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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Identity and fraud prevention solution provider Alloy has teamed up with Mastercard to launch an enhanced customer onboarding solution for financial institutions and fintechs.
The joint offering will use both identity verification technology and open finance to streamline onboarding and fight fraud.
Founded in 2015, Alloy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022.
Identity and fraud prevention platform provider Alloy has inked a global partnership with Mastercard to introduce an enhanced customer onboarding solution for financial institutions and fintechs. The new offering comes as these businesses cited a 60% increase in fraud in 2024, according to Alloy’s 2025 State of Fraud Report. The report further noted that 93% of those financial organizations surveyed planned to invest in ongoing fraud prevention measures this year, with 64% planning to deploy identity risk technology, as well.
“Fraud continues to be a significant challenge for financial institutions and consumers alike, underscoring the urgent need for robust fraud prevention measures,” Mastercard EVP and Global Head of Identity, Dennis Gamiello said. “This joint onboarding solution will be a game-changer in the fight to reduce fraud and deliver a seamless and secure customer experience.”
The joint offering from Alloy and Mastercard will leverage both identity verification and open finance to simultaneously streamline onboarding and fight fraud. The solution provides a consistent identity risk strategy and onboarding experience across channels. Alloy will leverage Mastercard’s global digital identity verification capabilities and suite of open finance-powered account opening solutions to support financial institutions as they manage fraud, identity risk, and secure account funding throughout the customer lifecycle.
At the same time, Mastercard solutions will be integrated and pre-configured in Alloy to enable seamless deployment. Customers will have access to 200+ risk and identity solutions available via Alloy that are designed to help boost customer conversion rates, reduce the amount of manual reviews, and provide comprehensive end-to-end coverage.
“Successful fraud prevention starts with a holistic approach to understanding identity. Our partnership with Mastercard will allow more financial institutions and fintechs to evaluate customer identities holistically,” Alloy Chief Product Officer Parilee Wang said. “The end result for those companies will be a better digital experience and less fraud risk, allowing their businesses to grow effectively.”
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, Alloy introduced itself to Finovate audiences at FinDEVr SiliconValley 2016, and returned to the Finovate stage six years later for FinovateFall 2022 in New York. More recently, Alloy was included in CNBC World’s Top Fintech Companies roster for 2025 and, in June, the company announced a partnership with IG Group to help the FTSE 250 online trading firm maintain regulatory compliance as it grows.
With FinovateFallright around the corner (September 8 through 10), we wanted to update you as we fill out the last spots on our speaker roster for the event. Today, as part of the Finovate blog’s Speaker Series, we’re showcasing a pair of presentations focused on advanced authentication strategies for identity verification and how AI can be effectively deployed to help enhance the lending journey. We’re also previewing a special fireside chat on the latest big developments on the open banking front.
If you haven’t bought your ticket yet, you’re in luck! Our registration discount ends on Friday so visit our FinovateFall registration page today and take advantage of big savings!
Frictionless by Design: How T-Secured Network Authentication Accelerates Digital Adoption
Mark Clancy, Senior Vice President of Cybersecurity, T-Mobile, will discuss the value of network-based authentication in a world of forgotten passwords, clumsy verification steps, and vulnerable SMS codes. Clancy will also show how network-based authentication verifies identity directly through the mobile network , requiring no passwords, no codes, and no extra clicks. Mon, Sep 8, 10:05 am.
At T-Mobile, Clancy spearheads the company’s strategy to safeguard consumer data and boost enterprise-wide security measures. Clancy has 25+ years of experience in information technology and cybersecurity, having held executive positions at Sprint, Citigroup, and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation.
Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, and a self-described “Un-carrier,” T-Mobile provides an advanced 4G LTE and nationwide 5G network that offers reliable connectivity for 132+ million customers. A publicly traded company on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker TMUS, the company has a market capitalization of $282 billion.
Autopilot Lending: The AI blueprint for seamless lending journeys
Sandeep Hinduja, Vice President and Head of Banking (Americas), Newgen Software Inc., will discuss how to automate the end-to-end lending journey with no manual touchpoints; deliver seamless, personalized onboarding across digital, mobile, and in-branch channels; and leverage AI for smart document management to ensure both security and accuracy. Tue, Sep 9, 2:55 pm.
As Head of Financial Services as Newgen Software, Hinduja oversees business strategy and operations across the United States and Canada, driving innovative solutions for lending, account opening, business process automation (BPA), enterprise content management (ECM), and customer communication management (CCM).
New Delhi-based Newgen Software offers an AI-first unified digital transformation platform that provides native process automation, content services, customer engagement, and AI/ML capabilities. The company’s low-code application platform enables companies to build and deploy complex, content-driven and customer-engaging business applications from the cloud.
Will JPMorgan’s data war kill fintech innovation?
Lastly, I want to call your attention to a very special late addition to the FinovateFall lineup. Jim Marous—co-publisher of The Financial Brand, owner and publisher of the Digital Banking Report, and host of the Banking Transformed podcast—will speak about the state of open banking in the US today. Wed, Sep 10, 1:45 pm.
From JPMorgan’s announced plans to begin charging for access to customer data to Visa’s report that it is shuttering its open banking division, the drive to bring open banking to the US feels as if it is at a major crossroads.
Presented as a Fireside Chat, this discussion with banking and fintech veteran Marous will give delegates a greater understanding of the issues involved in the fight to make open banking a reality here in the States.
When it comes to the conversation on cryptocurrencies in financial services, the discussion often starts with stablecoins. And with good reason. The stablecoin market today is estimated to be worth $250 billion. Major financial institutions including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock have incorporated stablecoins into transactions and settlement operations. Technology giants like Meta, Apple, and Amazon are exploring the use of stablecoins for payouts. And the recently passed GENIUS Act in the US will establish a regulatory framework for these digital assets.
But there’s another child of the blockchain that is working its way toward the mainstream and that’s tokenization. Darren Carvalho, Co-Founder of MetaWealth, in a recent piece for Finextra, described tokenization as: “the process of digitally representing real-world assets, including stocks, bonds, and real estate, on the blockchain in the form of a token.”
Why is this a big deal? As Carvalho explained, tokenization promises to bring greater efficiency and inclusion to traditional financial markets. This includes making a wide range of financial assets accessible to a broader range of potential investors thanks to its exceptional ability to enable fractional investments. The deployment of smart contracts that automate compliance processes is another use case for tokenization that has excited advocates of the technology.
To discuss all this and more, we caught up with Carvalho’s colleague, fellow MetaWealth Co-Founder and CEO, Amr Adawi (pictured). In this interview, Adawi shared his insights about the growing role of tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) in financial services and how a new generation of companies is helping individual investors leverage tokenization to build their wealth.
You recently announced a distribution of more than one million USD in yield income to token holders. Why is this milestone important and what does it say about the outlook for tokenized assets?
Amr Adawi: Distributing over $1 million in yield income to MetaWealth token holders is a significant milestone—not only for our platform, but also as a true validation of tokenization as a transformative technology in the real estate industry. MetaWealth demonstrates that tokenization has moved beyond the hype and now delivers real financial outcomes for everyday investors. Essentially, we have met the promise of tokenization: democratizing access to traditionally high-barrier investments.
It is also worth highlighting the underlying structure of the yield income distributed to investors. MetaWealth is passing on real rental income generated from the income-producing properties listed on its platform, demonstrating that tokenized assets can deliver both accessibility and returns without having to compromise on compliance, transparency, or limit investor protections.
Let’s step back a bit. What are tokenized assets? Why are they becoming more important?
Adawi: We use the term “tokenized assets” to refer to any asset—from real estate and cars to bonds and stocks—that are represented as digital tokens on the blockchain. Each token corresponds to a share of ownership or interest in the underlying asset, enabling secure, transparent, and fractionalized ownership of the asset.
We’re seeing such deep interest in tokenized assets, especially from financial institutions, because of their ability to remove long-standing barriers in traditional finance. Take real estate investing, for example; the industry has been limited by high entry costs, complex legal structures, and illiquidity. Tokenization has completely removed these barriers to entry by lowering the minimum investment, increasing transparency and enabling more flexible trading of assets through digital ownership.
How does MetaWealth fit in? What problem does MetaWealth solve?
Adawi: MetaWealth is an investment platform that is purposefully designed to enable global investors to access institutional-grade and income-generating real estate through tokenization.
We partner directly with Europe’s leading property developers, bringing investment opportunities to any retail or corporate investors that were previously reserved for large institutions. Our platform complies with all relevant legislation, recently achieving the EU’s VASP licence and now pursuing MiCa registration. Using our fully-licensed platform, investors can buy into premium properties with as little as $100 and receive yield directly through our platform.
MetaWealth’s approach to real estate investment is also advantageous for property developers, opening up their projects to a broader capital base, unlocking new revenue streams and greater liquidity through the power of tokenization.
Who are MetaWealth’s primary customers? How do you reach them?
Adawi: Our platform serves both retail investors and institutions, with over 50k investors signed up across 23 countries in Europe and Canada. MetaWealth’s support for fractionalized real estate investments on-chain, and within an investment platform that offers transparent performance reports and adheres to high regulatory standards, is particularly appealing to institutional investors.
Investors typically find us through their own research on small-ticket real estate investments, with our direct investment opportunities in properties across Greece, Italy, Spain, and Romania making us stand out from competing platforms.
What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
Adawi: I think it’s important to highlight the scale of this challenge; real estate is a $180 trillion market, and has proven resistant to digitization so far. The root of my confidence that we can tackle this challenge is a deep belief that financial inclusion typically wins in the long term; challengers in cross-border payments, stock investments, banking, and more have been able to capture market share. More specifically, I’m confident we can build a reputable, user-friendly and efficient tokenized investment platform due to my years of experience building across both Web2 and Web3 ecosystems.
Before co-founding MetaWealth, I spent over eight years working at leading startups and organizations including Wealthsimple, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Drop, and Meta. I also co-founded 1lens, an AR company leveraging computer vision to create immersive, real-world experiences. This career trajectory, and the invaluable knowledge I picked up along the way, allowed me to design and deploy platforms used by millions—platforms that demanded both robust infrastructure and user-first design at scale.
All of the above experiences have enabled me to do what I care about the most: solving real problems with technology that expands access and opportunity. It is a simple fact that real estate remains one of the most powerful pathways for wealth creation and yet it is still inaccessible for many. We’re democratizing this key asset class, bringing benefits to every stakeholder in the property value chain in the process.
Can you tell us about an implementation or deployment of your technology that you think is especially noteworthy?
Adawi: MetaWealth’s most impactful deployment of our technology has to be our real-time yield distribution to global investors who hold tokenized real estate investment on the MetaWealth platform. Surpassing $1 million in distributed yield, directly delivered to users’s wallets via blockchain, validates our entire business model—merging asset-backed performance with digital ownership infrastructure. Further noteworthy implementations include funding developments in Athens, Rome, and other European cities, increasing supply of housing while bringing returns to our users.
There’s growing interest in and awareness of stablecoins. Do you think interest in tokenized assets will catch up? What could drive faster embrace of tokenization?
Adawi: Stablecoins have seen accelerated adoption because they offer a clear and undeniable utility, serving as a powerful alternative to frictionless money movement. Essentially, stablecoins have proven their worth by being stable, liquid, and solving a global pain point transferring value across borders, unhindered by borders or time constraints.
Conversely, tokenized assets are more complex in nature, although we are already seeing more real-world use cases that deliver measurable returns. The drivers of tokenization adoption will be performance and transparency. When people can buy a tokenized share of a property, receive verified rental income and track ownership on-chain, the technology becomes more concrete.
Although the technology clearly works, better UX, credible regulation, and consistent yield will accelerate tokenized assets’ credibility as an investment vehicle among retail and institutional investors. Moreover, broader education about tokenized assets as well as integrations with mainstream fintech apps and further regulation will bolster investor confidence.
What can we expect to hear from MetaWealth in the months to come?
Adawi: Following the recent approval of our VASP license early this year, which allows MetaWealth to expand its offerings in the tokenized real estate market, including introducing a compliant secondary market for its real-world assets and real estate tokens, we are now focused on our upcoming MiCAR submission. This will enable MetaWealth to operate with regulatory clarity across the EU, unlocking passporting rights, enhancing trust, and institutional access and many other benefits that will enable us to scale.
Outside of MiCAR, we are continuing to expand our presence across Europe. A majority of our $50+ million in tokenized assets remain under development, with assets in Spain and Italy recently reaching 100% in commitments. Over the months to come, we will list new real estate assets on the MetaWealth platform, spanning a range of European markets.
Global payouts orchestration platform PayQuicker announced that it now offers Same-Day ACH for US payees. The expansion of the company’s real-time payout capabilities will be made available to select users across the firm’s key verticals including the gig economy, affiliate marketing, direct selling, and other industries where fast, secure payments are required.
“Timely compensation plays a critical role in driving payee engagement and ultimately business success,” PayQuicker VP of Partners and Relationships Kevin Zeman said. “With Same-Day ACH, we’re equipping our partners with a powerful advantage, enabling them to deliver faster, more reliable payments that drive loyalty, and meet the unique financial needs of payees across the globe.”
In its statement, PayQuicker highlighted the value of Same-Day ACH for a wide variety of industries, including clinical trials, where there is a direct correlation between fast and reliable compensation for trial participants and their retention and engagement. According to a report from Linear Clinical Research, participants in clinical trials can be forced to wait up to four business days for bank transfers. Same-Day ACH, in contrast, enables organizations to settle payments for trial participants within the same day, boosting both efficiency and participant satisfaction.
Same-Day ACH adds to PayQuicker’s suite of payments solutions, which include instant payments to cards and digital wallets. The company’s single API connects to multiple banks and payment rails, optimizing transactions for speed, cost-effectiveness, or both. The technology supports instant, hourly, and daily payouts, as well as on-demand earned wage access. Available as a white-label offering, PayQuicker’s technology enables payees to leverage branded debit cards, customizable portals, and mobile apps to help ensure that organizations are able to keep their brands top of mind.
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Rochester, New York, PayQuicker made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demonstrated Payouts OS, PayQuicker’s in-market, payouts payment orchestration platform which determines and facilitates the fastest, most cost-effective payment routing across 210+ countries and in 80+ currencies.
Earlier this year, PayQuicker announced that it was expanding its instant payout and local currency solution for clinical trials across the UK and EU. The ability to provide real-time digital payouts in local currencies has enabled clinical trial organizations and trial sponsors to quickly and securely compensate trial participants while remaining compliant with local regulations and laws.
Thinking about attending FinovateFall next month, September 8 through 10, in New York? Register by Friday, August 29 and take advantage of big savings on the price of your ticket.
Budapest, Hungary-based digital banking solutions company Finshape has completed its acquisition of loyalty platform Realtime-XLS.
The acquisition will enhance Finshape’s expertise in customer loyalty with the addition of 60 new specialists, as well as expand the firm’s reach geographically.
Finshape made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in London.
Digital banking solutions provider Finshapehas completed its acquisition of loyalty platform Realtime-XLS. Finshape bought the company from the Collinson Group and it represents Finshape’s first acquisition of a global product company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
There’s a lot to like in the move. The acquisition will boost Finshape’s expertise in the field of customer loyalty, giving the company 60 new specialists. The deal will also enable Finshape to extend its geographic reach courtesy of new offices in France and Singapore, and bolster its relationships with major banks in the UAE, Australia, Indonesia, and Singapore. In total, Finshape will consist of nearly 600 professionals supporting millions of end users across 100 banks around the world.
“This acquisition is a strategic milestone on our mission to transform the way banks serve their customers by unlocking the full potential of people and technology,” Finshape CEO Petr Koutný said.
Integrating the Realtime-XLS solution will give Finshape’s Digital Bank Operating System (DBOS) advanced loyalty capabilities, enabling banks to reward customer behavior, boost customer engagement, and generate additional revenue via cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. This will increase customer lifetime value, help banks secure a larger share of wallet, and make growth more sustainable.
“The loyalty solution will now form an integral part of our growing, customer-centric digital banking portfolio,” Koutný added. “Seamlessly integrated into our DBOS platform, it enhances the value we deliver by enabling banks to offer hyper-personalized experiences and build deeper, more meaningful relationships with their customers.”
Headquartered in Budapest, Hungary, Finshape won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateEurope 2022. At the event, the company showed how its platform combines digital banking and deep personalization capabilities to help financial institutions boost digital engagement, loyalty, and sales—especially among their micro- and small business customers. The company was formed in 2021 when Czech Banking Software Company (BSC) merged with Hungary’s W.UP (a three-time Finovate Best of Show winner).
Jenő Nieder, Deputy CEO at PortfoLion Capital Partners, the majority owner of Finshape that helped finance the merger between BSC and W.UP, praised the transaction as “perfectly aligned with the buy-and-build strategy” conceived when Finshape was founded. “This transaction not only incorporates a new loyalty platform but also adds new capabilities and true global coverage to an already strong company,” Nieder said.
A new partnership between Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) provider Endaoment and philanthropic advisory firm Active Cause will help creatives, athletes, entertainers, and influencers make charitable donations in cash, stock, crypto, and other assets.
A DAF works like a charitable investment account, enabling investors to make tax-deductible contributions and to recommend charitable grant outlays from the fund, while the assets grow in value over time.
Founded in 2020, Endaoment made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024 in San Francisco. Robbie Heeger is President and CEO.
Next-generation Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) provider Endaoment has teamed up with philanthropic advisory firm Active Cause. The partnership combines Endaoment’s DAF infrastructure with Active Cause’s experience in serving the philanthropic needs of athletes, creatives, entertainers, and other influencers. Active Cause clients will be able to leverage the Endaoment platform to set up their own personalized DAFs where they can make charitable donations in cash, stock, crypto, as well as other assets.
“Active Cause is leading a cultural shift in philanthropy by centering creatives, athletes, and entertainers,” Endaoment President and CEO Robbie Heeger said. “We’re proud to provide the technology and infrastructure that allows their members to give seamlessly and confidently, while tracking their impact in real time.”
A DAF is a financial vehicle that acts like a charitable investment account. Contributions to DAFs are irrevocable to the sponsoring 501(c)(3) organization, which gains legal control over the funds. And while funds cannot be withdrawn for personal use, contributors—donors—still retain advisory rights over how the funds are invested and ultimately distributed.
DAFs provide donors with immediate tax benefits, enabling them to deduct the full amount of the contribution from their tax bill. The invested assets appreciate and grow tax-free over time and donors can recommend grants from the fund to qualified charities as they deem appropriate.
The partnership will embed charitable giving options directly into Active Cause’s membership platform, empowering influencers to support the causes that matter most to them. In addition to providing streamlined, simplified philanthropic service and tax advantages for creatives with often high-but-unpredictable income streams, the personal DAFs also offer a degree of privacy to help keep charitable donations out of the headlines.
“Our partnership with Endaoment gives members access to a modern platform that makes giving easier, faster, and more transparent,” Active Cause Co-Founder and CEO Yonis said in a video statement posted on LinkedIn.
Active Cause has more than 20 athletes, artists, and creators who have launched funds through the company and granted more than $10 million to community organizations as of 2025. The company provides philanthropic strategy and impact monitoring on key metrics like tax savings and fund growth. Working with Active Cause streamlines philanthropic processes, cutting administrative time by up to 50%, and lowering administrative costs to as low as 1.5% for DAFs greater than $10 million.
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Endaoment made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024. Earlier this year, the company launched its Farcaster mini-app that helps users “convert emotional resonance into immediate impact.” The app enables users to find and donate to causes directly within their social feed and to share giving opportunities with those in their network. Donations can be made in USD, USDC, or ETH.
The fallout from JP Morgan’s plan to charge companies for access to client bank account data continues as—according to a report from Bloomberg—Visa has announced that it is shuttering its open banking unit.
We’ve got a lot to say about the fight for open banking next month at FinovateFall. For now, be sure to check in to Finovate’s Fintech Rundown for all the latest fintech news!
AI-powered credit intelligence company martini.ailaunches its Financial Autonomy Ladder, a framework for measuring an institutions evolution from manual to autonomous decision-making systems.
MeridianLinkexpands its partnership with Jack Henry, which will resell the suite of Meridian Link One platform solutions, including MeridianLink Mortgage and MeridianLink Consumer.
First Northern Credit Union selectsAppli to modernize member lending experience.
Small business solutions
Expensifyannounces upgrades to its Expensify Travel offering including central billing, event management, and employee itineraries.
Headquartered in Ontario, Canada and founded in 2022, Cinareo Solutions complements workforce management platforms, helping them streamline contact center operations and mitigate risk by enabling precise resource allocation and decision-making that is driven by data.
Cinareo made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego, demonstrating how its SaaS solution provides scenario-based capacity planning for both contact center agents and support staff. The company’s technology leverages industry-recognized statistical models and simulations to help businesses meet customer demands as well as vital financial KPIs.
We caught up with Karen Elliott recently to learn more about the field of capacity planning, the role of enabling technologies like AI, and how Cinareo Solutions helps contact centers ensure that the right person with the right skills is in the right place at the right time.
What role does capacity planning have in workforce management? What makes it challenging and how does Cinareo help companies better meet those challenges?
Karen Elliott: Capacity planning is the strategic backbone of workforce management. It determines how many people you need with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time, to meet service levels without overspending on labor. In contact centers, capacity planning sits upstream of scheduling—it uses historical data, forecasts, and business assumptions to set headcount and budget requirements weeks, months, or even years in advance. Effective planning ensures customer demand is met efficiently and profitably.
The challenge is that unpredictable demand, scattered data, and outdated tools make planning a constant challenge. Most organizations resort to using Excel spreadsheets and spend hours or even days of manual labor and embedded formulas to try to figure out the optimal plan. Cinareo streamlines the process by ingesting your data and enabling rapid “what-if” scenario modeling and multi-skilling simulation to create optimized plans for both agents and support staff with the click of a button.
Not only does Cinareo handle planning with ease, but the platform also creates financial budgets and recruitment and training plans so you know who to hire, and when, to ensure you meet your service targets.
Who are Cinareo’s primary customers? How do you reach them?
Elliott: Cinareo is an industry-agnostic platform for all contact centers. We have customers worldwide in financial institutions, telecom, travel, utilities, retail, and even government. We partner with CCaaS and WFM solutions to integrate directly into their platforms so that data can flow seamlessly into Cinareo. Any organization with variable demand, labor-intensive operations and service or cost targets would get huge benefits from using a platform like Cinareo.
We have a wide network of referral agents and ISV partners that recommend Cinareo to their clients when they see a clear need. Cinareo offers webinars and monthly product showcases to demonstrate the power behind the platform—or can even arrange custom demos and proof of concepts to make sure potential customers truly understand the benefits of a modern planning platform like Cinareo.
What in your background led you to pursue innovation in this field?
Elliott: I spent 12 years at the IBM Innovation Center earlier in my career within the User Experience group with a key focus on user-centric software solutions. After leaving IBM, I co-founded a professional consulting firm that specialized in contact center optimization that helped organizations improve their people, processes, technology, and knowledge.
Years of consulting highlighted a huge gap in the market in regard to capacity planning. We worked with countless private and public sector organizations that would build these complex spreadsheets to determine their optimal staffing and we decided there needed to be a better way, so we created Cinareo. It was built to complement any CCaaS or WFM platform in the market and integrate into whatever was the customer’s platform of choice. If customers switch platforms, they can take Cinareo with them—having a portable, agnostic solution was key to the design.
Another important goal was designing a platform that was simple and intuitive based on years of experience in user-centric design. We even have our customers as active members of the planning and design of the solution—this ensures that everything we build is focused on the needs and requirements of the people using the software.
What role do enabling technologies like AI play in developing innovative workforce management solutions?
Elliott: Capacity planning remains relevant in contact centers even if AI is involved, and it can take on a different but crucial role in optimizing the overall performance. While AI can now handle routine queries or simple updates, the reality is much more complex. Cinareo helps determine the right mix of AI-driven processes and human resources to meet the demand efficiently. Our customers are modelling their operations using Cinareo to determine the ideal balance of human agents vs bot and the ROI on an investment in AI as well.
Incorporating AI into Cinareo is a given—we are already full steam ahead in our strategic plans to ensure that AI-driven capacity planning can make a dramatic difference. But true innovation in customer support isn’t about replacing the people—it is about giving people the ability to work faster and smarter – and we are doing that with Cinareo.
You recently launched Flexible Monthly Planning. What is the value proposition with this new offering?
Elliott: We initially offered Cinareo as a strategic, long-term capacity planning platform where users could build 12-, 24- or 36-month plans. However, as we continued to enhance Cinareo, our customers were telling us they wanted more flexibility in their planning, so we built in the capability to do weekly planning up to 52 weeks in order for contact centers to create tactical plans over the short or medium term.
To continue to expand on Cinareo’s flexible platform, we recently launched more flexibility into our monthly planning as well, so customers can build a plan for any number of months up to 3 years in advance. These enhancements were all driven by the needs of our clients since our goal is to have our software reflect “the voice of the customer” and truly be user-centric.
You made your Finovate debut at FinovateSpring earlier this year. How was the experience?
Elliott: We had a fantastic debut at FinovateSpring! We generated a lot of great interest in the solution from the demo we provided. Prior to FinovateSpring, we had recently started onboarding more fintech clients and noticed an uptick in interest from banks, credit unions, and insurance agencies looking for a solution like Cinareo. We thought FinovateSpring would be a great opportunity to demo Cinareo to a wider audience and get fintech companies to see the realm of the possible with a modern capacity planning solution. There is such a clear need in this sector for a solution that will not only improve CX and EX, but also provide important KPIs like the cost per contact to help with financial management.
What can we look forward to seeing from Cinareo in the months to come?
Elliott: We are excited over some of the new features that are set to launch in the months to come—we have been scaling up significantly to meet customer demand. A couple new features that are soon to be released are multi-lingual functionality in addition to the ability to compare a plan with your historical data in a quick and easy way. We will be offering our clients a way to see how their plan performed against their actuals in both performance and staffing—down to the 15-minute interval level. This new feature will help our customers understand trends and patterns and be able to improve their planning moving forward.
That is just the tip of the iceberg—we have so many more exciting things planned over the next while. We would love to increase our customer base to have even more voices driving the future of our software! If you want to see how Cinareo can solve your capacity planning challenges, feel free to contact us.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Whish Money teams up with Mastercard to enable cross-border payments to Lebanon.
Bank of Algeria joined the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) launched by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
Qatar-based AlRayan Bank went live with Finastra Corporate Channels.
Central and Southern Asia
India celebrated National Fintech Day earlier this week.
Ukrainian fintech Fintech Farm launched its mobile banking service Tezbank in Uzbekistan.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) announced plans to unveil new Information Systems Audit Standards to enhance audit practices for startups, fintechs, and e-commerce companies.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazil-based digital financial services platform Nubankintroduced Armando Herrera as new CEO of its Mexican operations.
Uruguayan cross-border payment platform dLocal teamed up with cross-border marketplace platform Tiendamia.
Puero Rico-based transaction processor and fintech EVERTEC announced plans to acquire a controlling stake in Brazilian fintech vendor Tecnobank.
Crypto exchange Kraken has announced its acquisition of no-code, natural language-based trading tools provider Capitalise.ai.
The acquisition will enable traders and investors on Kraken’s platform to build and execute complex trading strategies using everyday language rather than code.
Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Capitalise.ai won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2017.
Crypto exchange Kraken has acquiredCapitalise.ai, an Israel-based fintech that provides no-code, natural language-based trading and analytic tools for investors and traders. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Capitalise.ai won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2017 in San Francisco. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its technology can translate a wide variety of data inputs—including financial, social, and weather data—into actionable investment ideas across equities, cryptocurrencies, currencies, futures, options, and more. Capitalise.ai provides automated trade execution and the ability to optimize investment strategies quickly to analyze, predict, and improve performance.
“This acquisition gives Kraken Pro clients a powerful new way to act on ideas in real-time—testing, optimizing, and executing bespoke strategies with unprecedented speed and confidence,” Kraken Head of Exchange Shannon Kurtas said. “Capitalise.ai’s technology transforms how people interact with financial data—breaking down barriers that have long kept scalable, advanced strategies in the hands of a few. This is a major leap forward in democratizing access to pro-grade trading tools.”
Capitalise.ai’s functionality will be integrated into the Kraken Pro trading app in a phased rollout later in 2025. The company’s co-founders CEO Amir Shiovich and CPO Shahar Rabin, along with members of Capitalise.ai’s product and engineering team, will join Kraken.
The acquisition comes as the evolution of Kraken’s Pro platform, with its advanced features, has increasingly required both technical skill and deep trading expertise in order for users to make the most of the solution. Capitalise provides an effective response to this challenge, enabling clients regardless of background to build, test, and automatically execute often complex trading strategies using simple, everyday language.
“I founded Capitalise.ai alongside my partner Shahar Rabin, with the goal of democratizing advanced capabilities that were once reserved for hedge funds—through a simple, intuitive text interface,” Capitalise.ai’s Shiovich wrote on LinkedIn this week. “Over the years, we’ve partnered with world-leading brokers, served thousands of clients, and supported the trading of billions of dollars. By joining Kraken, we now have the opportunity to scale and drive meaningful impact across the trading industry.”
Founded in 2015, Capitalise.ai is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. Earlier this year, the company announced an expanded partnership with FOREX.com that enabled FOREX.com’s customers in the EU and the UK to access Capitalise.ai’s platform.
Among the longest-standing cryptocurrency platforms in the world, Kraken offers trading in more than 200 digital assets and six different national currencies including EUR, GBP, USD, CAD, CHF, and AUD. Founded in 2011, the company has been a pioneer in spot trading with margin, parachain auctions, staking, regulated derivatives, and index services. Kraken supports more than 15 million clients in 190+ countries and has more than $207 billion in quarterly trading volume on its platform.
How have the opportunities and challenges for women in fintech and financial services changed in recent years? What can community banks do to better compete in the “consumer deposit wars?” And what do banks, credit unions, and other companies in the financial services space stand to gain from effectively deploying AI in their operations?
FinovateFall’s Executive Briefings will tackle all these questions and more next month, September 8 through 10, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York. Check out our capsule summaries below. Then visit our FinovateFall registration hub to reserve your ticket. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve got in store this year!
Executive Briefing: Women in Fintech—How can we all make sure we are moving the needle?
Moderated by Michelle Tran, Founder, NYC Fintech Women, this Executive Briefing will examine a range of issues facing women in fintech and financial services. The conversation will include discussion on initiatives that are making a difference in growing and retaining female talent, the importance of diverse perspectives in AI development, and how to drive positive change in the industry. Mon, Sep 8, 10:20 am.
Featuring:
Sherry Wu, Chief Technology Officer, University of Michigan Credit Union
Executive Briefing: The Coming Storm for Community Banks
Moderated by Jason Henrichs, CEO, Alloy Labs, this Executive Briefing will investigate ways that community banks can develop a winning strategic plan that enables them to embrace innovation and better serve their customers. The panelists will share their insights on topics ranging from the so-called consumer deposit wars to the challenge of aligning culture, strategy, and execution when integrating enabling technologies like AI. Tue, Sep 9, 10:40 am.
Pam Kaur, Head of Bank Technology, BankTech Ventures
Executive Briefing: The AI Competitive Imperative—The ten AI solutions you need to know about today
Moderated by Kate Drew, Partner, Director of Research, CCG Catalyst Consulting, this Executive Briefing will focus on real-world applications and use cases for AI in financial services. The panelists will discuss how to implement AI safely and within regulatory requirements, as well as share strategies to ensure that AI is aligned with the institution’s business and change management strategy. Tue, Sep 9, 10:40 am.
Featuring:
Kimberly Kirk, Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Queensborough National Bank & Trust Company
Payment infrastructure provider Finzly announced an integration with Q2.
Finzly will bring its payment experience to Q2’s Digital Banking Platform, enabling financial institutions to offer their customers greater payments capabilities.
Both Finzly and Q2 won Best of Show awards at our all-digital conferences in 2020.
Finzly has announced an integration with fellow Finovate alum Q2 that will bring its payment experience to Q2’s Digital Banking Platform. This will enable financial institutions to offer their customers the ability to send and track a variety of payments, including cross-border, domestic, and instant payments—without having to leave the platform.
“In today’s connected world, businesses and consumers expect their banks to deliver seamless payment experiences. With fintechs setting new expectations for simplicity, speed, and transparency, banks and credit unions must be able to meet these demands effortlessly,” Finzly CEO and Founder Booshan Rengachari said. “By integrating Finzly’s solution into Q2’s Digital Banking Platform, we’re providing financial institutions with a simple, efficient way to offer exceptional payment experiences—including international payments—that exceed account holder expectations, without the need for a complex overhaul.”
A payments infrastructure provider for financial institutions, Finzly offers a payment experience that delivers real-time visibility, competitive FX rates, and built-in regulatory compliance and fraud monitoring. Importantly, the technology is “rail-agnostic,” supporting FedNow, RTP, Fedwire, ACH, and SWIFT. Integrated into the Q2 Digital Banking Platform, Finzly’s technology will help financial institutions expand their offerings, generate new revenues, and grow their customer base.
The integration was made possible by the Q2 Partner Accelerator Program. The program is a component of the Q2 Innovation Studio and enables in-demand financial services companies that are working with the Q2 SDK to pre-integrate their technology into the Q2 Digital Banking Platform. This makes it easy for banks and other financial institutions to collaborate with these companies, buy their solutions, and quickly deploy the technologies for their customers.
A Finovate alum since 2011, Q2 won Best of Show at our all-digital conference in 2020. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Q2 offers a Digital Banking Platform that provides a range of secure, data-driven banking and lending solutions to banks, credit unions, fintechs, and other companies in financial services. Financial institutions using the company’s platform have reported 54% higher deposit growth, 48% higher loan growth, 27% higher revenue per employee, and 13% higher return on assets compared to companies that do not use the platform. This week, the company reported that Open Payment Network (OPN) has become the first integration partner for Q2 Instant Payments Manager, a solution designed to help financial institutions manage instant payments workflows.
Finzly made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019 and won Best of Show in its return to the Finovate stage the following year. Most recently demonstrating its technology at FinovateSpring 2022, Finzly showed how its bank operating system, FinzlyOS, can quickly launch a modern, digital bank equipped with direct connections to all the major payments networks—from ACH and wires to RTP, FedNow, and SWIFT. Earlier this month, the company announced that it is gearing up to support both stablecoin and tokenized deposits in response to a demand for these digital assets that the company described as “exponential.”
“The momentum behind stablecoins is undeniable, and we’re seeing remarkable interest from US banks who recognize this isn’t just a trend,” Rengachari said. “Financial institutions that prepare now with the right infrastructure will be positioned to capitalize on what could be a $2 trillion market by 2028, while those that wait risk being left behind in an increasingly digital financial ecosystem.”
Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Finzly was founded in 2012.
Small business management platform Xero has teamed up with UAE-based digital bank Wio Bank PJSC.
The partnership will enable Wio Bank’s business customers to access a range of business finance management and accounting solutions.
Xero is headquartered in New Zealand. The company made its Finovate debut in 2011.
A newly announced partnership between UAE-based digital bank Wio Bank PJSC and small business management platform Xero will help small and medium-sized businesses in the region streamline and simplify their accounting operations. Wio Bank’s business customers will benefit from ready access to seamless bank feeds, automated reconciliation, and real-time financial insights.
The integration will help businesses working with Wio Bank to leverage automation to reduce error-prone, manual data entry. The technology will also help enhance cash flow visibility thanks to seamless invoice matching. Real-time insights ensure an accurate view of overall financial health, making it easier for business owners to make more informed decisions.
“We’re pleased to work with Xero to bring effortless accounting to UAE businesses,” Wio Bank Chief Commercial Officer Prateek Vahie said. “This integration reflects our commitment to making business banking smarter, faster, and more efficient. By automating financial workflows, we’re giving business owners more time to focus on growth.”
Xero provides small and medium-sized businesses with financial management solutions—including accounting software and invoicing technology that helps them be more efficient. With more than 4.4 million users of its solutions around the world, Xero offers flexible subscription plans for businesses ranging from solopreneurs to established enterprises. Xero’s platform features solutions that facilitate invoicing, payment acceptance, inventory management, payroll, expense management, and more.
“Our integration with Wio Bank is a significant step towards supporting more UAE businesses with better visibility of their finances, helping them spend less time on admin and more time doing what they love, growing their business,” Xero Regional Director EMEA, Colin Timmis said.
Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Wio Bank PJSC serves individuals with a platform that helps them save, spend, borrow, manage, and invest. The institution also offers Banking-as-a-Service and embedded finance solutions to serve small and medium-sized businesses. Launched in 2022, Wio Bank is backed by shareholders including ADQ, Alpha Dhabi, e&, and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB).
Xero made its Finovate debut in 2011. The New Zealand-based company was founded in 2006. Earlier this summer, Xero announced its acquisition of SMB billpay platform Melio. Already available via the Xero App Store, the Melio platform makes payment workflows easy and flexible, providing a diverse range of payment methods to better serve customers and help vendors get paid faster.
