Author: David Penn

The Finovate Podcast: Talking Best of Show with Remynt, Cascading AI, and Savvi AI

The Finovate Podcast: Talking Best of Show with Remynt, Cascading AI, and Savvi AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Cascading AI, Podcasting, Remynt, SAVVI AI

The conversation continues with Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast. Over the past few weeks Greg has interviewed the CEOs and founders of companies that won Best of Show at FinovateSpring in May. Check out Greg’s first round of interviews.

This week we’re sharing the second round of Greg’s interviews with our FinovateSpring Best of Show winners. Enjoy insights on AI in banking, AI in small business lending, and the future of financial wellness, debt collection, and credit-building.

Greg Palmer interviewed Maya Mikhailov, CEO of SAVVI AI, on the importance of bringing concrete value to banks through AI. Episode 222.

“Prior to starting SAVVI, I ran an AI division at Synchrony Financial, where we built AI products for the banking and credit teams. And since leaving Synchrony, I was really on a mission to get AI and to get machine learning into more teams’ hands, to let them use this powerful technology and tool to accomplish their business goals.

Because, frankly, we really saw it working. And now it was a question of ‘we need more people to be using this because it is such a powerful tool to turn data into decisions.’ And that was the genesis behind SAVVI: to be a tool that helps any bank or fintech build and launch their own goal-driven use cases without the need for heavy resources, specialists, or complicated integrations.”

Founded in 2021, SAVVI AI helps banks, credit unions, and fintechs build, launch, and manage AI apps in minutes with its patented Practical AI platform. SAVVI AI’s technology enables financial services companies to innovate in the AI space without needing data scientists, pre-existing data, or a core integration. SAVVI is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

Watch Savvi AI’s Best of Show winning demo from FinovateSpring 2024.

Greg Palmer and Gwyneth Borden, CEO of Remynt discussed the future of debt collection and credit-rebuilding. Episode 221.

“Remynt empowers consumers to rebuild credit while resolving delinquent debt. What does that mean? (We) are a debt-buying collector, buying non-performing charge-offs. We are also collecting on them on contingency from banks, credit unions, and fintechs.

I got into this space in a way you would not expect: I came in from a vantage point of having experienced delinquency and charge-off. (I was) looking at everything that’s wrong with how debt collection works and how the incentives are misaligned between what the creditor of debt buyers would like and what the consumer needs.”

Founded in 2022 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Remynt is a digital-first debt and credit recovery company that enables creditors to recover revenue from non-performing delinquencies. At the same time, Remynt gives consumers the opportunity to resolve debt on their own terms using a customer-centric, resiliency-oriented approach.

Watch Remynt’s Best of Show winning demo from FinovateSpring 2024.

How is AI changing the nature of SMB loan origination? That is the topic that Greg Palmer and Lukas Haffer, CEO and Co-Founder of Cascading AI, discuss in this Finovate Podcast conversation. Episode 220.

“My background is deep in the banking sector. I spent my whole career building, maintaining, and developing core banking systems. That’s not a career I can recommend to anyone; core banking systems are a pain. But it did give me a pretty solid understanding how the underlying IT infrastructure of a bank really works.

You pair that with two years of machine learning and AI research at Stanford and you get a pretty unique combination of skills to go back into the banking sector and automate a lot of the manual repetitive tasks that people used to do on top of our software. Now, with the advent of large language models, you really can automate.”

San Francisco, California-based Cascading AI is the world’s first AI-powered loan origination system that reduces 90% of the manual tasks involved in small business and commercial lending. The company won Best of Show for a demo of its AI Loan Assistant, Sarah, which is capable of doing the work of a 30-person lending team.

Watch Cascading AI’s Best of Show winning demo from FinovateSpring 2024.

Photo by Jonathan Velasquez on Unsplash

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Bain Capital to Acquire Envestnet for $4.5 Billion

Bain Capital to Acquire Envestnet for $4.5 Billion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Envestnet, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Wealthtech innovator Envestnet has agreed to be acquired by Bain Capital in a deal valued at $4.5 billion.
  • Also participating in the deal is Reverence Capital. Strategic partners BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Franklin Templeton, and State Street Global Advisors also have agreed to invest in the transaction.
  • Envestnet has been a Finovate alum since 2016. The company most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall 2021.

Technology, data, and wealth solutions company Envestnet has agreed to be acquired by Bain Capital. The transaction values Envestnet at $4.5 billion or $63.15 per share. Also participating in the deal is Reverence Capital, along with a number of strategic partners that have agreed to invest in the transaction. These partners include BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Franklin Templeton, and State Street Global Advisors, and each will hold a minority position in the company once the transaction is completed.

“This is a validation of Envestnet’s proven ability to operate at market-leading scale – serving more assets, accounts, and advisors and effectively connecting our company and our technology,” Envestnet EVP Business Lines Tom Sipp said. Calling the acquisition an “exciting new chapter,” Sipp highlighted the opportunities that lie ahead in Envestnet’s status as a private company rather than a public one. “As a private company, we can accelerate our ability to further elevate our market-leading platform with greater functionality and an even broader solution set that enables advisors to better serve clients at all stages of their financial life.”

A giant in the field of wealth management, Envestnet manages more than $6 trillion in assets, nearly 20 million accounts, and counts 109,000+ financial advisors as users of its technology. This includes more than 800 asset managers that use Envestnet’s Wealth Management Platform. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, the company works with 17 of the 20 largest banks in the U.S., and 48 of the 50 largest wealth management and brokerage firms. This year, Envestnet has forged partnerships with Salesforce, Australian wealthtech HeirWealth, insurtech Ladder, and fellow Finovate alum Ocrolus, which specializes in financial document automation and analysis.

Envestnet made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2016. More recently, the company brought its data aggregation and analytics platform, Envestnet | Yodlee, to FinovateFall 2021 in New York. At the conference, the company showed how the platform leverages Conversational AI to deliver hyper-personalized financial insights and goals-based micro-savings applications.

Takeover talk had been circulating around Envestnet for months. A report in Bloomberg from late May indicated that the company was “drawing takeover interest from buyers including Advent International and GTCR.” The report also noted an uptick in private equity’s interest in the sector, crediting “reliable cash flows” that can be “scaled up through acquisition.”

“This is a great outcome for Envestnet’s clients and employees, and one that maintains its entrepreneurial spirit,” Envestnet Co-Founder Bill Crager said. “Envestnet is exceptionally well-positioned to continue to build a gateway to the future of financial advice. I couldn’t be more excited about the company going forward, its continued success, and ability to serve more advisors – enabling them to deliver more holistic financial advice.”

Photo by cottonbro studio

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alkami Technology, Alumni News, Coinbase, Daily news, Envestnet, Fintech Rundown, VISA

We’re starting off the newsweek with a bang as Bain Capital announces that it will take wealthtech and Finovate alum Envestnet private in a deal valued at $4.5 billion. Be sure to check back all week long with the latest fintech news and headlines.

Crypto / DeFi / Web3

Payment orchestration platform FinMont partners with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment servics firm, BitPay.

Coinbase launches new web app to help users better manage their digital assets portfolio.

Blockchain payment network Partior secures $60 million in Series B funding.

Wirex and Visa announce an expanded partnership to promote Web3 payments.

Payments

Mangopay teams up with European marketplace ManoMano to bring new payment capabilities to marketplace merchants.

Allied Payment Network introduces new Chief Financial Officer Hank Vanjaria.

U.K. payments platform Payset partners with ClearBank to access the U.K. payment system for local and cross-border transactions.

BNPL company Affirm teams up with Canadian retailer RONA, enabling the store to offer flexible online payment options.

Singapore based fintech Qashier launches its payment linked loyalty program, Treats.

TerraPay partners with YeePay to enhance the customer experience.

Nala raises $40 million to build B2B payments platform, scale remittance services.

Stripe reaches $70 billion valuation.

Klarna considers Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan for lead banking positions for a potential 2025 IPO.

Payments processor Tapi lands $22 million.

Temenos teamed up with Visa to integrate Visa Direct with Temenos Payments Hub and make available to banks via Temenos Exchange.

Investing and wealth management

Apex Fintech Solutions launches its real-time, B2B investment infrastructure, Ascend for Fintechs.

Bain Capital to buy Envestnet for $4.5 billion.

InvestFi forges partnership with HiFin Technology.

Small business finance

America First Credit Union turns to Loquat to enhance onboarding for small business members.

J.P. Morgan Payments selects Slope to provide clients access to a short-term financing solution, leads the fintech’s new round of $252 million in combined debt and equity.

9Spokes launches automated cashflow tool to help financial organizations elevate financial insights for SMBs.

Digital banking

Digital wealth management solutions company Quantifeed forges partnership with banking technology firm Thought Machine.

Digital banking solutions provider Alkami receives certification by J.D. Power for its mobile banking platform.

Banco Santander introduces a new digital service for customers with hearing challenges that translates the bank’s website into British Sign Language (BSL).

Flybits integrates with Q2’s Digital Banking Platform.

Trexis launches suite of digital banking solutions.

Anne Boden quits Starling Bank to focus on AI.

Brightfin launches healthy spending app to remove anxiety around money.

Insurtech

Digital insurance firm Lemonade launches new home insurance offering in the U.K.

Insuritas partners with Integral Group Solution (IGS) to integrate home services product into its embedded insurance platform.

Lending

Mexican fintech OCN secures $86 million in Series A funding.

Open banking

Salt Edge launches the latest version of its Open Banking Gateway API, API V6.

Goldman Sachs’ alternatives unit is leading a consortium investing $540 million in a continuation vehicle created by VC firm NEA, which includes stakes in 11 of NEA’s companies, including Plaid.

Photo by Lukas

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ebankIT and Centrilogic Team Up to Deliver Secure Cloud-Based Solutions

ebankIT and Centrilogic Team Up to Deliver Secure Cloud-Based Solutions
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, ebankIT
  • Digital banking solutions provider ebankIT announced a partnership with public and private cloud services provider Centrilogic.
  • The partnership will help banks and other financial institutions leverage cloud services to accelerate their digital transformations.
  • ebankIT made its Finovate debut in 2015. The company most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope 2023.

A partnership between digital banking solutions provider ebankIT and multicloud services provider Centrilogic will bring secure, cloud-based solutions to financial institutions. ebankIT will combine its adaptable architecture and core-agnostic capabilities with Centrilogic’s expertise in private and public cloud services to help banks and other financial institutions innovate quickly and achieve their digital transformation goals.

“Centrilogic has extensive experience helping financial institutions achieve success through their digital transformation journeys by delivering reliable and secure cloud-based systems and infrastructure,” Centrilogic CEO Robert Offley explained. “Together with ebankIT, we look forward to empowering banks and credit unions with the foundation necessary to provide industry-leading digital experiences to their clients.”

Courtesy of the collaboration, ebankIT will leverage Centrilogic’s Managed Security Service. This technology provides comprehensive security monitoring to enhance data protection with capabilities such as security logging, vulnerability scanning, and intrusion detection systems.

“An efficient infrastructure management is essential for seamless operations,” ebankIT CEO Renato Oliveira said. “Centrilogic’s expertise will help ebankIT optimize infrastructure, enhance scalability, and improve overall performance.”

Based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Centrilogic offers both private and public cloud services to mid-market businesses. The firm offers multicloud management, application innovation, data and analytics, and IT advisory to help businesses turn their technology platforms into “business-driving assets”. Centrilogic began 2024 with the appointment of Doug Tracy as the company’s President. The privately-held firm counts TriSpan LLP and Long Point Capital among its investors.

A Finovate alum since its Best of Show winning debut at FinovateEurope in 2015, ebankIT most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2023. At the conference, the company showed a number of new features on its Omnichannel Digital Banking Platform, including a new tool to help banks better anticipate customer needs. More recently, the company has forged partnerships with financial institutions like Metropolitan Commercial Bank as well as with fintechs like fellow Finovate alums Finotta and Glia.

Founded in 2014, ebankIT is headquartered in Porto, Portugal.

Photo by Nick Karvounis on Unsplash

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AI in Financial Services: Automation, Profitability, and Fraud Prevention

AI in Financial Services: Automation, Profitability, and Fraud Prevention
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Speaker series, Streamly

The role of AI in financial services is rapidly evolving. Not since the heady days of the Internet boom has an emerging technology so powerfully captured the imagination of companies, investors, workers, and consumers around the world.

As financial services companies search for ways to take advantage of AI to improve efficiency, better understand data, and engage more proactively and personally with their customers, it is all the more worthwhile for us to listen to those entrepreneurs, analysts, and investors who have taken the time to understand both AI’s promise as well as its limitations. Here, in our latest series of Streamly interviews, we present three individuals whose insights into AI are worth hearing and sharing.

Generative AI: Extending the boundaries of what automation can do

In this interview with Sarah Hinkfuss, Partner of Bain Capital Ventures, we learn how generative AI is transforming the way financial institutions leverage unstructured data, streamline processes, improve underwriting, and expand their product offerings. The conversation also touches on the importance of data quality and change management in AI adoption for financial institutions, providing valuable lessons from early adopters.

How can you make AI adoption profitable?

Chris Brown, President of Intelygenz USAA, talks about two decades of optimizing banking and fintech through deep tech and AI solutions, and shares his top takeaways from his keynote address at FinovateSpring earlier this year. Brown discusses some of Intelygenz’s strategies to overcome common AI project pitfalls, and explains the company’s end-to-end approach to client engagement.

Navigating fraud prevention challenges with AI

Intellicheck CEO Bryan Lewis explores contemporary challenges in fraud prevention, the limitations of traditional methods, and the role of AI in enhancing security measures. Lewis discusses how AI can both help and hinder fraud prevention, as well as how you can protect yourself and your business from fraud.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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Conversations Platform Provider Eltropy Unveils Voice+

Conversations Platform Provider Eltropy Unveils Voice+
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Eltropy
  • Unified Conversations Platform company Eltropy has introduced a range of new enhancements to its offering.
  • The enhancements include Skill-Based Routing, new Lobby Management features, and a voice and contact center solution, Voice+
  • A Finovate alum for more than seven years, Eltropy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022.

Unified Conversations platform provider Eltropy recently unveiled a set of new enhancements to its offering. The upgrades include Skill-Based Routing (SBR 2.0), new Lobby Management features, and a modern voice and contact center solution, Voice+.

“These enhancements reaffirm our commitment to quality and mark one of our most significant engineering efforts to date,” Eltropy CEO and Co-founder Ashish Garg said. “We’re excited about the opportunities these improvements will create for credit unions and community banks to elevate their overall member, customer, and employee experience in banking.”

Eltropy Voice+ brings voice functionality to digital channels such as text, video, and chat. Enhanced by an AI layer, Voice+ provides a unified contact center solution for voice, digital, and AI interactions, and gives agents a single interface to support greater efficiency. Skill-Based Routing (SBR 2.0) provides users with several features including the ability to prioritize high-value interactions, match agent proficiency based on language skills, and identify simultaneous channel handling via cross-channel concurrency. Lobby Management, first introduced earlier this year, now combines the best of digital banking with traditional branch services with efficient check-ins, queue management, branch traffic analytics, and resource planning tools.

Howie Meller, President and CEO of People First Federal Credit Union — which was among the early adopters of Eltropy’s Voice+ — praised the enhancements as a benefit for members and credit union employees alike. “Voice+ will make a big difference in how we serve our members,” Meller said. “Our agents can now use voice alongside text, video, co-browsing, and AI help. This means we can solve problems faster and better, all in one place. It’s a real improvement for our members.”

Eltropy made its first Finovate appearance in 2017, and most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall 2022. In the years since then, the company has partnered with several community financial institutions such as Cyprus Credit Union, InRoads Credit Union, and Magnifi Financial, as well as fellow Finovate alums Jack Henry, Fiserv, and Alkami. In fact, Eltropy began the year celebrating its 600 customer milestone. The company opened the doors to its new headquarters in Santa Clara, California, in May.

Photo by Alex Andrews

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Anodot Inks Strategic Partnership with YäRKEN

Anodot Inks Strategic Partnership with YäRKEN
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Anodot, Daily news
  • Cost management platform Anodot has inked a strategic partnership with FinOps and TBM platform.
  • The partnership will integrate technology from both firms to help clients better manage cloud costs.
  • Virginia-based Anodot made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022.

Cloud-based cost management platform Anodot has forged a strategic partnership with FinOps and TBM platform YäRKEN. The partnership will integrate technology from both firms to enable clients to manage cloud costs – both on-premises and in the private cloud – from a single interface.

“Anodot and YäRKEN are a perfect strategic match,” Anodot CEO and Co-founder David Drai said. “Our technology uses AI to help enterprises discover inefficiencies in their cloud spend, and YäRKEN’s platform helps those same organizations manage cloud spend across on-prem and cloud deployments.”

YäRKEN offers a tech cost management platform that gives users comprehensive cost optimization across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments to enhance profitability and reduce tech spend. YäRKEN’s platform features legacy platform TCO, Application TCO, IT planning, and Showback/Chargeback. Based in Auckland, New Zealand, YäRKEN announced earlier this year that the company’s solutions were now available on the AWS Marketplace. This news followed confirmation that YäRKEN had secured FinOps platform certification from the FinOps Foundation, underscoring the firm’s commitment to excellence and industry best practices. Ravi Kuppan is YäRKEN CEO and Co-founder.

For its part, Anodot is a cost management platform that identifies waste, tracks savings, and gives users transparency into both current and future costs. The platform enables users to facilitate strategic financial planning and management of multi-cloud, Kubernetes pods and SaaS tools. The solution also features a multi-tenant, multi-billing platform that optimizes costs across departments, teams, products, and unit economics.

“Anodot’s AI capabilities in cost optimization are a perfect match for YäRKEN, enabling us to cover the full spectrum for Anodot’s and YäRKEN’s existing client base,” Kuppan said. “Together, we extend the power of FinOps to include on-prem tech spend.”

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia, Anodot made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022. At the conference, Anodot demoed its payments monitoring tool that leverages AI to constantly monitor and correlate payments activity and business performance to identify revenue-critical issues and provide real-time actionable alerts.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

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Curinos and Adrenaline Forge Strategic Partnership

Curinos and Adrenaline Forge Strategic Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Curinos, Daily news

A partnership between data intelligence business Curinos and brand experience company Adrenaline will help banks and credit unions leverage data to make better decisions. The integration of Curinos’ Distribution Optimizer data solution into Adrenaline’s Connected Intelligence offering will also help financial institutions maximize the growth potential of their retail networks.

“We’re excited about incorporating Curinos’ leading-edge data into our already robust analytics offering and making more decision-making tools available to our clients, particularly smaller community banks and credit unions,” Adrenaline Managing Director of Retail Strategy Ben Hopper said. “Now, we’ll be able to quickly and efficiently gather the same data that big banks get and focus our team’s efforts more on translating the information into meaningful insights to drive strategy, for expansion and growth – something that all financial institutions need.”

Curinos’ Distribution Optimizer data tool integrates large volumes of both public bank and proprietary data into a consistent analytical framework that banks and credit unions can use to evaluate their networks and spot potential future opportunities. Adrenaline’s Connected Intelligence is an online platform that supports the access, analysis, visualization, storage, management, receipt, and distribution of market analysis and research. Integrating the technologies will help level the playing field between smaller and mid-market financial institutions and their larger rivals.

“The retail network in banking is undergoing massive transformation as traditional banking institutions are losing share to digital competitors,” Curinos Managing Director of Distribution and Sales Performance Andrew Hovet said. “No matter what their size or service area, these providers are looking for ways to amplify their impact through their branch networks. To maximize growth, they need to leverage analytics and smart strategies to make the best decisions for their networks. This partnership provides them with exactly that.”

Founded in 2021, Curinos made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2023 in San Francisco. At the conference, the New York-based company demoed its Amplero Personalization Optimizer, which uses machine learning and AI to enable bank marketing teams to deliver hyper-personalized, omnichannel experiences in minutes rather than months.

Earlier this month, Curinos introduced new Chief Technology and AI Officer Olly Downs. Downs joined the company as Chief Data Scientist in 2023. In April, the company announced a partnership with mortgage pricing technology firm Lender Price and reported that Achieva Credit Union ($2.8 billion in assets; 194,000+ members) had become the first customer to integrate Curinos’ Deposit Optimizer Essentials system. Deposit Optimizer Essentials enables credit unions and community banks to leverage data analytics to better manage member deposits and reach funding targets.

“As rates shift, we needed a robust, easy-to-navigate solution, enabling us to reach quickly and efficiently to changing market conditions,” Achieva Product Development Manager Veronica Schornheuser said, “We chose Curinos for the exceptional level of service we have received from them in the past and the intuitive nature of the Deposit Optimizer Essentials platform.”

Craig Woodward is Curinos’ CEO.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

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AutoRek Teams Up with JP Morgan Payments

AutoRek Teams Up with JP Morgan Payments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, AutoRek, Daily news, JP Morgan Chase
  • Automated reconciliation software company AutoRek has announced a partnership with JP Morgan Payments.
  • The partnership will help insurance companies better manage financial data flows from banking sources.
  • AutoRek made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in London.

Automated reconciliation software provider AutoRek has teamed up with JP Morgan Payments to enhance premium processing for insurance companies. The partnership will help insurance firms better manage financial data flows from banking sources, as well as improve their ability to manage cash allocation, matching, and credit control.

“Working with a specialist company like AutoRek will complement our existing solutions to help deliver an end-to-end solution across the entire insurance value chain,” JP Morgan Payments Head of Insurance, EMEA, Darren Snoxell said. “Together we will deliver tangible benefits to brokers, carriers, reinsurers, multinational insurance programs, captives, and across the London Market. We look forward to working with the team.”

Processing nearly $10 trillion payments a day, JP Morgan Payments operates in more than 160 countries and transacts in 120+ currencies. The firm combines treasury services, trade and working capital solutions, and card and merchant services to facilitate payments to both customers and employees around the world.

“We are proud of this partnership, which presents a powerful combination of proven solutions, and will deliver optimal results for clients in the insurance market,” AutoRek Global Insurance Lead Piers Williams said. “By working together, we will unlock many opportunities for insurance firms to streamline the premium receivables process. This will help them to increase efficiency, accelerate cash flow, reduce write-offs and enhance controls.”

Headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, AutoRek made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. At the conference, the company showed how its automated reconciliation technology helps banks, insurance firms, building societies, and other financial services companies overcome high-volume reconciliation challenges, improve auditability, and keep operating costs low.

Earlier this month, AutoRek was named “Best CASS Solution” at the Systems in the City Fintech Awards 2024. The recognition marked AutoRek’s fifth consecutive win in this category. In May, the company announced that insurance broker Howden had selected AutoRek to drive digital transformation and boost efficiency for a number of key back-office processes using intelligent automation.

“Insurer statement reconciliations are especially onerous on our resources and we expect AutoRek to significantly reduce the expenditure of effort in this area, which in turn will not only enhance our service to our markets, but will also release our staff to concentrate on more value-added tasks,” Howden Head of IBA UK Operations Guy Turner said. “We are very much looking forward to deploying the solution in this regard.”

AutoRek was founded in 1994. Gordon McHarg is CEO.

Photo by Pixabay

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AutoRek, Fintech Rundown, Jack Henry, Mambu, OneID, Thought Machine

Partnerships in digital banking, identity management, and payments lead off the fintech news headlines as July begins in earnest. Be sure to check back all week long for updates and fresh announcements on the latest industry happenings.

Payments

AFFIN Bank turns to ACI Worldwide to modernize payments for businesses in Malaysia.

Dispute management and collections specialist Fintegrate Technology launches new image and data conversion suite, FusionLRS.

E-money institution Outpayce chooses Mambu to launch its multi-currency digital wallet for travel payments.

Cross River Bank teams up with MassPay to broaden access to domestic instant payments.

Yuno forges strategic partnership with BBVA Group digital payments company, Openpay.

Cross-border payments solutions company dLocal announces strategic partnership with Wakanow Group.

Payments infrastructure solution for software companies Payabli secures $20 million in Series A funding.

Instant payments solutions company Zimpler announced a new technical partnership with Swedish payments app, Swish.

Lending

ClearScore secures $4.4 million (£3.4 million) in funding from Fair4All Finance to develop debt consolidation loan technology for the financially vulnerable.

Ireland’s CreditLogic raises $3.8 million (EUR 3.5 million) from Riverside Acceleration Capital (RAC).

Crypto / DeFi / Web3

Crypto payments company Kulipa partners with cryptocurrency wallet provider Argent and Mastercard to launch its new crypto-based payment card.

MoonPay and Mesh ink an exclusive partnership to ease the process of depositing and transferring crypto from exchanges.

Swiss layer-1 blockchain Shardeum partners with Web3 security services platform Immunefi to launch bug bounty program.

Fraud and identity management

Fraud prevention specialist GBG unveils its KYB solution, GBG Detected.

Germany’s IDnow unveils a pair of new e-signature solutions, InstantSign and eID eSign.

NatWest partners with digital identity identity solutions provider OneID.

iDenfy and UAE-based SIMPal forge strategic partnership to enhance security in the telecom industry.

Insurtech

AutoRek partners with JP Morgan Payments to enhance premium processing for insurance companies.

Digital banking

U.K.-based digital bank and BaaS platform Griffin receives B Corp certification.

First Federal Bank of Kansas turns to Jack Henry for its hosted core processing solution.

Financial services company Ethos teams up with Thought Machine to provide Shariah-compliant banking solutions.

Digital banking experience platform Plumery forges strategic partnership with core banking provider Fimple.

South Africa’s Tyme Bank appoints new CEO Karl Westvig.

Capital markets

Enterprise platform for data automation Duco launches its reconciliation capability for unstructured data.

Credit

U.K.-based consumer credit fintech Fairlo secures B Corp certification.

Investing and wealth management

Brokerage-as-a-service platform lemon.markets raises $13 million in funding from CommerzVentures, Heliad, and existing investors.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood

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Eight Alums Raised More Than $292 Million in Q2 2024

Eight Alums Raised More Than $292 Million in Q2 2024
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Quarterly Funding

“A little better all the time?” Can we use that classic refrain from Lennon & McCarthy to describe the performance of fintech companies seeking funding in the second quarter of 2024?

Most broad-based surveys of fintech funding for Q2 2024 have yet to be published. But, for our Finovate alums, “a little better” aptly describes the difference between Q2 of this year and Q2 of last. Our Finovate alums raised more than $292 million in the second quarter of this year, an increase of nearly 40% over last year’s Q2 mark. The accomplishment was completed by fewer alums this year compared to last, as well.

Previous quarterly comparisons

  • Q2 2023: More than $209 million raised by 10 alums
  • Q2 2022: More than $984 million raised by eight alums
  • Q2 2021: More than $2.8 billion raised by 14 alums
  • Q2 2020: More than $975 million raised by 15 alums

That said, the relatively low funding levels of the past two years are indicative of the broader slowdown in funding that fintechs have been experiencing of late. Again, we are looking forward to seeing some more reports from the field on fintech funding for the past few months, writ large. But, for now, the post-COVID retrenchment in fintech funding continues.

Top Equity Investments

  • Blend: $150 million
  • FintechOS: $60 million
  • SpyCloud: $35 million
  • Hawk: $30 million

The biggest alum fundraising of the quarter was the $150 million reeled in by Blend. A digital lending platform based in San Francisco, California, Blend made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016 and also participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr SiliconValley 2016. With total capital of $815 million, according to Crunchbase, Blend began this year with news that the publicly-traded company would join the Russell 2000 index.

Also noteworthy among fundraising alums in Q2 of 2024 was the $60 million secured by FintechOS. Headquartered in London, U.K., FintechOS offers a low-code platform that enables banks, insurers, and other financial services companies deliver a range of digital financial experiences for their customers. The company made its Finovate debut in 2021, demoing Sunglow, its Super App for Banking.

FintechOS has raised more than $151 million in funding. In February, the company reported year-over-year revenue growth of 40% for 2023.

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q2 2024.

April: More than $43 million raised by two alums

May: More than $150 million raised by two alums

June: More than $99 million raised by four alums

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the second quarter of 2024 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

Photo by Pixabay

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Tuum Teams Up with Debt Management Specialist Flexys

Tuum Teams Up with Debt Management Specialist Flexys
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Tuum
  • Core banking platform provider Tuum announced a partnership with debt management specialist Flexys.
  • The partnership will help banks improve their debt collection workflows.
  • Tuum won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year.

U.K.-based core banking platform Tuum has teamed up with debt management specialist Flexys. The partnership will help banks streamline and enhance their debt collection processes at a time when legacy core systems are limiting financial institutions’ ability to better serve their customers. These “old cores” also make it more difficult for FIs to keep up with stricter regulations surrounding credit and debt management.

“Flexys and Tuum are tackling debt management pain points head-on,” Tuum VP of Global Partnerships Jean Souto said. “Our partnership gives banks high-tech tools to streamline collections from end-to-end, reducing hassles through automation – a win for everyone involved.”

The partnership will help banks deal with the dual problem of tightening regulations and outdated, cumbersome debt management technology. Not only can legacy core systems inhibit the ability of financial institutions to readily meet compliance requirements, they can also fall short when it comes to providing more personalized service to customers. Integrating the two platforms enables FIs to swap out their old core systems in favor of cloud-based, debt collection workflows, and benefit from real-time data to help personalize the experience for each customer.

“We’re thrilled to team up with Tuum and help banks break out of the legacy debt management rut,” Flexys CEO James Hill said. “With our integrated platforms, lenders can ditch inefficient processes in favor of frictionless digital experiences that genuinely support customers when they need it most.”

U.K.-based Flexys offers state-of-the-art debt management solutions that enable financial institutions to automate and digitize their customer interactions. The company’s flagship offering, Control+, is a cloud-native, real-time, “intelligent debt resolution” platform that provides enterprise-grade collections functionality from digital self-serve to agent management and recoveries. Founded in 2016, Flexys began this year partnering with another Finovate alum, Thought Machine, which integrated Flexys’ Control+ platform into its core banking solution, Vault Core.

Tuum made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2024, winning Best of Show in its demonstration of its modular, cloud-native, API-first banking platform. In the months since then, the company has forged partnerships with Islamic fintech solution provider DDCAP Group, digital banking and wealth management firm CREALOGIX, and KYB/KYC automation solutions company TransactionLink. In June, Tuum announced a strategic partnership with open banking company Ozone API. The union will help Tuum’s bank and financial institution customers comply with open banking regulations.

“Our collaboration with Tuum marks a new chapter for open banking and finance globally,” said James Bushby, Ozone API GM for Europe and Global Partnership Lead. “Our combined strengths will enable financial institutions to tackle compliance challenges while harnessing the immense opportunities of open banking.”

Founded in 2019, Tuum has raised more than $48 million in funding according to Crunchbase. In March, the company announced that Citi Ventures has become a strategic investor in the firm as a follow-on to its Series B round.

Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

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