Author: David Penn

BlueRush’s IndiVideo to Boost Customer Engagement for Meridian Credit Union 

BlueRush’s IndiVideo to Boost Customer Engagement for Meridian Credit Union 
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BLUERUSH

Meridian Credit Union, the fourth largest credit union in Canada with more than $8 billion in assets ($11 billion CAD), has teamed up with BlueRush to improve the customer experience for its more than 275,000 members. Meridian will use the Toronto-based company’s digital marketing solution, IndiVideo to help provide customers with the tools they need to make better financial decisions.

“Meridian is committed to creating an online experience where banking feels good” the credit union’s SVP of digital banking, David Baldarelli, said. “We chose BlueRush because of their demonstrated excellence in creating exceptional digital marketing software, including friendly, intuitive and more engaging tools that our Members can use to help make informed decisions about managing their finances.”

A suite of interactive, personalized videos and financial calculators, BlueRush’s IndiVideo leverages AI-driven video content in an entertaining and easy-to-understand way. Demonstrated as part of the company’s Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017, IndiVideo creates a financial conversation between the customer and the video content that simplifies complex subjects and empowers individuals to take more control over their personal finances.

“IndiVideo further solidifies Meridian’s positioning as a forerunner in digital banking,” BlueRush CEO Steve Taylor said. “IndiVideo builds a powerful relationship between financial institutions and their customers which ultimately decreases funnel abandonment. Our partnership with Meridian is further proof that our investments in IndiVideo as a SaaS platform are paying off.”

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, BlueRush demonstrated its SaaS-based content engagement platform, DigitalReach, at FinovateSpring 2018. DigitalReach spans sales, marketing, and compliance to allow organizations to distribute a range of content types – including interactive video – to reach customers at specific moments in the customer journey. The solution enables the centralization, personalization, distribution, and tracking of content, giving organizations comprehensive control over what is sent to who and how.

BlueRush’s news comes as the company announces revenue gains of 14% for the third quarter and gross margins increases of 83% in its SaaS business. Taylor highlighted growth in the company’s sales funnel, expansion beyond Canada, as well as “key partnerships” with firms like Microsoft for what he called “tremendous progress in a very short time.”

Last month, BlueRush partnered with fintech solutions company Kunder to work with Chilean pension fund leader, AFPHabitat. A publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “BTV,” BlueRush has a market capitalization of more than $6 million ($7.7 million CAD). The company has raised an additional $1.3 million in post-IPO funding from Round13 Capital.

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More Than $1.5 Billion Raised by 37 Alums in Q2 2018

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings

 

Best funding quarter for Finovate alums to date.

There’s no other way to put it. With more than $1.5 billion raised by 37 alums, the second quarter of 2018 is twice as large as the previous year’s Q2. Not only that, but this year’s second quarter is also the biggest quarter for equity funding in Finovate history, ranking among our “unicorn” quarters of more than $1 billion raised.

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q2 2017: More than $726 million raised by 25 alums
  • Q2 2016: More than $510 million raised by 23 alums
  • Q2 2015: More than $840 million raised by eight alums
  • Q2 2014: More than $458 million raised by eight alums

Previous Billion Dollar Quarters

  • Q1 2018: More than $1.32 billion raised by 26 alums
  • Q3 2017: More than $1 billion raised by 31 alums
  • Q3 2015: More than $1 billion raised by 40 alums

Which alums topped the funding ranks in the second quarter? There were a number of triple digit investments over the past few months, including a pair of quarter billion dollar investments picked up by digital bank Revolut and business commerce innovator Tradeshift. But the biggest alum funding in Q2 2018 was the $360 million raised by low code app development platform OutSystems, which presented its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr, last year.

Combined, the top ten equity investments for the quarter add up to $1.3 billion, representing 86% of the total alum funding for Q2.

Top Ten Equity Investments for Q2 2018

  • OutSystems: $360 million
  • Revolut: $250 million
  • Tradeshift: $250 million
  • LendStreet: $117 million
  • Signifyd: $100 million
  • BlueVine: $60 million
  • WorkFusion: $50 million
  • Unison: $40 million
  • Tango Card: $35 million
  • Qapital: $30 million

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q2 2018. Interestingly, the amount raised in June 2018 alone – more than $716 million – is greater than all but two previous second quarters.

April 2018: More than $370 million raised by 11 alums

May 2018: More than $434 million raised by 11 alums

June 2018: More than $716 million raised by 15 alums

f you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the second quarter of 2018, 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.

Top Image Designed by Freepik

 

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Fortytwo Data Upgrades Entity Screening Platform

Fortytwo Data Upgrades Entity Screening Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Fortytwo Data

Fortytwo Data, the London-based anti-money laundering (AML) and client screening platform provider, introduced an enhanced version of its Sanction Screening Augmentation platform this week. The upgrade means that the company’s entity screening technology is now capable of reducing false positives by up to 93%.

In a press release, the company noted that false positives are a major pain point for companies, making AML and sanctions screening more expensive. Fortytwo Data leverages machine learning and automatic rule generation to improve the rate of false positive detection by more than 30%. Working with a FTSE 100 company, Fortytwo Data was able to reduce the number of AML false positives the company was having to manually check with its legacy system from 5% of all entities to less than 0.5%. Similar results were found when Fortytwo Data applied its technology to the firm’s sanction screening process.

Fortytwo Data Chief AI Officer Luca Primerano demonstrating its Customer Screening and Transaction Monitoring Enhancement technology at FinovateEurope 2018.

Fortytwo Data CEO Julian Dixon acknowledged the challenges executives face in trying to clear the regulatory bar when it comes to monitoring and due diligence. “However, the technology has already caught up enough to make our platform, the only truly AI off-the-shelf solution in the world, the most cost-efficient solution,” Dixon said.

“It is a myth that large companies need to spend millions of pounds updating their systems and there are millions of pounds to be saved,” Dixon added. ” Legacy systems don’t even need to be replaced – they just bolt together.”

Dixon noted that the company’s technology was making an impact “not just inside financial firms, but (with) cutting edge bluechips in a variety of sectors” as well.

Fortytwo Data demonstrated its end-to-end AML transaction monitoring and client screening platform at FinovateEurope 2018 earlier this year. The company’s solutions are used by banks, financial service providers, and businesses in other highly regulated sectors to lower operational and reputational risk to their enterprises as well as cut costs.

With £2 million in funding, Fortytwo Data includes BIG IDEAS GROUP among its investors. This spring, the company appointed Luca Primerano as Chief AI Officer.

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Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Twisto

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.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • UAE’s Foloosi introduces cashless transactions via digital wallet.
  • Revenue management specialist SunTec partners with UAE’s Mashreq Bank.
  • Jumhouria Bank of Libya to deploy reconciliation management technology from SmartStream Technologies.

Latin America

  • Fintech Futures takes a look at Mexico’s preparation for implementation of its new fintech law.
  • TyN Magazine profiles Argentine P2P lender, TuTasa. In Spanish.
  • Bermuda’s government to amend banking laws to support new class of banks to work with local fintech and blockchain startups.

Asia

  • Bloomberg investigates the challenges Singapore is facing in trying to meet its fintech aspirations at a time of stiff competition for engineering talent.
  • Will China step up regulations on its P2P lending industry?
  • Lattice80 and SuperCharger team up to develop bridge between fintechs in Singapore and fintechs in Hong Kong.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian logistics startup Kobo360 picks up $1.2 million in pre-seed funding; announces launch of Kobo Wealth Investment Network, a crowd investing vehicle financing program.
  • Creamer Media’s Engineering News looks at how policymaking in South Africa will affect fintech innovation in the country.
  • Nuadox features its seven African fintech startups to follow in 2018.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Silicon Republic features expense-tracking tool BudgetBakers, PFM solution Spendee, and financial services provider for the underserved Twisto in its list of 10 Outstanding Start-ups from Prague to Watch.
  • Blockchain innovator Billon is the first Polish company to be featured in the FinTech 50.
  • Bank of Lithuania introduces regtech solution to make it easier for companies to remotely apply for e-money and payment institution licenses.

Top image designed by Freepik

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Azimo, CREALOGIX, Fortytwo Data, Jack Henry, Munnypot, Onist, Quovo, Revolut, Sberbank, ThreatMetrix

On Finovate.com

  • Fortytwo Data Upgrades Entity Screening Platform.

Around the web

  • Munnypot honored for Best Website DFM/WM and Most Innovative Robo Advice/Guidance Proposition at the Investment Marketing and Innovation Awards 2018.
  • ThreatMetrix announces a new 3D Secure 2.0 offering as part of its summer 2018 release.
  • CREALOGIX takes over remaining 80% of ELAXY Business Solution & Services from Fiducia & GAD.
  • Azimo enables customers in Nordic countries to transfer money to accounts in 10 new countries in Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
  • Inverse highlights Revolut’s planned U.S. launch.
  • Jack Henry & Associates named a top workplace by The Tennessean for fourth consecutive year

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.

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New Investment Takes ThetaRay’s Total Capital to More than $60 Million

New Investment Takes ThetaRay’s Total Capital to More than $60 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, ThetaRay

Advanced cyber security solution provider ThetaRay has raised $30+ million in funding courtesy of investors including Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), GE, Bank Hapoalim, OurCrowd, and SVB. The investment takes the company’s total equity capital to more than $60 million.

“In this era when criminal activity and money laundering are increasing and becoming more sophisticated and also regulation is on the rise, there is a greater demand for our solutions,” ThetaRay CEO Mark Gazit explained. “As the amount of digital information grows, you just can’t protect it without artificial intelligence systems. ThetaRay offers the most advanced and mature solutions to detect threats before they happen. We thank the existing investors, especially JVP, for their confidence in ThetaRay, and welcome the new ones joining in this round.”

ThetaRay, which has doubled in size every year in its five years of operation, will use the new funding to grow its presence in Europe, Asia, and the U.S., and “significantly increase” its workforce to scale operations to meet growing demand. Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in Israel and New York City, and has offices in the U.K. and Singapore.

Combining machine learning, artificial intelligence, and “the wisdom of the algorithm crowd,” ThetaRay enables financial institutions to detect in real-time the kind of anomalies that typically indicate fraud, while reducing the number of false positives. The company provides financial services companies with anti-money laundering, fraud detection, and ATM solutions that leverage unsupervised machine learning instead of outdated rule-based systems and pre-defined thresholds.

“Existing systems fall short of addressing the agility and innovation of rogue organizations, fraudsters and hackers,” JVP General Partner Yoav Tzruya said. “ThetaRay is uniquely positioned to address this significant market pain, through its no-rules, holistic, AI-driven solution to identify such events, while significantly reducing the operating cost for banks.” Tzruya is also a founding investor in ThetaRay.

ThetaRay demonstrated its fraud and credit risk technology at FinovateFall 2015. Last month, the company announced that it was teaming up with ABN AMRO in a five-year project to improve the AML and counter-terrorist financing capabilities of the Dutch bank. Also in June, ThetaRay was honored with the Next Generation ATM Security Award from ATMIA.

In addition to financial services, ThetaRay’s anomaly detection technology has also been deployed in Industrial Internet of Things (Industrial IoT) contexts to help protect critical assets such as turbines, sensors, aircraft engines, and more.

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Paysend Seals Deal on $20 Million Financing

Paysend Seals Deal on $20 Million Financing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, PaySend

 

In a round led by MARCorp Financial, global money transfer platform Paysend has raised $20 million in new funding. The company said that the capital, which takes the company’s total to $23 million, will help it launch new services and expand globally.

“Paysend has created the first integrated B2B and B2C global payments business which is already disrupting the market,” said MARCorp Financial Chairman Michael Fazio. “Their three businesses – Global Transfers, Global Account, and Global Processing – are leaders in their respective fields. We look forward to being a part of the next stage of Paysend’s growth.”

Paysend CEO Europe Ronald Millar demonstrating the Paysend Global Account at FinovateSpring 2018.

Via its Global Transfers service, Paysend enables card-to-card money transfers from customers in more than 60 countries. With the recipient’s name and a 16-digit card number, cardholders can make fast, secure, low-cost money transfers 24/7. Paysend charges a fixed rate for international transactions regardless of the amount transferred. Recipients can withdraw cash from millions of ATMs around the world, and pay by card at any merchant that accepts Visa or Mastercard. The service is accessible via both an iOS and Android app as well as online.

Global Account, demonstrated live at FinovateSpring 2018 in May, provides a digital wallet for both fiat and crypto currencies. The solution enables fund transfer between currencies as well as sending money to other Global Accounts or crypto wallets, and making online and in-person payments. The account comes with a prepaid card, physical and virtual, that can be linked to any of the currencies in the account, enabling the user to pay with both fiat and crypto currencies. Cardholders can also withdraw cash from the account in 125 different currencies.

Paysend’s Global Processing division processes credit and debit cards, and helps boost revenue for merchants by taking what the company calls a “data-driven approach to customer shopping.”

“I am proud of what we have achieved to date, and what we have planned for the future,” Paysend CEO Europe Ronald Millar said. “We are the only global card-to-card platform, and the technological and operational expertise required to create that could only have come from an executive team with special knowledge, creativity and ambition – our team.”

London, U.K.-based Paysend announced a number of major service expansions this year including launches in Turkey in June, in Israel in May, and in both Canada and the UAE in April. Nigeria was added in February. Paysend’s partnership with China UnionPay, announced back in December, enabled card-to-card transfers to China.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bluefin, Cardlytics, Coinbase, EZBOB, Hydrogen, Mitek, NCR Corporation, PaySend, Sberbank, ThetaRay, Unison

On Finovate.com

  • Paysend Seals Deal on $20 Million Financing.
  • ezbob Lands Undisclosed Investment from Honeycomb Investment Trust.
  • New Investment Takes ThetaRay’s Total Capital to More than $60 Million.

Around the web

  • Cryptocurrency trading platform DXE chooses Mobile Verify from Mitek for automated ID verification.
  • Delano.lu profiles developer platform Hydrogen, recognized last month as the 2018 fintech startup of the year by KPMG Luxembourg and Luxembourg House of Financial Technology.
  • Benzinga interviews Unison CEO Thomas Sponholtz in the wake of the company’s $40 million Series B round.
  • Hypepotamus features Cardlytics post-IPO, interviews CEO Scott Grimes.
  • Bluefin and NCR expand POS payment security to provide PCI-Validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE).

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.

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Additiv Partners with Orange Business Services to Bring Digital Wealth Management to FIs

Additiv Partners with Orange Business Services to Bring Digital Wealth Management to FIs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: additiv

European robo advisor additiv its leveraging is relationship with Orange Business Services to make its cloud-based digital wealth management technology available to banks and other FIs. Offered as a SaaS solution, additiv’s wealth management as-a-service technology features out-of-the-box solutions including robo advisory, portfolio management, and client and advisory dashboards.

“By partnering with Orange Business Services we can provide financial institutions with a fast and highly-secure way of tapping into this new market opportunity, while improving the end-client experience and reducing operating costs,” explained additiv CEO and founder, Michael Stemmle.

Michael Stemmle, CEO and founder of additiv, demonstrating the company’s cloud-based robo advisor at FinovateAsia 2017.

Stemmle added that the joint platform will give FIs access to the company’s Digital Financial Suite, as well as its global ecosystem of partners who offer a range of additional services including client administration, execution and custody services with access to 35,000 FIs across eight asset classes.”

The new solution will be introduced in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific on dedicated Orange cloud platforms. Orange Business Services is the B2B division of the Orange Group, the first mobile operator to make contactless cash payments available in Europe. The company launched its Orange Money solution in 2008, linking a mobile account with an Orange mobile number to support the cash needs of customers in the Middle East and Africa. Last year, the Orange Group launched Orange Bank in France.

“Our highly-secure cloud platform is providing additiv with a smart and efficient way for financial institutions to plug in a game-changing range of products and map the entire data journey to provide valuable customer insight,” CEO of Orange Business Services, Helmut Reisinger said. “It will make digital wealth management easier and more convenient, which will undoubtedly broaden the appeal of wealth management.”

Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, and founded in 1998, additiv demonstrated its configurable, cloud-based robo advisor at FinovateAsia 2017. A provider of digital financial and wealth management solutions to banks, insurers, wealth, and asset managers in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, additiv has more than 15 existing deployments of its technology.

Additiv has raised $21 million (CHF 21 million) in funding courtesy of an investment from Switzerland’s BZ Bank last spring.

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Ohpen Teams Up with Dutch Savings Bank LeasePlan

Ohpen Teams Up with Dutch Savings Bank LeasePlan
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ohpen

LeasePlan Bank, the online savings bank based in the Netherlands, has chosen Ohpen to upgrade its whole core cloud banking engine, Pieter Aartsen and Angelique Schouten, global board members at Ohpen, told Henry Villar of FinTech Futures.

The bank will do a full-stack upgrade of its core engine and all other tech, which moves away from Oracle FSS’s Flexcube, an on-premises system onto Ohpen’s cloud-native engine.

This move will cover both the Dutch and German operations of the bank. Although the bank is headquartered in the Netherlands, a part of its client base is based in Germany.

The partnership was effective as of the 27th of June, but the team will officially start the implementation on the 4th of July. During the implementation, the bank’s whole system, bar the website, will be provided by Ohpen’s tech. For the bank it is the retail savings and deposits IT infrastructure, which is what LeasePlan Bank specialises in.

“Migrating LeasePlan Bank’s customers to the Ohpen core banking platform will reduce the complexity of their savings and deposits IT architecture and make LeasePlan Bank more agile,” said Aartsen.

Ohpen has been gaining traction over the last few years. Knab, a challenger bank subsidiary of Aegon, moved to Ohpen’s core from Sopra Banking Software’s system. Aegon is also a customer of Ohpen.

Former Delta Lloyd Bank, which was taken over by Nationale Nederlanden (NN) Group last year, also made the jump onto Ohpen’s tech, alongside NN Bank. On the way out are Temenos with its T24 system and Able (a local banking software provider).

When asked about the reason for this momentum, Schouten cited Ohpen’s “power of one” motto.

“We have one core banking engine running in the cloud, one code base, one version of our platform for all countries. The fact that it’s one solution and cloud-based means that it is faster, more reliable and we can release our new software to all clients at the same time, which happens every month,” she told us.

Aartsen added: “We were the first ones going all-in cloud, fully cloud natives and programmed a whole new bank from scratch and have been running it in the cloud and offering it as a SaaS for nine years now. This means that our tech is now future-proof, and we can adapt it in the future without the deployment demands of on-premise architecture.”

Ohpen demonstrated its core banking platform at FinovateFall 2012. Earlier this year, Ohpen raised $31 million in a Series C round led by PE firm Amerborgh, which took the company’s total equity capital to $50 million. Chris Zadeh is founder and CEO.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: additiv, Efigence, Finicity, MapD, Neener Analytics, Ohpen, Open Bank Project, Temenos, TransUnion, YellowDog, Zopa

On Finovate

  • Additiv Partners with Orange Business to Bring Digital Wealth Management to FIs.
  • Zopa’s Record Lending Figures Suggest a Healthy U.K. P2P Lending Sector.

Around the web

  • Iraq’s Banque Liban-Francaise completes upgrade to Temenos’ T24 core banking system.
  • P2P lender Zopa announces 40% revenue growth and a return to profitability.
  • Ohpen signs LeasePlan Bank as its latest customer.
  • Efigence implements technological side of Alior Bank open banking project.
  • Open Bank Project collaborates with Citizens Bank hackathon.
  • The World Economic Forum names Neener Analytics as a Technology for Integrity 2018.
  • YellowDog wins Business Innovation Award at inaugural Best New Business Awards.
  • Finicity forges data sharing agreement with USAA.
  • MapD debuts MapD 4.0 for interactive location intelligence at scale.

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.

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Inspire FCU to Deploy Core Banking Solutions from NYMBUS

Inspire FCU to Deploy Core Banking Solutions from NYMBUS
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: NYMBUS

Inspire FCU, a 15,000-member financial institution founded in 1936 that serves the community of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is making the move to NYMBUS.

“In order to deliver the enhanced experience and competitive, digital financial products our members ask for, it was clear our legacy core was setting us up to fail,” President and CEO of Inspire FCU Jim Merrill said. He faulted the inflexibility of their legacy system, praising NYMBUS’s advanced core, digital, and payment solutions as an ideal replacement. And not just of the credit union’s legacy system, either.

“Inspire will eliminate 15 technology vendors after we convert to NYMBUS,” Merrill said, referring to the large number of different vendors the credit union had been relying on, which complicated workflows and detracted from the Inspire’s member experience. “And, we will deliver a much more intuitive user experience to better compete with larger financial institutions and new fintech companies that have entered the market.”

Inspire will take advantage of NYMBUS’ full suite of advanced banking solutions including SmartCore, NYMBUS’ turnkey core banking platform; SmartDigital; NYMBUS’ internet and mobile banking suite; and SmartPayments, which will manage the authorizations and transactions for Inspire’s debit card program while providing real-time fraud protection.

“Today’s financial institutions risk extinction if they don’t adapt to the disruption of digital innovation,” David Mitchell, President of NYMBUS said. “Inspire has recognized the scale of this disruption and embraced a digital-first view of banking.”

Based in Miami Beach, Florida, NYMBUS demonstrated its core banking technology at FinovateSpring 2016. Last month, NYMBUS completed a four-month conversion process for Surety Bank ($111 million in assets). In April, the core banking technology innovator unveiled its SmartLaunch solution that makes it easier for banks to build turnkey digital banking solutions in 90 days.

NYMBUS has raised $28 million in funding, and includes Home Credit Group and Vensure Enterprises among its investors.

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