ID R&D’s Voice Biometric Solution Satisfies Need for Speed, Omni-Channel Reach

ID R&D’s Voice Biometric Solution Satisfies Need for Speed, Omni-Channel Reach

Unveiled this week, the latest version of ID R&D’s voice solution, IDVoice, leverages AI and voice technology to give users a major boost in biometric matching speed and an enhanced, multi-channel onboarding and authentication process.

“As enterprises migrate to conversational interfaces through mobile, web, and call center applications, a strong cross-channel voice authentication capability is essential,” ID R&D Chief Science Officer Konstantin Simonchik said. “With IDVoice v2.7, we are making it much easier and more efficient for enterprises to deploy voice biometrics consistently on all channels using the programming tools they prefer.”

IDVoice enables enterprises to execute on their omni-channel voice biometric strategy, while avoiding the drawbacks common to many other voice biometric solutions. With IDVoice, for example, developers can account for different channels without requiring separate enrollments for each channel (i.e., mobile, web app, call center, etc.). This is made possible by the platform’s biometric engine architecture which is channel, language, and age variance agnostic, as well as being resistant to environmental noise.

Other enhancements to the technology improve its ability to detect voice activity and add a 10x speed improvement to a critical platform algorithm. Together these improvements ensure that IDVoice provides higher quality and faster onboarding and verification, saving time and improving the user experience. Opus Research founder and lead analyst Dan Miller referred to the technology as offering a “zero-effort authentication process (that is) fast becoming a necessity for businesses with customers who reach out across multiple devices and channels.”

The launch of the latest version of IDVoice comes just days after ID R&D announced that sound recognition technology specialist Wavio would integrate ID R&D’s AI and machine learning acoustic detection functionality into its sound recognition solution, SoundAI.

“Wavio was highly impressed when we tested ID R&D’s software, and after learning more about ID R&D’s deep research and knowledge of voice, audio processing, and the very latest in artificial intelligence methods, we were convinced that ID R&D is the right partner to help us fulfill our mission,” Wavio CEO Greyson Watkins said.

ID R&D demonstrated SafeChat, its frictionless, continuous authentication for remote logins and conversational interfaces, at FinovateFall 2018. The technology provides authentication by leveraging a combination of biometric inputs that are available through the normal interactions between users and the device. This enables the solution to verify the identity of users without requiring them to do anything specific to authenticate. ID R&D noted that the technology brings a biometrically-secured, Alexa-like experience to mobile, conversational, and IoT platforms.

Founded in 2016, ID R&D is headquartered in New York City. The company has raised $5.7 million in funding from investors including GSR Ventures and Gagarin Capital Partners. Alexey Khitrov is CEO.

Open Banking Advances in Nigeria; Singapore’s soCash Secures $6M Series B

As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Mexican fintech Prestanómica raises $300,000 in Series A funding.
  • TechCrunch profiles Dataplor, a company that indexes microbusinesses in emerging markets, as it announces a $2 million funding ahead of its planned expansion to Chile, Peru, and Colombia.
  • Mexican crypto exchange Bitso becomes the first Latin American fintech to earn an international cryptocurrency license.

Asia-Pacific

  • UnionBank successfully pilots blockchain-based cross-border remittance solution from the Philippines to Singapore.
  • Singapore-based fintech soCash secures $6 million in Series B funding.
  • The first cross-border mobile payment alliance in Asia, Singtel’s VIA, goes live in Japan.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • EY reaches agreement with Open Banking Nigeria to develop a standard API for financial services companies in the country.
  • Kenya’s KeshoLabs launches its payments and remittances platform, Pesabase.
  • African telecom Africell pledges to spend “part” of $100 million line of credit from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation on expanding infrastructure and fintech services.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Vienna, Austria-based Bitpanda announces it has topped one million users on its trading platform.
  • Fintech Futures takes a look at Lithuania’s efforts to attract more fintechs to the country.
  • Moscow Department of Information Technology launches initiative to ease access to billpay, internet banking, and other services via unified city ID.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Egyptian fintech XPay raises $250,000 in pre-seed funding.
  • M-Gurush, the first mobile money service in South Sudan, goes live.
  • Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) signs Memorandum of Understanding with OneConnect Financial Technology.

Central and Southern Asia

  • In partnership with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Indian banks, JCB International has launched its first branded card in India.
  • India-based, cloud banking and enterprise payments platform Zeta locks in Series C funding that boosts the company’s valuation to $300 million.
  • Indian B2B payments firm PayMate closes Series D round.

Top image designed by Freepik

BlueRush Inks IndiVideo Deal with Nikia Dx

BlueRush Inks IndiVideo Deal with Nikia Dx

Personalized software-as-a-service innovator BlueRush unveiled a new distribution partnership designed to drive further market penetration of its Best of Show winning IndiVideo platform. BlueRush’s partner, Nikia Dx, will promote the company’s solution over its client network of insurers, financial service providers, and utility companies.

“We are delighted to partner with Nikia Dx to access their strong pipeline of market opportunities,” BlueRush CEO Steve Taylor said. He highlighted personalized video bills and financial statements as technologies that many companies are exploring, and noted that BlueRush’s platform was well-positioned to enable these initiatives. “Since these documents are sent in such high volumes, and IndiVideo is highly scalable,” Taylor said, “there is significant opportunity to add personalized videos to increase loyalty, engagement, retention, and investment in products or services, while capturing valuable data-driven insights.”

IndiVideo integrates readily into existing marketing infrastructure to accelerate and enhance the customer journey. The platform leverages predictive analytics and customer data to produce intelligent, personalized videos that are rendered locally on the viewer’s device. This boosts the technology’s scalability and avoids per render fees. The solution also captures customer interactions with the videos to enable it to better analyze data and understand customer preferences over time.

“We are focused on realizing the promise of customer engagement for our clients through disruptive digital solutions,” Nikia DX CEO Phil Santoni said. “Our team has been effectively delivering strategic transformation solutions in every business sector, unlocking assets and creating business value for our clients, for more than 30 years. We see exciting market opportunities for BlueRush’s IndiVideo platform.”

Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based BlueRush demonstrated IndiVideo at FinovateSpring earlier this year, winning a Best of Show award. Last month, the company announced that its platform had surpassed $100,000 in committed monthly recurring revenue. In April, BlueRush and its Chilean partner Kunder won Best Financial Services Online Video at the 2019 Internet Advertising Competition awards. Also this spring, the company partnered with Bee Concept to help a large Colombian bank deploy the IndiVideo platform to boost the rate of mortgage sign-ups.

Finovate Alums Honored at PayTech Awards 2019

Finovate Alums Honored at PayTech Awards 2019

A handful of Finovate alums were among those earning top honors at the second annual PayTech Awards earlier this month. In categories ranging from e-commerce to real-time payments, four Finovate alums won commendations for their contributions to “excellence and innovation in the payments industry.” Another trio of alums took home “Highly Commended” runner’s up recognition.

We’ve listed those honored alums below along with the categories they competed in and a link to their most recent Finovate/FinDEVr conference demo video.

  • Token – Best Consumer Payments Initiative – video

And here are the alums that earned Highly Commended recognitions.

  • Fiserv – Real-Time Payments Solution Provider – video

The PayTech Awards consists of three categories: Judged Awards, Leadership Awards, and Ovum Payments Innovation Awards. In addition to those alums that won their categories – or earned Highly Commended honors – a few Finovate/FinDEVr alums were also short-listed ahead of the final votes. These companies – along with their category and most recent Finovate/FinDEVr video – are below:

To learn more about the awards – including a look at last year’s winners – visit the PayTech Awards homepage.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Betterment Now Wants Your Liquid Cash, Too.
  • Finovate Alums Honored at PayTech Awards 2019.
  • BlueRush Inks IndiVideo Deal with Nikia Dx.

Around the web

  • DriveWealth announces collaboration with U.S.-based registered investment advisor Vested Finance to give investors in India access to U.S. stock.
  • Mastercard forges new partnership with SumUp, boosting the number of electronic payment acceptance locations across 27 countries in Europe.
  • Singapore-based Cheers Paytech chooses core banking technology from Mambu.
  • New Zealand’s seventh largest bank, TSB, goes live with Temenos Infinity for online account opening and onboarding.
  • ThetaRay launches version 4 of its analytics platform to help banks detect and prevent cybercrime.
  • BeSmartee announces direct integration with real estate document collaboration and recording technology solution provider Simplifile.

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.

Content Capture Innovator Ephesoft Allies with Grant Thornton

Content Capture Innovator Ephesoft Allies with Grant Thornton

Enterprise content capture and data discovery solution provider Ephesoft has partnered with Chicago, Illinois-based accounting consultancy Grant Thornton. The firm now offers Ephesoft Smart Capture to its customers to help them enhance back office operations, including invoicing, accounts payable, and contract management. The solution also will improve the ability of companies to manage more challenging processes such as tax calculations and revenue recognition.

“Ephesoft’s patented, supervised machine learning technology reduces the overall document processing time by an average of 65% and increases employee productivity by as much as 400%,” Ephesoft founder and CEO Ike Kavas explained. “Now we can work with Grant Thornton to help more clients in more locations gain control over their documents and unstructured data.”

Advisory practice leader for Grant Thornton’s central region Nick Vellani added that the technology would help businesses deal with the problem of not just managing but actually leveraging large amounts of unstructured data to produce valuable insights. He praised Ephesoft’s technology and its ability to help alleviate these “workflow and collaboration nightmares.”

“When we saw how easily the Ephesoft Smart Capture platform plugged into our tech environments – and the benefits it provided to our professionals – we knew it was something our clients could benefit from as well,” Vellani said.

It’s worth noting that Grant Thornton is no newcomer to Ephesoft’s technology. In addition to using the company’s technology in-house to enhance the tax services it provides to clients, Grant Thornton also has deployed Ephesoft’s technology for “several clients” to help them improve their tax functions, as well.

Founded in 1924, Grant Thornton is the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International, a global professional services network of independent accounting and consulting companies. With revenues of more than $1.8 billion and 58 offices across the U.S., Grant Thornton provides auditing, tax planning, and financial advisory services in a wide variety of verticals including financial services, private equity, and real estate, as well as transportation, manufacturing, and retail.

Named One of the Best Places to Work in Orange County, by the Orange Country Business Journal and the Orange Country Register, Ephesoft demonstrated its cloud-based, smart document capture and analytics platform at FinovateSpring 2018. The technology identifies documents and extracts the relevant data, transforming unstructured content into actionable information. The platform also leverages data mining and analytics to provide valuable business intelligence to help institutions make better decisions and manage risk more effectively.

Ephesoft began the year with the launch of its Cloud HyperExtender add-on, which enables users of the company’s Transact technology to boost processing speeds up to 2,500 pages per minute. More recently, company CEO Kavas was named a semifinalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2019 Award in Orange County.

Headquartered in Irvine, California, Ephesoft was founded in 2010. The company has raised $15 million in funding courtesy of a Series A round in 2017 led by Mercato Partners.

CrediVia Adds Multifamily Options to Financing Platform

CrediVia Adds Multifamily Options to Financing Platform

CrediVia, the Raleigh, North Carolina online commercial real estate loan marketplace, has added multifamily investments to its platform. The move, just one year after the company’s debut at FinovateFall, will help the fintech startup bring its smarter, faster, and easier commercial lending process to more commercial real estate (CRE) lenders and borrowers.

“We came on the scene to specifically serve the niche vertical of hotel financing, the riskiest of CRE assets,” CrediVia co-founder and CEO Anuj Mittal said. “Our greater mission, however, has not changed: to provide speed, transparency, and ease of transaction to both the lender and the borrower.”

CrediVia offers a platform that enables interested CRE lenders and qualified borrowers to engage and connect securely. Borrowers benefit from a singular location where documents can be uploaded and then easily submitted to multiple lenders. Lenders benefit from a borrower pool that is pre-screened before being added to their queue. The result is an easier, more efficiently process for borrowers, and a greater closing rate for lenders.

Multifamily investments, the company’s Chief Commercial Officer Michael Richardson explained, are an ideal addition to CrediVia’s platform. Highlighting the absence of a “typical profile” for a multifamily investment, Richardson noted the “reasonable” risk of the investment and the opportunity for diversification multifamily investments can provide. He added that investing in these properties can also provide a way for institutions considering an expansion into CRE financing.

“Multifamily assets are a common stepping stone to more sophisticated CRE financing for many institutions looking to build or broaden their business lending portfolio,” said Richardson, who joined CrediVia last month. “CrediVia’s move into multifamily is a direct response to listening to the market, as responding with a solution that relieves the common pressures and interruptions found in these exchanges. We’re here to drive the loan process forward.”

Founded in 2018, CrediVia demonstrated its platform at FinovateFall 2018. The company added to its C-Suite talent with the hire of Trusha Patel as Chief Business Development Officer this spring.

Daon’s New Features Bring Two-in-One Approach to Onboarding, Authentication

Daon’s New Features Bring Two-in-One Approach to Onboarding, Authentication

Browser-based onboarding, third-party identity checks, automated decisioning, and optional human review are among the top-level, new features of Daon’s IdentityX Digital Onboarding 2.0. The updated platform, launched this week, enables companies to offer a frictionless and fraud-resistant onboarding experience for their customers, reducing abandonment rates and operating costs while ensuring KYC/AML compliance.

Decrying what he called the “false choice between convenience and compliance,” Daon CEO Tom Grissen highlighted the new platform’s “two-in-one” approach that enables users to leverage their onboarding credentials to authenticate across both digital and physical channels. “Daon’s unprecedented integration of onboarding and authentication is a powerful new realization of our longstanding commitment to a frictionless, omni-channel experience at every step of the customer journey,” he said.

Reston, Virginia-based Daon demonstrated its IdentityX platform at FinovateFall 2016. The technology leverages biometric inputs such as face, voice, and fingerprint, as well as other authentication strategies such as device binding, geolocation, and liveness detection to provide an “inherently multi-factor,” future-proof authentication option for banks, payment processors, and other businesses.

With the launch of 2.0, Daon adds the ability to onboard users online instead of relying on the mobile app, and the capacity for businesses to achieve a higher or more specific degree of authentication by connecting to third party identity verification solutions. The new features give users the option to configure decision, action, and review paths, and features an optional human review process to examine challenging or questionable applications more effectively.

“For too long, organizations have been stuck choosing 90% customer abandonment rates on the one hand, or billions of dollars lost to fraud and regulatory fines on the other,” Grissen said. “Today, with all-digital customer onboarding from Daon, the process isn’t just more frictionless than traditional onboarding; it’s also more secure.”

Founded in 2000, Daon made fintech headlines earlier this month with news that it would bring its biometric identity technology to digital onboarding and anti-fraud company CTMS. Also in July, Daon announced that it had partnered with GEMADEC to build a life certificate digitization solution for the Moroccan Interprofessional Pension Fund’s (CIMR) mobile app.

Marqeta Teams Up with Capital on Tap

Marqeta Teams Up with Capital on Tap

Capital on Tap is partnering with Marqeta, a global modern card issuing platform, to power payment processing for its small business credit card, relied on by over 60,000 UK enterprises, reports Sharon Kimathi of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Since its launch in 2012, Capital on Tap has competed with the offering of major banks, by offering small businesses a faster and more transparent way to fund their business. Capital on Tap has already provided close to £1 billion in funding to more than 60,000 small businesses across the UK.

“Capital on Tap have shown themselves to be true innovators in the UK fintech space, taking an underserved market like credit for small businesses and building a product that can make a real difference for their customers,” said Ian Johnson, head of European growth at Marqeta.

Founded in Oakland, California in 2010, the Marqeta platform is used by various innovators to drive new modes of commerce through modern card issuing.

“We’re excited to partner with Marqeta,” said David Luck, co-founder and CEO of Capital on Tap.

“We loved the transparency and simplicity of their technology and how future focused and innovative their open-API platform is. They showed an intuitive understanding in how they could support our mission to help small businesses thrive through better access to working capital.”

Marqeta’s European digital banking solution supports instantly issued virtual cards and offers advanced spend controls to engage users and grow card use. It’s platform and APIs are highly configurable and scalable, and allow Marqeta partners to access actionable, real-time transaction data to drive program improvements.

Marqeta CTO Tony Ford presented Democratizing Issuer Payment Processing with Just-in-time “JIT” Funding at our developers conference, FinDEVR Silicon Valley, in 2016. During the discussion, Ford explained the anatomy of a payment card authorization, the importance of putting customers into the authorization stream, and the role of open payment APIs.

With more than $376 million funding from investors including Coatue Management and Granite Ventures, Marqeta was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Oakland, California.


nCino Acquires Analytics and Insights Specialist Visible Equity

nCino Acquires Analytics and Insights Specialist Visible Equity

Cloud banking innovator nCino is adding the financial analytics and compliance capability of Salt Lake City, Utah-based Visible Equity to its platform. The acquisition, announced last week, brings enhanced portfolio management and analytic insights to nCino’s Bank Operating System, and is designed to help banks and credit unions better manage risk and meet compliance regulations with regard to fair lending.

Calling Visible Equity “a perfect complement to our vision, mission and company culture,” nCino CEO Pierre Naudé put the news in the broader context of nCino’s long-term commitment to “transform” financial services. “We believe this acquisition will further enable us to execute on that mission,” Naudé said, adding that together Visible Equity and nCino will give clients “greater insights, efficiency, and risk management while furthering their customer relationships.”

In their statement, the companies said that they will continue to market their solutions separately, but added “the two platforms will become fully integrated to provide a seamless client and cloud-based experience.”

With more than 850 financial institution customers, Visible Equity provides analytics, data warehousing, and reporting to enable FIs to better identify and manage risk. The company’s technology blends customer data from loans, applications, deposits, marketing and other sources with advanced analytics to empower banks and credit unions to make accurate, data-driven decisions.

Visible Equity CEO and President Brad Hansen called the acquisition by nCino “the right move for us and a natural fit.” He highlighted the two companies’ shared “passion for innovation” and emphasis on customer success. “A key driver of our desire to become a part of the nCino family is their industry-leading Bank Operating System and ability to support a global client base of enterprise, regional, and community financial institutions,” Hansen said.

nCino made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017, demoing its Bank Operating System. The technology leverages the Salesforce platform to provide financial institutions with an end-to-end, cloud-based banking solution that features CRM, loan origination, workflow, ECM, business intelligence and reporting all in one secure environment. nCino notes that its client institutions on average have experienced 40% decrease in loan closing times, 92% reduction in servicing costs, and 127% increase in account opening completion rates.

Other recent headlines for nCino include the appointment of Andrew Carriline as Strategic Advisor and the opening of a new office in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company has announced a slew of new partnerships in 2019, teaming up with Westfield Bank and South State Bank in June; collaborating with S&T Bank in May, Navy Federal Credit Union in April, and both Project B-North and St. Louis Bank in March.

Based in Wilmington, North Carolina, nCino has raised more than $133 million in funding from investors including Salesforce Ventures, Wellington Management, and Insight Partners. The company was founded in 2012.

Workday Buys Blockchain-Based Identity Management Innovator Trusted Key

Workday Buys Blockchain-Based Identity Management Innovator Trusted Key

Seattle, Washington-based Trusted Key will bring its innovations in blockchain-based, digital identity management technology to Workday, courtesy of a recently-announced acquisition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“With our new platform, Workday wants to bring credentials into the digital age,” Workday SVP Jon Ruggiero wrote in a blog post discussing the role of credentialization in identity management. He highlighted the way that blockchain technology can help create “a new form of digital credential – one that puts individuals in control of their data, and is portable, authentic, and secure.”

Trusted Key’s digital identity management technology enables financial institutions to leverage credentialization and tokenization to provide a more seamless and secure authentication experience for users. The platform uses strong cryptography and blockchain technology to convert government-issued identity documents into secure, cryptographic credentials and tokens. These tokens can be used to securely establish identity to access both online assets as well as mobile apps, without relying on passwords. The credentials can also be used to authorize transactions and make digital signatures.

A leading cloud core financial management suite provider, Workday will use blockchain-powered credentialing technology to help companies improve their HR operations to more efficiently verify applicant skills and qualifications, as well as to onboard new workers. As Ruggiero noted, digital credentialing does more than just alleviate an otherwise time-consuming, error-prone manual process. It also makes it easier for firms to respond to a changing workforce that is both “more mobile, distributed, and diverse,” and helps companies in tight labor markets move faster and with less friction to attract and onboard their preferred candidates.

Launched in 2005 and headquartered in Pleasanton, California, Workday was featured this year by Gartner as a leader in cloud core financial management suites. This marked the third year in a row the company has been recognized in the category. With customers ranging from Bank of America and Thomson Reuters to Netflix and Denny’s, Workday has processed more than 100 million credentials and 70 million job applications – as well as employment records, certifications, licenses, and more. The publicly-traded company is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker WDAY and has a market capitalization of $48 billion. Aneel Bhusri is co-founder and CEO.

Trusted Key demonstrated its Digital Identity Platform at FinovateFall 2017. The company is also an alum of our developers conference, winning a Crowd Favorite award at FinDEVr London 2017 for its presentation, Secure Digital Identity.

Founded in 2016 by Prakash Sundaresan and Amit Mital, Trusted Key picked up $3 million funding last spring. The round, led by Founders Co-Op, took the company’s total equity financing to more than $4 million. Trusted Key is the first exit for Kernel Labs, a Seattle startup studio with a focus on machine learning, computer vision, and security.

Aixigo Teams Up with MLP Banking

Aixigo Teams Up with MLP Banking

MLP Banking AG and digital financial consulting software provider, aixigo, have developed a digitally supported portfolio evaluation and optimisation solution, reports Jane Connolly of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

The VEM Guide supports MLP’s wealth management advisory services by transparently modeling possible portfolios with just a few clicks, taking into account customer requirements for risk, return and liquidity.

Risk assessments are then automatically evaluated and updated daily, with forecasts based on economic research by specialists at MLP Group company, FERI Trust GmbH.

“The VEM Guide is a very good example of how personal advice can be meaningfully supplemented by digital service,” said Jakob Trefz, head of wealth management at MLP Banking AG. “In this way, we make our customers’ decisions even faster and at the same time we support our advisors in the best possible way.”

Mario Alves, head of sales and partner management at aixigo, added: “The integration of the aixigo risk engine into MLP’s VEM Guide shows how the needs of clients and advisors in wealth management can be met precisely.”

As well as modeling and implementing portfolios more easily, the software can also generate associated documents and offer a digital customer signature option.

Aixigo demonstrated its Digital Financial Portfolio Management Back Office solution at FinovateFall 2018. The solution enables a small group of advisors to easily manage hundreds of thousands of investment portfolios.

Founded in 1999, aixigo is based in Aachen, Germany.