement, the episode further fueled the Us (retail trader) vs Them (Wall Street hedge fund) narrative that, ironically, Robinhood was founded to champion on behalf of the “Us.”

Ribbit Capital Managing Partner Micky Malka spoke to this irony in his comment about the funding. “Robinhood has served millions of people who have felt left behind by America’s financial system,” Malka said. “We’re confident that Robinhood will emerge stronger through this phase of growth and unprecedented demand.”

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Neobanks in South America; Swedish Payments Firm Trustly Eyes $11 Billion IPO

Neobanks in South America; Swedish Payments Firm Trustly Eyes $11 Billion IPO
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: EyeVerify, Finovate Global, Nubank, Trustly

Earlier this week we reported on the $400 million Series G closed by Brazilian neobank – and Finovate alum – Nubank. The firm, founded in 2013 and based in Sao Paulo, serves more than 34 million customers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, and offers a digital savings account, a no-fee credit card, as well as personal loans. This week’s investment boosts the company’s total capital to $1.2 billion and gives the Brazilian digital bank a valuation of $25 billion.

We also suggested that Nubank’s news was a good opportunity for fintech fans to “brush up” on fintech in general when it comes to Latin America – and the region’s challenger banking industry in specific. To this end, for this week’s Finovate Global Reports, we are sharing this look at neobanks in South America, courtesy of Fintechnews Switzerland.

“South America has seen an exceptionally dynamic evolution of its neobanking landscape,” the authors wrote, “with now more than 30 live neobanks and digital banks that serve over 50 million customers out of the region’s 430 million+ population (+11%), data from Dutch fintech consultancy firm Fincog shows.”

An Overview of South America’s Booming Neobanking Sector is a great way to get to know how and why challenger banks are finding fertile ground in countries ranging from Brazil and Colombia to Peru and Argentina.

Swedish payments company Trustly, which made its Finovate debut back in 2013 at FinovateEurope in London, is betting that even after a year that featured a record number of initial public offerings, the investing public is hungry for more.

Reuters reported earlier this week that Trustly is planning an initial public offering in Q2 of this year that could earn the company a valuation of $11 billion (EUR 9 billion). Nordic Capital, which acquired Trustly in 2018, is said to be working with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Carnegie, with additional banks to be brought onboard as well. According to Reuters, the company is targeting “late April or early May” for an IPO. Both Trustly and Nordic Capital have not commented on the IPO rumor.

Headquartered in Stockholm and founded in 2008, Trustly specializes in enabling payments directly from customer online bank accounts. Trustly processes more than four million payments a month and reported revenues of EUR 130 million in 2019. The company estimates 2020 revenues of EUR 200 million. Trustly has more than 7,600 bank partners and 600 million consumers in Europe and North America who rely on its account-to-account network to bypass the card networks simply and securely.

In 2019, Trustly merged with PayWithMyBank, a U.S.-based company, to provide what Trustly CEO Oscar Berglund called “the first and only online banking payments network with transatlantic coverage.” Berglund added that the union of the two firms was “transformative” and said it would “accelerate” Trustly’s goal of reaching global coverage.

“Together we’re thrilled to be able to offer merchants and billers a unique alternative to card payments, allowing them to accept payments from 600 million consumers across Europe and the U.S.,” he said.

Earlier this month, Trustly announced the appointment of new Group Chief Financial Officer Mats Backman. Backman comes to Trustly after a tenure as CFO at publicly-traded automotive technology company Veoneer. Last fall, the Swedish payments innovator added a number of executives to its ranks, including Karim Ahmad as its new Global Chief Technology and Product Officer. Ahmad was formerly the Chief Product and Transformation Officer at Paysafe Group.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • EyeVerify, which twice won Finovate Best of Show awards for its biometric authentication technology, may be on the market after being acquired by Ant Financial in 2016 for $100 million.
  • Malaysian-based supply chain finance and P2P financing platform CapBay raises $20 million in Series A.
  • Robowealth, a fintech based in Thailand, secures Series A funding from Beacon Venture Capital, Kasikornbank’s corporate VC arm.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Mobile banking startup Spot Money launches in South Africa, billing itself as the country’s first open banking platform.
  • Kenya-based Safaraicom goes live with its M-Pesa bill management service.
  • Synthesis launches Halo, the first of its kind tap-on-phone contactless payment solution for the African market.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

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