Author: David Penn

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Behalf, Bluefin Payment Systems, CurrencyFair, Entersekt, Five Degrees, Lendio, Onfido

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • Dutch fintech Five Degrees purchases core banking IT systems provider, Libra.
  • QuickBridge to participate in Lendio’s turndown lending program.
  • PasswordPing announces new Chief Executive Officer, Michael Greene. See PasswordPing at FinovateFall next month.
  • Identity-as-a-service specialist Onfido forges partnership with Claim Technology.
  • Alphacomm Solutions to deploy ACI Worldwide’s UP eCommerce Payments technology.
  • CurrencyFair acquires Hong Kong-based Convoy Payments.
  • PYMNTS.com interviews Entersekt SVP of engineering, Richard Bailey.
  • Bluefin and payment service provider Anderson Zaks partner to provide Bluefin’s PCI-validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) security solution to merchants and retailers.

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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Feedzai Brings Automated Machine Learning to the Fraud Fight

Feedzai Brings Automated Machine Learning to the Fraud Fight
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Feedzai

Feedzai is deploying its AutoML machine learning technology to automate many of the most tedious and time-consuming processes for fraud-fighting data scientists. AutoML enables these professionals to create fraud prevention solutions 50x faster than they could using traditional data science workflows. This also gives data scientists more time to work on emergent and more complex fraud challenges.

“We’ve proven that Feedzai AutoML can get virtually the same results in a few hours, that would normally take a team of data scientists weeks to achieve,” co-founder and Chief Science Officer Pedro Bizarro said. “This is a ground-breaking advancement for Feedzai, but even more so, it’s something that will provide a substantial competitive advantage to our customers.”

Feedzai co-founder and CEO Nuno Sebastiaõ credited those customers as the inspiration behind Feedzai’s latest innovations. These include OpenML, a solution launched this spring that enabled data scientists to integrate open source third party tools to the Feedzai Risk engine.

“Our customers spoke, and we listened,” Sebastiaõ said. “AutoML and OpenML are the two latest examples of Feedzai’s dedication to bringing the market the best possible fraud prevention solutions. In the months to come, you can expect to see more and more of these kinds of innovations.”

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, Feedzai demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2014. Last month, the company announced that it was partnering with Credorax to help the merchant acquisition specialist better protect its merchants against fraud. The company began the year with its first appearance on the Forbes Fintech 50 of top privately-owned fintechs.

Feedzai has raised more than $52 million in funding. The company’s investors include Data Collective, Sapphire Ventures, Citi Ventures, and Oak HC/FT.

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PayStand Announces Integration with Xero

PayStand Announces Integration with Xero
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: PayStand, Xero

Business financial management just got a lot easier for small businesses. B2B payments platform Paystand is teaming up with Xero to enable the cloud accounting firm’s customers to accept bank and card payments directly in sales orders and invoices. This will give Xero users a seamless, automated way to capture payments and reconcile them directly into their accounting systems. Paystand’s Xero plug-in, now available at the Xero Marketplace, will accelerate time to cash and help save SMEs money.

“Our goal is to transform commercial finance by automating the enterprise cash life cycle,” Paystand CEO Jeremy Almond said. He called the partnership “another step closer toward a frictionless payments infrastructure.” Paystand’s Xero plug-in provides support for ACH and Smart ACH/eCheck bank payments, as well as both debit and credit card payments – the only one of Xero’s plug-ins to do so.

The integration enables customers to make digital payments within the invoice which, once cleared, are reconciled in real-time. Payment information is tokenized and encrypted. And because the data is “saved without being visible”, the solution provides both security and seamless future transactions for the customer.

Blockchain-based B2B payments innovator PayStand participated in our developers conference FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. CEO Almond led a presentation titled Comparing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Payment Types, which looked at the relative advantages and disadvantages of card networks, eChecks/ACH, and digital currencies as payment options.

Last month, Paystand reported that it would participate in the fintech accelerator, Commerce.Innovated. In June, the company announced that it was expanding to Canada. Named one of The Silicon Review’s 50 Smartest Companies for 2017 at the beginning of the year, Paystand has raised more than $8 million in funding. The company includes BlueRun Ventures and LEAP Global Partners among its investors. Paystand was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Scotts Valley, California.

Cloud accounting platform provider Xero also participated in our Silicon Valley developers conference in 2014. The company’s Head of U.S. Partnerships, David Pollack, presented Building an API-Driven Ecosystem for Small Business, and led a workshop and discussion on how Xero has grown its marketplace to more than 300 integrated applications. The company previously demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2011.

Based in Wellington, New Zealand, Xero made headlines earlier this month with its acquisition of paperless accounting firm, Hubdoc, and the news that it would partner with U.K.-based GoCardless. In July, Xero announced a strategic alliance with fellow Finovate alum Gusto, an innovator in payroll, benefits, and HR management technology. A publicly traded company on the Australian Stock Exchange under the ticker “XRO”, Xero has a market capitalization of $3.7 billion (AUD$5 billion). Rod Drury is CEO.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bambu, Coinbase, DriveWealth, Feedzai, Fiserv, Jack Henry, MasterCard, OurCrowd, PayStand, Quantopian, The ID Co., Xero

On Finovate.com

  • Feedzai Brings Automated Machine Learning to the Fraud Fight.
  • DriveWealth and Bambu Join Forces on Roboadvisory Tool.

Around the web

  • Your Legacy Federal Credit Union to deploy core account processing technology from Fiserv.
  • CYBG (Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank) partners with The ID Co. to integrate DirectID into CYBG’s B mobile banking app.
  • Coinbase unveils crypto plugin to make it easier for e-commerce merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments.
  • Bloomberg: Quantopian makes $50 million allocation to one of its quants.
  • OurCrowd named Most Active Venture Investor in Israel by PitchBook.
  • Jack Henry & Associates and Mastercard deliver Priceless Surprises campaign to 1.8 million cardholders.

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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RightCapital Adds Student Loan Functionality to its Advisory Platform

RightCapital Adds Student Loan Functionality to its Advisory Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: RightCapital

Back to school season is getting started a little early at RightCapital. The company, which demonstrated its financial planning platform for advisors at FinovateFall 2016, announced this week that its platform will now enable advisors to see the impact of different student loan repayment strategies on their client’s finances. This is designed to both provide clients with a more holistic view of their finances, as well as to help them choose the most appropriate way to retire the debt.

The solution helps advisors and clients to work together to determine the best way to repay student loans by leveraging insights into the client’s income, loan timing, and options for loan consolidation. Repayment options ranging from IBR, PAYE, REPAY, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness are among those included.

“With more than 44 million Americans owing close to $1.5 trillion dollars in Student Loan debt, those dealing with Student Loan repayment is currently an underserved market,” RightCapital CEO and co-founder Shuang Chen said. “Our new capabilities will help fill the void in the planning space, allowing advisors to easily assist their clients with their debt issues.”

RightCapital provides financial advisors with an integrated financial and tax planning solution including tax projections and tax-efficient distribution strategies. The technology features tools for social security optimization, sequencing of return risk, stress testing, budgeting, managing cash flows, insurance, and more. With interactive and intuitive modules, the RightCapital platform helps advisors more deeply engage with their clients, providing actionable financial plans that are easy to understand.

“We are extremely excited to be a disrupter in the financial planning industry,” Chen said. “Our goal is to help financial advisors do more planning in less time with our innovative features, which means we will continue to develop technology that meets the evolving needs of our advisors while looking for new ways to improve the financial planning process.”

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York City, RightCapital has raised $2.6 million in funding, and includes Camellia Venture Capital among  its investors. MorningStar featured RightCapital in its list of the Best Advisor Technology Tools for 2018. The company had a successful and busy 2017, forging partnerships with Shareholders Service Group in December, Envestnet Tamarac in November, Trust Company of America in July, and Interactive Brokers in March.

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Wonga Raises $13 Million in New Funding

Wonga Raises $13 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Wonga

 

Accel Partners and Balderton Capital have pitched in to help U.K.-based payday lender Wonga with a cash infusion of nearly $13 million (£10 million). The capital will be used to help Wonga satisfy what the company’s spokesperson called a “marked increase” in compensation claims for legacy loans from claims management companies.

“Wonga continues to make progress against the transformation plan set out for the business,” a spokesperson for the company said in a statement to Sky News. However, a rise in the number of claims on old loans, those taken out before the current management team took over in 2014, encouraged the company to seek additional financing.

“As a result,” the Wonga spokesperson explained, “the team has raised £10m of new capital from existing shareholders, who remain fully supportive of management’s plans for the business.”

Before the new capital, Wonga had an estimated valuation of $30 million (£23 million). In 2014, Wonga wrote off £220 million in debt for 330,000 customers as part of a review of its lending practices and the implementation of new affordability checks. The company has since attempted to diversify its business to include more flexible loan solutions such as its three- and six-month Flexi Loans. Rates remain high for Wonga products, with published representative rates north of 1,286% APR. Last year, Wonga also launched its Cash Smart personal finance education portal, which provides free information on debt and borrowing, savings, and budgeting.

To help shore up its balance sheet, Wonga has sold assets like its Everline business to small business lender Ezbob. Last year, the company sold Billpay, the German online payment provider it acquired in 2013, to Klarna for $75 million.

Founded in 2006, Wonga demonstrated its iPhone app at FinovateFall 2010. Tara Kneafsey is CEO.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Blend, Gusto, MicroStrategy, PasswordPing, RightCapital, TransUnion, Wonga, Xero, Zopa

On Finovate.com

  • Wonga Raises $13 Million in New Funding.
  • TransUnion Teams Up with EXL for CECL Compliance.
  • RightCapital Adds Student Loan Functionality to its Platform.

Around the web

  • PasswordPing wins Startup of the Year at 13th Annual 2018 IT World Awards. See PasswordPing at FinovateFall in New York next month.
  • Zopa to finance loans for CommuterClub season tickets, courtesy of a new partnership.
  • Xero announces integration with GoCardless.
  • PYMNTS.com profiles payroll, benefits, and HR platform, Gusto.
  • MicroStrategy appoints Marge Breya as Chief Marketing Officer.

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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Zopa Raises More than $57 Million to Support Next Generation Bank

Zopa Raises More than $57 Million to Support Next Generation Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Zopa

P2P lending pioneer Zopa has raised more than $57 million in funding (£44 million) to support the launch of its challenger bank. The financing represents the first part of its current fundraising round, according to a post at the company blog, and comes amid reported strong growth for the sector and the company – including full-year profitability in Zopa’s P2P business in 2017.

The company’s intention to join the challenger bank revolution was signaled when it applied for a banking license in 2016. With growing concern from regulatory authorities such as the Financial Conduct Authority over the appropriateness of loan-based crowdfunding and P2P lending as an investment for average investors, adding retail deposits via a challenger bank would provide additional funding support for Zopa’s operations.

And while the bank would be initially limited to savings products like deposit accounts, Zopa expects credit and unsecured debt products to follow soon thereafter. “We aim to be the best place for money in the U.K. and we believe that launching our bank is a key next step,” Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana said. “It allows us to offer a wider choice of products and to help our customers make smarter choices with their money.”

Named to the Financial Times’ FT 1000 list of Europe’s fastest growing companies, Zopa announced a major milestone in February, when its investor community lent its three billionth pound to U.K. customers. Re-opening to new investors at the beginning of the year, Zopa also started 2018 by beefing up its executive ranks. The company added new Chief Financial Officer, Steve Hulme; Chief Risk Officer, Phillip Dransfield; and Chief Customer Officer, Clare Gambardella.

London, U.K.-based Zopa has now raised a total of more than $169 million in funding. The company’s investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Northzone, Augmentum Capital, and Wadhawan Global Capital. Zopa is one of Finovate’s earliest alums, having demonstrated its platform at FinovateSpring 2008.

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Mitek Helps Bring Mobile Deposit to Credit Unions

Mitek Helps Bring Mobile Deposit to Credit Unions
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Mitek

In a bid to help credit unions better fight check fraud, mobile enterprise digital transaction management solutions provider eDOC Innovations is leveraging technology from Mitek. eDOC will add Mitek’s Mobile Deposit technology and its advanced risk mitigation features to its eDOC Mobile RDC.

eDOC Innovations COO Mark Fierro credited the growth of the company’s RDC processing business and innovations in check imaging technology for the decision to work with Mitek. Fierro also hinted at near-term dividends of the new partnership. “In the coming months, we will be releasing new features that will help credit unions mitigate risk of check fraud with restrictive endorsement detection and support for Harland Clarke PhotoSafe Checks,” Fierro said.

Serving credit unions for more than 25 years, eDOC Innovations provides a range of solutions to support mobile e-signature processing, digital asset lifecycle management, intelligent and interactive form automation, as well as mobile RDC and electronic statements. The company noted that credit union demand for mobile deposit capabilities in their banking apps had “nearly tripled” over the past year alone.

This would come as no surprise to Michael Diamond, GM and SVP for Payments at Mitek, who said, “Mobile Deposit is the feature that has helped grow mobile banking into the industry it is today, and we continue to drive innovation for both financial institutions and consumers.” Diamond praised eDOC Innovations as a company with a track record of “bringing powerful new technology to credit unions.”

Founded in 1985, Mitek demonstrated its Mobile Verify solution at FinovateFall 2017. Mobile Verify provides worldwide, omnichannel identity verification, making it easy for FIs to onboard foreign customers as readily as local customers. The technology features algorithm-based checks on thousands of global ID documents, and is able to detect security features installed on them. With use cases ranging from account opening and loan origination to payments and card-not-present transactions, Mitek’s Mobile Verify can be integrated into mobile apps, websites, and desktop solutions.

Last month, cryptocurrency trading platform DXE announced that it would use Mobile Verify for automated ID verification. In June, Mitek teamed up with fellow Finovate alum Signicat to build a solution to help European-based financial services improve their onboarding technologies while remaining compliant with new regulations. Also in June, Mitek added identity document verification and biometric facial recognition technology to its platform thanks to an agreement with Experian, also a Finovate alum.

Mitek’s technology is embedded into the apps of more than 6,100 institutions and is used by more than 80 million consumers. Traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker, MITK, Mitek has a market capitalization of $294 million. The company is headquartered in San Diego, California. Mitek’s Sarah Clarke, SVP for Global Product Development, was named to One World Identity’s Top 100 Influencers list in February.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ayasdi, Bankjoy, BehavioSec, BLUERUSH, Crypterium, Feedzai, FixNix, identitii, IdentityMind Global, Mitek, Sberbank, Thomson Reuters, Zopa

On Finovate.com

  • Zopa Raises More than $57 Million to Support Next Generation Bank.
  • Mitek Helps Bring Mobile Deposit to Credit Unions.
  • Crypterium Releases Crypto-Fiat Solution.

Around the web

  • Sberbank Group CTO David Rafalovsky selected to lead Sberbank’s Technology Block.
  • BlueRush announces new Chief Financial Officer, Dave Badun.
  • Thomson Reuters adds Dealerweb and Icap pricing to its Reuters Capital Markets 19901 service.
  • MEDICI features Ayasdi, Feedzai, FixNix, IdentityMind Global, BehavioSec, and identitii in its roster of top RegTech startups.
  • Bankjoy to power mobile and online banking for Marshland Federal Credit Union.

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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Coinbase Makes Buying Crypto Easier, Faster for U.K. Customers

Coinbase Makes Buying Crypto Easier, Faster for U.K. Customers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Coinbase

U.K.-based customers of Coinbase will be able to make same day deposits and withdrawals from their crypto accounts to their British bank accounts. The company has begun rolling out this support to Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, and Coinbase Prime customers, and plans to extend the service to all customers in the U.K. over the next few weeks.

“Until now, the process of converting bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum and Litecoin into euros and then into pound sterling, via international bank transfer, took several days,” Coinbase U.K. CEO Zeeshan Feroz wrote at the Coinbase blog. “Customers will now be able to transfer pound sterling and use it to directly buy and sell these cryptocurrencies.”

Feroz put the new opportunity in the context of other recent initiatives to make the company “the most trusted and compliant brand in the space.” He highlighted the securing of an e-money license from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), support for the Faster Payment Scheme, and becoming the first digital currency trading platform to obtain a bank account with a major U.K. bank.

“Faster payments will benefit all U.K. customers, enabling almost immediate high-limit transfers” Feroz added. “This is essential for Coinbase Pro and Coinbase Prime customers in particular who will now be able to enter and exit their positions quickly.”

Last month Coinbase announced that it would enable its customers in Europe and Australia to buy virtual gift cards from more than 120 retailers using funds from their cryptocurrency accounts. In a busy spring for the San Francisco, California-based fintech, Coinbase launched a set of institutional grade solutions for digital currency trading in May; acquired digital payments for microtasks innovator Earn.com and added its first Chief Technology Officer in April; and acquired Memo.AI in January, bringing the chatbot builder’s engineering talent to the Coinbase team.

Coinbase demonstrated the Instant Exchange feature of its platform at FinovateSpring 2014. Instant Exchange enables merchants to accept bitcoin payments while avoiding exchange rate risk. Founded in 2012, the company has an estimated valuation of more than $1.6 billion.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Coinbase, Entersekt, MasterCard, Roostify, Segmint, Stocktwits, Swych

On Finovate.com

  • Coinbase Makes Buying Crypto Easier, Faster for U.K. Customers.

Around the web

  • NuData Security embraces EMV 3-D Secure authentication.
  • Entersekt partners with Mastercard to enhance payment options for users of the Nedbank Money app.
  • StockTwits launches Rooms, a chat platform where users create new communities based on shared interests, specific stocks, or market trends
  • COCC leverages Segmint to offer data-driven marketing solutions for bank clients.
  • Roostify announces new Chief Financial Officer Eric Amblard, formerly of EverString Technologies.

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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