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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
JumioPartners with Philippines Remittance Provider I-Remit
Around the web
Sezzle’s Karen Hartje wins recognition from Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal as its 2019 CFO of the Year.
FISearns number one ranking for risk management and compliance technology solutions from Chartis RiskTech100 for the fifth year in a row.
Kineticaannounces integration of NVIDIA RAPIDS to enhance performance of its Active Analytics Platform.
Fintech Finance interviewsPersonetics’ President of the Americas Jody Bhagat.
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.
Of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America right now, how many have demonstrated their technology live on the Finovate stage?
The answer, courtesy of Deloitte’s just-released 2019 Technology Fast 500 ranking, is a full, baker’s dozen of thirteen innovative firms that have introduced their solutions to Finovate audiences. Update: 11/13: Make that 14 companies!
“This year marks the 25th anniversary of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, so we are especially pleased to announce and congratulate the 2019 winners,” Deloitte Vice Chairman Sandra Shirai said. “Once again, we saw innovation across the board, with software companies continuing their dominance of the top ten. It’s always inspiring to see how the Fast 500 companies are transforming business and the world we live and work in.”
Making the top 20 of Finovate alums making the cut was Unison, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2017, winning Best of Show. Unison’s HomeBuyer and HomeOwner solutions help make homes more affordable and home equity easier and less expensive to access.
Also notable on Deloitte’s list is the appearance of two of our newest alums – SheerID and EVERFI – which demonstrated their solutions earlier this year at FinovateSpring.
Check out all the Finovate alums that made the list below. We’ve included their Technology Fast 500 rank, three-year revenue growth rate, headquarters location, and a link to the company’s most recent Finovate demo video.
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.
Fresh off a successful return to Singapore for FinovateAsia, we are happy to announce that FinovateMiddleEast will be back in Dubai later this month, November 20 and 21. For more information about our upcoming fintech conference in the UAE, visit our FinovateMiddleEast page today.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Saudi Arabia’s Riyad Bank invests $26.7 million in new fintech startup investment program.
BankDhofar signs partnership agreement with Oman-based fintech TelyPay.
Central Bank of UAE considers new fintech office to help drive innovation in financial services.
Central and Southern Asia
A new B2B fintech program for Indian fintechs, FT Slingshot, launched at Hong Kong FinTech Week.
Mumbai, India’s financial capital, is seeking to establish itself as the countr’s fintech hub, as well.
Eight Indian fintechs, including Paytm and OlaMoney, earn spots in the KPMG and H2 Ventures Fintech 100 list.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Mexican cryptoexchange Bitrus introduces new e-wallet geared toward unbanked population.
Creditas, a Brazilian digital consumer lending platform, opens new offices in Valencia, Spain.
Born2Invest looks at the growth of the fintech sector in Argentina.
Asia-Pacific
Tandem Bank, a challenger bank based in the U.K., announces plans for an expansion to Hong Kong.
Vietnam’s TPBank forges agreement with Ripple’s RippleNet.
International visitors to China have access to a new prepaid card service run by Alipay and supported by Bank of Shanghai.
Sub-Saharan Africa
South African fintech iKhokha offers a blunt assessment of the country’s struggle to attract the talent necessary to grow its fintech industry.
The U.K. announces plans to deepen fintech partnership with Nigeria and other Africa nations.
Andrew Takyi-Appiah, CEO of Ghana-based Zeepay, talks about the business of remittances and its recent partnership with Moneygram.
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.
Tinkhires Stripe’s former head of EMEA banking as its new Country Manager for the U.K. and Ireland.
DemystDatamakesEquifax data assets available on its marketplace in expansion of current partnership.
Fenergoearns 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 Compliywin finalist spots in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Global FinTech Hackcelerator.
Sensibillnamed 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.
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. LinkedIn
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
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
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. LinkedinA
A little over a year ago, U.K. challenger bank Starling and automated online insurance advisory Anorak Technologiesforged 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.
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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IBM and Bank of America Partner on Public Cloud for Financial Services
Around the web
DefenseStormnames Chief Revenue Officer Steve Soukup as its new President.
NICE Actimizeintroduces its new Federated Learning capability that offers higher fraud detection via Collective Intelligence.
Fiservinks 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.
PayKeyformsSBI PayKey Asia, a joint venture with SBI Holdings that will support the sales and market launch of PayKey across the region.
ThetaRaytaps Moran Goldwein as SVP for Human Resources.
Infinex to integrateJemstep’sAdvisor 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.
