AccountScore and Validis Bring the Benefits of Open Banking to U.K. SMEs

AccountScore and Validis Bring the Benefits of Open Banking to U.K. SMEs

Helping small businesses in the U.K. maximize the opportunities of Open Banking is the goal of the new partnership forged between AccountScore and financial data sharing and standardization specialist Validis. The two companies announced that they will work together to ensure that SMEs get access to more transparent financial services, and that U.K. institutions gain the most accurate financial overview of their clients.

The agreement between the AISP accredited Open Banking platform and Validis will enable small businesses to share financial data with a single click through a single, consent-driven workflow. Banks can visualize the data from an “insight-fueled interface” and track critical processes like loan originations. This collaboration will help institutions develop more personalized banking services for specific businesses, and enhance their ability to make better, more accurate decisions faster.

“As Open Banking becomes more established, having a single intuitive workflow where SMEs can share their data easily and securely opens up huge possibilities for financial services,” AccountScore CEO Emma Steeley said. “Our unique relationship with Validis ensures we can visualize all the financial data required to help these institutions tailor their services, make the right decisions, and identify insights that they could not previously.”

In addition to helping businesses and financial institutions make more of their data, the ability of different datasets to complement each other – using management account data to confirm bank transaction data, for example – adds new value to the processes financial institutions conduct every day. This is value institutions have not been able to capture until recently.

“We are excited to sign this partnership agreement with AccountScore,” Validis CEO Joel Curry said. “For too long financial institutions were only seeing individual pieces of the puzzle, but now they will have access to all the data, all in one place.” Curry called the partnership “a truly innovative step forward for small business financial services.”

AccountScore demonstrated its consents.online solution at FinovateEurope earlier this year. Consents.online is the consent management feature of the company’s Open Banking solution, and helps users manage their online consents in one centralized location. Customers can visit consents.online and review what data has been accessed and by whom, as well as change consent permissions.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, U.K., AccountScore has partnered with The Insolvency Panel earlier this year to develop a solution for the debt and debt solutions sector to give financially challenged individuals the ability to more easily share their financial data with financial institutions. In February, Freedom Finance announced that it had reduced application time to five minutes thanks to technology from AccountScore.

Emailage and Featurespace Target Online Application Fraud

Emailage and Featurespace Target Online Application Fraud

The newly announced collaboration between email risk assessment innovator Emailage and fraud prevention and risk management firm Featurespace is designed to combat online application fraud, a problem that grew by 159% last year according to U.K. Finance.

The partnership integrates Featurespace’s ARIC Fraud Hub with Emailage’s data and risk assessment scores. The combined solution identifies and reports application fraud in real time, boosting the accuracy of customer authentication during processes like onboarding and account maintenance. The integration will also make it easier for institutions to comply with the latest payment regulations.

“In order to keep up with the fast-changing payment landscape, we are always on the lookout to leverage our expertise and that of other providers,” Chief Partnership Officer at Emailage Tim White said. “Emailage and Featurespace are two companies moving in the same direction in terms of innovation and growth. Therefore, we felt this collaboration was a highly strategic opportunity.”

“This is yet another step in our journey to provide our customers with full regulatory compliance and a best-in-class solution,” White said.

Emailage turns email addresses into global digital identifiers. The company leverages a worldwide data network to assess the likelihood that the individual who provided the email address is reliable as a potential customer or applicant. Via the integration, digital identities that are established by Emailage are then processed by the Adaptive Behavioral Analytics of Featurespace’s ARIC platform, which builds individual behavioral profiles. This improves the ability of the machine learning models to automatically detect risk and to combat new threats as they develop. Emailage noted that it has helped organizations around the world mitigate $2.8 billion in fraudulent purchases and applications.

“This integration makes it easy for all of our customers to leverage the combined power of our innovative Adaptive Behavioral Analytics and Emailage’s proprietary data set to improve risk scoring and reduce exposure to sophisticated online threats at the point of application,” Featurespace CEO Martina King said.

Founded in 2008, Featurespace demonstrated its ARIC Fraud Manager solution at FinovateFall 2016. The company’s partnership announcement with Emailage comes at the same time as a report that banking and payments solutions provider Contis has completed deployment of Featurespace’s ARIC Fraud Hub.

In June, Featurespace announced that it would power transaction monitoring for Ireland’s Permanent TSB. This spring, the company was highlighted by Aite Group in its 2019 report on anti-fraud and AML machine learning platform vendors, and its CEO was profiled by Hypepotamus on the topic of workplace diversity.

Earlier this year, Featurespace announced a partnership with retail finance technology provider Deko, and launched its technology in Singapore. The company began 2019 with a major fundraising, bringing in $32.3 million (£25 million) in new capital in a round led by Insight Venture Partners.

Emailage demonstrated its Browser Extension at its Finovate debut in 2015. The extension marks email with an easily identifiable icon that enables users to get an instant analysis on the risk associated with the email. With the extension, users of Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer can leverage Emailage’s fraud-detecting technology to assess the risk of emails and websites.

Emailage won Best E-commerce Initiative at the PayTech Awards in London last month. This spring, the company introduced a trio of new points of presence in Singapore, Australia, and Germany, in what company CTO Rafael Loureiro said demonstrated the company’s “strategic commitment” to making its technology available worldwide. An office in Dublin, Ireland, was opened in June.

Emailage also announced it added a “big four” U.S. bank, a major Asian payment platform, and a global e-commerce solution provider to its shared intelligence network in the first quarter of this year. Founded in 2012, the company has raised $15.7 million in funding from investors including Anthos Capital, Cobre Capital, and Mucker Capital. Rei Carvalho is CEO.

Business Valuation Specialist BizEquity Teams Up with UBS

Business Valuation Specialist BizEquity Teams Up with UBS

UBS has formed a partnership with BizEquity, an online provider of estimated business valuations. This will allow a select group of UBS financial advisors in the US arm of its global wealth management business, to access BizEquity’s database of businesses and valuation information, reports Sharon Kimathi of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Enterprise access through BizEquity will support UBS financial advisors to provide clients with informal valuation reports that will assist them with their financial planning needs.

James Jack, director of the business owner strategic client segment at UBS Financial Services said: “Our advisors are constantly looking for new ways to grow their business and expand their reach, particularly in middle-market businesses. Access to the BizEquity platform will help us to deliver highly tailored advice to our clients.”

“UBS is one of the preeminent names in the wealth management industry and we are proud to announce our partnership. The clients and prospects that it serves will benefit from our service to help them answer one of the most important questions they will ever ask: ‘What is my business worth?’” said Michael M. Carter, founder and CEO of BizEquity.

BizEquity is a leading provider of business valuations, distributing its cloud-based service through thousands of financial advisors to help better inform businesses of their lending, insurance, and wealth management needs and potential.

Founded in 2010, BizEquity demonstrated its BizEquity One UK solution at FinovateEurope 2015. The technology provides real time, dynamic valuations, “Zillow-esque” search functions on more than two million pre-valued businesses in the U.K., real time advice and alerts during the valuation process, and an dashboard that provides an infographic-like overview of business value and KPIs.

BizEquity has raised $5.1 million in funding. Brinker Capital and Frost Books are among the company’s investors.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • AccountScore and Validis Bring the Benefits of Open Banking to U.K. SMEs.
  • Emailage and Featurespace Target Online Application Fraud.
  • Business Valuation Specialist BizEquity Teams Up with UBS.

Around the web

  • ID R&D launches facial liveness detection solution, IDLive Face.
  • Klarna and global fashion retailer ASOS to expand to the U.S.
  • Banking and payments solution provider Contis deploys Featurespace’s ARIC Fraud Hub.

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.

Onfido Unveils International Partnership Program

Onfido Unveils International Partnership Program

The new international partner program launched this week by Onfido will help expand the reach of the company’s identity verification solutions and explore new use cases. ForgeRock, IDEMIA, and iovation are among the cybersecurity and identity access management (IAM) specialists that have agreed to include Onfido’s AI-powered identity verification services in their own offerings.

“Empowering the channel is an important strategic move that will enable us to accelerate our expansion into the U.S.A., Southeast Asia, and Europe, while exploring new product innovation in areas such as account takeover and authentication,” Director of Alliances and Partnerships at Onfido Ed Ackerman said. “With some of the biggest enterprise names already signed up to our program, we’re now selecting additional applications from companies to join and share in exciting new revenue-generating opportunities.”

Onfido demonstrated its Facial Check with Video technology, available via the company’s SDK, at FinovateFall 2018. The solution leverages liveness detection by having users film themselves performing a variety of random movements and then comparing the image in the video to the facial image of the user extracted from their identity document.

Onfido’s technology can be integrated into existing cloud-based systems or co-sold by partners as a combined solution stack. The company boasts a number of fellow Finovate alums as current program members as well, including Mambu, Qwil Messenger, Signicat, InvestGlass, FiveDegrees, and Thought Machine.

Along with the program launch news, Onfido also reported that Visa was now offering Onfido’s end-to-end identity verification service on its marketplace. And that’s not the first of this type of partnership: Salesforce has offered Onfido’s technology on its AppExchange since in December 2017.

Recently selected to participate in the new data protection ICO Sandbox, Onfido has spent the summer partnering with firms like cross-border money transfer specialist MoneyNetint and international payments company Currencies Direct to enhance the verification component of their onboarding processes. Other partnerships for Onfido this year include a collaboration with Checkr to support the background check specialist’s Checkr Connect IDV solution, and an agreement with mobility-as-a-service company Drover to help the firm offer a more secure, seamless onboarding experience for customers.

Onfido raised $50 million in funding this spring in a round led by SBI Investment and Salesforce Ventures, which took the company’s total financing to more than $100 million. Founded in 2012, Onfido is headquartered in London, U.K. Co-founder Husayn Kassai is CEO.

Pepper Power: HSBC Brings Robot Retail Banking to FinovateFall

Pepper Power: HSBC Brings Robot Retail Banking to FinovateFall

Is HSBC’s Pepper the best bot in banking?

Attendees at FinovateFall in New York this September will have an opportunity to judge for themselves as the social humanoid robot, Pepper, makes its Finovate debut. Following our Innovation Keynote on Wednesday, September 25th, attendees will have the opportunity to meet, greet, take selfies with (#PoseWithPepper), interact with, and see Pepper’s capabilities and customer journeys for themselves.

Developed by SoftBank Robotics, Pepper has been deployed at HSBC banks across the U.S. Pepper was first launched at HSBC’s flagship Manhattan branch, and has been rolled out to locations from Miami, Florida to Seattle, Washington. The technology has been credited for gains in everything from ATM transaction volume to new credit card applications.

“As we’ve already seen in HSBC’s Fifth Avenue, Beverly Hills and Seattle branches, Pepper provides services that truly elevate the retail banking experience for both visitors and staff,” Head of Marketing and Business Strategy for SoftBank Robotics America Kass Dawson said.

And in a world in which robotic technologies are often referred to simply as “bots,” and appear to most consumers as mere animations on a digital screen, the arrival of Pepper is both a throwback and a vision into the ways new technologies will enable new forms of banking. Dawson referred to Pepper as a “unique banking experience that is enriched by human-robot interactions.”

HSBC Head of Innovation Jeremy Balkin, who will address FinovateFall this year, explained how Pepper fits in with what he referred to as the “Branch of the Future.” Comparing the rise of robotics in banking to the advent of the smartphone, Balkin said that giving customers products and services that leverage these technologies is key to delivering the digital experience consumers increasingly expect from all service providers.

“By creating these revolutionary new types of digitally enhanced retail banking experiences that use data intelligence and leading edge robotics,” he said, “HSBC is transforming the everyday task of a branch visit into a memorable and extraordinary experience.”

So what does Pepper do? With the ability to provide information on 300 different actions ranging from account opening to applying for a credit card, Pepper performs in three main areas:

  • Attention Please! Pepper helps reduce customer waiting time by communicating directly with bank staff based on customer responses to qualifying questions.
  • Education and Empowerment: Pepper informs customers on the latest available technologies, products, and services such as ATMs, the bank’s mobile app, and self-service options.
  • Product and Service Awareness: Pepper boosts awareness of the bank’s products and services, especially special promotions, by facilitating more productive interactions with HSBC Relationship Managers.

In an extensive feature on Pepper last month, The Financial Brand’s Bill Streeter noted Pepper’s talents: “It uses natural language processing, a component of artificial intelligence to understand multiple languages,” he wrote. “(Pepper) is said to be capable of recognizing basic human emotions and adapting its behavior to what it perceives.”

Streeter quoted HSBC Bank USA’s Head of Retail Banking and Wealth Management for the U.S. and Canada Pablo Sanchez who was blunt in describing Pepper’s ability to move metrics positively. “Unless the robot adds value then it is a gimmick,” he said. “But we knew it was going to help us. We just didn’t realize it would get a billion hits and would increase sales so much.”

To learn more about the technology behind Pepper, visit SoftBank Robotics. And to see Pepper in action for yourself, visit our FinovateFall registration page, pick up your ticket, and reserve your spot at the show.

Vymo Reels in $18 Million for its Intelligent Sales Assistant

Vymo Reels in $18 Million for its Intelligent Sales Assistant

Vymo, the company that helps sales professionals #DoMore when it comes to managing leads and maximizing opportunities, just got a little help of its own. The company announced this week that it successfully closed its Series B round, raising $18 million to grow its business in the U.S. and around the world.

The Series B was led by Emergence Capital and featured participation by existing investor Sequoia India, which led the company’s $5 million Series A in 2016. Vymo’s total equity now stands at $22 million.

“Just as Veeva changed the game for pharmaceutical sales reps, Vymo aims to enable financial sales reps with a platform tailor made for their needs,” Emergence Capital Partner Jake Saper wrote at the firm’s blog discussing the investment. “Vymo is mobile-first, geo-aware, and makes use of contextual data to make targeted suggestions to reps on next best actions like which client or prospect to prioritize.”

Saper praised Vymo as a company that can help sales teams navigate diverse client bases and challenging regulatory environments as they build quality, personal relationships with their customers. He highlighted the company’s partnerships with Allianz, AXA, and Generali, and the high number of registered users of Vymo’s technology – more than 75% – who log on to the platform and take action on a daily basis.

Founded in Bangalore, India, and currently based in New York City, Vymo made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateAsia, demonstrating its Personal Assistant for Sales. The technology boosts the effectiveness of sales professionals by leveraging AI to detect the sales professionals actions automatically, predict the next best steps for the sales rep to pursue, and coach the rep on how to achieve the best outcomes.

The intelligent assistant learns from the best performing sales reps in the organization, and has established a positive revenue impact of 3% to 10% in sales productivity metrics such as conversions, turnaround time, and sales activity per opportunity. More than 100,000 sales reps across 50+ companies and institutions use Vymo to make their sales efforts more productive.

Earlier this month Vymo was featured in Nikkei Asian Review, which took a look at the use of the company’s intelligent assistant by sales professionals in Japan. In May, the company announced a partnership with Microsoft that will help grow the market for Vymo’s intelligent personal assistant solution. Vymo picked up the FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce) Award for Innovation in Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics in March, and began the year with a pair of partnership announcements, teaming up with Vietnam’s FE Credit in February and Zurich Topas Life in January.

Kony Secures $37 Million in Financing from BMO

Kony Secures $37 Million in Financing from BMO

An infusion of $37 million in debt financing from BMO will help cloud-based digital banking and low-code platform company Kony “accelerate growth” in its two signature solutions: Kony DBX, the company’s digital banking technology, and Kony Quantum, its low-code development platform. The financing, courtesy of BMO’s Technology and Innovation Banking Group, adds to the more than $115 million in funding Kony has raised to date.

“Finding a strong and committed capital partner who understands digital is an important complement to our market-leading IP and aggressive growth agenda in both digital banking and multi-channel low-code development,” said Kony chairman and CEO Thomas E. Hogan.

BMO Bank of Montreal managing director of technology and innovation banking Devon Dayton underscored the critical role of “leveraging digital as a strategic function” for all businesses regardless of size. “Kony’s solution has enabled their clients to accelerate their digital transformations,” Dayton said. “We look forward to continuing this relationship and working alongside them to help them accelerate their growth.”

Kony’s financing news comes just a few weeks after the company was named a Leader by Gartner in its 2019 Magic Quadrant for Multiexperience Development Platforms (MXDP) report. This marked the expansion of the category from its previous mobile app development platform (MADP) designation to reflect what Gartner called “the evolution of MADPs to serve expanding app use cases and development requirements.”

Kony is well positioned to take advantage of this broader way of looking at development platforms. In addition to this year’s recognition from Gartner, the company was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave digital report on development platforms last year, as well as a Leader in the firm’s report on low-code development platforms for this year.

Kony demonstrated its retail banking solution at FinovateFall 2017. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company has been on a strong, partner-making pace in recent months. Kony teamed up with Qualifacts in May to power the behavioral healthcare solution provider’s mobile app, CareLogic. In April, Kony partnered with Micronotes, a firm that leverages AI to provide marketing automation for digital banking. That same month, the company announced a collaboration with fellow Finovate alum, IDology, to integrate new authentication services into Kony DBX digital banking solutions.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Xignite to Power WealthSimple’s New Stock Trading App.
  • Kony Secures $37 Million in Financing from BMO.
  • Sezzle Raises $30 Million in IPO.
  • Vymo Reels in $18 Million for its Intelligent Sales Assistant.

Around the web

  • Deal sealed: Fiserv completes acquisition of First Data.
  • Visa announces strategic partnership with SME banking service Open.
  • eToro enables retail customers to invest in drone technology via its latest portfolio.
  • iGTB to enhance trade finance operations for two Raiffeisen banks, Niederosterreich-Wien and Landesbank Steiermark.
  • CREALOGIX to power new consumer digital investment platform from MeDirect Group.
  • JP Morgan Chase ends loan origination partnership with OnDeck.
  • ThetaRay brings on Idan Keret as Chief Customer Success Officer.
  • GreenDot offers customers 3% cash back on online and in-app purchases and a savings account paying 3% APY.
  • Fintech Finance interviews Olga Feldmeier, Smart Valor CEO.
  • Redrock Biometrics secures a perfect score in Level 1 Presentation Attack Detection confirmation testing by iBeta.
  • SpyCloud expands into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

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.

Splitit Brings Installment Payment Options to ASEAN Merchants

Splitit Brings Installment Payment Options to ASEAN Merchants

A new partnership between Splitit and payment service GHL ePayments will make Splitit’s installment payment solution available to more than 2,000 online merchants in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The deal will allow GHL to offer Splitit’s installment payment option to its customers, and enable Splitit to grow its presence in the Asia-Pacific region, according to company CEO and co-founder Gil Don.

“We are delighted to offer GHL merchants a simple way to boost sales and improve customer satisfaction by offering interest-free installments at the checkout,” Don said. “Splitit’s payment solution is a highly effective way for merchants to ease eager travelers’ budget woes, while increasing brand loyalty for merchants.”

Splitit enables consumers to divide the cost of online purchases into no interest, no fee monthly installments. Consumers can use their existing debit or credit card to make purchases from participating online merchants, choose the Splitit option, and receive instant approvals. The company notes that merchants have seen an 11% decrease in cart abandonment, a 12% increase in sales, and an 80% increase in average order value (AOV) after deploying the technology.

Danny Leong, Group CEO of GHL Systems Berhad, praised Splitit as a unique addition to the suite of solutions GHL provides to its merchant partners. “Splitit’s non-lending offering is unlike any other payment player’s and we believe this partnership will help us continue our growth as ASEAN’s trusted payment experts,” Leong said. One of the major merchant acquirers in the ASEAN region, GHL processes more than $241 million ($350 million AUD) in total online and offline transaction value each month across its merchant network. The firm manages more than 368,000 point of sales in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, and Australia.

Making its Finovate debut as PayItSimple in 2014 at FinovateFall, the company rebranded as Splitit a year later as part of an emphasis on serving “all members of the credit card payment ecosystem.” More recently, the company partnered with EFTPay to bring its installment payment option to merchants in Hong Kong and Macau, and teamed up with Australian retailer Kogan. Splitit also bolstered its executive ranks this summer, adding former Intuit and PayPal executive Brad Paterson to lead its North American operations.

Based in New York City, Splitit announced a post IPO equity round in May, raising $20.7 million ($30 million AUD). The funding followed the company’s successful IPO on the Australian Stock Exchange at the beginning of the year. Trading under the ticker SPT, Splitit has a market capitalization of $200 million.

Temenos to Power Digital Onboarding for New Zealand’s TSB Bank

Temenos to Power Digital Onboarding for New Zealand’s TSB Bank

New Zealand bank TSB has gone live with Temenos Infinity for online account opening and onboarding in just nine weeks, reports Sharon Kimathi of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Included in the short implementation period was an API-based connectivity for workflow integration directly with TSB’s existing Microsoft Dynamics’ client relationship management (CRM) system.

It now provides applicants with the option to “save and resume,” returning to an application later, on any channel, without the need to start over.

Hamish Archer, TSB general manager – technology said: “We want more Kiwis to experience our world-class service, so we’re excited to use technologies like this which work seamlessly alongside our people, who genuinely care about doing the best for our customers.”

Martin Frick, managing director – APAC, Temenos, said: “We are delighted that TSB has chosen Temenos to power its growth, and that they are already starting to see results from the implementation.”

Since going live, Temenos Infinity has shortened the time needed to complete customer applications and insert the completed digital application directly into the TSB back office process.

Temenos was founded 1993, and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The company demonstrated its Connect Mobile Banking solution at FinovateEurope 2015. Later that year, the company participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, presenting its B2B Financial Apps Marketplace.

Finovate Alumni News

Around the web

  • New partnership between Starling Bank and SumUp to provide faster settlement to U.K. merchants.
  • ACI Worldwide unveils its strong customer authentication (SCA) toolbox.
  • Payoneer announces deal with Indian payments processing firm Paytabs.
  • Launchfire’s Lemonade named to 2019 Top Training Companies roster for gamification companies.
  • GoodFirms features bpm’ online among its list of top business process management (BPM) software providers.
  • Insuritas to power digital insurance agency for Marquette Bank.
  • Herald Extra highlights Lendio’s role as a “matchmaker” for small business lending.
  • Flybits to open a New York office in the city’s financial technology hub.
  • W.UP now a member of Five DegreesOpen Banking Marketplace.
  • Personetics opens R&D center in Nazareth.
  • Nvstr earns a spot in the Financial Venture Studio’s incoming cohort.
  • CREALOGIX introduces new Chief Financial Officer Daniel Bader.

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.