Author: David Penn

Conversation.one Among U.S. Fintechs to Join Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud Platform

Conversation.one Among U.S. Fintechs to Join Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Conversation.one, Finastra

FinovateSpring Best of Show winner Conversation.one is among four U.S.-based fintechs that are joining Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud open platform. Conversation.one, which offers a voice banking and chatbot building solution for banks and credit unions, will leverage FusionFabric.cloud’s developer environment to boost its technology’s deep learning capabilities.

“Accessing Finastra technology and APIs through the FusionFabric.cloud platform is extremely efficient. It brings additional value to our solutions and, importantly, to our clients,” Conversation.one CRO and co-founder Rachel Batish explained. “The platform gives us access to more than 9,000 financial institutions across the globe. Our goal over the next two years is to deliver the capability to build cross-channel conversational solutions in minutes to close to 30% of Finastra’s clients, so they become our customers as well.”

Also among FusionFabric.cloud’s latest round of early adopters this week were Tradle, a blockchain-based KYC solutions provider; Active Allocator, a digital asset allocation platform; and regtech solution provider for banks and insurance companies, GreenPoint Financial.

Chief Cloud Officer for Finastra Natalie Gammon pointed to the “broad financial service spectrum” available to fintechs via FusionFabric.cloud. “It means fintechs and developers can dramatically reduce build time for apps, bringing them to market faster. We see FusionFabric.cloud gathering significant pace, championing a collaborative ecosystem and changing the way the financial services industry develops and deploys software for the better,” Gammon said.

The news comes just days after Conversation.one announced that First Abilene Federal Credit Union, a Texas-based credit union with $71 million in assets and nearly 11,000 members, had leveraged Conversation.one’s technology to launch its Amazon Alexa Skills and Google Home Action offerings.

Conversation.one CEO Chen Levkovich credited First Abilene FCU with recognizing the potential of voice and chat technology to improve customer engagement. “First Abilene can now provide their members with a wider range of services, from multiple digital touch-points,” Levkovich said. “We are extremely excited to work with such an innovative team and we are looking forward to their expansion into additional channels.”

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Conversation.one demonstrated its build-once-deploy-anywhere platform for conversation apps at FinovateSpring 2018, winning Best of Show honors. Conversation.one’s solution enables banks and credit unions to build, deploy, and enhance Alexa Skills, Google Home Actions, FB Messenger Bots, as well as phone and texting intelligent assistants in a single process that takes as little as a few minutes.

Finastra, which formed via a merger between Misys (FinovateEurope 2017) and D+H last summer, has been gaining early adopters to its FusionFabric cloud open architecture since the fall and began 2018 with a trio of new platform users, as well as a partnership with Thomson Reuters as a data provider. A strategic alliance with Microsoft announced in March meant that the company’s enterprise-ready trusted cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, would underpin FusionFabric.cloud. Shortly afterward, Finastra announced another trio of APAC fintech companies that would leverage its solution to develop and deploy their apps.

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Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entersekt, Finovate Global, Revolut

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.

MENA

  • Dubai’s mobile-only, millennial-focused digital bank Liv celebrates acquiring more than 10,000 new customers every month in its first year of operation.
  • Islamic banking technology provider Path Solutions recognized as vendor of choice for Sharia-based core banking platforms by IBS Intelligence.
  • Dubai-based insurtech startup Aqeed raises $18 million in fuding one month after launch.

Africa

  • Africa-based digital payments solution company Cellulant has raised $47.5 million in Series C funding.
  • Hypepotamous profiles South African authentication specialist Entersekt.
  • Wala, which leverages blockchain technology to power its mobile money solution, goes live for Android users in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.

LATAM

  • Kyriba announces plans to boost investment in Latin America and help CFOs and treasurers modernize cash, risk, payments, and working capital optimization.
  • Morgan Stanley to buy $14 million  (50 million reais) in bonds from Brazilian online lender Geru Tecnologia e Servicos.
  • Forbes.com looks at the future of financial technology in Mexico

CEE

  • Polish Credit Office, the largest credit bureau in Central and Eastern Europe, to use blockchain technology from Billon to store and access credit histories of more than one million businesses and 24 million people.
  • Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which CEE country has the most fintech companies of all? According to Unicredit, Bulgaria wins the top spot with 70 registered and working firms.
  • Revolut hires former Lead Marketing Manager of Uber Romania, Irina Scarlat, as its new Country Manager for Revolt Romania.

Asia

  • EY Asean markets managing partner Liew Nam Soon discusses the growth of Vietnam’s fintech industry.
  • Singapore Business Review looks at how blockchain technology could revive Thailand’s trade finance sector.
  • Hong Kong’s fintech unicorn WeLab plans to be among the first companies to apply for a virtual banking license from Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

Top image designed by Freepik

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Market EarlyBird Unveils Mobile App

Market EarlyBird Unveils Mobile App
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Market EarlyBird

Late last year, Market EarlyBird made its web app available as a desktop app in a secure wrapper on Windows. Less than six months later, the London-based fintech is unveiling a new mobile client for its “Safe, Smart Twitter for Finance” platform.

“More than 90% of our users run EarlyBird on their desktop,” Market EarlyBird CEO Danny Watkins explained. “However a recent industry survey has shown increasing numbers of traders are using their smartphones to conduct foreign exchange deals and we have also seen a significant demand from our customers, particularly some of the buy-side firms, for a mobile client.”

“So now users have access to their favorite features of EarlyBird such as extensive search, filtering, and alerting capabilities – wherever they are and with no compromise to any of the extensive compliance and privacy features,” Watkins said.

Market EarlyBird offers a read-only, anonymized Twitter service designed for financial markets professionals that enables them to spot trading opportunities and quickly identify potentially market-moving news before it makes the headlines. The platform helps satisfy compliance requirements by recording, logging, and timestamping Tweets as they appear – as well as including them in MiFiD II Transaction Reconstruction where appropriate. And by blocking users from tweeting and direct messaging, the platform satisfies one of the principal challenges for financial professionals using Twitter.

“We have heard anecdotally of traders using their mobile phones, or having an iPad alongside their trading terminal with public Twitter on it,” the company noted in a recent blog post titled, Why Twitter’s of little value to financial firms. “Almost certainly this breaches the bank’s rules,” the post read.

Available on both iOS and Android, Market EarlyBird’s mobile app maintains the same functionality as the desktop version, including Tweet curation tools, alerts for priority Tweets and Tweet monitoring for compliance purposes. The mobile app also readily syncs with the desktop version to provide a seamless customer experience wherever they are.

Founded in 2012, Market EarlyBird demonstrated its cloud-based Twitter platform at FinovateEurope 2017. The company’s platform is currently in use or being piloted by nearly half of the top 20 banks in the world, as well as several buy-side firms. Check out our profile of the company from last spring.

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CrowdFlower Rebrands as Figure Eight to Take Advantage of Booming Interest in AI

CrowdFlower Rebrands as Figure Eight to Take Advantage of Booming Interest in AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CrowdFlower, Figure Eight

Here’s one that slipped under the radar as we were gearing up for FinovateSpring. Crowdsourcing platform provider for online staffing Crowdflower rebranded as Figure Eight in April. In a blog post previewing the change, CEO Robin Bordoli explained that changes in the evolution of artificial intelligence and the market for machine learning were opening up new opportunities for the firm.

“As the market has evolved, CrowdFlower has adapted to serve our customers and their changing needs. We’ve executed intentional changes to how we operate to meet the market requirements of scale, quality, complexity, and flexibility,” Bordoli wrote. These changes have included shifting the company from managed service to SaaS, abstracting sourcing human intelligence from the application of human intelligence, Human-in-the-loop and active learning, combining human intelligence and machine learning, and acting as a trusted AI guide for customers just beginning to take advantage of the technology. Bordoli took over as CEO of the company which was led by founder Lukas Biewald until early 2015.

The company said that it chose the name Figure Eight for a variety of reasons – and in consultation with “one of the top naming agencies in the valley.” These reasons varied from the continuous loop shape of the figure eight to the number eight as a reference to a byte, which is a building block of eight bits, to the numerical difference between the atomic numbers for Carbon (6) and Silicon (14). “Carbon is an essential component of human biology,” Bordoli wrote. “Silicon is an essential component of computing power. So the number eight represents the bridge between humans and machines.”

As part of the reorganization, Figure Eight has made a handful of executive and board of directors changes. Dale Brown was hired to work as VP of Business Development after previously serving in a similar capacity at Bitnami. Robert Munro was promoted from VP of Machine Learning to Chief Technology Officer. Alyssa Simpson Rochwerger was hired to work as VP of Product, having worked as director of project management at IBM Watson. Figure Eight also added Alta Vista search engine company founder Louis Monier to its board of directors.

Based in San Francisco and founded in 2009, Figure Eight (as CrowdFlower) demonstrated its platform that automates the management of online human workforces at FinovateFall 2014, earning Best of Show honors. With $58 million in funding, Figure Eight includes Industry Ventures, M12, Canvas Ventures, Trinity Ventures, Harmony Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners among its investors. Earlier this month, the company introduced a suite of new solutions designed to help more businesses embrace AI: Figure Eight Datasets, Video Object Tracking, and Smart Bounding Box Annotation.

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International Invoicing Platform from Flywire Emerges from Beta

International Invoicing Platform from Flywire Emerges from Beta
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Flywire

Global payment and receivables solutions provider Flywire has added a new international invoicing service to its offerings. The solution, which has been delivering thousands of invoices worldwide every month as part of a six month beta with select customers, will be available free of charge and can be deployed as a stand-alone product or integrated with Flywire’s payments and receivables platform.

The new solution features support for more than 100+ currencies, automatic invoice reminders, recurring and monthly installment invoicing, robust analytics and reporting, and built-in business and country-specific compliance requirements and instructions. The technology seamlessly integrates with the company’s accounting software as well as with most enterprise applications.

Flywire CEO Mike Massaro pointed out that there is a big difference for most companies when it comes to domestic billing compared to international billing. Calling the former “simple and straightforward,” Massaro said, “When it comes to international billing, the process is far more complex, and if your invoicing does not make it easy for your international customers to pay you, it creates a domino effect of problems starting with extended DSO, high reconciliation costs, compliance issues, and poor customer satisfaction.”

Flywire’s new global service comes as the Boston, Massachusetts-based company makes additional headlines on the international front courtesy of a partnership with the SP Jain School of Global Management. Announced this week, Flywire and SP Jain will host a competition for student-led start-ups in Singapore and the APAC region. The first-of-its kind contest will launch later in May and Flywire is using the prize money it received from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) last year to fund the competition.

“With this initiative, we are able to harness the power of our MAS FinTech win to fuel the next generation of thought leaders and industry change-makers in Singapore and throughout APAC,” Flywire APAC Managing Director Andrew Ong said. “It was important to be able to pay it forward with a challenging and relevant programme that we hope will eventually produce the next innovative startups.”

Founded in 2009 and making its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2011 as peerTransfer, the company rebranded in the fall of 2015 to Flywire. Along with expansion to its U.S. and European offices, the rebrand better positioned the company for “sustained growth, expansion of its products and services, and creation of lasting relationships with its payment users.”

More recently, Flywire announced a partnership with Billtrust to streamline cross-border accounts receivables. This spring, the company teamed up with Flutterwave to integrate the African payments API as the preferred cross-border payments option for students, patients, and businesses in Nigeria.

Flywire has raised more than $43 million in funding and includes Bain Capital Ventures, QED Investors, and Spark Capital among its investors.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Compass Plus, eToro, Finastra, Flywire, Kabbage, Neener Analytics, Ondot Systems, Tradeshift

On Finovate.com

  • eToro Launches Cryptocurrency Exchange, Expands to U.S.
  • Tradeshift’s Tradeshift Pay to Free Up $9 Trillion in Cash Trapped in Accounts Receivable.
  • International Invoicing Platform from Flywire Emerges from Beta.

Around the web

  • Compass Plus adds interchange functionality to its open development payments platform, TranzAxis.
  • Finastra names Jim Fiesel Managing Director of Capital Markets and Lending Sales for the Americas.
  • eToro to incorporate in Gibraltar to take advantage of new DLT regulatory framework.
  • Neener Analytics completes proof of concept with one of Mexico’s largest credit card issuers.
  • Multiple-time Best of Show winner Ondot Systems announces more than  3,000 financial institutions are offering mobile card controls powered by its technology.

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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Envestnet | Yodlee, Quovo, and Morningstar Unite On Secure Open Data Access Framework

Envestnet | Yodlee, Quovo, and Morningstar Unite On Secure Open Data Access Framework
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Quovo

For those who believe the benefits of GDPR and open banking-like policies can be achieved in the U.S. without the intervention of government regulation, the announcement that Envestnet | Yodlee, Quovo, and Morningstar have formed a joint initiative to support secure, open data access for consumers is welcome news, indeed.

“Through our involvement in existing industry groups focused on data access standards, we have noticed that consumers are not always as top-of-mind as they should be,” said Anil Arora, CEO of Envestnet | Yodlee. “The principles released today reiterate our belief that it is the consumer’s right to both access their data and permit it to be references through trusted third-party tools and applications, and that this consumer-permissioned access should not be limited or restricted.”

The Secure Open Data Access (SODA) framework is designed to promote transparency and accountability within the financial services ecosystem, and features four primary tenets:

  • Consumers must be able to access their financial account data for the purposes of using any legitimate application
  • Consumers must provide affirmative consent on the basis of clear and conspicuous disclosure regarding the use of their data
  • All entities who handle consumer account information must adhere to best practices for security standards and implement traceability and transparency
  • The entity responsible for a consumer’s financial loss must make the consumer whole. All stakeholders in the ecosystem have shared responsibility – this will start with traceability in the United States and move towards shared responsibility just like Europe.

Calling data sharing “a critical drive of innovation within financial services,” Quovo CEO Lowell Putnam added, “as custodians of financial data, we all have a duty to ensure that consumers are empowered to access their data safely, securely, and with full transparency into how it is being used. Our joint framework provides direction for the industry on how to fulfill this responsibility.”

The initiative’s full statement of joint principles for consumers, financial institutions, aggregators, and policymakers was published at the Envestnet | Yodlee blog.

A leading provider of intelligent systems for wealth management and financial wellness, Envestnet acquired Best of Show-winning financial data aggregation and analytics platform Yodlee in 2015 for $660 million. Together, Envestnet | Yodlee unveiled a single API solution to support PSD2 and open banking compliance earlier this year and forged partnerships with open banking innovators like fellow Finovate alum Token. Envestnet |Yodlee demonstrated its Financial Health Check solution at FinovateFall 2017, winning Best of Show honors.

Quovo participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr New York 2017, in partnership with SoFi. The data platform presented “How Quovo and SoFi Perfected Bank Authentication” at the event, explaining how its Authentication API for SoFi provided secure authentication of financial accounts while removing friction from the customer journey. Founded in 2010, Quovo is headquartered in New York City.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Fenergo, Flywire, Infosys, nCino, ProfitStars, Quovo

On Finovate.com

  • Envestnet | Yodlee, Quovo, and Morningstar Unite on Secure Open Data Access Framework.

Around the web

  • nCino extends its Bank Operating System with its new Retail Sales and Service Solution.
  • Fenergo to bring client lifestyle management services to business and technology consultancy, Delta Capita.
  • ProfitStars division of Jack Henry & Associates goes live with its ImageCenter Express image capture solution.
  • Flywire adds international invoicing to its global payment and receivables platform.
  • Infosys Finacle partners with seven major Indian banks to form blockchain-based trade network, India Trade Connect.

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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Revolut Introduces New Payment Sharing Feature, Near Me

Revolut Introduces New Payment Sharing Feature, Near Me
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Revolut

Broke: Sending money to friends and family.

Woke: Sending money to nearby strangers.

Thanks to Revolut’s latest solution, Near Me, Revolut users will be able to send and request money from more than just the people they know well. The company’s latest feature leverages geolocation technology to enable users to split bills and send money to any other active Revolut user in the area.

“Until now, you would need to have the person you want to split the bill with added as a contact in your phone,” Revolut’s Chief Blogging Officer Rob Braileanu explained in a blog post today. “And while this is great for your close friends and family, what if you don’t know the person that well?”

To use the new feature, users with the latest version of the Revolut app select the People Near Me option from the Payments tab. Enable Near Me and choose your location sharing preferences. When the list of Revolut users appears, make your selection, choose “send” or “receive” and confirm the amount. Note that the person or persons on the other end of the transfer will need to have their Near Me screen open and select their location sharing preferences, as well.

Supporting 25 currencies and three cryptocurrencies, Near Me is the latest solution from a company that has been prominent in the fintech headlines of late. Last month, the company introduced a new savings solution, Vaults, that enables users to turn their spare change into savings in cash or crypto. In March, Revolut launched disposable virtual cards for online payments and, in January, the company added travel insurance to its offerings, leveraging geolocation to automatically turn coverage on and off when users leave and return to their home countries.

But the big splash for Revolut was the $250 million in funding the company picked up less than a month ago. The DST Global-led round sent Revolut’s valuation soaring to $1.7 billion, making the firm the first digital bank in the U.K. to earn unicorn status (valuation above $1 billion).

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in London, U.K., Revolut demonstrated its Personal Money Cloud at FinovateEurope 2015. Nikolay Stronosky is CEO.

 

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Cardlytics, Cloud Lending Solutions, eToro, Payoneer, Revolut, Uniken

On Finovate.com

  • JPMorgan Chase Signs Deal with Cardlytics.
  • Revolut Introduces New Payment Sharing Feature, Near Me.

Around the web

  • FinTech Breakthrough names Cloud Lending Solutions Best Business Lending Platform.
  • Payoneer announces new investment and support for cross-border U.S. SMEs.
  • eToro to launch cryptocurrency offering in the U.S., initially enabling investors to buy and sell 10 cryptocurrencies.
  • Uniken earns Cool Vendor in Identity and Access Management recognition from Gartner.

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 Unveils Institutional Grade Solutions for Cryptocurrency Trading

Coinbase Unveils Institutional Grade Solutions for Cryptocurrency Trading
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Coinbase

In crypto, when the going gets good, the good go institutional.

Digital asset platform Coinbase has launched a set of new tools and resources designed to help institutional investors take advantage of the boom in cryptocurrencies. The solutions, as Coinbase General Manager Adam White described them in a blog post earlier today, represent the sort of “institutional grade products and services” that will enable FIs to participate in the cryptocurrency markets.

First up is Coinbase Custody. Designed in partnership with an SEC-regulated broker-dealer, Coinbase Custody provides secure crypto storage and third-party auditing and financial reporting validation. We first reported on Coinbase Custody last fall when the company announced that access to an early version of the technology would be available in 2018.

Second, Coinbase announced further development of its electronic marketplace, Coinbase Markets, with the launch of a new engineering office in Chicago. The company plans to leverage the area’s “large talent pool of engineers with deep exchange infrastructure experience” to add new features to Coinbase Markets, such as low latency performance, on-premise data center colocation services, institutional connectivity and access, and settlement and clearing services. The goal, White wrote, was “tighter markets, deeper liquidity, and increased certainty of execution.”

Third, Coinbase Prime will give institutional investors the specialized resources they need in order to effectively trade cryptocurrencies. This includes lending and margin financing for qualified customers, high touch and low touch execution services, as well as new market data and research products. Coinbase Prime will also feature multi-user permissions and whitelisted withdrawal addresses.

Last in the company’s suite of solutions launched today was the Coinbase Institutional Coverage Group. These sales, research, operations, and client services support professionals work exclusively with institutional clients and bring years of experience from companies like the New York Stock Exchange and Morgan Stanley, and agencies like the SEC and CFTC.

“The cryptocurrency market is maturing rapidly as more sophisticated institutional participants enter the space,” White wrote. He noted that 100 hedge funds have been created to speculate and invest in cryptocurrencies in recent months and that “some of the world’s largest financial institutions” have gone on record with plans to develop crypto trading desks.

Founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, California, Coinbase demonstrated its Instant Exchange platform at FinovateSpring 2014. The company added its first Chief Technology Officer last month, appointing Balaji Srinivasan to the post as part of the its acquisition of digital currency startup, Earn.com. Also in April, Coinbase launched a new fund, Coinbase Ventures, to support early-stage crypto startups. With a valuation of $1.6 billion, Coinbase is one of fintech’s more recent unicorns (startups with more than $1 billion valuation) and the first bitcoin company to achieve unicorn status.

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CardFlight Teams Up with Paya to Bring EMV-Ready mPOS Solutions to Merchants

CardFlight Teams Up with Paya to Bring EMV-Ready mPOS Solutions to Merchants
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CardFlight

Mobile POS and SaaS payment solutions provider CardFlight announced a new partnership with payment technology company Paya today. The agreement will enable Paya to offer CardFlight’s SwipeSimple payment acceptance solutions to its merchants.

Paya President Greg Cohen called SwipeSimple a “perfect fit” for its own payment services. “This collaboration allows us to offer our customers an advanced, secure mobile payment solution that helps answer many of their everyday business needs,” Cohen said. Paya has more than 100,000 clients who rely on the Reston, Virginia-based company’s adaptive solutions and two decades of experience in payments technology.

“Paya is one of the leading merchant service providers in the United States because of their commitment to arming their merchants with quality solutions and service,” CardFlight CEO Derek Webster added. “As the leader in EMV enabled card readers and payment acceptance solutions, CardFlight is happy to collaborate with Paya and provide SwipeSimple to their merchants.”

SwipeSimple enables merchant service providers, FIs, and independent sales organizations to offer their business customers a turnkey, EMV-ready mPOS solution. With CardFlight’s platform, Paya’s small business customers will get access to Bluetooth Low Energy or audio jack EMV Quick Chip, NFC contactless-enabled card readers; mobile and web apps to accept payments in-store or remotely; a back office merchant portal for business management and reporting; and a virtual terminal to enable merchants to accept CNP transactions using any device.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York City, CardFlight demonstrated its mobile payment acceptance technology at FinovateSpring 2013. With 15 of the top 50 merchant acquirers in the U.S. among its partners, CardFlight has more than 40,000 small business end user customers, including merchants in all 50 states. This spring, the company introduced countertop payment terminals for small businesses, and announced that more than 80% of its SwipeSimple merchants had been upgraded to EMV quick chip payment acceptance.

CardFlight has raised $6.6 million in funding and includes MATH Venture Partners and ff Venture Capital among its investors.

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