Author: David Penn

Strands Partners with Spain’s Grupo Caja Rural

Strands Partners with Spain’s Grupo Caja Rural
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Strands

Spain’s Grupo Caja Rural has incorporated Strands’ financial management applications into its banking platform, reports Sharon Kimathi of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

With the integration of Strands’ personal finance management (PFM) and business finance management (BFM) solutions, Grupo Caja Rural’s savings banks will make these applications available to their customers.

“The alliance with Strands responds to our pledge to make life easier for our clients, connecting with their needs and making leading technologies available to each customer segment. Without a doubt, it is one more step in our commitment to putting technological innovation at the service of our clients,” said Manuel Pan, organization director of Grupo Caja Rural and RSI.

Erik Brieva, CEO of Strands, added: “Due to its structure, Grupo Caja Rural enjoys a differential role in Spanish banking. We are delighted that such a solid, historical bank relies on our technology to attract new customers and establish an even closer and more strategic relationship with the existing ones.”

Both Strands’ tools will incorporate an artificial intelligence engine, the exclusive engager component, which will enable savings banks to recommend to each of their customers those products and services that best suit their circumstances, offering them a personalized and enriching digital experience.

With offices in Barcelona, Spain; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Miami, Florida, Strands made its most recent Finovate appearance earlier this year at FinovateSpring 2019. At the conference, the company, in partnership with Mastercard, demonstrated its Strands SME Cash Flow Manager enhanced by Mastercard Technology solution. Strands was founded in 2004

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Akamai, Arkose Labs, BodesWell, Braintri, Chatbots.Studio, Datanomers, Ephesoft, INETCO Systems, InterGen Data, Neontri, P2BInvestor, Pinkaloo, Revest, SpyCloud, Trulioo

On Finovate.com

  • Trulioo Accepts Another $53 Million in Funding.
  • Braintri Rebrands as Neontri En Route to U.S. Debut.

Around the web

  • SpyCloud launches new automated tools to support checking and maintaining password security in Microsoft Active Directory.
  • Marketing Technology Insights interviews Arkose Labs VP of Marketing Vanita Pandey.
  • P2Binvestor wins Best Small Business Solution at the 2019 Best of FinXTech Awards.
  • Hired names Akamai a top 10 employer in Boston.
  • INETCO launches INETCO Insight 7, a payment fraud detection platform.
  • Ephesoft and Infor partner to demonstrate new cloud-based document capture solution.

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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Dorsum Builds Wealth Management Platform for BNP Paribas in Poland

Dorsum Builds Wealth Management Platform for BNP Paribas in Poland
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dorsum

One of Poland’s leading private banks, BNP Paribas Bank Polska, will deploy a new digital portfolio management solution from FinovateEurope Best of Show winner Dorsum. The bank will implement the Hungarian software company’s Wealth Management Platform to help give its advisors and wealth management relationship managers comprehensive wealth reporting, MiFID II compliant advisory workflows, as well as investment portfolio advisory.

Director of Brokerage House at BNP Paribas Bank Polska Emilia Jakubiak emphasized that the wave of digitization that is transforming the financial sector is as critical for financial services professionals as it is for customers. “It is not enough to focus only on the client facing platforms,” she said. “It is also important to give bank relationship managers a highly advanced and ergonomic digital platform for their everyday work. Dorsum’s solution will assist us in further improvement of our services and customer experience. ”

Jakubiak noted that the enhanced portfolio overview and MiFID 2 alignment in particular would enable advisors to “dedicate more attention to each customer which will additionally support the growth of the business in the investment segment.”

BNP Paribas Bank Polska is a member of the international BNP Paribas banking group. The institution, founded in 2015 and known previously as Bank BGZ BNP Paribas, offers savings, investment, and financing products to individual clients, and participates in the financing SMEs and corporate enterprises need in order to operate both in the Polish and international markets. The universal bank is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

“We are very proud that we have been chosen by another very prominent player in the European market,” Dorsum CEO Róbert Kő said. “BNP Paribas Bank Polska has positioned itself as potential market leader in the Polish private banking sector by embracing growth and innovation.”

At FinovateEurope earlier this year, Dorsum demonstrated its My Wealth app, which combines traditional and digital advisory processes to provide clients with a broader, more comprehensive view of their investments. The app features a self-learning chatbot, automatic portfolio notifications, and news, and supports the ability to reach out to the client’s financial advisor via a variety of channels.

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Budapest, Dorsum works with more than 80 financial institutions, serving clients in 10+ countries and more than 8,000 individual users. A leading software company in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) market, Dorsum announced successfully implementing the new integrated securities account management system for Takarék Group in April. In March, the company won the SME Top 100 Silver Award in the Service Providers category at the Best Engines of the Economy conference series.

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TSYS Unveils New Authentication Solution

TSYS Unveils New Authentication Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: TSYS

The new TSYS Authentication Platform, launched late last week, is the product of a collaboration between TSYS and four other companies – Featurespace, Emailage, InAuth, and Payfone – three of them Finovate alums. The solution leverages consumer experience data culled directly from cardholder touchpoints to deliver real-time verification on all kinds of remote customer interactions ranging from account origination and purchases to profile and password updating.

The platform, which integrates into TSYS client’s existing authentication systems, is available in Europe and will be launched in North America next year.

“At TSYS, we understand how various transactions are connected because we work with a global network of card issuers representing millions of individual accounts,” explained TSYS Issuer Solutions SVP of Product Strategy and Commercialization Justin Griggs. “If a device has been compromised in Ireland, for example, we can use that information to flag a remote login attempt in North America. We have real-time knowledge of potential fraud issues, and now we’re using that information to help our clients authenticate their customers and transactions across any use case.”

Although the partnership that helped bring the TSYS Authentication Platform to life brought in some new partners for TSYS, the company has a history with at least one of its collaborators: Featurespace. Two years ago, the two firms teamed up to launch TSYS Foresight Score with Featurespace, a fraud prevention solution that leverages machine learning to improve its effectiveness and accuracy over time without requiring human reprogramming.

“Our ARIC platform was specifically designed to help manage complex problems like transactional card fraud,” Featurespace CEO Martina King said when the partnership was announced. “Combined with TSYS’ industry experience, and robust client base, this product has tremendous potential in the fight against fraud.”

TSYS demonstrated its Authorization Controls solution at FinovateAsia 2013. The technology enables users to set default spending limits, category permissions, and other authorization rules and parameters on their accounts. The technology also supports user defined authorizations such as Alert, Decline, and Pre-Authorize, to provide increased visibility into and control over what happens during a transaction attempt.

Founded in 1983 and based in Columbus, Georgia, TSYS announced a mega merger earlier this year. The company agreed to be purchased by merchant acquirer Global Payments in a deal valued at $21.5 billion. Combined, the new entity will provide payment technology solutions to more than 3.5 million SMEs and 1,300+ financial institutions around the world.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dorsum, iSignthis, Larky, Payoneer, Plaid, SoFi, Spreedly

On Finovate.com

  • TSYS Unveils New Authentication Solution
  • Dorsum Builds Wealth Management Platform for BNP Paribas in Poland.

Around the web

  • Plaid discloses role of Visa and Mastercard as strategic investors in its $250 million Series C round from December.
  • iSignthis secures patent from European Patent Office for PSD2, SCA, and KYC.
  • SoFi inks 20-year arrangement for exclusive naming rights for the new Sofi Stadium where National Football League teams the Los Angeles Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams play.
  • Payoneer amps up cybersecurity efforts to significantly reduce phishing attempts.
  • Larky launches its nudge code library to bundle geo-location and engagement technology directly into mobile banking apps.
  • Spreedly launches Spreedly 3DS2 to help execute 3DS2-compliant transactions across multi-gateway environments.
  • BNP Paribas Bank Polska to implement Dorsum’s wealth management platform.

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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ThetaRay Opens Mexico City Office; Dubai’s Foloosi Turns to KSA for Expansion

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Clinc, Finovate Global, ThetaRay

Join us in October as our annual Asia-Pacific fintech conference returns to Singapore! FinovateAsia is one of the best ways for fintech startups and innovative industry veterans from the region and around the world to showcase their latest technologies before an audience of C-level decision-makers, venture capitalists, all-star analysts, and more.

For information on how to participate in FinovateAsia as a demoing company, partner, or sponsor, send us an e-mail and we’ll tell you everything you need to know.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Konfio, a Mexican financial services and credit assessment platform for SMEs, picks up $100 million secured credit facility from Goldman Sachs.
  • ThetaRay unveils new office in Mexico City.
  • Crunchbase news investigates the forces behind the “digital banking boom in Latin America.”

Asia-Pacific

  • Clinc’s Conversational AI gives voice to new app from Singapore’s OCBC Bank.
  • South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group opens accelerator lab in Indonesia.
  • iSunOne teams up with Malaysia Productivity Council to build the world’s first Islamic, blockchain-based financial system.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian digital-only retail bank Kuda raises $1.6 million in pre-seed funding.
  • Apis Partners acquires majority stake in Tutuka, a payment processing technology company based in South Africa.
  • Techpoint Africa looks at the growth of Nigerian fintech QuickCheck, which helps promote access to credit.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Romania’s Tremend Software Consulting partners with Mastercard Romania to help support digitization of payments.
  • Croatian startup Worig offers a credit rating system for long-term renters in Croatia and throughout the EU.
  • German WEG Bank gains cryptocurrency trading and custody license in Estonia.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Dubai-based Foloosi announces plans to make Saudi Arabia the first part of its expansion across the GCC region.
  • Emirates NBD introduces voice banking via Amazon Alexa.
  • Wamda looks at how UAE-based ride-hailing app Careem is moving increasingly into the payments space.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian fintech OkCredit raises $67 million in round led by Lightspeed and Tiger Global.
  • Entrepreneur.com examines how Indian fintechs have leveraged the omnichannel approach to extend their platforms.
  • City of London Mayor to be accompanied by delegation of British fintech companies during upcoming, five-day trade mission to India.

Top image designed by Freepik

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Clinc’s Conversational AI Gives Voice to New App from Singapore’s OCBC Bank

Clinc’s Conversational AI Gives Voice to New App from Singapore’s OCBC Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Clinc

FinovateAsia isn’t the only big deal coming to Singapore this fall. Courtesy of a partnership with conversational AI innovator Clinc, Singapore’s OCBC Bank will offer its customers a new voice-enabled mobile banking assistant – the first of its kind in Singapore.

The solution is called the OCBC Banking Assistant and was developed via OCBC’s Innovation Lab, where it was trained both to handle specific banking use cases as well as the intricacies of local Singaporean vernacular and context.

“We are always open to forging new partnerships that allow us to reimagine banking for our digital customers,” OCBC Bank’s Head of Digital Business for Singapore & Malaysia Aditya Gupta said. “We choose to work with Clinc because of their superior conversational AI platform and their next-generation natural language processing capabilities.”

Gupta called the collaboration “the next step towards making our customers’ mobile-first interactions more seamless and natural.”

The new mobile app will enable OCBC Bank customers to pay bills, transfer funds between accounts, check spending history and transactions, locate the nearest ATM, and receive spending advice – all just by using their voice. Clinc’s natural language technology means that users do not need to memorize special keywords or specific phrases in order to access many of the most commonly-used banking services.

The deployment also marks the first time that Clinc’s billpay competency is being used in its entirety, a point highlighted by company CEO Jason Mars.

“This is the first full production roll out of its kind,” Mars said, calling the launch “a milestone” for his company, OCBC Bank, and the financial industry writ large. “It’s not a chatbot or virtual assistant-type experience that people are familiar with,” he said. “Rather, it’s Clinc’s signature voice-first, human-like AI experience used to create a mobile bank assistant that enables OCBC Bank customers to get spending insights, account and transaction details, and pay bills, all by using unscripted, everyday, messy language.”

OCBC Bank – which stands for Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation – is a multinational banking and financial services entity, founded in 1932 and based in Singapore. With more than $340 billion (S$467.5 billion) in assets, OCBC Bank is the second biggest bank in Southeast Asia by assets and one of the larger banks in the APAC region.

The partnership with OCBC Bank is the latest collaboration that Clinc has been involved in. In June, the company reported that it was bringing its conversational AI technology to the healthcare industry, courtesy of a partnership with digital workforce solution provider Olive. And in January, Clinc announced that it was working with Ford to bring voice recognition to the automaker’s vehicles.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Clinc demonstrated its conversational AI-based solution at FinovateFall 2016, winning Best of Show. Named Frost & Sullivan’s 2019 Technology Leader for Artificial Intelligence, Clinc announced a major investment this spring, pulling in $52 million in new funding in a round led by Insight Partners.

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Meniga Helps Grupo Credito Agricola Launch Banking App

Meniga Helps Grupo Credito Agricola Launch Banking App
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Meniga

Rekyvik-founded software company Meniga has announced its partnership with Portuguese national financial group Grupo Crédito Agrícola to launch its new banking app, moey! – reports Ruby Hinchliffe of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

The free app will give Crédito Agrícola customers “a better understanding of their spending and finances”, as well as providing “seamless payments through services like Apple Pay and MB WAY”, said inovação e digital director Ricardo Madeira.

The financial advice app, which will also integrate with Android Wallet and Group expenses, inflicts no costs for account opening or maintenance.

“Through the moey! app’s intuitive interface and features, users will enjoy a seamless mobile experience which will significantly improve their everyday banking and personal finances,” said Madeira.

moey! will rely on Meniga’s technology as an engine, and will offer various services including an activity feed for personalised messages and targeted rewards, insights and expense reports which can be filtered, as well as budget and financial planning advice which will automatically generate your budgets and manage them for you.

Meniga’s CEO and co-founder Georg Ludviksson is “very proud” to be working with one of Portugal’s “most reputable banking groups.”

He said the bank’s team has “unrivaled insight” about the needs of its local banking customers, feeling confident that the new app “will excite users right across the region”.

The century-old Portuguese bank has more than one million clients and is one of the larger, more financially stable groups in the country.

Founded in 2009, Meniga demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2018, winning Best of Show for its white-label, digital banking solutions that help banks boost customer engagement.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Clinc, Dwolla, Mambu, Meniga, ThetaRay

On Finovate.com

  • Clinc’s Conversational AI Gives Voice to New App from Singapore’s OCBC Bank.
  • Finovate Global: ThetaRay Opens Mexico City Office; Dubai’s Foloosi Turns to KSA for Expansion.

Around the web

  • Meniga to enable consumers to donate cashback from their Meniga Rewards app to help combat climate change.
  • Mambu forges partnership with Swiss online lender bob Finance.
  • We Write Code joins Dwolla’s Partnership Ecosystem.

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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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Plinqit

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Plinqit
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2019, FinovateFall 2019 Sneak Peek, Plinqit

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateFall on September 23 through 25, 2019 in New York City. Register today and save your spot.

Plinqit is the first savings app of its kind that pays users for engaging with content through its patent-pending Build Skills™.

Features

  • Higher engagement (55%) vs. other apps
  • More than 100 accounts opened within days of launching
  • The only savings app that pays customers for engaging with financial education

Why it’s great
Unlike any other savings app on the market, Plinqit’s patent-pending Build Skills™ pays users for engaging with content, creating higher user engagement for financial institutions.

Presenters

Kathleen Craig, Founder and CEO
Founder and CEO of Plinqit by HT Mobile Apps (HTMA), Craig has over a decade of banking experience. HTMA serves banks in 19 states from $26 million to $20+ billion in assets.
LinkedIn.

Bryan Freeman, Marketing Director at HT Mobile Apps
A former bank marketer, Freeman’s focus is growing Plinqit user adoption and managing existing financial institution relationships who sponsor the product.
LinkedIn.

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: ebankIT

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: ebankIT
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ebankIT, FinovateFall 2019, FinovateFall 2019 Sneak Peek

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateFall on September 23 through 25, 2019 in New York City. Register today and save your spot.

Digital Concierge from ebankIT is designed to be a true customer ally. Combining financial products and 3rd party services, Concierge provides customer journeys, delighting client needs at a swipe of a finger.

Features

  • Open Banking with 100+ APIs already integrated with top core banking systems
  • Personalized customer journeys to enhance loyalty and engagement
  • Digital banking transformation

Why it’s great
ebankIT’s Digital Concierge generates new and effective customer journeys adjusted to clients’ preferences, enhancing their digital experience. Your client at the heart of your business.

Presenters

Pete Atkinson, VP of Global Sales
Atkinson has spent much of his career operating at the convergent point of technology and consumers.
LinkedIn.

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Finscend

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Finscend
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2019, FinovateFall 2019 Sneak Peek, Finscend

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateFall on September 23 through 25, 2019 in New York City. Register today and save your spot.

Finscend’s Banking Dispute Platform (BDP) was conceived and designed by financial industry veterans who have a first-hand professional understanding of the challenges of dispute resolution.

Features

  • Provides seamless integration throughout the banking ecosystem
  • Works in tandem with Visa and Mastercard schemes
  • Reduces chargeback costs by an estimated 25% and increases cardholder satisfaction

Why it’s great
Powered by an AI-driven engine, BDP streamlines the entire dispute process by offering real-time reporting, batch processing, fraud monitoring, and an enterprise user account area

Presenters

Aaron Lazor, CEO and Co-Founder
A former banking executive, Lazor holds a degree in economics from the University of Illinois.
LinkedIn

Moshe Teren, CTO and Co-Founder
Teren holds a B.A. from the University of Illinois-Chicago, and an MSM/MBA from Boston University.
LinkedIn

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