TransferWise Brings its Money Transfer Innovations for Banks to Mambu

TransferWise Brings its Money Transfer Innovations for Banks to Mambu

The combination of cloud banking platform Mambu and international money transfer firm TransferWise will enable Mambu customers to offer fast, inexpensive, and transparent international money transfers at the real exchange rate. Mambu will leverage TransferWise’s TransferWise for Banks solution via API, giving its clients an out-of-the-box solution that allows them to focus on building a quality user experience and expanding their offerings.

“By plugging into our API, Mambu just became the world’s number one cloud banking provider to use for international payments,” TransferWise co-founder and CEO Kristo Käärmann said. “From their first day in business, banks gain significant advantages over their competitors, benefiting from the speed and convenience of TransferWise’s services.”

Mambu CTO/CPO Ben Goldin praised TransferWise’s innovations in global money transfer and highlighted the way the partnership will enable Mambu’s customers to take advantage of opportunities around the world. “We were impressed how TransferWise has established itself around the globe spanning infrastructure platform in a highly complex regulatory environment which aligns with our aims,” Goldin said. “We aim to offer best-in-class banking services through our cloud platform and are pleased that international banking is no longer of any concern for our customers.”

A Finovate alum since 2013, TransferWise has forged partnerships with companies like Alipay to enable fund transfers to China, and brought its TransferWise for Banks technology to Canada courtesy of a partnership with EQ Bank. Founded in 2010, the U.K.-based company moves more than $5 billion every month, has more than seven million customers, and estimates that it saves its users $1.5 billion in money that would otherwise be paid in hidden fees every year.

Transferwise has raised more than $772 million in total funding. BlackRock, Lone Pine Capital, LHV Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz are among the company’s investors.

Germany’s Mambu offers a cloud banking platform that enables users to quickly build, launch, and service loan, deposit, and other financial products. Since its inception in 2011, the company has partnered with challenger banks like N26 and, more recently, teamed up with digital consultancy Mobiquity to provide its digital banking solutions to more financial institutions and fintechs.

“Our partnership with Mambu allows us to extend our service offering to the core banking layer, next to our existing solutions and serve our clients full circle on all layers,” Mobiquity Client Strategy Partner Paul van Dommelenn said. He referred to Mambu as having “a reputation as the most successful next-generation core banking provider.”

Mambu has raised $45.4 million (€42 million) in funding. The company is an alum of both our primary Finovate conference as well as our developers conference, FinDEVr.

Email Specialist SparkPost Celebrates Fifth Anniversary

Email Specialist SparkPost Celebrates Fifth Anniversary
Photo by Tairon Fernandez from Pexels

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated many technology trends that were already in place. The growing reliance on digital communication is one of many examples of technologies whose value we may have taken for granted and are once again re-appreciating. This is especially true for businesses that have not kept up with innovations in digital communications that now find themselves, due to the COVID-19 crisis, furiously trying to get their digital communications game up to speed.

For companies leveraging email as their communications channel of choice – out of preference or necessity – ensuring that their message is welcome, received, and engaged is key to making the email channel worthwhile and effective.

SparkPost, which celebrated the fifth anniversary of the launch of its cloud-based solution earlier this month, is one of the companies innovating in the email delivery and analytics space. Facilitator of more than a third of all B2C and B2B email, and featuring partners like SoFi and Salary.com, SparkPost offers a platform that leverages more than a trillion, worldwide data signals to increase email engagement and inbox placement.

And as the company recently recognized, the ability of institutions and organizations to rely on the effectiveness of their communications strategies is all the more important in times of crisis. SparkPost’s John Landsman, Manager of Research Analytics, discussed the challenge in a blog post last month.

“During this dire global health emergency, organizations in virtually every industry have been communicating with their stakeholders via email and have done so with urgency and precision,” Landsman wrote. He highlighted email’s unique feature-set as a channel: the ability to quickly target specific audiences with customized content – including multi-media content – and to be able to accurately and immediately measure engagement. “In all, the email channel is perfectly suited to the rapidly evolving communication needs of a public crisis,” he noted.

SparkPost’s Health Score gives companies deep insight into what factors are shaping email engagement rates.

Landsman referenced the surge in traffic on its own platform as an example of the explosion in email activity in recent months. Weekly volumes climbed from 3,600 campaigns in mid-February to 40,000+ campaigns a month later. The activity review also showed differences in read rates by sector (Transportation at the top; Financial institutions somewhere in the middle; Credit cards at the bottom). In a companion post, the SparkPost VP of Customer Success shared a set of best practices for companies looking to optimize their email communication strategy during a crisis. “While crisis communications are stressful to produce,” she wrote, “you can make a huge difference in how your company is perceived by sending valuable and relevant information during a tough time.”

The COVID crisis comes as SparkPost looks back on the work the company has done since launching its cloud solution and emerging from its previous incarnation as on-premises, enterprise-grade email server, Message Systems. Today the company has 6,000 customers and facilitates almost 40% of the world’s commercial email to the tune of 6+ trillion emails a year. And perhaps most critically, SparkPost’s platform gives them access to a robust collection of email intelligence data. This is what enabled the company to combine email delivery and email analytics in a new offering, Signals. This product leverages email intelligence data and machine learning models to anticipate potential recipient engagement issues before the emails are sent.

SparkPost’s Tom Mairs demonstrating Signals at FinovateSpring last May.

The anniversary also marks a significant shift at the top as SparkPost founder George Schlossnagle transitions from Chief Technical Officer to Chief Evangelist to make way for CPO Charlie Reverte’s promotion to CTO. “This amazing team has given me time to reflect on both what I enjoy and where I can add the most value,” Schlossnagle wrote at the company blog earlier this month. “I’m very excited to announce Charlie as our new CTO.”

SparkPost has raised more than $93 million in equity funding from investors including NewSpring Capital, LLR Partners, and Hercules Capital. Headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, the company demonstrated the Signals feature of its platform at FinovateSpring (this year, FinovateWest) last May.

CuneXus Strikes Strategic Partnership with TransUnion

CuneXus Strikes Strategic Partnership with TransUnion

The new strategic partnership between CuneXus and TransUnion, announced this week, will empower financial institutions to offer highly relevant financing offers to their customers. The collaboration matches CuneXus’ Perpetual Loan Approval platform with TransUnion’s vast data assets to deliver relevant brand experiences to consumers quickly, securely, and via the digital channels they increasingly prefer.

“We are thrilled to have found a partner with a long history of customer advocacy to enhance our application-free lending solution,” CuneXus president and CEO Dave Buerger said. “If the CuneXus platform is the engine, TransUnion’s wealth of data and knowledge is the rocket fuel.”

“The CuneXus solution allows lenders to harness the power of today’s most sophisticated data assets, like trended credit data, and operationalizes that data for maximum consumer impact,” senior director of credit unions for TransUnion Sean Flynn explained. “In addition, our combined solutions will enable lenders to deploy prescreen strategies that have been optimized based on our companies’ combined expertise and many years of evaluating best practices in consumer lending.”

CuneXus demonstrated its cplXpress lending and marketing automation platform at FinovateSpring in 2018. Named Best Consumer Lending Company in the 2020 FinTech Breakthrough Awards in March, CuneXus also announced a partnership with independent GAP program provider Frost Financial Services. That agreement will integrate Frost Financial’s auto loan protection products into CuneXus perpetual loan automation platform.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Santa Rosa, California, CuneXus began this year with an announcement that the company had topped 2019 projections with a 40% year-over-year gain in consumer reach and now has more than 120 financial institution partners. The company has raised $6.7 million in funding from investors including CMFG Ventures.

A Finovate alum since 2016, TransUnion is a global data and insights company that serves as one of the three major credit reporting agencies. Founded in 1968 and based in Chicago, Illinois, TransUnion collects and aggregates financial data on more than one billion consumers in 30+ countries around the world. The company is publicly traded on the NYSE under the ticker symbol TRU, and has a market capitalization of $13 billion.

Varo Gets Moven: Transition to Enterprise Sends Customers to Digital Banking Upstart

Varo Gets Moven: Transition to Enterprise Sends Customers to Digital Banking Upstart

When Moven announced a transition away from being a provider of consumer banking services and toward business partnerships, few questioned the company’s capacity to win with enterprise customers. Founded in 2010 by Brett King, Moven has secured partnerships with financial institutions around the world, including Westpac in New Zealand, BCA in Indonesia, TD Bank in Canada, and, most recently, STC Pay in Saudi Arabia.

But there was some question as to what would happen with Moven’s customer accounts, which the company announced it would close by April 30, 2020.

We now have our answer: Moven will transition its customers to San Francisco, California-based Varo Money, which is in the process of securing its status as a challenger bank in the U.S.

“Moven has been a pioneer in the digital banking space and a long-time inspiration,” Varo Money CEO Colin Walsh said. “We are excited to welcome their customers and deliver on the types of technology and features they have grown to love.”

Moven CEO Marek Forysiak said the decision to choose Varo stemmed in part from compatibility with the company’s commitment to fostering financial wellness. The two companies are also looking into ways that Varo can leverage not just Moven’s former customers but also the business’ current and future digital banking technology as Varo continues on the path toward full bankhood.

“We are excited to partner with Varo ahead of their official national charter,” Walsh said. “Our patented financial wellness technology aligns with Varo’s efforts to help everyday Americans gain access to better financial insights and opportunities.”

Founded in 2015, Varo Money offers a mobile banking app, products such as a high-yield savings account, and services including early direct deposit. Available on both iOS and Android platforms, and charging no fees, Varo Money earned regulatory approval from the FDIC in February, insuring the firm’s deposits and giving Varo a major boost in its effort to become a full-fledged bank. To this point, the company has leveraged its partnership with Bancorp as its custodian; Bancorp is slated to transfer those customer deposits to Varo this quarter.

Named one of the 9 Best Checking Accounts for April 2020 by NerdWallet, Varo has raised more than $178 million in funding from investors such as Warburg Pincus and The Rise Fund. The company has an estimated valuation of $418 million.

Fintech in the Age of COVID-19; Mid-Year Review Delivers Industry Heat Check

Fintech in the Age of COVID-19; Mid-Year Review Delivers Industry Heat Check
Photo by Krivec Ales from Pexels

A Mid-Year Heat Check on Fintech

What is the state of fintech as we move toward the second half of 2020? As expectations struggle to catch up with the worldwide public health challenge of the coronavirus pandemic, Finovate will dedicate a week to examining where fintech is right now and where it’s going over the balance of this historic year.

With a focus on the latest trends in payments, fraud and cybercrime prevention technology, bankingtech, and wealthtech, Finovate Fintech Halftime Review will kick off on June 22 and run through June 26. The digital-exclusive, five-day event will feature webinars, videos, white papers, eMagazines, and more – with each day dedicated to a key theme driving fintech today. Login and join us from the comfort of your home – or your home/office. The Finovate Fintech Halftime Review is a great opportunity to get a deep dive into the content that matters to you most.


Finovate Podcast Examines Fintech in the Age of COVID-19

Feeling isolated and anxious while sheltering-in-place? Listen in on some of the most insightful conversations about fintech and the economic challenge of the coronavirus pandemic on the Finovate Podcast.

In his most recent episodes, host Greg Palmer continues his Fintech in Extraordinary Times series, examining the impact of the public health crisis on technology and financial services. Check out his interview with Brett King, founder of Moven, and host of the Breaking Banks podcast; as well as his conversation with fintech expert and former Special Assistant to President Obama, Adrienne Harris.


Here is our weekly roundup of news from our Finovate alums.

  • Ethoca announces extension of its partnership with Microsoft to give the company’s customers access to their digital purchase receipts.
  • ACI Worldwide partners with High Payment Solutions (Hi-Pay) to build the first payments gateway service in Mongolia.
  • Salt Edge brings PSD2 and open banking solutions to Roundups’ donation platform.
  • Avaloq integrates the ACTICO Compliance Suite to help clients prevent financial crime.
  • Worldline partners with Meniga to boost digital customer engagement with Meniga’s personalized banking features.
  • Lendio and TouchBistro partner to help restaurants access PPP loan funds faster.
  • Glance Networks launches Glance for Financial Services, a co-browse, screenshare, and video tool.
  • Zogo Finance signs another three credit unions.
  • Finantix closes acquisition of Swiss data analytics company InCube Group.
  • Minna Technologies launches subscription management pilot for RBI’s Tatra banka.
  • Bankjoy inks partnerships with four credit unions in Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Nebraska with a combined $724 million in assets and more than 65,000 members.
  • Hong Kong Jockey Club customers look to Daon’s IdentityX platform for mobile login services.
  • Tink partners with Kivra to facilitate payment of bills and invoices.
  • Hyundai Card partners with Personetics to deliver financial insights and advice to credit card users.
  • BlueRush appoints Andrew Osmak as new Chief Revenue Officer.
  • Enveil releases ZeroReveal Machine Learning, an encrypted machine learning product.
  • 4Front Credit Union to offer Plinqit to help members save money and stay engaged.

Finovate Alumni Features and Profiles

Arxan Joins Two Firms to Form New Company – Application security company Arxan Technologies announced yesterday that it has joined forces with two other industry firms, CollabNet VersionOne and XebiaLabs, to form a new entity, Digital.ai.

Behavioral Biometrics Specialist BioCatch Scores $145 Million in New Funding – The Series C round featured participation from new and existing investors including Industry Ventures and American Express Ventures, and boosts the company’s total capital to more than $186 million.

SmartAsset Launches New Client Acquisition SolutionLive Connections enables financial advisors to connect directly with prospective clients by phone via SmartAsset’s SmartAdvisor platform.

Apiax on Why 2020 is Turning Out to Be the Year for Regtech – News from regtech companies has been flowing in 2020. Not only that, we saw significantly more regtech companies at FinovateEurope earlier this year than we have at previous events.

iProov Unveils New Web-Based Biometric Authentication Solution – Three-time Finovate Best of Show winner iProov is bringing its innovations in biometric authentication to the web browser. 

Onfido Raises $100 Million Because “Identity is Broken” – Digital identity verification platform Onfido reeled in $100 million in a round led by TPG Growth this week. The London-based company’s total investment now sits at just over $182 million.

How to Underwrite Loans When Everyone is a Higher Risk – COVID-19 has rewritten so many rules about the economy. It is now more difficult than ever to underwrite risk and ultimately understand if a consumer will pay back their loan.

Currencycloud and Derivative Path to Bring FX to Community Banks – A new strategic partnership between Currencycloud and cloud-based FX trading platform Derivative Path will make it easier for community and regional banks to offer a variety of FX and interest rate derivative trading options to their customers.

Kyckr Deepens Relationship with Citi – Regtech company Kyckr, which first partnered with its client Citigroup in 2016, has extended its relationship with the bank.

Investors Back Mobile Trading in Germany; Digital Banking Takes Off in Israel

Investors Back Mobile Trading in Germany; Digital Banking Takes Off in Israel

Germany’s Trade Republic Raises $67 Million

While mobile trading and investing app Robinhood rallies from a rough March toward a rumored $200+ million funding round, the company many are calling its European equivalent is making headlines of its own on the other side of the pond.

Berlin-based Trade Republic, which offers a mobile app that enables users to buy and sell stocks, ETFs, and other assets without having to pay a commission, announced that it has raised $67.4 million (€62 million) in new funding. The Series B round was led by Accel and Founders Fund, and will help the five-year old company build out its platform ahead of a formal launch later this year.

“About 85% of assets of European households are in bank accounts with mostly zero or negative interest rates,” Trade Republic co-founder Christian Hecker explained. “Our app enables people to invest their money safely, quickly, and transparently. By doing so, we are democratizing access to capital markets.”

With more than 150,000 users since its May launch last year, Trade Republic’s app is currently managing nearly one billion euros in assets.


Israel’s First Digital Bank Chooses Core Platform

The first digital bank in the country has no official name as of yet and, of course, no physical branches. But courtesy of a partnership with Tata Consultancy Services, the Bank With No Name has found its core platform in the form of the Banking Service Bureau, powered by TCS BaNCS.

“We have achieved a key milestone in the Israeli financial services industry by being onboarded on to TCS’ Banking Services Bureau,” bank chairman Shouky Oren said. “This approach will reduce the cost of banking for the average citizen and foster the development of innovative and differentiated services.”

The bank is slated to open in 2021 and will offer a wide range of services including deposits and loans, credit, account management, and securities trading. The firm will be the first company to receive a new banking license in Israel in more than 40 years.


Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian SME and micro-enterprise lender Aye Finance raises $23.8 million in debt funding.
  • A partnership between Mastercard and Askari Bank Pakistan will help the commercial and retail bank expand its product portfolio.
  • Traxcn and IBS Intelligence report that India’s fintech industry saw a 40% gain in funding over the first quarter of 2020 compared to 2019.
  • GooglePay’s Nearby Spot feature, which helps users find essential stores and shelters in their area, goes live in India.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Sao Paulo, Brazil readies for the launch of a new digital challenger bank, Elas, dedicated to serving female entrepreneurs.
  • Coronavirus concerns have put the breaks on Mexico’s ability to license new fintechs.
  • Criptolago enables Venezuela’s oil-based stablecoin, PTR, to be transactable via text message.

Asia-Pacific

  • Japanese fintech Paidy raises additional funding from Itochu Corporation for its Series C round.
  • Vietnam-based microlender Finhay secures investment from Acorns co-founder Jeffrey Cruttenden and Thien Viet Securities.
  • Koinworks, one of Indonesia’s biggest P2P lenders, raises $20 million in debt and equity.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Flash, a fintech based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, introduces a new payment offering, Flash Money, in partnership with Visa.
  • PagaSystems and Nigerian fintech SystemSpecs join forces to boost electronic payments in Nigeria.
  • South Africa’s new fintech innovation hub goes live.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Hamburg, Germany’s Deposit Solutions expands its partnership with Deutsche Bank.
  • NAGA, a German fintech that enables social trading and investing in stocks, cryptocurrencies, FX and other assets, announces profitability.
  • Born2Invest features venture investor and founder of iTLEADERS Yegor Klopenko on the challenge COVID-19 presents to Russian fintech.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Commercial Bank, based in Qatar, introduces new payroll service to help companies support employees’ digital international money transfers.
  • Mohamed Okasha, co-founder of Egyptian fintech Fawry, to launch $25 million fintech fund.
  • Qatar Development Bank (QDB) launches fintech incubator and accelerator programs.

Top image designed by Freepik

Behavioral Biometrics Specialist BioCatch Scores $145 Million in New Funding

Behavioral Biometrics Specialist BioCatch Scores $145 Million in New Funding

In a round led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, behavioral biometric innovator BioCatch has secured a major $145 million investment. The Series C round featured participation from new and existing investors including Industry Ventures and American Express Ventures, and boosts the company’s total capital to more than $186 million.

BioCatch chairman and CEO Howard Edelstein put the company’s news and recent accomplishments in the context of the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 global pandemic. “The current environment has spawned a large increase in bad actors seeking to take advantage of distracted individuals working from home or dispersed companies whose technologists are scattered in remote locations,” Edelstein said. “In such times, technologies like behavioral biometrics become more important than ever.”

In a post published at the company blog, BioCatch Product Leader Ayelet Biger-Levin noted that since the pandemic began and more people began social distancing and working remotely, “phishing and malware have been the primary source of scams and cyberattacks.” Biger-Levin added that financial institutions are especially vulnerable to social engineering schemes in which unwitting victims are tricked into making authorized but fraudulent transactions.

BioCatch leverages more than 2,000 bio-behavioral, cognitive, and physiological parameters to create real-time risk scores that enable institutions to defend themselves against both human and non-human cyber threats. The company’s technology provides identity proofing to fight new account and account takeover fraud, as well as continuous authentication to verify identity from login to logout.

“BioCatch has quickly established itself as the pioneer in the digital identity space by developing next-generation behavioral biometrics technology that integrates fraud detection and authentication capabilities to protect end-users and their most sensitive transactions,” Bain Capital Tech Opportunities Managing Director Dewey Awad said.

BioCatch demonstrated its Passive Biometrics/Invisible Challenges feature of its platform at FinovateFall. The company has secured more than 50 patents, has 90+ million users, and has provided more than 10x ROI based on testimonials from customers such as NatWest, American Express, and Itau Unibanco.

Earlier this year, the company acquired fraud and anomaly detection specialist AimBrain. Founded in 2011, BioCatch is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

SmartAsset Launches New Client Acquisition Solution

SmartAsset Launches New Client Acquisition Solution
Photo by chepté cormani from Pexels

One of my favorite stories about financial management involves a new broker who becomes alarmed during a major market meltdown. The broker is fearful of hearing from anxious clients and investors, who he is convinced will demand that he sell everything. He asks his supervisor for advice and his boss replies, “call them.” When the broker hesitates, his boss continues, “call them. If you don’t another broker will. “

Communication with clients is key for all successful financial managers – whether they are long-term customers or new prospects. And this engagement is all the more important when the markets are volatile and nerves are on edge. This is what makes the new service from SmartAsset, unveiled today, a valuable resource for financial managers as well as their customers and clients.

Live Connections, from SmartAsset, enables financial advisors to connect directly with prospective clients by phone. The service is available to U.S.-based certified financial advisors, Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and advisory firms via SmartAsset’s SmartAdvisor platform.

Michael Carvin, CEO and co-founder of SmartAsset, said the new innovation was part of the company’s goal to enhance what he called “the match-making experience between consumers and financial advisors.” He added that the service would enable customers to more easily reach financial advisors “when intent is at the absolute highest.” The company notes that the average investor using its platform is 57 years old and has significant assets of nearly $900,000. Yet the vast majority of them – more than 75% – report not having a financial advisor.

The technology also enables advisors to spend more time working with clients and less time hunting for them. “For advisors, Live Connections cuts through the noise as we’re able to instantly connect them with validated consumer leads over the phone,” Carvin said. “All advisors have to do is pick up the call and focus on what they’re good at: advising clients.”

Today’s launch of Live Connections follows a 2019 pilot program in which advisors and firms reported a 100% contact rate and a 20% close/conversion rate with prospects.

One of the world’s most viewed sources of personal financial information, SmartAsset reaches more than 65 million people each month. Most recently demoing its technology at FinovateSpring, New York-based SmartAsset was founded in 2012 and has raised more than $51 million in funding. The company includes Focus Financial Partners, IA Capital Group, and Javelin Venture Partners among its investors.

iProov Unveils New Web-Based Biometric Authentication Solution

iProov Unveils New Web-Based Biometric Authentication Solution
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon from Pexels

Three-time Finovate Best of Show winner iProov is bringing its innovations in biometric authentication to the web browser. The company announced the launch of iProov Web today, giving users of laptop, desktop, and tablet computers the same level of security enjoyed by users of iProov’s mobile app.

“iProov Web is a game changer for the digital identity industry,” company CEO Andrew Bud said. “Millions of people around the world have iProoved themselves on a mobile app, accessing online government, banking or travel services securely by proving that they are who they say they are, and that they are genuinely present during the authentication.”

The new offering is geared toward the significant number of people who prefer to use desktops or laptops, particularly for large online purchases and transactions, or when security is a top concern. In their product announcement, iProov cited data that indicated that while the web represented 37% of online traffic, it nevertheless delivered a disproportionate 56% of online revenue.

iProov’s patented Flashmark technology enables mobile apps to confirm genuine presence and provide seamless authentication, support digital onboarding, or assist in account or password recovery. The technology defends against presentation and replay attacks, as well as deepfakes, by ensuring both that there is a real person conducting the transaction and that the real person, is the right person.

London-based iProov most recently demonstrated its facial recognition-based biometric authentication solution at FinovateEurope in Berlin this February, picking up its third consecutive Best of Show award. Also that month, iProov opened a North American headquarters in Catonsville, Maryland at the Research and Technology Park at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).

More recently, the company partnered with SK ID Solutions, bringing its technology to customers in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. iProov was founded in 2011.

Currencycloud and Derivative Path to Bring FX to Community Banks

Currencycloud and Derivative Path to Bring FX to Community Banks

A new strategic partnership between Currencycloud and cloud-based FX trading platform Derivative Path will make it easier for community and regional banks to offer a variety of FX and interest rate derivative trading options to their customers.

Derivative Path will embed Currencycloud’s FX technology into its DerivativeEDGE platform, an end-to-end solution for interest rate derivative, FX, and hedge accounting. Together the offering will provide banks with a solution that enables counterparty/order management, electronic spot FX with integrated Request for Quote execution, third party international payments and receipts, and derivatives valuation, as well as compliance reporting.

Derivative Path co-founder and co-CEO Pradeep Bhatia said, “This joint effort will help us leverage our technology capabilities, global infrastructure, and subject matter expertise, to offer banks a platform to manage their FX and payments, a growing need in an underserved space.”

Based in the San Francisco Bay area, Derivative Path partners with financial institutions, buy-side, and commercial end-users to provide over-the-counter, interest rate derivative and FX trading execution and management solutions. Founded in 2013, the company has more than 100 clients and has facilitated thousands of trades with its interest rate, FX, and hedge accounting technology.

Long-time Finovate alum Currencycloud offers 85 APIs over four modules – collect, convert, manage, and pay – that represent the complete B2B cross-border payment workflow. The company has processed $50+ billion to more than 180 countries around the world.

Most recently demonstrating its technology at FinovateSpring 2018, Currencycloud has raised more than $160 million in funding. The company picked up nearly half that sum in a Series E round at the beginning of the year. In February, Currencycloud announced a partnership with U.K. travel money card, Currensea. Mike Laven is CEO.

Three Ways Digital Identity is Combating the COVID-19 Crisis

Three Ways Digital Identity is Combating the COVID-19 Crisis

Technology companies from every corner of the globe have been lending their talent, resources, and solutions to help deal with the health and economic implications of the COVID-19 crisis. While those firms in health technology have obviously played the lead role, innovators in virtually every field of technology are bringing their unique expertise to the challenge.

Here are three ways that companies specializing in digital identity and identity management are helping organizations, institutions, and individuals manage the global pandemic.

Know Your Carrier

One of the key ways that countries like South Korea have “flattened the curve” of the pandemic is through an approach called “test and trace.” This strategy relies on accurately identifying those who have the coronavirus and then tracking down all those individuals who have had contact with the infected individual so that they can be tested for the virus.

For example, In China, in addition to temperature checks outside of public places like restaurants, officials are leveraging smartphones and QR codes to identify those who are infected with the virus, and to track their recent movements to locate others who may have been in contact with the infected person. In the West, the news that Apple and Google are collaborating to develop a contact tracing solution that will help us meet this specific challenge is a positive sign. Yet as hopeful as this opportunity may be, it is not without caveats.

“It’s really important to get the cooperation of the public,” Recode Executive Director Kara Swisher told CNBCs Squawk Box Monday morning during a discussion on the Apple/Google initiative. She flashed her sleep and activity-tracking Oura ring, noting that wearables could be among the mobile technologies that could be used to make contact tracing as seamless as possible. “More power to the tech companies means more power to the tech companies,” she said. “The only question is will they give it back when this is over?”

Know Your Customer

Getting money into the hands of unemployed and furloughed workers is one challenge. Getting money into the bank accounts of businesses forced to close their doors during this period of quarantine and social distancing has proved, in some ways, to be an even steeper challenge. Many in the small business community were caught off guard, for example, when they learned that in order to access federal COVID-19 relief funds they would need to have a relationship with a participating financial institution.

The issue is that, even in an emergency, knowing your partner is paramount. And in order for banks to be financially responsible, they need to pursue the same measure of KYC diligence on applicants for emergency funding as they would for any other banking customer. To fail to do so would leave these institutions vulnerable, potentially, to massive fraud losses – turning an already challenging environment for banks even worse. Making it easier for financial institutions to engage needy SMEs by leveraging many of the innovations in Big Data and advanced machine learning – while remaining compliant and financially responsible – is a slam dunk opportunity for a sizable number of fintechs.

This is a reminder that regtech may not be appear to be the most important subsector within financial technology. But in the same way that the global pandemic is causing us to think as much about epidemiologists as we do about emergency room doctors, the current challenge in KYC also reminds us of how important innovations in regtech are not only within technology, but also for society as well.

Know Your Crew

While many are understandably eager to “re-open the country,” it remains likely that thousands of workers will continue to work remotely – at least in the near term. This phenomenon has been a boon for companies like Zoom that provide technology that enables online conferencing and makes it easier for workers who do not traditionally work from home to do so.

One major challenge for these newly-homebound employees is ensuring that they are logging into their company’s networks and platforms in a safe and secure manner. Beyond having the infrastructure to support remote work, having the capacity to authenticate legitimate remote workers, and to make sure that the data they are transmitting back and forth remains out of the hands of hackers and cybercriminals is critical.

Indeed, one of the discontents of the “Zoom Boom” is that many people using the platform have raised major privacy concerns, including reports that Zoom conferences have been infiltrated by hackers, interrupting live presentations with obscene images.

As with KYC, this is another area where fintech’s regtech calvary is coming to the rescue. Firms like Onfido and Jumio, among many others, have made their identity verification technologies available for free to organizations and institutions in the health and home care fields that are on the frontlines of the fight against the virus.

Visa and Fold Offer Co-Branded Card with Crypto Rewards

Visa and Fold Offer Co-Branded Card with Crypto Rewards
Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels

Payments giant Visa has teamed up with Atlanta, Georgia-based Fold to launch a co-branded debit card that offers rewards in the form of bitcoin. The partnership was announced late last week, and is the fruit of Fold’s participation in Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program.

The new debit cards are expected to be available in July. Users will get up to 10% of their cash purchases credited in Bitcoin. What’s unique about Fold’s approach with the new card is that it enables users to earn Bitcoin while spending in dollars. As Fold CEO and co-founder Will Reeves explained, by spending in dollars and accumulating Bitcoin rather than spending it, users avoid the potential tax implications of selling the digital asset.

This new initiative extends Fold’s business beyond enabling shoppers to buy dollar-denominated gift cards from popular brands like Amazon, Uber, and Starbucks with Bitcoin. Made available on an “early access” basis last fall, the Fold app also gives consumers 20% cashback in bitcoin on all purchases, fiat or crypto.

“We’re changing the fact that rewards points are issued in the form of restricted airline miles, arbitrary points, or depreciating fiat, instead of the best performing asset of the last decade: bitcoin,” Reeves wrote on the company blog back in September. “But unlike existing rewards that require users to give up their privacy for points, Fold’s new app rewards users for shopping privately.”

The partnership is a second bite at the bitcoin apple for Visa. A year ago Visa and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase introduced a Visa debit card in the U.K. The contactless card syncs with the user’s Coinbase account and, for a fee of approximately 2.5%, enables users to make purchases in fiat currency and have the responding amount of the cryptocurrency debited from whichever cryptocurrency account the users selects.

Fold was founded in 2014. The company has raised $3.3 million in funding, and includes Craft Ventures, CoinShares, Slow Ventures, Goldcrest Capital, and Fulgur Ventures among its investors.