David Penn, Author at Finovate

How Will Fintech Respond to Europe’s Generational Shift?

By David Penn Posted on February 9, 2020
Categories: Dorsum, Finovate Global, Fiserv, Jumio

With FinovateEurope kicking off this week in Berlin, Germany, we thought it would be fun to check in with FinovateEurope Best of Show winner and Central and Eastern European fintech innovator Dorsum.

How are the social and technological changes in Europe influencing the way fintechs and financial services companies build, pilot, and market their solutions? We reached out to Dorsum’s Senior Innovation Expert, Greg Csorba, to find out how the company is meeting these challenges and more.

Finovate: As a European fintech, what is the most exciting thing about fintech in Europe right now, and how is Dorsum taking advantage of this opportunity?

Greg Csorba: In the next 10 to 15 years a significant amount of wealth will pass from the Baby Boomer generation to the Y (Millennial) and Z generations. This will, among other things, change the service model expected of investment service providers. This multigenerational wealth transfer will present a real challenge for every player in the market to adapt to the digital expectations of the new generation, which could bring significant business benefits in the coming years.

Finovate: Dorsum won Best of Show at FinovateEurope last year. What does that accomplishment mean for the company on the eve of your return to FinovateEurope?

Csorba: We were very honored to have won the award last year at FinovateEurope. It confirms that our solutions represent what the industry demands. Every year we are working on understanding our clients better to create new, innovative products, answering their needs. This mindset lead us to create the subject of this year’s show as well, our Wealth Management Communication HUB. We do hope that it will win over the audience as well.

Finovate: For those unfamiliar with Dorsum, can you tell us a little bit about the company and the work it does?

Csorba: Dorsum is an investment software provider company, based in Hungary with two other subsidiaries in Romania and Bulgaria. Since our foundation in 1996, we became a leading software company in the CEE region. Our investment software family offers versatile solutions to players in the capital and wealth management markets. We are especially proud of our innovation team who always keeps one step ahead of the market for the company to continue creating industry-leading solutions.

Finovate: What are some of the key enabling technologies used by your platform? Do machine learning, AI, and other new technologies play a major role in powering your offerings?

Csorba: Yes, we always looking at new technologies and new ways to empower our customers. AI and machine learning are used in our Botboarding chatbot engine, our client-facing investment app My Wealth, and the new Communication HUB. As for the future, we are looking into innovative ways of using and applying information from Big Data databases, which has yet to make a notable change in the lives of wealth managers and investors. For example, we are excited to work on a project aiming to profile users based on their everyday interactions with other digital services – which could reflect their attitude towards risk taking and provide personalized product recommendations.

Finovate: Dorsum is known for its work in the Central and Eastern European markets. How is the company’s growth in this region going and are there any significant plans for expansion beyond the CEE?

Csorba: This year one of our greatest achievements was to win BNP Paribas and their Polish subsidiary as one of our customers and we are working on new deals to continue this growth in the future. In 2020 we are mainly focusing on the CEE market as our main target group. To this end, it’s important for us to have a constant presence in the most prestigious Europe-wide conferences such as Finovate.

Finovate: Dorsum uses a hybrid model combining traditional and digital advisory processes. Why do you think this is a winning strategy for you and your clients?

Csorba: We see that new digital technologies in wealth management and the private banking industry are always welcome, but clients still need and rely on the advice of their advisor. This type of advice however can be managed in innovative ways on digital platforms. This is why we created a hybrid advisory model where digital meets the personal touch. Clients can manage their portfolio on their own, but if they need, they can learn from an AI-driven chatbot or reach their personal advisor through an app and real-time chat.

Finovate: What does Dorsum have in store for 2020? Can you give us a little preview of what you’ll be presenting at FinovateEurope next week?

Csorba: We are presenting new communication features for our wealth management applications, referred to collectively as the Wealth Management Communication HUB. The HUB connects advisors and clients through notification sending and real-time chat. This GDPR- compliant, secure communication module is superior to non-binding e-mail chains, and includes automated notification sending, paperless document underwriting and even an integrated educational chatbot. The HUB represents our hybrid advisory vision, as it allows banks to reach the mass affluent and well as the private banking segments with digital products, saving time and money through efficiency.

Watch Dorsum demonstrate its latest technology live at FinovateEurope in Berlin, Germany, February 11 through 13. Tickets are still available.

Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world

Sub-Saharan Africa

Nigerian fintech Wallets Africa unveils its new Wallets for Developers offering.
ITWeb’s Samuel Mungadze looks at how a pair of South African fintechs – Meerkat and Spoon Money – are “redesigning financial services.”
Nigeria’s The Guardian profiles African fintech pioneer, Segun Aina, on his 65th birthday.

Central and Eastern Europe

Hamburg, Germany-based digital debt servicing platform Receeve raises 4 million euros in seed funding.
Analysis from Sberbank shows that for the first time, Russian made more digital payments than cash payments in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Varengold Bank announces plans to open a fintech hub in Berlin.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Morocco’s Bank Assafa goes live on Path Solutions’ iMAL core banking system.
National Bank of Kuwait announces availability of Fitbit Pay.
Entrepreneur.com lists “4 Things to Know About the Middle East Fintech Industry.”

Central and Southern Asia

Freelance Wallet, the product of a new partnership between Paystand and JS Bank, enables freelancers in Pakistan to receive payments via smartphone.
PayU co-founder Shailaz Nag raises $8 million in seed funding for his finech startup, Dot.
State Bank of India partners with BEP Systems for mortgage origination.

Latin America and the Caribbean

The Mexico City-based Startupbootcamp Fintech accelerator run by Finnovista reports that four of the 20 fintechs in its latest graduating cohort have female leadership.
Born2Invest examines the state of Chile’s fintech sector.
Mexican digital banking startup Stori locks in $10 million in funding.

Asia-Pacific

Jumio teams up with CIMB Bank Phillippines to bring its digital onboarding and AI-enabled identity verification to Filipino customers.
Singapore-based ridesharing firm turned fintech giant Grab acquires robo-advisor Bento Invest.
Fiserv partners with Hong Kong digtal bank pioneer ZA Bank.

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.

Top image designed by Freepik

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Finovate Launches New Gender Diversity Stream at FinovateEurope

By David Penn Posted on February 6, 2020
Categories: FinovateEurope 2020, Speaker series, Women in Fintech

FinovateEurope is innovative for us in a number of ways. This will be the first time our fintech conference has been held in continental Europe after eight years of hosting our event in London. We are also launching our new Startup Booster program, which is designed to help give fintech startups the information, guidance, and support they need in order to more effectively build, pitch, and market their innovations.

FinovateEurope will also feature the debut of our Women in Fintech stream. Held on the afternoon and early evening of Wednesday, February 12, our Women in Fintech stream consists of presentations, keynotes, a panel discussion, and an end-of-day networking opportunity with refreshments hosted by European Women Payment Network (EWPN).

Here are some of the women who will be speaking as part of our Women in Fintech stream.

Isil Ugurlu

Country Ambassador, Germany, at the European Women Payments Network, Ugurlu is also Head of Payment at Berlin, Germany-based Elumeo group, a firm that produces and sells high-quality gemstone jewelry. She is responsible for the firm’s global payment infrastructure and processes, and the company’s global payment partner relations.

Theodora Lau

Founder at Unconventional Ventures, Lau is a speaker, writer, and innovator. Her focus is on developing and growing an ecosystem of financial institutions, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to respond to the needs of an increasingly diverse consumer. She is a mentor to both fintech and healthtech startups, and supports a growing partnered portfolio.

Juliane Schmitz-Engels

Head of Communications at Mastercard for Germany and Switzerland and a host at Fintech Berlin, Schmitz-Engels is also a host at Fintech Berlin and a curator at FocusCamp. Previous to her work at Mastercard, Schmitz-Engels led communications and public relations at technology and finance companies in Berlin and Frankfurt. She studied at the Universitat Potsdam and the Institute for Law and Finance.

Also scheduled to participate in our Women in Fintech stream are:

Akira Sasaki
Ria Shetty
Sabrina Small
Weina Wang

For more on our FinovateEurope agenda, visit our FinovateEurope page. We’re looking forward to seeing you in Berlin!

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Fiserv Partners with Hong Kong Digital Bank Pioneer ZA Bank

By David Penn Posted on February 6, 2020
Categories: Daily news, Fiserv

Hong Kong’s first digital bank will use payment technology from Fiserv. The firm, ZA Bank, will use the company’s VisionPLUS global payment software, which supports the entire card payment lifecycle from origination and issuance to settlement and customer service. ZA Bank will leverage Fiserv’s suite of APIs to ensure fast and seamless app development and integration.

“We are pleased to partner with Fiserv as we embark on a journey to shift the lifestyle of future banking users,” ZA Bank CEO Rockson Hsu said. “With our companies’ combined knowledge and expertise in banking and technology, we are well-placed to respond fast to the ever-changing market with an agile product development approach.”

Licensed in March of last year, ZA Bank launched as a pilot in December with 2,000 retail customers. The pilot enabled the challenger bank to test services such as remote onboarding, time deposit, and facial recognition. ZA Bank offers 6% interest on three-month deposits of up to $25,000 (HK$200,000). Established by ZhongAn Technologies International Group, ZA Bank emphasizes a “community-driven approach” that seeks to match innovative technologies with the changing lifestyles of its customers.

“Ultimately, we want to offer superb user experiences via a robust and secure platform,” Hsu said. “I am confident that with the support of Fiserv, ZA Bank will be well-positioned to deliver relevant, convenient, and excellent service to our users.”

A long-time Finovate alum, Fiserv demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage most recently at FinovateSpring 2018. The Brookfield, Wisconsin-based company, founded in 1984, acquired fellow Finovate alum First Data last year, and began 2020 with news of a pair of new credit union partnerships.

Speaking for Fiserv on the ZA Bank partnership, company EVP and head of Asia Pacific Ivo Distelbrink, put the collaboration in the broader context of financial innovation taking place in the region. Distelbrink called the launch of ZA Bank “an important milestone” for financial services in Hong Kong, and praised the firm as a “modern banking option aligned to the changing way people want to move and manage money.”

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New Europe, New Decade: FinovateEurope and Fintech in the Age of Brexit

By David Penn Posted on February 5, 2020
Categories: FinovateEurope 2020

The Brexit challenge. Rising economies of Central and Eastern Europe. The crisis of confidence in traditional financial institutions. The growing anxiety over the power of new enabling technologies … how will innovation in financial technology be shaped by these competing interests and demands?

Next week in Berlin, Germany, Finovate will host its first fintech conference in continental Europe. From February 11 through February 13, we will present the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the analysts, and the venture capitalists who will share their accomplishments and insights with our 1200+ audience of financial professionals. Below is a sneak peek at what we have in store over the course of our three-day event. Visit our FinovateEurope page for more details.

Industry Stage Day – February 11

This year FinovateEurope kicks off with an Industry Stage Day. This day begins with a pair of keynote addresses leading into the morning’s special address from Steven Van Belleghem, author of Customers The Day After Tomorrow. The afternoon will feature a variety of tracks with their own keynotes, addresses, and fireside chats on themes such as the digital future, insurtech, open banking, and payments.

Our Industry Stage Day will also feature our new Startup Booster program. Read our interview with Finovate VP and host of the Finovate Podcast Greg Palmer on Finovate’s latest commitment to fintech’s startup community.

Demo Stage Days – February 12 and 13

The second and third days of FinovateEurope will introduce our live fintech demos into the mix. In addition to our demos, we will also feature addresses, power panels, and special analyst insight presentations to help contextualize and examine the technologies – and their applications – on display during our Demo Stage Days. Learn more about the companies demonstrating their technologies in our FinovateEurope Sneak Peek series.

Another new feature for FinovateEurope is our Women in Fintech stream on Wednesday. This special opportunity offers keynote addresses, panel discussions, and networking sessions geared toward discussing and promoting gender diversity in the fintech industry.

FinovateEurope Need to Knows

We’re excited about Finovate’s first trip to Berlin, Germany. If you’re planning on joining us, then here’s some information to help you make the most of your stay.

What: FinovateEurope 2020 – a three-day conference in Berlin, Germany featuring live demonstrations of the latest innovations in financial technology

When: The conference begins Tuesday morning, February 11, with registration at 8:30am and opening remarks at 9:15am. FinovateEurope continues through Thursday, February 13.

Where: FinovateEurope will be held at the Intercontinental Berlin, Budapester Strabe 2, Berlin, Germany.

Why: Finovate’s combination of keynote addresses, panel discussions and debates, and live technology demos is the most exciting way to keep up with what’s new – and what’s next – in the world of fintech innovation.

How: To get tickets and join us? Visit our registration page today and save your spot! Join us for our Industry Stage Day, our Demo Stage Days, or save big with an All-Access Pass that will enable you to enjoy the entire, three-day event.

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Can Amazon Help Goldman Sachs Get its Groove Back?

By David Penn Posted on February 5, 2020
Categories: Daily news

According to reporting in both the Financial Times and on CNBC, Amazon and Goldman Sachs are discussing a partnership that would enable the investment bank to offer loans directly to merchants via Amazon’s platform. Goldman Sachs has yet to comment on the report.

The collaboration could begin as soon as March. Amazon has not commented on the report either, other than to affirm that lending is one of the services it provides to its merchant partners. In a statement, the company praised its merchants for “account(ing) for more than half of everything sold in Amazon’s stores.”

Goldman’s potential alliance with Amazon follows news of the investment bank’s 2019 partnership with Apple and Mastercard as part of the Apple Card launch. It also comes as the firm makes a number of moves that suggest it is serious about financial technology. Financial News London noted that in addition to partnership changes in recent years that have led to fewer traders and more investment bankers, Goldman Sachs is also “clearing out space for leaders in the new consumer business (it) is building.” The article highlights a pair of new Goldman Sachs partners – the founder of PFM app Clarity, which Goldman acquired in 2018, and the CEO of United Capital, a recent wealth management acquisition – as evidence of this trend.

Another example of Goldman Sachs interest in fintech, of course, is its digital bank offering, Marcus, launched in 2016. At the company’s first investor day last week, Goldman affirmed its commitment to Marcus, pledging to add a digital wealth management component and a checking account to the platform in 2021. Goldman also unveiled a new mobile Marcus app that enables accountholders to check balances, schedule transfers, and make loan payments. As reported in the company’s fourth quarter results, Marcus has $60 billion in consumer deposits.

A possible partnership with Amazon is not the only fintech headline Goldman Sachs has picked up this week. Yahoo Finance is reporting that Goldman may seek to build its own financial services cloud platform as part of a “transformational, multi-decade effort.” The report quotes Goldman Sachs co-Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti who suggested that the company would leverage it own “core technology services” for external uses in the same way that Amazon has with its Amazon Web Services platform, and potentially provide a significant new revenue stream.

The actual scope of Goldman’s initiative is what has most observers and analysts buzzing. Does the company’s stated “transformational, multi-decade effort” essentially mean Goldman-Sachs-as-a-Service? Or a full-fledged AWS competitor? Bank of America and IBM announced their intention to develop a financial services public cloud platform last fall. It will be interesting to see if Goldman’s ambition is to meet, or exceed, that goal.

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Fintech and the Case for Senior-Based Solutions

By David Penn Posted on February 4, 2020
Categories: Alumni profile, bereev, EverSafe, Golden

Photo by Noelle Otto from Pexels

Recently I came across an interesting story of how tech native GenZ kids were being paired with aging Boomers to help them navigate a variety of contemporary technology tools – from their smartphones to their SnapChat apps.

At a time when sneers like “OK Boomer” quickly trend on social media, it was a refreshing reminder of the role younger generations can play in making some of the dramatic changes in society – including technology – easier for their older family members, friends, neighbors, and even perfect strangers to navigate.

With this in mind, I wanted to take a look at how entrepreneurs are leveraging fintech to do the same thing: make it easier for seniors to not just participate in online life, but to thrive there.

Ensuring that the online and mobile worlds are a safer place for seniors is one of the important contributions that technology can make. EverSafe, which introduced its solution to Finovate audiences at FinovateFall 2014, specializes in leveraging technology to help protect seniors against financial exploitation. The company’s software examines the senior’s financial transactions and credit report on a daily basis, looking for unexpected patterns and other anomalies that may indicate potentially fraudulent activity. Once suspicious activity is detected, the user is alerted immediately and, if the activity is confirmed, a resolution process is started.

Earlier this year, Eversafe lent its technology to researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine in Portland. The goal is to help medical professionals uncover cognitive test markers that correlate with changes in the financial behavior of seniors. Interviewed in Alzheimer’s News Today, Dr. Kathy Wild noted that these insights could help determine when and to what extent independent living is the best option for a given senior. The results of Wild’s study are expected in 2021.

Eversafe was founded in 2012 by Howard Tischler, who is the company’s CEO. The firm is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.

Best of Show winner at FinovateFall 2018, Golden offers technology geared toward helping older Boomers take care of their parents, many of whom are entering assisted living communities. The company’s Financial Caregiving Assistant app and Family Collaboration platform provide an array of services such as security for online accounts; automatic, on-time billpay; expense review; and a family document vault. The offering also helps seniors and caretakers to discover government benefits and drug discounts they may be eligible for. Partnerships with a variety of financial services companies gives Golden users the ability to offer branded services – including legal, financial, estate, and wealth management services – to their customers, as well.

The first company to win AARP’s Financial Innovation Award and Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Aging Innovation Challenge, Golden was launched in 2016 by CEO Evin Ollinger, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Even among hardened fintech fans there was an audible gasp in the room when FinovateAsia 2019 Best of Show winner Bereev‘s CEO announced bluntly that her company’s goal was to help you “plan for your death.” Then again, it’s hard not to take a company that uses the Twitter hashtag #DeathPlan seriously.

Malaysia-based, Bereev digitizes and simplifies a life-planning process that is not only complex, but is also typically paper-intensive and burdensome. In explaining the origins of the company, founder and CEO Izumi Inoue compared the unexpected, end-of-life experience of her grandmother with the passing of her grandfather soon afterward, who had learned from his wife’s death the importance of end-of-life planning. And not just for important documents and the numbers to bank accounts, either. More personal instructions like which friends to contact were also a part of Inoue’s grandfather’s plan. They are a part of Bereev, as well.

A legacy planning solution, Bereev helps guide an individual’s family on what to do in the event of their injury, incapacitation, or death. Bereev has four components to building this contingency plan: a digital vault for important documents such as wills and insurance policies; the ability to record and save “last words” to be sent or shared with loved ones; and an accessibility console that enables the user to determine who gets access to which data and information in Bereev.

The fourth component is a guided journey that helps ensure that users provide clear instructions on how they want their affairs handled after death. The solution is set up so that all the user has to is answer a pair of questions each week, and Bereev will build out over time a personalized set of end-of-life instructions based on the user’s responses. “Before you know it,” Inoue said, “you’ll have very clear instructions left behind.”

Poignantly, Inoue notes that there are many innovations in technology in general and fintech in specific, that help you prepare and take advantage of the happier times in life: getting married, buying a first home, planning for a family. “But what about the darker and tougher times in life,” Inoue asks, “who is going to help you then? At Bereev, our goal is to help you cope through those difficult moments of life – with technology.”

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Payments Infrastructure Startup Finix Locks in $35 Million in New Funding

By David Penn Posted on February 4, 2020
Categories: Daily news

Sequoia Capital has led a $35 million funding round for payments infrastructure specialist Finix. The investment, which also featured participation from Acrew Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Activant Capital, and Inspired Capital, takes Finix’s total funding to more than $55 million. The Series B will enable the company to further grow its product and engineering teams, as well as accelerate innovation in its payments-infrastructure-as-a-service offering.

Finix’s goal is to help companies “own their payment stack” which enables them to create the payment experience that best fits their customers and business. From enhancing the merchant onboarding experience to managing the flow of funds, Finix sees control over the payment process as a “strategic imperative” that companies should not relegate to third party payment service providers. In the same way that companies like Marqeta and Plaid have made it easier for businesses to issue cards and access financial information, Finix sees itself as empowering businesses to own payments.

“Every day, our customers prove to us they are able to build superior product experiences that delight both consumers and merchants when they have full control over their payment stacks,” Finix CEO Richie Serna said.

Finix also differentiates itself by the way it charges for its service. Instead of taking a cut from each transaction, Finix opts for a fixed pricing model plus a sliding scale fee based on the number of payments processed. Finix notes that companies can go live with its system in as few as two months and at a significant savings compared to building their own in-house solution.

“Historically, software companies have had two options: either take (the) pain and integrate payments into your software, or give it to your customers in the form of a disconnected experience,” Sequoia partner Pat Grady explained. Instead, he said, companies can use Finix’s “developer-friendly building blocks” to create an integrated, seamless payment experience for customers while adding payments as a new source of revenue.

Finix was founded in 2015 and is based in San Francisco, California. The company’s customers include Passport Labs, a mobility management platform, retail POS company Lightspeed POS, and small business financing and cash flow solution provider Kabbage.

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Worldline to Acquire Ingenico in $8.6 Billion Deal

By David Penn Posted on February 3, 2020
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, Worldline

The combination of Worldline and Ingenico will create the world’s fourth largest payment services provider with 20,000 workers in 50 countries serving nearly one million merchants and 1,200 financial institutions.

Worldline announced today that it would acquire Ingenico for $8.6 billion (€7.8 billion) in a stock and cash deal. The combination would give the new entity broad reach across Europe – blending Ingenico’s strength in Germany, the Nordic countries, and France, with Worldline’s strong presence in Switzerland and Austria. The acquisition also will help the companies expand and take advantage of opportunities in the U.S., Asia, and Latin America.

Worldline Chairman and CEO Gilles Grapinet will be CEO of the combined entity. Bernard Bourigeaud, Ingenico Chairman, will take the role of non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors once the deal is closed.

“I am proud to announce that today is a great day for Worldline and for Ingenico, and more widely for our Payment industry,” Grapinet said in a statement. “Together we create the European World-Class leader in digital payments.” In praising the Ingenico team and its leadership, Grapinet also highlighted two areas – online payments and merchant acquiring – where he expected the new entity to excel.

In his statement, Bourigeaud put the deal in the context of the other recent mega mergers – FIS and Worldpay, Fiserv and First Data, TSYS and Global Payments – in the payments space. “The combination of Worldline and Ingenico offers a unique opportunity to create the undisputed European champion in payments on par with the largest international players,” he said. “This transaction comes at (a) time of accelerating consolidation of the industry and I am convinced that the joined forces of both leaders will deeply transform the industry.”

Worldline estimates that the new company will have projected 2019 net revenues of $5.8 billion (€5.3 billion) and operating margins of $1.3 billion (€1.2 billion).

An alum of our FinovateEurope conference, Worldline demonstrated its Worldline Connected Piggy Bank solution at our London event in 2017. The offering helps provide financial education for children, encouraging savings at an early age by combining an actual, physical piggy bank with a mobile app and savings account.

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Opentech Partners with Mastercard; Upgrade Pack Raises $5 Million

By David Penn Posted on February 2, 2020
Categories: Daily news, OPENTECH

Opentech has leveraged Mastercard Send APIs to offer a new solution, OpenPay Send, that will give financial institutions across Europe powerful money transfer capabilities.

“Opentech’s mission is to be the enabler of digital payments for banks, leveraging state-of-the-art infrastructures to build highly reliable and flexible solutions, ready to be deployed to the end user,” Opentech CEO Stefano Andreani said. “The partnership with Mastercard and the integration with their worldwide network is a perfect fit to our strategy, bringing a great value and convenience to our customers.” Andreani called OpenPay Send “an important addition to our offering.”

OpenPay Send will also enable firms to offer a broad range of services – from remittance and micropayments to insurance claim distribution and real-time P2P payments. Available via a single integration, the solution helps institutions transfer money to more than 100 corridors – including as many as three billion bank accounts – as well as mobile wallets, payment cards, and cash-out locations worldwide.

The new technology gives banks and other FIs the flexibility to tailor its offering, specifying which countries and sending channels to be activated, and at what costs. OpenPay Send also features a customizable UI for both mobile and web, as well as an administrative portal. Opentech will demo OpenPay Send later this month at FinovateEurope in Berlin, Germany.

Mastercard’s Arne Pache, VP of Digital Payments and Labs, praised the collaboration as an example of how the Mastercard Send platform improves the process of global money transfer. “(We) designed the Mastercard Send platform envisioning a better, faster, and smarter way to send money all over the world in multiple ways by leveraging our expertise and the existing relationships with our customers.” Pache added that the partnership with Opentech and launch of OpenPay Send “brings this vision to life.”

Opentech demonstrated its white-label mobile app, OpenPay for Business, at FinovateEurope 2018. The company is headquartered in both Italy and Switzerland.

Here is our weekly roundup of the latest news from our Finovate alumni:

BBVA’s Holvi to expand to the U.K.
Cloud 9 partners with Green Key Technologies to enable more efficient and secure extraction of voice trading data.
Blackhawk Network sets up development center in India, reveals plans to hire 200.
Lighter Capital promotes Joe Silver to Chief Financial Officer.
SparkPost announces new features for its Receipt Validation tool.
Pensions administrator TKP teams up with Ohpen.
Credit Agricole nabs majority stake in Linxo.
ID R&D’s new release of IDVoice v.2.11 includes key performance enhancements.
Tink launches in France.
Revolut offers free airport lounge access to users if their flight is delayed by more than one hour.
Billtrust’s Business Payments Network is now integrated with Corporate Spending Innovations to enable their customers to automate supplier payment delivery.
Voleo taps Glen Wilson as its interim CEO. Company founder Thomas Beattie will remain as Voleo CCO.
Xignite now available in Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Jack Henry launches core-agnostic banking platform.
DefenseStorm reports zero attrition and 50% customer growth in 2019.
FIS partners with alternative SMB funding company LiberisFinance.
Pacific Service Credit Union selects Digital Onboarding to enhance member onboarding.
Quid merges with social media analytics company NetBase.
ndgit and Konsentus partner for PSD2 compliance. This week, ndgit also released version 2 of its API platform.
Arxan Technologies recorded 30% subscription growth in 2019.
Upgrade Pack raises $5 million in seed round.

Alummi Features and Profiles

Here’s How Far We’ve Come with Voice AI in Customer Service – When it comes to customer service, even in-person interactions can be unpleasant. And doing business over the phone is usually markedly worse, especially if there is a bot involved. There is one fintech fighting that stereotype, however.

Currencycloud Raises $80 Million in New Funding – B2B cross border payments innovator Currencycloud has locked in $80 million in new funding.

Citi Unveils Digital Investment Platform Powered by Jemstep – Launched by Citi last week and powered by Jemstep, Citi Wealth Builder is the latest addition to the world of digital investing platforms.

Our latest FinovateEurope Sneak Peeks are up. Meet LeapXpert, Crowdz, Diligend, ITSCREDIT, Crayon Data, Chatvisor, Neonomics, Covr Security, Fidel, and Zelros.

LendUp Tops $2 Billion in Consumer Loans Mark – Since its launch in 2011, socially responsible lender LendUp has surpassed $2 billion in consumer financing via its digital lending platform.

FICO Suite 10 Brings New Precision and Flexibility to Credit Scoring Decisions – The new technology from FICO leverages trended credit bureau data to boost its predictive power, enabling lenders to make more precise decisions on credit risk.

Splitit Taps Stripe to Facilitate Merchant Onboarding for Payment Installments – The agreement makes Stripe the payment facilitator for all new merchants who onboard with Splitit.

Also on Finovate.com

PSD2 Turns Two: Where Do We Go From Here? – Break out the PSD2 birthday cake! On January 13 the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2)– what we now generally think of as open banking– turned two years old.

Digital Dollars and E-Euros: The Case for National Digital Currencies – 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.

Stop Looking at Your Customer Base as a Faceless Mass – f you ask Balázs Vinnai, president of W.UP, one size does not fit all when it comes to banking. In fact, his company’s entire premise is built around creating a personalized user experience.

Follow the Money: FinovateEurope’s VC All Stars Talk Fintech Investment in Europe – This year at FinovateEurope, we’ve added a panel called Investor All Stars. It’s stacked with investors who will offer up their take on the top topics for venture capital funding in fintech.

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Citi Unveils Digital Investment Platform Powered by Jemstep

By David Penn Posted on January 31, 2020
Categories: Jemstep

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.

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Digital Dollars and E-Euros: The Case for National Digital Currencies

By David Penn Posted on January 31, 2020
Categories: Finovate Global, Ripple, Voca.ai

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.