Author: David Penn

TransferWise Teams Up with GoCardless to Launch Global Network for Bank Debits

TransferWise Teams Up with GoCardless to Launch Global Network for Bank Debits
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: TransferWise

GoCardless has teamed up with TransferWise to launch the first global network for collecting recurring payments via bank debit, reports Jane Connolly of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Customers of recurring payments fintech GoCardless will be able to collect subscriptions, invoices and installments in over 30 countries, without having to open a new bank account in every relevant country or pay large foreign currency receiving fees.

The new network enables customers to collect payments via multiple bank debit schemes around the world through the GoCardless API, dashboard or partner integrations. The partnership claims that a direct integration to the TransferWise API will provide low cost, convenient and transparent pricing.

“Businesses today have global ambitions, but an antiquated, fragmented and opaque payment system is holding them back,” said Hiroki Takeuchi, CEO and co-founder of GoCardless.

“Our new network represents a major milestone in our mission to fix this broken system. Companies of all sizes can now tap into the only global network for recurring payments, built on the tried and trusted method of bank debit, with real exchange rates powered by TransferWise. This will take the pain out of getting paid and enable every business to operate in a way that’s truly borderless.”

Taavet Hinrikus, chairman and co-founder of TransferWise, added: “Together, we’re setting the new standard for business banking, using new technology to offer cheaper, faster, more transparent services that truly meet the needs of today’s businesses.”

Rolling out in phases from mid-November, the network will allow businesses to receive payments at the real exchange rate in GBP, USD, EUR, SEK, DKK, CAD, AUD and NZD.

TransferWise demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2013. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in London, U.K., the company has raised more than $772 million in funding from investors including Vitruvian Partners and Lone Pine Capital. The firm’s competitors include fellow Finovate alums Revolut and Currencycloud.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Compliy, DemystData, Equifax, Fenergo, Ripple, RISQ, Sberbank, Sensibill, Tink, TransferWise, Worldline

On Finovate.com

  • Finovate Alums Earn Spots on Deloitte’s 2019 Technology Fast 500
  • TransferWise Teams Up with GoCardless to Launch Global Network for Bank Debits
  • Finovate Global: Saudi Arabia Bets Big on Fintech; Sberbank Unveils Russian Supercomputer

Around the web

  • Worldline and Bitcoin Suisse partner to enable use of cryptocurrencies at the point of sale.
  • Ripple’s RippleNet tops 300 customers.
  • Tink hires Stripe’s former head of EMEA banking as its new Country Manager for the U.K. and Ireland.
  • DemystData makes Equifax data assets available on its marketplace in expansion of current partnership.
  • Fenergo earns recognition from Chartis Research in its RiskTech 100 2020 report as a category leader for Client Lifestyle Management and Know Your Customer.
  • RISQ Intelligent Software International and Compliy win finalist spots in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Global FinTech Hackcelerator.
  • Sensibill named a “Company to Watch” in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 Awards.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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FinovateMiddleEast Sneak Peek: Hakbah

FinovateMiddleEast Sneak Peek: Hakbah
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateMiddleEast 2019, FinovateMiddleEast 2019 Sneak Peek, Hakbah

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.

Hakbah is an Islamic fintech startup with a mission to increase financial inclusion via its Smart Cooperative Saving Platform. The focus is on digitizing traditional financial habits (like Jamiya).

Features

  • Provide a smart and easy digital solution in a smart savings platform
  • Increase financial inclusion via savings products
  • Move the informal financial channel into a financial system

Why it’s great
Hakbah is capturing and digitizing the consumer’s traditional financial habits embedded within the financial system. The solution also offers savings products for underbanked individuals.

Presenter

Naif AbuSaida, Founder and CEO
AbuSaida has seven years of experience in banking, cash management, money transfers, operational risk, and financial risk. He has 13 years of experience in marketing and communications and corporate strategy.
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FinovateMiddleEast Sneak Peek: FinFirst

FinovateMiddleEast Sneak Peek: FinFirst
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinFirst, FinovateMiddleEast 2019, FinovateMiddleEast 2019 Sneak Peek

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.

FinFirst is an end-to-end financial services aggregator that pairs businesses and consumers with banks and NBFIs and offers fully automated onboarding, credit assessment, and fulfillment.

Features

  • Serves businesses and consumers as an AI-driven aggregator of financial services
  • Supports financial inclusion and serving the underbanked
  • Offers alternative lending and alternative investing

Why it’s great
FinFirst is a one-stop shop for financial services.

Presenters

Omar Mehanna, Chief Executive Officer – UAE
Mehanna is an award-winning, commercially-minded business leader with over 25 years of banking and investment experience with leading international financial institutions and early stage/growth businesses.
LinkedIn

Abbas Hijazi, Chief Executive Officer
Hijazi has originated and executed landmark transactions in M&A and corporate finance. He has expertise in fintech, private equity, venture capital, real estate, and M&A.
LinkedIn

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FinovateMiddleEast Sneak Peek: JuicyScore

FinovateMiddleEast Sneak Peek: JuicyScore
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateMiddleEast 2019, FinovateMiddleEast 2019 Sneak Peek, JuicyScore

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.

JuicyScore provides next generation device authentication and data analytics. The company makes the internet safer via improving end-user security and alternative data engineering without using personal or sensitive data.

Features

  • Robust device authentication technology stack and wide output data vector
  • End-user security that does not utilize personal data
  • Worldwide accessibility based on open API principles

Why it’s great
Every online trace leads to valuable data which is safe, predictive, and extremely powerful for fraud prevention, risk management, and financial inclusion purposes.

Presenters

Alexander Akhlomov, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder
Akhlomov has extensive experience in product development and information services for financial institutions, together with expertise in risk management and portfolio analytics.
LinkedIn

Andrew Reddikh, Chief Technology Officer
Reddikh has extensive engineering experience in multiple areas such as travel, banking, and finance. He has worked with many backend and frontend tools including GoLang, Java, PHP, NodeJS, JavaScript, and ReactJS.
LinkedIn

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FinovateMiddleEast Sneak Peek: DAPI

FinovateMiddleEast Sneak Peek: DAPI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: DAPI, FinovateMiddleEast 2019, FinovateMiddleEast 2019 Sneak Peek

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.

DAPI is an API that connects applications to banks.

Features

  • Simple integration for MENA-wide bank connectivity
  • Access to end users financial information in their bank accounts
  • Payment initiation and automation

Why it’s great
A one-stop shop for fintech infrastructure in MENA, DAPI is the first unified banking API in the region.

Presenter

Mohammed Aziz, Co-Founder and CEO
Aziz is an innovator, tech entrepreneur and fintech expert who built successful tech startups prior to cofounding DAPI, which he is building with the vision to disrupt the fintech landscape in MENA.
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Starling Bank Offers Income Protection Insurance via Anorak Partnership

Starling Bank Offers Income Protection Insurance via Anorak Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Anorak

A little over a year ago, U.K. challenger bank Starling and automated online insurance advisory Anorak Technologies forged a partnership to bring personalized life insurance options to bank customers. Now, the two companies are back in the fintech headlines with a new offering. Starling announced that it will offer income protection insurance for the self-employed courtesy of its collaboration with Anorak.

“If you’re a freelancer, contractor, or sole trader, you may need income protection insurance to provide peace of mind if something happens that means you can’t work,” Team Starling noted on the company blog this morning. “Everyone has bills to pay, sometimes for a whole family, and if something goes wrong, an insurance provider could cover your outgoing when you don’t have a regular income.”

In order to access the insurance offering, Starling app users simply tap on the Anorak link in the Insurance category of the app. Anorak will guide the user through a quick, free, online assessment during which the user’s Starling Bank transactions are analyzed and the user is given advice on how much income protection and life insurance would be advisable. The technology also lets users know how long they should be covered and why. Starling Bank notes that the intention is to provide income protection and insurance coverage that is not just the most affordable, but is also the best choice for the consumer, as well.

“Bancassurance 3.0 is a reality,” Anorak wrote on its LinkedIn page today. “Technology redefines the way people access life insurance. With Starling Bank we help sole traders easily protect their biggest asset, themselves.”

Anorak demonstrated its Smart Life Insurance solution at FinovateSpring 2018. Embedded into the bank’s mobile app and leveraging bank data to provide quick insurance assessments, Anorak’s technology is designed to make it easy for partners ranging from challenger banks to online retailers to investment platforms to offer their customers personalized insurance options.

Named to FinTech Global’s list of the top 100 insurtech companies, Anorak teamed up with protection and mortgage advice company Albany Park over the summer. The partnership brought telephony protection advice to Anorak’s online platform. Anorak began the year with news that it was joining the FinTech Innovation Lab London’s 2019 cohort – along with fellow Finovate alums Exate Technology and FutureFlow.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, U.K., Anorak has raised $11.5 million (£9 million) in funding and includes French insurtech startup studio Kamet among its investors. David Vanek is co-founder and CEO.

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IBM and Bank of America Partner on Public Cloud for Financial Services

IBM and Bank of America Partner on Public Cloud for Financial Services
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: IBM

How serious is IBM about making an impact in fintech? The company, which demonstrated its wealth management technology at FinovateSpring in 2016, launched its first financial services-ready public cloud today and revealed Bank of America as its initial partner. The two companies have been working together on the project for more than a year, and the bank said it plans to host key applications and workloads on the platform to better serve its 66 million banking customers. According to reporting in The Wall Street Journal, Bank of America currently has 80% of its IT workload on a private cloud and has been planning a move to a public cloud since 2012.

The IBM financial services public cloud will help banks and other financial services companies more effectively engage with qualified technology vendors. In its statement, IBM highlighted the fact that the cloud will also help financial services firms meet regulatory, security, and resiliency requirements for working with fintechs. The company added that the solution is the only industry-specific, public cloud platform to provide preventative and compensatory controls for financial services regulatory workloads, multi-architecture support, and proactive and automated security.

Bank of America helped IBM develop the platform’s control requirements which, for example, will help both ISVs and SaaS providers of all sizes focus on their businesses rather than security, infrastructure, and compliance issues once platform controls are established.

Calling the pact, “one of the most important collaborations in the financial services industry cloud space,” Bank of America Chief Operations and Technology Officer Cathy Bessant explained that the bank expects to give as much as it gets from the relationship. “This industry-first platform will allow Bank of America to use the public cloud, putting data security, resiliency, privacy, and customer information safety needs at the forefront of decision-making,” Bessant said. “By setting a standard that addresses the concern of hosting highly-confidential information, we aim to drive the public cloud to a safety level that is unmatched.”

The IBM financial services-ready cloud will run on IBM’s public cloud. IBM’s public cloud leverages open source technologies, including a managed Red Hat OpenShift environment, to support more than 1,000 enterprise clients. The platform leverages more than 16,000 production clusters, provides industry-leading compliance for data encryption, and relies on integration with IBM Security to deliver threat monitoring and management from a centralized security dashboard.

“The financial services-ready public cloud represents an ongoing focus from Bank of America, IBM, and Promontory to help develop a technology ecosystem where regulations can be addressed,” IBM SVP for Global Industries, Clients, Platforms & Blockchain Bridget van Kralingen said. “Together we plan to help our customers address their ongoing compliance requirements, coupled with highly scalable, standardized capabilities that will be built to help serve today’s modern financial services industry.” Promontory is an IBM business unit focused on financial services regulatory compliance consulting that was brought in to ensure an environment that was compliant with relevant regulations.

In addition to its FinovateSpring appearance in 2016, IBM also participated in our developers conference, FinDEVrNewYork 2017. The presentation by CTO Tom Eck discussed how thousands of developers were successfully building and monetizing “cognitive-enabled” financial services apps quickly and at scale.

Founded in 1911, IBM is based in Armonk, New York. The company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker IBM, and has a market capitalization of $122 billion.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avaloq, DefenseStorm, eToro, Fiserv, IBM, Jemstep, NICE Systems, PayKey, ThetaRay, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

  • Avaloq Seeks Exit: M&A or IPO?
  • eToro’s Latest Acquisition Boosts its Crypto Presence
  • IBM and Bank of America Partner on Public Cloud for Financial Services

Around the web

  • DefenseStorm names Chief Revenue Officer Steve Soukup as its new President.
  • NICE Actimize introduces its new Federated Learning capability that offers higher fraud detection via Collective Intelligence.
  • Fiserv inks global agreement with German grocery industry leader ALDI.
  • GoCardless to use TransferWise’s API, TransferWise for Business product, and provide TransferWise’s FX rates to its customers.
  • PayKey forms SBI PayKey Asia, a joint venture with SBI Holdings that will support the sales and market launch of PayKey across the region.
  • ThetaRay taps Moran Goldwein as SVP for Human Resources.
  • Infinex to integrate Jemstep’s Advisor Pro to deliver digital advice to Infinex’s client firms.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Ephesoft Drives Digital Automation in Thailand via Language Recognition

Ephesoft Drives Digital Automation in Thailand via Language Recognition
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ephesoft

The newly-announced partnership between Ephesoft and Tokio Marine Asia demonstrates how fintech and insurtech are playing a role in the advancement of Thai language recognition technology. Tokio Marine Asia, the regional headquarters of Japan’s first life insurance company, will collaborate with the enterprise content capture and data discovery solutions provider to bring greater automation to the Thai insurance market.

Ephesoft’s technology leverages supervised machine learning to automate the classification and extraction of key information from unstructured data. The technology is sensitive enough to recognize document types and the machine learning system requires only two to five samples of the data in order to perform. Faster data extraction, with fewer opportunities for manual entry-based error, gives businesses in a variety of industries lower costs, deeper insight into business trends, and the ability to offer improved service to customers.

“We hope that by using Ephesoft, we will be able to alleviate manual data entry and streamline processes, accelerating our claim processing to provide better customer service,” VP and head of digital strategy of Tokio Marine Asia Hidemi Harada said.

In addition to bringing digital efficiencies to the Thai insurance industry, the partnership hopes to break new ground in the analysis of Thai language unstructured data. Pledging to overcome data, document, and language challenges that are “prevalent throughout Thailand,” Ephesoft CEO and founder Ike Kavas said, “Ephesoft has a strong commitment to meeting our customers where they are and addressing their unique challenges, regardless of geographic location.” Harada added that the collaboration will help them “gain a deeper level of understanding for characters and language, which has been a long-time challenge to international business in Thailand.”

The deal with Tokio Marine Asia is the latest partnership from Ephesoft, which unveiled a major alliance with Grant Thornton over the summer. That partnership will enable Grant Thornton to make Ephesoft Smart Capture available to its customers to improve back office operations such as invoicing, accounts payable, and contract management.

Last month, Ephesoft announced that it had partnered with IT, BPO, and consulting services firm Hexaware Technologies to help businesses successfully undertake automation-led, process transformations. In September, the company announced that it was collaborating with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) specialist Automation Anywhere to help customers take advantage of the combined benefits of RPA and document capture technologies.

Ephesoft demonstrated its smart document capture and analytics platform at FinovateSpring 2018, highlighting how the technology leverages data mining and analytics to enhance mortgage document processing. Founded in 2010, the company has raised $15 million in funding and includes Mercato Partners among its investors.

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GoDaddy Adds SME Financing Option with Kabbage Partnership

GoDaddy Adds SME Financing Option with Kabbage Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Kabbage

The “everyday entrepreneurs” of GoDaddy just got access to a new financing option. The web hosting innovator has teamed up with online lending and technology platform Kabbage to enable its business customers to apply for and receive a Kabbage line of credit of up to $250,000 in a matter of minutes if approved.

“Our customers tell us all the time that flexible funding is critical to grow and run their businesses; new opportunities make it important to be able to access capital, quickly whether for online marketing, inventory or purchasing new equipment,” Kabbage CRO Laura Goldberg explained. “They simply can’t afford to wait weeks or months for a loan approval.”

The flexible lines of credit also mean that business borrowers are not obligated to make withdrawals. There is no fee for applying for Kabbage funding, and borrowers pay nothing until they access the funds. “Our customer base of over 200,000 small businesses across the U.S. understands the value of accessing the exact amount of funding they need when they need it,” Goldberg said.

In a statement, Kabbage and GoDaddy highlighted the role that a lack of capital played in undermining small business digital marketing efforts, in particular. Citing a survey of 500+ entrepreneurs, the companies noted that small businesses typically pointed to a lack of money as the main reason for not growing their presence online.

“We know that a lack of capital for marketing and other core activities remains a major roadblock to accelerate growth,” GoDaddy VP of global market operations Melissa Schneider said. “Our partnership with Kabbage is key in our ongoing mission to empower our customers and provide them with the resources they need to fuel their business needs.”

GoDaddy has more than 18 million customers and 9,000+ employees around the world. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company had 2017 revenues of $2.2 billion and a net income that same year of more than $15 million. Founded in 1997, GoDaddy is publicly-traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GDDY. The company has a market capitalization of $11 billion.

Founded in 2009, Kabbage demonstrated its Kabbage Card – which links directly to the customer’s Kabbage line of credit – at FinovateSpring 2015. More recently, the company announced that it was getting into the payments business with the launch of a new SME payments solution, Kabbage Payments. Also this fall, the Atlanta, Georgia-based company acquired fellow Finovate alum Radius, adding insights into millions of small businesses to its platform.

Kabbage is also an alum of our developers conference, FinDEVr SiliconValley 2015. At the event, the company’s Chief Technical Officer demonstrated how developers can use the Kabbage platform to accelerate the lending process.

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Envestnet Adds Yodlee FinApps to MoneyGuide’s MyBlocks

Envestnet Adds Yodlee FinApps to MoneyGuide’s MyBlocks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Yodlee

Envestnet announced today that it is adding five Yodlee FinApps to MoneyGuide’s MyBlocks client-engagement tool. This will give financial advisors new resources to improve customer engagement as well as their customer’s financial wellness.

An interactive, digital experience, MyBlocks helps advisors engage clients on topics such as social security and retirement compatibility by breaking them into “bite-sized blocks” that are easier to understand, navigate, and manage. By adding Yodlee Finapps, advisors will also be able to offer clients a holistic view of their assets, insurance, and other financial information, as well. “Get clients engaged faster and keep them engaged,” Envestnet | MoneyGuide president Tony Leal said. “That’s the foundation of MyBlocks.”

The new five blocks include:

  • AI Fintech: AI-driven virtual assistant that measures financial health
  • Cash Flow Analysis: financial tracker that forecasts future expenses and income
  • Investment Holdings: portfolio viewer with ability to examine sectors and individual holdings
  • NetWorth Summary: aggregated, continually-updated snapshot of assets and liabilities
  • OK to Spend: cash flow optimizer that provides transparency on future income and expenses

This week’s announcement furthers the initial integration between MyBlocks and Yodlee FinApps announced over the summer. The new blocks are currently available to MoneyGuide customers who are subscribers to MyBlocks and have licensed Yodlee data aggregation. The offering is expected to be extended to all registered investment advisors using the Envestnet | Tamarac platform in 2020.

“This is another step in our journey to create a unified advice network that allows advisors and their clients to build better financial futures,” Envestnet interim CEO Bill Crager said.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Envestnet| Yodlee demonstrated its latest financial wellness data offering at FinovateFall in September. The new app enables users to structure their financial data in repositories called “boards” that leverage notifications, alerts, and insights to make it easier for users to manage their finances. Among other recent offerings from the company are its Intelligent APIs, unveiled just weeks ago, which take advantage of data science and machine learning to empower the development of “hyper-personalized” financial solutions.

Envestnet has more than 99,000 advisors and 4,100+ companies using its data aggregation and digital analytics platform and services. The company’s customers include 17 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, 43 of the 50 largest wealth management and brokerage firms, and 500+ of the largest Registered Investment Advisers. Recent partnerships with Envestnet include working with Voya Financial over the summer to help the firm launch a hybrid roboadvisory solution, and announcing a $500 million acquisition of PIEtech – the mother company of MoneyGuide – this spring.

Envestnet acquired multiple-time, Finovate Best of Show winner Yodlee in 2015 for $660 million. The company is publicly-traded on the NYSE under the ticker ENV, and has a market capitalization of $3 billion.

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