David Penn, Author at Finovate

Mambu and CredoLab Drive Digital Lending for GoBear’s Expansion to Philippines

By David Penn Posted on June 30, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, CredoLab, Finovate Global, Mambu

A pair of Finovate alums have joined forces to help a leading financial platform in Asia launch a lending solution as part of its planned expansion in the region.

German cloud banking platform provider Mambu and alternative credit score provider CredoLab have announced a partnership with GoBear, a financial services platform based in Singapore. The company, founded in 2015 as a metasearch engine and now operating as a financial services platform that has served more than 55 million consumers, plans to expand into the Philippines later this year. Technology from Mambu will power the core system in GoBear’s lending architecture, with CredoLab’s credit scoring helping ensure the company is able to bring financing to those communities that need it most – and often struggle to secure it.

“Having access to responsible credit should be a financial right for all,” GoBear Chief Lending Officer Mike Singh said. “Tapping into fintech solutions like Mambu’s and CredoLab’s brings us one step closer to making this a reality for the region’s 296 million unbanked or underbanked.”

The tripartite partnership was the result of a pair of relationships; Mambu and CredoLab have been long-time partners, while CredoLab and GoBear collaborated as recently as November 2018, when the two companies worked together on a credit solution for the underbanked.

“In less than five years of operation, GoBear has built a stellar reputation as a leading financial services platform and we envisage great things for the company as it continues to build its lending business,” Mambu Managing Director for APAC Myles Bertrand said. He pointed out that the company’s technology would enable GoBear to readily add new products while maintaining a high level of customer service.

CredoLab CEO Peter Barcak pointed to his company’s SDK, API, and alternative credit score – which leverages metadata from smartphone usage – as powerful tools for companies like GoBear that are trying to serve a broader array of customers. “Our ability to generate a credit score for customers who cannot prove their creditworthiness in the conventional financial system makes us uniquely positioned to support GoBear as they diversify their business and move into lending in a controlled way.”

Finovate alums since 2013 and 2018 respectively, both Mambu and CredoLab made their Finovate debuts at FinovateAsia events. Mambu demonstrated its technology the year we held our Asian conference in Singapore. CredoLab unveiled its CredoScore the year we held FinovateAsia in Hong Kong.

Speaking of FinovateAsia, remember that our new, all-digital FinovateAsia conference begins next week. Check out our FinovateAsia hub for more details!

Photo by Janko Ferlic from Pexels

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Stratyfy Earns Spot in FIS Fintech Accelerator Incoming Cohort

By David Penn Posted on June 30, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, FIS, Stratyfy

Predictive analytics innovator Stratyfy is one of ten companies selected to participate in the incoming cohort of FIS’ 2020 Fintech Accelerator program.

“The ten companies selected for the fifth year of FIS’ Accelerator program bring a wealth of promising ideas and technologies,” FIS Chief Growth Officer Asif Ramji said. “We look forward to working with these firms to bring their ideas to life.”

Joining Stratyfy in the program are:

Cirrus Secure
Cobbler Technologies
Dasceq
Mall IQ
Sequretek
Silot
Surfly
TrustStamp
XpenseOne

Seven of the companies in the cohort have headquarters in the United States. Of the others, Sequretek is based in Mumbai, India; Silot in Singapore; and Surfly in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. And after four years in operation, the accelerator, in partnership with The Venture Center, will conduct its fifth program virtually due to the challenges of the global public health crisis.

In addition to being entirely virtual, this year’s program will run for 18 weeks instead of the usual 12 weeks to allow for increased mentoring and training time. The program will culminate with a Demo Day technology presentation on October 14th. Participating startups will also receive a monetary investment; the amount was not disclosed.

Executive Director for The Venture Center, Wayne Miller, pointed to the program’s success in empowering startup companies and helping improve access to financial services and technology. “With our partners at FIS and the State of Arkansas, we’re honored to be a part of bringing cutting-edge technologies to the places and people who need them, particularly in this moment of monumental technological advancement,” Miller said.

The news comes in the wake of Strayfy’s announcement of a new strategic partnership with Innovesta Technologies. The two companies are collaborating on a machine learning solution that will help businesses better measure the risk of and opportunity in non-public companies. The partnership combines Stratyfy’s decision engine and advanced machine learning technology with Innovesta’s comprehensive data assets to deliver real-time insights into the forces that impact business performance.

“Models built from historical data offer little help during an unprecedented health and economic crisis like the current global pandemic,” Stratyfy co-founder and CEO Laura Kornhauser said when the partnership was announced in May. “Achieving an inclusive global financial recovery requires robust risk management strategies, and those strategies necessitate an understanding of the unique challenges being faced by every business. Stratyfy’s decision management solutions will leverage Innovesta’s trustworthy data to directly address this need.”

Founded in 2016, Stratyfy is headquartered in New York City. The company was named one of the world’s 100 most promising startups to watch last year by CNBC.

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More Than $975 Million Raised by 15 Alums in Q2 2020

By David Penn Posted on June 29, 2020
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Quarterly Funding

Finovate alums raised more than $975 million in equity funding in the second quarter of 2020. The sum represents investments received by 15 companies that have demonstrated their technologies at our conferences, and includes three fundings in which the amount of the investment was not disclosed.

This year’s total is a retreat from the past two years’ totals, both in terms of amount raised and the number of alums reporting equity funding. In some respects, Q2 2020’s fundraising total “fills the gap” from the big jump in funding from Q2 2017 to Q2 2018.

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

Q2 2019: More than $1.8 billion raised by 29 alums
Q2 2018: More than $1.5 billion raised by 25 alums
Q2 2017: More than $726 million raised by 25 alums
Q2 2016: More than $510 million raised by 23 alums

While total investment for Q2 2020 was lower than it was in the previous year’s Q2s, it is notable that seven of the top ten fundings were investments between $150 million and $100 million. In many instances, one sizable investment will be responsible for a significant amount of a quarter’s investment total. Consider the boost Sofi’s $500 million funding provided in Q2 2019. The large sum sent that quarter’s total soaring to a new record Q2 high. By comparison, this year’s high number of low, nine-figure fundings comes across as a welcome shift in the distribution of VC wealth.

Top Ten Equity Investments for Q2 2020

EVO Payments: $150 million
Marqeta: $150 million
BioCatch: $145 million
AvidXchange: $128 million
Stash: $112 million
Onfido: $100 million
Payfone: $100 million
Featurespace: $37.4 million
M1 Finance: $33 million
Meniga: $9.4 million

It must be noted that, while venture capital investment has slowed somewhat in response to the COVID-19 crisis, merger and acquisition activity has been robust, relatively speaking. Among our alums alone, Q2 saw two major fintech acquisitions: Mastercard’s purchase of Finicity – valued as high as 1 $billion – and Personal Capital’s just-announced $825 million acquisition by Empower Retirement.

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q2 2020.

April 2020: More than $638 million raised by six alums

AvidXchange: $128 million – post
BankBazaar: $3.8 million – post
BioCatch: $145 million – post
EVO Payments: $150 million – post
Onfido: $100 million – post
Stash: $112 million – post

May 2020: More than $187 million raised by three alums

Featurespace: $37.4 million – post
GoodData: undisclosed – post
Marqeta: $150 million – post

June 2020: More than $150 million raised by six alums

Id.me: $8.3 million – post
Illuma Labs: undisclosed – post
M1 Finance: $33 million – post
Meniga: $9.4 million – post
Payfone: $100 million – post
Tink: undisclosed – news

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the second quarter of 2020, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

Photo by Reynaldo #brigworkz Brigantty from Pexels

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ID.me Secures $8.3 Million in New Funding

By David Penn Posted on June 29, 2020
Categories: Funding, ID.me

McLean, Virginia-based digital identity network ID.me has boosted its total equity capital to more than $39 million after locking in an investment of $8.3 million this week. The new funding comes from a $12.5 million equity offering from the company, which featured the participation of 32 different investors.

ID.me has not provided any commentary on the investment, nor disclosed plans for how it will use the additional capital. The company’s previous fundraising was a $19 million Series B round in March 2017, according to Crunchbase.

The global public health crisis has put a spotlight on digital identity companies like ID.me. In March, the company announced the launch of a real-time collaboration workspace on messaging platform, Slack, to help health care providers share information about the coronavirus. In April, ID.me teamed up with DrFirst to make it easier for health care workers to verify their identities when using DrFirst’s mobile e-prescribing app, iPrescribe.

And in May, ID.me partnered with Shoes.com, enabling the company to accurately verify frontline healthcare workers as part of its program to provide them with discounts on footwear.

“As the U.S. enters its third month battling COVID-19, first responders and healthcare workers continue to soldier tremendous burdens and personal risks as they fight day-to-day on the frontlines of the pandemic,” ID.me founder and CEO Blake Hall said. “We are honored to play a role in the Step Up program and proudly support Shoes.com’s efforts to recognize these national heroes.”

A Finovate alum since 2014, ID.me most recently demonstrated its identity verification gateway at FinovateSpring in 2017. The company’s identity verification services – ranging from multi-factor authentication, document verification, and compliance monitoring, in addition to its identity gateway – are used by a wide variety of well-known organizations and institutions including USAA, NASA, Under Armor, and the United States Department of Treasury.

ID.me notes that it onboards 60,000 new users a day and has a total of 24 million users of its technology. Earlier this month, the company announced another partnership, this time working with LensDirect as part of their We See You, Heroes initiative to provide frontline health care workers and first responders with discounts on vision care products.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

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Zopa Launches Digital Bank; The State of MENA Fintech

By David Penn Posted on June 26, 2020
Categories: Finovate Global, Zopa

U.K.-based peer-to-peer lender Zopa announced this week that it has been awarded a full U.K. banking license and will move forward with its plans to launch a digital bank.

The bank will offer the Zopa Fixed Term Savings Account, which features FSCS protection up to £85,000. Zopa plans to introduce a credit card later this year.

“Now more than ever the banking industry needs innovative, agile providers who work on behalf of customers,” Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana said. “At a time when people want great value, fair financial services products, and simple, intuitive digital experience(s), Zopa offers consumers a compelling and credible alternative they can trust.”

Founded in 2005, and one of Finovate’s earliest alums, Zopa raised $182 million last December in preparation for bank launch announced this week. The company has secured a total of more than $464 million in funding since inception.

Village Capital is out with its State of Financial Health Startups report which looks at the areas of innovation with the “greatest potential to improve the wellbeing and inclusion of marginalized communities in MENA.”

The State of Financial Health Startups in MENA acknowledges the attention paid to areas of fintech such as digital payments and e-commerce. At the same time, the goal of the report is to focus on those ways that fintech can solve specific problems in the region, specifically the challenge of inequality.

The report highlighted six fields of fintech innovation that are mostly likely to meet this challenge, as well as 12 startups that are active in these areas. The fields were:

saving and wealth-building technology
employment tech
digital ID
financial literacy services
access to capital
alternative lending

The twelve featured startups were:

Rumman (Palestine)
SmartCrowd (UAE)
Kader (Jordan)
Khtwteen (Egypt)
Hawiyati (Jordan)
Valify Solutions (Egypt)
Finllect (UAE)
Merakido (Egypt)
Fawaterak (Egypt)
Fundbot (Lebanon)
Ciwa (Morocco)
Solfeh (Jordan)

The Catalyst Fund, supported by BFA Global, UK aid, JP Morgan Chase and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, has announced its latest fintech cohort.

The Fund has accelerated 31 portfolio companies that have raised collectively more than $64 million in follow-on fundraising since inception. The Fund awards each of its portfolio companies $100,000 in grant capital, as well as venture-building support for six months, and one-on-one networking with investors and corporate leaders to help them scale their businesses. Of the companies making the cut were a number of fintechs including:

FlexFinance (Nigeria)
Paymenow (South Africa)
Mango Life (Mexico)
Graviti (Mexico)
KarmaLife (India)

“We believe we are facing a catalytic moment during which there is an opportunity to use technology to help low-income consumers and small businesses recover from the impact of COVID-19 and build greater financial resilience for the future,” Catalyst fund director Maelis Carraro said.

Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Malaysian recurring payments platform Curlec announces funding from 500 Startups.
Thai cashless solution provider for businesses SYNQA raises $80 million in Series C investment.
TechWireAsia looks at the impact of COVID-19 on Indonesia’s emerging fintech industry.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Nigerian fintech KiaKia goes live with its app that enables users to invest in the funding of secured personal and business loans.
Centbee, a fintech based in South Africa, adds the ability to purchase prepaid electricity, airtime, and data via a new feature on its BitcoinSF wallet.
GhanaWeb features Ghanaian cross-border, money transfer company FXKudi.

Central and Eastern Europe

Edenred, a French prepaid corporate services provider, launches Apple Pay mobile payments for digital meal vouchers in Romania.
Lithuania-based identity verification firm iDenfy partners with U.K. online banking platform Cashaa to help cryptocurrency investors in India avoid fraud.
Austria gains a new insurtech competitor as Hong Kong-based bolttech partners with local telcom Drei to bring the first non-insurance switch program to the country.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Egypt-based fintech MoneyFellows raises $4 million in Series A funding.
Global tech ecosystem, Hub71, teams up with Mashreq Bank and First Abu Dhabi Bank to help startups open bank accounts in the UAE.
Commercial Bank of Dubai and cross-border payment provider Thunes announce partnership, enhancing CBD’s ability to operate in countries such as India, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Central and Southern Asia

India-Based Slice raises $6 million for digital payments.
BharatPe, a QR code-based, merchant payments company based in India, enters the point of sale business with the launch of its Bharat Swipe PoS solution.
Alphabet’s growth equity arm, CapitalG, invests $28 million in India-based SME lender Aye Finance.

Latin America and the Caribbean

BBVA announces that its mobile banking platform GloMo will support Apple Watch users in Uruguay.
Mexican bank Banorte and on-demand delivery firm Rappi partner to launch a financial services company in Mexico.
Central Bank of Brazil suspends WhatsApp payments in the country, citing competitiveness concerns.

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Kids Love Cash: Insights from the COVID-19 Crisis

By David Penn Posted on June 25, 2020
Categories: Finovate Webinar, Fiserv, Speaker series, Webinars

If digital transformation is sweeping financial services – and this trend has been accelerated by the global public health crisis, as we are often told – then what’s up with the huge and enduring demand for cash?

“I certainly would have expected, if you’d asked me prior to COVID: would COVID put a big dent in cash? I would have said “absolutely” because not only are people not going out, it has a dirty connotation to it,” Fiserv Senior Vice President David Keenan said during the Q&A portion of his recent webinar presentation, Looking Under the Hood of Today’s Payments Ecosystem.

“And yet if you look at the data,” he added, “that’s not what’s happening.”

This was one of many fascinating takeaways from Keenan’s research on payment trends in the COVID-19 era. That research was presented this week in a webinar that also looked at the rise of digital enablement in financial services and the inevitable transition to real-time payments. Keenan’s presentation is now available for viewing on an on-demand basis.

Toward the end of his discussion, which explained how and why companies need to be able to provide “the right options at the right time to create a winning payment experience,” we asked the Fiserv SVP why he began his presentation, which featured insights on digital enablement and real-time payments, with a discussion on the importance and endurance of cash.

Keenan said the decision to start with cash was deliberate – and given the program’s theme of “safe, fast, convenient payments” it is perhaps easy to understand why. For all of cash’s drawbacks – including the fact that paper money increasingly is seen as “dirty” in an ever-more touchless world – Keenan showed research from the Federal Reserve indicating that cash remains a preferred payment method in the U.S. – only trailing debit. Moreover, for about 85% of those surveyed, cash usage over the past 12 months had remained the same, or increased.

But perhaps most interestingly, this data also revealed that cash’s most passionate champions are under the age of 25. And this preference for paper money does not take away from GenZ’s appreciation of debit, which is on par with 25-to-34 year old, 35-to-44 year old, and 45-to-54 year old cohorts. Nor was credit usage impacted by GenZ’s preference for cash; GenZ credit usage was comparable with both 25-to-34 year old and 35-to-44 year old age groups. The main difference between GenZ and other cohorts was in the use of electronic payments, where its usage was typically half that of other groups surveyed.

A further note on the enduring preference for cash: while cash usage patterns have returned to trend after a brief, coronavirus-induced drop in March, the amounts of cash being used – which began increasing in March – have remained elevated.

Keenan speculated that what might blunt these accelerating cash trends could be a major response to the coronavirus – such as a vaccine. He said, “as long as we’re living in this one-step-at-a-time, back-to-the-new-normal, we believe cash is going to be an important part (of payments).”

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

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Mastercard to Acquire Finicity in $825 Million Deal

By David Penn Posted on June 24, 2020
Categories: Finicity, MasterCard, Mergers & Acquisitions

For a year that began with Visa’s headline-making acquisition of Plaid, it seems almost poetic that near 2020’s midway mark, Mastercard would make a major fintech bid of its own.

The company has agreed to acquire Finicity, a real-time financial data and analytics provider and long-time Finovate alum, in a deal valued at nearly $1 billion. This figure represents a combination of the $825 million purchase price of the Salt Lake City, Utah fintech, as well as a potential earn-out for Finicity’s existing shareholders – subject to the company meeting certain performance targets.

“Since our founding, Nick Thomas and I have focused on developing industry-leading technology and building an organization that empowers consumers and organizations to better understand, manage, and use their financial data to improve their financial lives,” Finicity co-founder and CEO Steve Smith said. “Enabling people to access and control their data, while ensuring best practices to protect that data, will continue to drive tremendous innovation that increases financial literacy, inclusion, and health. This partnership with Mastercard helps us accelerate this mission globally.”

Mastercard President Michael Miebach cited open banking as one of the reasons for the company’s interest in Finicity. Referring to open banking as both a “growing global trend” and a “strategically important space,” Miebach praised Finicity’s ability to leverage open banking APIs to enable financial data and insights to streamline lending and mortgage processes, account-based payment initiation, and other PFM services. He also credited the company for its focus on the data rights of the consumer.

“(Finicity) shares our commitment to consumer-centric data practices, ensuring consumers have a say in how and where their information should be used,” Miebach said.

Founded in 2000, Finicity provides financial data APIs, credit decisioning tools, and financial wellness solutions that help financial institutions and fintechs better serve their customers. The company’s technology helps power solutions like Experian Boost and Rocket Mortgage from Quicken Loans. Named a Best Place to Work in Fintech by American Banker for the last three consecutive years, Finicity began 2020 partnering with SaaS-based marketing automation, CRM, and POS solution provider for banks and mortgage companies, Volly.

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nCino Readies for IPO

By David Penn Posted on June 23, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, IPO, nCino

Cloud banking specialist nCino is the latest fintech to announce its intention to go public.

In a brief statement shared on Monday, the Wilmington, North Carolina-based company reported that it had publicly filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for their proposed initial public offering. nCino made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2017.

The company’s announcement did not disclose the number of shares to be offered, nor the price range of the offering. Renaissance Capital reported that nCino is seeking to raise $100 million. The company expects to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker “NCNO.”

Underwriting the IPO are Bank of America Securities, Barclays, KeyBanc Capital Markets, and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

nCino’s Bank Operating System, built on the Salesforce platform, provides financial institutions of all sizes with an end-to-end banking solution that enables them to deliver the kind of digital experience banking customers have come to expect. The platform combines customer relationship management, loan origination, workflow, enterprise content management, as well as business intelligence and reporting, all in a single, secure, cloud-based environment. On average, financial institutions using nCino’s Bank Operating System have enjoyed a 40% decrease in loan closing time, a 92% reduction in servicing costs, and a 127% increase in account opening completion rates.

Founded in 2012, nCino has raised more than $213 million in funding. The company reported revenue growth of almost 50%, reaching $44.7 million, for the quarter ending in April. nCino also reported revenue of $138.2 million in its most recent fiscal year, ending in January. This year, the company has forged partnerships with Alterna Bank, a subsidiary of Alterna Savings and Credit Union Limited, and with Swedish SME lender Yourban. Additional partnerships announced in the first half of the year include collaborations with Fulton Bank and Black Hills FCU. Pierre Naudé is President and Chief Executive Officer.

Photo courtesy of Les Finances

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From COVID-19 to Inclusion: Fintech Faces New Challenges

By David Penn Posted on June 22, 2020
Categories: David's column

In the middle of the first month of the year, one of the biggest names in the payments business acquired one of the most innovative fintech infrastructure companies in the industry, in a deal valued at more than $5 billion.

Six months later, Visa’s acquisition of Plaid almost seems like news from another time.

The arrival of the coronavirus to virtually every corner of the globe – and the worldwide response to the killing of a black man in police custody in the U.S. – have sent shock waves through the fintech industry – as they have the rest of the world. Now, at the same time, fintech is engaged in both the struggle to help businesses and consumers cope with the closures and shelter-in-place restrictions of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as the challenge of correcting decades of discriminatory practices against African Americans and members of other underrepresented ethnic groups. As we approach the middle of 2020, fintech is facing different kind of crisis that, while not of its own making, will require a response that is uniquely tailored to the world it operates in.

This is a world that is both heavily technical, relying on the latest innovations in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and distributed ledger technology, while simultaneously pledging to bring the benefits of 21st century financial services to the underbanked and underserved populations of both post-industrial and developing economies. This is a world that has grown tremendously through the contributions of people from diverse backgrounds, representing cultures from almost every corner of the globe. Yet, at the same time, it is a world that is still struggling to achieve true gender and ethnic diversity, particularly in the C-suite and in the boardroom.

There are many ways to value an industry: the quality of the goods it produces; the entertainment, education, or simple well-being its services provide; even just the degree of pure, gee-whiz innovation the industry may deliver, often seeming to grant us what we want even before we summon up the nerve to wish for it.

But as the fintech industry edges closer, inexorably, toward maturity, it now finds itself increasingly judged on the kind of criteria Corporate America – often to its own surprise and bewilderment – can find itself judged on from time to time. This is a judgement that has less to do with what Corporate America makes and sells, and more with who Corporate America is and what it values.

Both the global public health crisis and the renewed determination to fight racial inequality are providing fintech as an industry with an opportunity to show the world just what it’s made of. As we move into the second half of this historic year, I am hopeful and optimistic that fintech will rise to the challenge.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

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Payfone Raises $100 Million to Fight Fraud with Phone Intelligence

By David Penn Posted on June 22, 2020
Categories: Funding, Payfone

Identity verification and authentication company Payfone – which made its debut on the Finovate stage more than a decade ago – has announced a major fundraising of $100 million. The Series H investment, led by funds advised by Apax Digital (the growth equity division of Apax Partners), takes the company’s total funding to more than $217 million, according to Crunchbase. Although no valuation information was provided in last week’s announcement, TechCrunch noted that Payfone had earned a previous valuation of $270 million with its previous fundraising in April 2019.

Payfone’s customer identity platform helps financial institutions identify a range of potentially fraudulent activities – from the presence of a burner phone or a synthetic identity to spoofed calls and real-time SIM swap fraud. The company’s authentication solutions use proprietary “phone intelligence,” which processes behavioral signals in real-time to measure a phone number’s reputation and risk. This gives the authenticating party a Trust Score that helps them separate potentially suspicious activity from legitimate transactions. In addition, Payfone provides call verification solutions that run in the background of the phone call, making it easier and faster to resolve any authentication issues that arise.

“The mobile phone is rapidly becoming the secure passport for navigating our digital lives,” Payfone CEO Rodger Desai said. “With one in three U.S. consumers already authenticated by Payfone, this investment accelerates our ability to set the standard for the authentication process. As we build out a cross-industry consortium, more enterprises will be able to access Payfone’s real-time fraud and risk signals to prevent account takeovers while passing more transactions.”

In addition to helping the company build the forementioned industry-spanning consortium, the additional capital will be used to acquire strategic assets, and bolster the machine learning capabilities of its digital identity and authentication technology.

Also participating in the Series H round were new investors Sandbox Insurtech Ventures, and individual investor Ralph de la Vega, former Vice Chairman at AT&T. Existing Payfone investors MassMutual Ventures, Synchrony, Blue Venture Fund, Wellington Management LLP, as well as individual investor Andrew Prozes, former CEO of LexisNexis, were also involved in the fundraising.

Headquartered in New York City and founded in 2008, Payfone launched in the U.K. this spring with its Mobile Authentication product. The solution gives financial institutions in the U.K. a secure and easy-to-use alternative to one-time, SMS-based passwords for activities like customer onboarding, login, and two-factor authentication.

Payfone VP Keiron Dalton explained that while one-time passwords (OTP) have a role to play in the authentication process, they often fall short of what is required in the financial services industry. “(The) market demands placed on financial institutions in the U.K. are particularly acute,” Dalton said, “leading to a clamor of activity as these institutions search for what’s next in terms of authentication.” He called Mobile Authentication a “game-changing experience” for customers that provided a superior level of security against fraud, and added that the solution has seen “huge success in the U.S.”

Named one of the fastest growing companies on Deloitte’s 2019 Technology Fast 500 last fall, Payfone earned similar commendations this year from the Financial Times. The U.K.-based publication featured the company in the top 500 of its inaugural, The Americas’ Fastest Growing Companies 2020 roster.

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Fear of Fraud Surrounds Wirecard’s Missing $2 Billion

By David Penn Posted on June 19, 2020
Categories: Finovate Global

To speake of the woe that has befallen Wirecard …

The international fintech community received an unexpected jolt on Friday on news that the CEO of Wirecard, Markus Braun, was stepping down. Braun’s resignation comes amid reports that the German digital financial platform he has led since 2002 cannot account for $2.1 billion in cash, and a delay in the release of its 2019 financial report. Reuters reported that the company admits it could be have been “the victim of fraud of considerable proportions.”

Up until recently Wirecard appeared poised for success as a leading European payment processor for both consumers and businesses. The company reported revenues of $2.2 billion in 2018 and, by the fall of that year, had reached a valuation of $26.9 billion.

But suspicious of the company deepened early last year. A Financial Times report in January alleging suspicious financial activity in Singapore, and the announcement of an official investigation by Singapore authorities a month later, tarnished Wirecard’s image despite the company’s denials. This was followed by claims of further questionable financial activity – this time in Ireland – in October.

In this week’s news, auditors at EY, formerly known as Ernst & Young, were not able to locate cash at two Asian banks – Bank of the Philippine Islands and BDO Unibank – where Wirecard said $2 billion had been deposited. Both banks have denied having a business relationship with Wirecard. Moreover, documents indicating that such a relationship did exist, according to BDO, were falsified and bore forged signatures.

In a statement, Wirecard announced that James Freis, who was recently appointed to the company’s management board, will serve as interim CEO. the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, known as BaFin, is investigating.

Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.