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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Citi Wealth Builder is the latest addition to the world of digital investing platforms. Launched by Citi this week, the new solution features a low initial investment of $1,500 and no advisory fees for Citi Priority and Citigold clients on their initial portfolios. Citi Wealth Builder is powered by Jemstep, which demonstrated its digital advisory technology at FinovateSpring in 2013.
“We have worked closely with Citi to configure the Jemstep digital advice platform to provide a compelling client experience that supports Citi’s value proposition, omni-channel delivery capabilities and robust operational and compliance requirements,” Jemstep CEO and President Simon Roy said. Based in Los Altos, California and founded in 2008, Jemstep was acquired by Invesco in 2016.
Citi Wealth Builder works by pairing customers with one of six portfolios based on the customers’ responses to questions about their investment preferences and goals. Factors ranging as the customer’s ability to tolerate volatility to the current amount the customer already has saved are used to help ensure a good fit between customer and portfolio. The technology works automatically, monitoring and rebalancing the investment allocations; customers have the ability to adjust investment levels and see in real-time how those changes likely will affect investment outcomes.
“Citi Wealth Builder makes it easy for clients to start investing so they can reach the next level of their financial journey,” Head of Citi U.S. Consumer Wealth Management John Cummings said. “It’s part of Citi’s holistic approach to banking and wealth management. In just a few minutes, customers can start building a solid foundation for years to come.”
The new release from Citi comes a year after the firm’s launch of Citi Wealth Advisor, which gives Citigold clients their own relationship team to help them design and implement personalized financial plans. The unveiling of Citi Wealth Advisor was accompanied by Citi’s announcement that it would offer commission-free trading on ETFs and new-issue U.S. Treasury purchases for Citigold clients.
India is the latest country to announce that it is looking into development of a national digital currency – or what’s known in the industry as a Central Bank Issued Currency (CBDC). In recent weeks and months, we’ve heard news of a growing number of central banks investigating the pros and cons of digitizing their money supply. Japan announced last week that it is considering the advantage of a “digital yen.” The Central Bank of the Bahamas is also examining the issue, as is, ahem, North Korea. Tunisia made fintech headlines last fall when a Russian news agency reported the country had digitized its currency. But Tunisian authorities have since denied the story.
The case for digitizing national currencies includes the idea that, at a minimum, central banks need to keep up with – if not get ahead of – the trend toward the digitization of money. More constructively, central bank-issued digital currencies (CBDC) could provide significant benefits in terms of reducing the costs and risks to the payments system and, according to a 2018 report from the IMF, “could help encourage financial inclusion.”
However as the report makes clear, there are a wide variety of risks associated with CBDCs – the most immediate of which may be a simple lack of demand. The IMF’s Christine Lagarde made the point a few years ago in her address subtitled “The Case for New Digital Currency,” delivered at the Singapore Fintech Festival. The same “winds of change” that are driving central bankers to consider digitizing the money supply are also stimulating innovation in other forms of payment and value-storage. Any digital currency issued by a central bank still would have to compete with digital payment and value-storage offerings from the private sector.
In some ways, this is the most interesting consideration in the debate over digital currencies. Issues of safety and anonymity remain paramount, and themes like regional specificity remind us that what works for one geography may not work for another. But it is increasingly easier to imagine a world in which digital national currencies exist than it is to imagine a world in which they do not.
For more on the national digital currency movement around the world, check out Stephen O’Neal’s in-depth examination of the topic in Cointelegraph from the summer of 2018. O’Neal divided the world of state-issued currencies into the Adopters, the Rejectors, the Experimenters, and the Researchers. Note that Tunisia, as reported above, is no longer in the Adopters category, however the country’s central bank did note that it is “exploring” digital payment options including CBDC.
Additionally, some of the countries that have rejected national digital currencies have appeared to reconsider in recent years. A report from last fall suggested that private bankers and lenders in Germany, for example, have expressed interest in a form of “digital central bank money.”
This week on the Finovate blog we celebrated the second birthday of PSD2 in Europe, and highlighted the advances Israeli startup and Finovate Best of Show winner Voca.ai has made in deploying voice AI in customer service. We also previewed our upcoming FinovateEurope Venture Capital All Stars presentation on fintech investment trends in Europe.
Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.
Asia-Pacific
Contour, a blockchain-based trade finance platform headquartered in Singapore, announces investment of undisclosed size from Standard Chartered.
Malaysian cross-border payments company Tranglo integrates with Ripple.
Digital-only banks may be coming to Thailand as the country’s central bank considers offering digital banking licenses.
Sub-Saharan Africa
South African fintech Oyi launches prepaid medical savings card.
Inlaks, a Nigeria-based ICT infrastructure solutions provider, introduces new line of “ultramodern” ATMs that feature the ability to access customer service via a live video connection.
FinTech4U Accelerator names the five Zambian fintechs that will join its program this month.
Central and Eastern Europe
Leading browser provider Opera acquires Estonian banking-as-a-service startup Pocosys.
German fintech Heidelpay is on the hunt for acquisition opportunities and is considering an IPO.
EU Startups features Cashpresso in its look at top Austrian startups to watch in 2020.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Arab News features Nosaibah Alrajhi, founder of Shariah-compliant P2P lending platform Forus, scheduled to go live in Saudi Arabia later this year.
Al Khaleej Bank of Sudan to deploy Path Solution’s core banking iMAL platform.
A digital rupee? That’s the proposal from India’s National Institute for Smart Government (NISG).
Fintechs are not the only ones disrupting financial services in India. Increasingly, smartphone brands are getting into the act.
Indian fintech startup Mera Cashier raises $250,000 in seed funding.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Softbank strikes again! The Japanese firm has led a $125 million Series B round for Mexico’s AlphaCredit.
Americas Quarterly looks at ways that fintech can become “a priority” in Latin America.
Olivia, a Brazilian financial wellness app, raises $5 million in funding from BV (formerly Banco Votorantim).
As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
Since its launch in 2011, socially responsible lender LendUp has surpassed $2 billion in consumer financing via its digital lending platform. This represents 6.5+ million loans, with an average loan value of $300.
“We’re very proud of this significant lending accomplishment, the progress we’ve made in driving disciplined, profitable, and sustainable growth, and our role as a standard bearer for responsible and inclusive lending and banking,” LendUp CEO Anu Shultes said.
One of the fintechs to embrace early the concept of financial wellness, LendUp combines access to financing via its short-term installment loans. The company offers financial education and a specific-but-personalized strategy to help consumers improve their credit, the LendUp Ladder. This resource uses gamification, education, and good borrower behavior to enable borrowers to earn points that allow them to apply for larger loan amounts at better rates. The company notes that its customers have taken more than two million financial education courses via its platform.
“Through our lending, education, and savings programs, we’ve helped customers raise their credit profiles by hundreds of thousands of points cumulatively and saved them hundreds of millions of dollars in interest and fees from much higher cost products,” Shultes explained. She added that the $2 billion mark was a “real testament to the impact that financial service providers like LendUp can and should have on the market.”
It’s worth noting that this week’s announcement comes on the one-year anniversary of Shultes’ appointment as CEO; Shultes took over the company last January from co-founder Sasha Orloff. Shultes was formerly LendUp’s GM and has been credited for helping grow the company’s loan originations to more than 5.5 million.
LendUp demonstrated its financing platform at FinovateSpring 2014. The San Francisco, California-based company has raised more than $360 million in funding from investors including PayPal Ventures and Victory Park Capital. The company spun-off its credit card business, Mission Lane, as a stand-alone entity a year ago, which has allowed LendUp to focus on its lending and financial wellness businesses.
FICO announced this week that its latest credit risk solutionFICO Score 10 Suite will be available to lenders via the U.S. credit reporting agencies this summer. The new technology leverages trended credit bureau data to boost its predictive power, enabling lenders to make more precise decisions on credit risk.
The company said that the new Score 10 Suite could reduce the number of defaults in a lender’s portfolio by up to 10% for newly originated bankcards, and 9% among newly originated auto loans versus the previous, FICO Score 9. The new solution performs even better with newly originated mortgage loans, the company added, with a 17% reduction in defaults.
“FICO is a cornerstone for consumer lending decisions,” Jim Wehmann, executive vice president for Scores at FICO said. “We continuously innovate using the latest, most robust data, while maintaining consistency with previous models to ensure backward compatibility and minimize operational changes required to adopt a new score.”
The company is touting the use of trended data as one of the key enhancements of the new technology. Trended data provides a historical view of data like account balances which gives lenders a more complete understanding of how an applicant manages their finances. At the same time, FICO Score 10 maintains FICO Score minimum scoring criteria, and features backwards compatibility with previous versions of FICO Score. This helps ensure that lenders experience a seamless transition to the new offering with maximum ease of use and stability.
In addition to the emphasis on trended data, the new scoring regime also takes an interest in personal loans that the applicant may have. The increasing use of personal loans, to pay down credit card debt for example, has grown in recent years. MarketWatch noted earlier this week that personal loans are the fastest-growing debt category in the U.S. The takeaway is that FICO Score 10 will make it easier for those who are managing their finances well to avoid being penalized for instances when debt might spike due to a large, single-instance purchase. Meanwhile, those who are adding debt (personal loan, home equity loan, etc.) as a strategy to manage their debt may find the new scoring criteria more challenging.
FICO closed out 2019 with the release of two new products and an acquisition. In November, the company launched FICO Identity Proofing, a digital onboarding solution; and FICO User Authentication, a set of multi-factor authentication functionalities. Both new solutions were made possible by the company’s acquisition of security access provider EZMCOM that month.
An alum of our developers conference, FinDEVr New York 2016, FICO was founded as Fair Isaac Corporation in 1956. The company is based in San Jose, California.
Five months. A quarter of a million new U.S. customers.
That’s the news from Berlin, Germany-based challenger bank, N26, which announced this week that it has added 250,000 new customers in the U.S. within five months of its August launch.
Calling American consumers “too reliant on traditional banks,” N26 U.S. CEO Nicolas Kopp suggested that the wave of new U.S. customers was just the beginning. “We’re incredibly proud to have reached a quarter-million U.S. customers in our first five months and we’re just getting started. We have big plans to offer millions of future N26 users a feature-rich, easy-to-use banking experience.”
The challenger bank, which launched in the U.S. last year courtesy of a partnership with Axos Bank, offers its new U.S.-based customers a regulated, FDIC-insured account, a Visa debit card, and basic spending management tools like account activity display, daily spending limits, and automatic transaction categorization. In December, N26 introduced its Perks program for U.S. customers, giving them cashback rewards and discounts for purchases made on their N26 debit card.
N26 gives its customers the ability to open accounts in less than five minutes, transfer money to friends instantly with MoneyBeam, and leverage a tool called Spaces to open sub-accounts to manage savings goals. The accounts have no hidden fees, and accountholders have access to a network of more than 55,000 surcharge-free ATMs. Customers who sign up for direct deposit can access their pay up to two days early.
Gains in the U.S. notwithstanding, N26 points to Europe as the source of most of the growth in its customer base – which reached 3.5 million last summer and now stands at five million. N26 co-founder and CEO Valenti Stalf heralded the five million customer milestone, but suggested the achievement is only a step on the journey the company has set out for itself when it was founded in 2013. “(We) have not forgotten our original mission – to challenge an industry that is ripe for change,” Stalf said. “N26 has proved that banking can be simple and intuitive through the use of technology.”
N26 has raised more than $680 million in funding, with $470 million of the challenger bank’s equity capital coming last year.
B2B cross border payments innovator Currencycloud has locked in $80 million in new funding.
Visa, the International Finance Corporation, BNP Paribas, SBI Group, and Siam Commercial Bank participated in the Series E. Existing investors Sapphire Ventures, Notion Capital, GV, Accomplice, and Anthemis were also involved in the round.
“Currencycloud is re-imagining how money flows around the global economy and embedding it into (the) platforms of the future,” company CEO Mike Laven said. “Transfer of value is fast becoming the newest layer in the modern technology stack, and Currencycloud is positioned to provide the infrastructure to make this happen.” He added that the funding makes Currencycloud “the go-to provider for the next wave of fintech innovation.”
This week’s investment takes Currencycloud’s total capital to more than $140 million. In its statement, the company said that it plans to use the new funds to grow its portfolio of payment methods and further develop its partner ecosystem.”
A global payments platform, Currencycloud offers 85 different APIs across four modules – collect, convert, manage, and pay – that support the entire B2B cross-border payments workflow. The London-based company, founded in 2012, demonstrated its Global Collections offering at FinovateSpring in 2018. Global Collections makes it easier for firms to collect payments from overseas customers by setting up local, virtual bank accounts in their names. This helps keep payment costs low and ensures that payments arrive promptly and in-full with as little, cross-border hassle as possible.
Earlier this month, Currencycloud announced a partnership with TransferGo that will help it launch in 14 new markets in the first quarter of this year. Named to the 2020 Fintech Power 50 in December, Currencycloud previewed its multi-currency accounts solution, Currencycloud Spark, last fall. The technology enables firms to offer their business customers multi-currency accounts that allow them to collect, store, convert, and make payments in 35+ currencies.
Currencycloud has processed more than $50 billion in cross-border payments processed since its inception. The company includes fellow Finovate alums Revolut, Klarna, and Dwolla among its partners.
One of the big additions to FinovateEurope (February 11-13) this year is a new initiative designed especially for fintech startups. Finovate Research caught up with Greg Palmer, Finovate Vice President, to discuss the new program, how it came to be, and what impact he hopes it will make on the broader fintech community.
Since its founding, Finovate has been synonymous with new financial innovation. But the idea has always been that you’ll take innovation wherever you find it – whether it comes from new companies or incumbents. Now Finovate is going all in new companies, fintech startups exclusively, with this new program. What’s the thinking behind it?
Greg Palmer: Finovate is still very much about taking innovation wherever it happens to come from, whether that’s from new startups, established industry behemoths, or anywhere in between, but we know it’s difficult for early-stage startups to get traction, and so we wanted to give them a little extra attention with this program. When it comes to getting a demo slot on stage, we’ll continue to look at the quality of technology first and foremost, rather than the age or revenue of the company behind it; the Startup Booster is really about giving early-stage companies some insights and connections to help them get to the point where they’re ready to stand up in front of large numbers of people and fly their flag.
What are the components of the program? What will the startup companies actually do?
Palmer: We’re still in the first iteration, so this will likely continue to evolve as the program grows, but there are really three primary components to it. The first is that we’ll be offering a dedicated track onsite at our events with information that is specifically relevant to new startups. In that track, we’ll cover things like how to scale up, how to put together a convincing pitch, etc. We’ll follow up that informational session with a condensed networking session, giving attendees a chance to connect with early stage companies and learn about what they do. Finally, we’ll continue to follow up with the companies that participate after the events, with a series of webinars and learnings, so the program doesn’t end just because the event is over.
What do you hope companies participating in the program will gain from it? How do you think it will help the fintech community as a whole?
Palmer: The first thing that companies will gain from it is pretty simple – they’ll be able to come into Finovate for a substantially reduced rate, giving them a chance to see and hear it all for themselves. Beyond that, we want the companies who participate to leave with a greater understanding of what they need to do to grow to the next level along with some connections that can help get them where they want to go.
From my perspective, the industry as a whole needs to have these startups pushing the incumbents, or else the speed of innovation will slow down. Challengers play a vital role in keeping everyone else honest, and fintech has grown into what it is today because new companies have come in and pushed hard for changes. If we can help give those startups the tools and connections they need to grow, the industry as a whole should be better off for it.
Where do you hope this goes in the near future? Will there be a startup program like this for all Finovate events going forward?
Palmer: We’ve already got the Startup Booster in place for FinovateEurope and FinovateSpring, and we’ll be setting it up for FinovateAsia and FinovateFall too. Our first goal is simply to get as many companies as possible involved, and from there we want to start engaging with the group to see where we can be helpful to them. Big picture, we want to put these companies in the position where they can come back to Finovate as demoing companies and do well up there on the big stage. If we’re able to help companies get there, it’s a win for everybody – our audience will keep getting to see new, cool companies, the companies themselves will be able to show the entire audience what they can do, and we’ll get to keep being a place where the fintech ecosystem comes to connect with each other.
For more information about the Finovate Startup Booster program, e-mail us at info@Finovate.com
Here is our weekly roundup of the latest news from our Finovate alumni:
Coda joins Temenos Marketplace to help banks integrate with accounting packages used by their small business customers.
Fenergolaunchese-KYC Connect to allow banks to make their KYC services more efficient.
InCommpartners with instant ticket expert Pollard Banknote to launch ScanACTIV, a tool for lotteries to merchandise instant tickets at retail locations.
ACI Worldwideselects The Bancorp and Visa as payment providers for corporate disbursements.
TickSmith’s core software platform, TickVault, is now known as the GOLD platform.
Creatiowins Gold in One Planet award for helping companies accelerate growth.
Habib American Bank implements the Commercial Lending Center Suite from Jack Henry’s ProfitStars.
TONIK selectsFinastra’s core banking solution to power its Southeast Asia-based, licensed digital bank.
Alumni Features and Profiles
Persistent Systems and ValidSoft Team Up to Enhance Voice Authentication – The two companies are working together to develop a digital voice authentication solution that integrates into Persistent Systems’ banking offerings.
SoFi Teams Up with Mastercard to Boost Benefits for Members – Courtesy of a new partnership, SoFi members will have access to a new range of products and in-person experiences – including a new fan experience for visitors at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California.
Accenture Taps the Blockchain for New Procurement Platform – Consulting and technology services company has launched a new procurement solution today called the True Supplier Marketplace. The new tool taps into the blockchain to more efficiently connect buyers and suppliers.
Our latest series of FinovateEurope Sneak Peeks are up. Meet Qplatform, iProov, Apiax, Efigence, Subaio, FinTecSystems, Scientia Consulting, ReceiptHero, and ARM Insight.
FinovateEurope Alums Reel in $940 Million in 2019 – With FinovateEurope less than a month away, we thought we’d take a look at some of the fundraising success the conference’s alums had in 2019.
How Trusona Stops the Funding of Evil – If you’ve ever been hacked, having either money or personal credentials stolen, did you stop to think about what type of person, organization, or agenda you were inadvertently supporting?
Also on Finovate.com
How to Engage the Customer in an AI-First World – Which digital technologies will make the biggest differences in shaping the customer experience in the new decade?
Vive Lands Banking License – Challenger bank Vive Bank received some good news from the Bank of England today. The U.K.-based startup has been granted a banking license with restrictions.
Lift Every Voice: Fintech’s Other Diversity Challenge – When the discussion of diversity in the tech world comes up, the conversation is typically oriented around gender diversity. But diversity along ethnic lines is also a goal that technology companies have increasingly begun to strive toward.
Fintech Challenger Bank Qonto Raises $115 Million – Vive la France, indeed! One week after French payment app Lydia announced a $45 million fundraising, neobank Qonto reports that it has just closed the largest funding round to date for a French fintech.
AvidXchange Secures $260 Million in New Capital, Earns $2 Billion Valuation – Does fintech have its first “double unicorn” of 2020?
Paga Acquires Apposit, Announces Geographic Expansion – Mobile money operator Paga is poised for growth. The Nigeria-based fintech acquired U.S. software company Apposit and announced plans to expand its services geographically.
Japan’s Digital Yen; Visa, Plaid, and the Opportunity for African Fintechs – Finovate Research has been busily putting together a variety of features looking at different issues surrounding fintech in Europe. These insights will be published in an upcoming special supplement; stay tuned for our celebration of and reflection on PSD2’s second birthday, our look at venture capital’s impact on the surging challenger bank movement, and more.
With FinovateEurope less than a month away, Finovate Research has been busily putting together a variety of features looking at different issues surrounding fintech in Europe. These insights will be published in an upcoming special supplement; stay tuned for our celebration of and reflection on PSD2’s second birthday, our look at venture capital’s impact on the surging challenger bank movement, and more.
This week on the Finovate blog we covered the $115 million raised by French challenger bank Qonto, looked at the new banking license U.K. challenger bank Vive Bank just scored from the Bank of England, and reported on Nigeria-based mobile money operator Paga’s acquisition of U.S.-based Apposit.
Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazilian SME payments solution provider C6 reaches one million customer milestone.
EBANX launches 10,000-consumer trial of its digital wallet, Ebanx Go.
BNP Paribas to foster fintech innovation at new Sao Paulo startup hub, La Fabrique.
Asia-Pacific
Japan may be the next country to issue a digital version of its currency.
Finastra to power core banking for Asia digital-only bank, Tonik.
Fintech News Malaysia features the top 20 fintechs in the country in 2020.
Sub-Saharan Africa
African payments startup Flutterwave locks in $35 million in new funding; announces partnerships with Visa and WorldPay.
What does Visa’s acquisition of Plaid mean for African fintech startups? Tech Cabal examines the opportunities for two of Nigeria’s top fintechs.
International Adviser looks at how broader financial literacy may be key to a “fintech revolution” in South Africa.
Central and Eastern Europe
German challenger bank N26 announces 40% customer increase with five million customers now using the institution’s products and services.
Poland’s Autenti, which enables digital agreement signing and provides e-document workflow, seals the deal on $4.48 million in new funding.
Members of Sberbank’s loyalty program can now share reward points with other members.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Dubai-based robo advisory platform Sarwa picks up $8.4 million in Series A funding.
MoneyGram partners with Suez Canal Bank enabling its MoneyGram customers worldwide to send funds directly to bank accounts in Egypt.
Startupbootcamp FinTech Dubai introduces its 2020 cohort. Three of the 10 startups selected are from the MENA region.
Central and Southern Asia
Cardholders in India will now be required to opt in to access contactless payments.
Pakistan-based ride-hailing and logistics company Bykea launchesBykea Cash to enable mobile wallet top-up and utility billpay.
Revenue-based financing platform GetVantage goes live in India.
As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
Courtesy of a new partnership with Mastercard, SoFi members will have access to a new range of products and in-person experiences – including a new fan experience for visitors at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California. SoFi will develop these offerings by leveraging Mastercard’s payments network, which will also serve as the exclusive card network for SoFi’s to-be-released credit card.
“Our mission at SoFi is to help our members achieve financial independence to realize their ambitions,” SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said. “In order to do so, we must build products and services that help our members ‘Get Their Money Right’.”
The partnership between SoFi and Mastercard will bring new member benefits to users of the SoFi Money debit card, which enables users to make transactions from their SoFi Money cash management account, launched last February. Cardholders will now benefit from cashback rewards, complimentary cell phone insurance, discounted airport concierge services, as well as other perks thanks to the Mastercard relationship.
“It is imperative that our partners are leaders in technological innovation, security, and enhanced benefits,” Noto said, “and Mastercard is an industry leader across all of those areas.”
SoFi, in collaboration with Quovo, participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr New York, in 2017. Together, the companies’ presentation “How Quovo and SoFi Perfected Bank Authentication” demonstrated how the integration of Quovo’s Authentication API supports the secure and streamlined authentication of financial accounts.
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 2011, SoFi currently has 900,000+ members who rely on the firm’s growing array of solutions for borrowing, saving, spending, and investing. SoFi has raised $2.5 billion in funding – including a May 2019 investment of $500 million in a round led by Qatar Investment Authority – and has a valuation of more than $4.8 billion.
Which digital technologies will make the biggest differences in shaping the customer experience in the new decade?
FinovateEurope next month in Berlin, Germany, will feature a keynote address from Steven Van Belleghem, author of Customers The Day After Tomorrow. Van Belleghem’s book tells the tale of customer relations in a world in which AI and automation dominate commerce.
To Belleghem, the new AI-focused world we are entering will have profound effects on the kinds of exciting new technologies we will have access to. But the deeper impact of AI may be on the expectations customers begin to develop in the marketplace, expectations such as what Belleghem calls “faster than real-time service, hyper-personalization, and intuitive user interfaces” that deliver unprecedented levels of convenience.
Customers The Day After Tomorrow shows the key role data plays in what Belleghem calls an “AI-first world”. He writes of data both as a product of engaged users and as the fuel for future product innovation which, in turn, attracts a new cohort of engaged users. Understanding how to make this virtuous circle work for your business will be critical in the AI-dominated world of the future. Belleghem offers strategies – ranging from how to market to machines, the importance of enhancing the human touch, and taking advantage of the right communication channel at the right time – that will help firms not just compete in an AI-first world, but grow and thrive.
“How will our relationship with customers change when AI platforms like Amazon Alexa will hijack the relationship with our customers?” Belleghem asked in the introduction to a recent ebook anthologizing many of his top blog posts on the future of customer engagement. “What will be the impact on our brands? How can we keep reaching out to our customers without becoming invisible?”
“I’d love to help you think about the next steps that you could be taking in preparation for when the AI gatekeepers will slide in between your brand, and your customers,” he wrote.
Check out the above trailer for Belleghem’s book, Customers The Day After Tomorrow for more. And catch Steven live at FinovateEurope in Berlin, Germany next month. To reserve your spot, visit our FinovateEurope page and pick up your ticket today. Take advantage of big savings when you register before January 31!
Interested in demoing at FinovateEurope? If you’re an innovative fintech startup with new technology to show the world, send us an email to heather@finovate.com. We’ll give you all the details you need to know about how you can join us on stage at FinovateEurope as one of our demoing companies.
Does fintech have its first “double unicorn” of 2020?
Leading accounts payable and payments automation solution provider AvidXchange has secured $260 million in equity funding in a round involving TPG Sixth Street Partners as well as other investors. The funding will power the company’s continued growth and takes AvidXchange’s total capital to more than $800 million. The investment also likely boosts the company’s valuation to more than $2 billion.
“We’re shaping the future of the B2B payments industry by fundamentally changing the way businesses pay their bills,” AvidXchange CEO and co-founder Michael Praeger said. “(We) provide a single platform for AP and payments with the largest payments network for the middle market.”
Praeger noted that even in 2019 more than 60% of businesses in the U.S. relied on paper checks to pay bills, generating $2.7 trillion in annual administrative costs. AvidXchange enables mid-market businesses to avoid this expense by automating invoice and payment processing in a single platform. the company processes 9.5 million payments a year via its network of more than 500,000 suppliers.
The funding announcement comes as the company reports that new acquisition BankTEL has secured its first partnership leveraging AvidXchange’s AvidPay solution. BankTEL will collaborate with Studio Bank, a Nashville, Tennessee-based boutique bank, which will use the platform to automate and streamline their AP to payment process.
AvidXchange was named to the Inc. 5000 list in November and earned a spot on the Forbes Cloud 100 list in October. Last year, the company also added 175 new workers, taking its total workforce to 1,400+ across seven offices. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, AvidXchange was founded in 2000.
With FinovateEurope less than a month away, we thought we’d take a look at some of the fundraising success the conference’s alums had in 2019.
From companies that demoed at our very first FinovateEurope in 2012 to some of FinovateEurope’s newest players, alums of our European conference raised more than $940 million in funding last year. We’ve listed the companies below in alphabetic order, along with a link to their demo so you can learn more about the company and its work.
Looking to showcase your latest fintech innovation on stage? Send us an email at heather@finovate.com to find out how to become one of our demoing companies next month at FinovateEurope in Berlin, Germany, on February 11 through 13.
And if you haven’t picked up your ticket yet, run, don’t walk, to our registration page and save your spot today! Take advantage of big savings by signing up before January 31.
