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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
VymoReels in $18 Million for its Intelligent Sales Assistant.
Around the web
Deal sealed: Fiservcompletes acquisition of First Data.
Visaannounces strategic partnership with SME banking service Open.
eToroenables 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.
ThetaRaybrings on Idan Keret as Chief Customer Success Officer.
GreenDotoffers 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 Biometricssecures a perfect score in Level 1 Presentation Attack Detection confirmation testing by iBeta.
SpyCloudexpands 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.
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.
New Zealand bank TSB has gone live with TemenosInfinity 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.
Nvstrearns a spot in the Financial Venture Studio’s incoming cohort.
CREALOGIXintroduces 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.
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 demonstratedSafeChat, 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.
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.
Personalized software-as-a-service innovator BlueRushunveiled 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 wonBest 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.
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.
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:
BeSmarteeannounces 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.
Enterprise content capture and data discovery solution provider Ephesofthas 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, 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.
Browser-based onboarding, third-party identity checks, automated decisioning, and optional human review are among the top-level, new features of Daon’sIdentityX 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.
