Author: David Penn

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Darwinex, Enveil, Lendio, Nubank, Palo Alto Software, Passport, Sberbank, Temenos

On Finovate.com

  • Nubank Challenges Brazil’s Big Banks in Wake of $150 Million Funding Round.

Around the web

  • West Virginia city Beckley introduces mobile parking app, Passport Parking, powered by Passport.
  • Diginomica features Temenos CTO Dharmesh Mistry in discussion on the importance of core banking renewal.
  • Darwinex launches new performance fee structure, Darwinian Dividends.
  • Lendio opens franchise in Charlotte, North Carolina.
  • The Paypers interviews BioCatch VP, Frances Zelazny.
  • Business News Daily profiles Palo Alto Software’s LivePlan.
  • Enveil wins Cybersecurity Innovator of the Year and Best of Howard County at Maryland Cyber Awards 2018.
  • Sberbank acquires 60% stake in dialog enterprise corporate messenger developer, Dialog.

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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3dcart Picks Payoneer for New Cross-Border Payments Partnership

3dcart Picks Payoneer for New Cross-Border Payments Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Payoneer

SEO-friendly e-commerce platform 3dcart will leverage technology from Payoneer to “transform” its cross-border paymenst process to merchants around the world. Through the new partnership, 3dcart will rely on the Payoneer platform’s cross-border functionality, prompt payment processing, and flexible payouts to send payments to more than 200 countries in more than 150 currencies.

“Our mission is to empower businesses to grow globally by enabling them to easily and digitally send payments to their payees all over the world,” Scott Galit, Payoneer CEO, explained, “without having to worry about the complexities and regulations of executing cross-border payments. We look forward to working with 3dcart to open up new global opportunities for their business,” Galit said.

Florida-based 3dcart provides order management software, built-in blogging, email marketing tools, more than 100 mobile-ready themes and 24×7 technical support to help retailers and internet marketers drive online traffic and sales to their stores. In choosing Payoneer, the company said it wanted a solution that would make it easier for their merchants to accept payments globally and called Payoneer “an ideal choice.”

“We’re excited to include Payoneer as an integrated payment method in the 3dcart platform, especially because we have sellers all over the world,” 3dcart COO Jimmy Rodriguez said. “Our clients need a reliable, flexible means of accepting international payments, and Payoneer aligns perfectly with that.”

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in New York City, Payoneer began the year with news that it would power local payments for social navigation specialist Waze’s Carpool service. The company, with more than four million users of its solutions, picked up an investment from China Broadband Capital back in December. Last fall, Payoneer was named to the Inc. 5,000 roster of fastest growing private companies in the U.S. In addition to the businesses that use Payoneer’s cross-border payments platform, companies like Airbnb, Amazon, Getty Images, and Google also take advantage of Payoneer’s mass payout services.

Payoneer demonstrated its Commercial Account at FinovateAsia 2013. The account enables businesses and individuals around the world to receive funds from a global network of corporate companies. Account holders can access funds via low cost withdrawals to bank accounts, prepaid debit with instant spending and ATM access, as well as through a transfer to local eWallets in certain locations.

 

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Bambu Goes Global, Launches London Office, Adds Technical Talent

Bambu Goes Global, Launches London Office, Adds Technical Talent
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bambu

The news that robo advisor Bambu has opened a new office in London and won its first American client is a reminder that, in fintech, when the going is good, the good go global.

“We would like to announce a new client project based in America that we landed recently,” the Finovate Best of Show winning company reported in its blog Thursday morning. “We are looking forward to working with them on building a robo solution for their region and will update you all with more details as we get closer to launching it.”

Bambu also announced that the company will open its new London office in April at Level39, Europe’s largest fintech accelerator space. The company said that the new offices are part of the “Bambu’s long-term growth strategy to offer our services and expertise on a global scale.”

Recently recognized as one of Singapore’s hottest startups, Bambu is a B2B robo advisor that helps businesses make wealth management services a part of their digital transformation. Bambu’s robo advisory provides users with automated, technology-augmented and algorithm-based portfolio management. The company offers Intelligent Advisor, a solution for private banks and wealth managers; a white-label robo advisory service geared toward banks, asset managers, and insurance companies; and the Bambu API developer hub, an API library of independent modules that provides developers with the tools necessary to add functionality to the robo advisor platform.

This week the company also took the time to welcome a quartet of new members to the team. In addition to a new Managing Director in Europe, Nick Wakefield, Bambu will enhance its AI, design, and front-end development efforts with the appointments of Chen Jie Yang, Hui Min Lee, and Tino Sambora, respectively.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Singapore, Bambu demonstrated its People Like Me machine learning model that helps users identify the financial goals and build a strategy to meet them at FinovateAsia 2017. The presentation by co-founders Ned Phillips (CEO) and Aki Ranin (COO) earned the company a Best of Show award from our audience. Bambu has raised more than $1 million in funding and includes Franklin Templeton Investments and Wavemaker Partners (part of the Draper Venture Network) among its investors.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avaloq, Bambu, FIS, IdentityMind Global, Payoneer, SuperMoney, Thomson Reuters

On Finovate.com

  • Bambu Goes Global, Launches London Office, Adds Technical Talent.
  • 3dcart Picks Payoneer for New Cross-Border Payments Partnership.

Around the web

  • Thomson Reuters enhances the investment portfolio risk management functionality of its Eikon solution by integrating MSCI’s RiskMetrics technology.
  • Avaloq announces status as founding partner of FinTech Scotland.
  • IdentityMind Global collaborates with digital shopping platform, Fluz Fluz, to boost KYC and AML compliance.
  • CNH Industrial Capital America (CNH) chooses FIS’ asset finance solution to manage its commercial contract and lease portfolio.
  • SuperMoney surpasses $500 million in loan requests processed since launch in April 2017.

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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Finicity Announces Full Integration with BeSmartee

Finicity Announces Full Integration with BeSmartee
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BeSmartee, Finicity

Digital mortgage marketplace provider BeSmartee has partnered with Finicity to make the digital loan origination process easier for lenders and borrowers alike. The agreement will integrate Finicity’s Verification of Assets (VoA) solution into BeSmartee’s point-of-sale mortgage origination platform.

“Finicity is improving the lending process through superior data access, quality, and insights,” Finicity CEO Steve Smith said. “We’re proud to be working alongside BeSmartee to accelerate the digital loan process, improving efficiency for lenders and transparency for borrowers. Finicity’s technology leverages consumer-permissioned data to improve accuracy, increase decisioning speed, and reduce fraud. This helps digitize and modernize the lending process for lenders and remove friction for prospective buyers.

Finicity’s Verification of Assets solution enables lenders to identify underwriting issues that could weigh on credit decisioning. The report includes data on multiple FIs and accounts, as well as information on account types, balances, and detailed transactions. VoA reports are delivered under the company’s Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) framework to ensure consumer privacy and compliance with FCRA regulations.

Praising the company’s “great technology” and “great people,” BeSmartee co-founder Arvin Sahakian said the partnership was a major part of the company’s plan for growth. “Integrating with Finicity is a key step in helping us continue to provide exceptional services to our clients in the form of speed, accuracy and reliability within our best-of-breed mortgage origination point of sale platform.” Based in Huntington Beach, California and founded in 2008, BeSmartee uses big data and AI to provide a completely digital origination process. The company’s products include BeSmartee Mortgage (consumer loan POS), BeSmartee TPO (wholesale lending), and BeSmartee Solar (solar lending platform). BeSmartee demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2017.

Finicity’s partnership with BeSmartee comes amid a flurry of news for the real-time data aggregation and insights specialist. Last week the company announced a partnership with Ellie Mae that will integrate its digital asset verification solution with Ellie Mae’s Encompass platform. Earlier this month, Finicity teamed up with MortgageHippo to streamline the company’s verification process in mortgage lending, and worked out a deal with Advanced Data to resell its verification reports as part of the company’s mortgage lending fraud prevention toolkit.

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Finicity demonstrated its Credit Decisioning reports, Verification of Income (VoI) and Verification of Assets (VoA), at FinovateFall 2017. The company has raised more than $50 million in funding and includes fellow Finovate alum, Experian, among its investors.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BRIDGEi2i, Credit Karma, Dynamics, Finastra, Finicity, FreeAgent, iSignthis, Jack Henry, Kabbage, Kensho, Larky, Payfone, Trusona, Zighra

On Finovate.com

  • Finicity Announces Full Integration with BeSmartee.
  • $500 Million Secondary Investment Boosts Credit Karma’s Valuation to $4 Billion.

Around the web

  • Jack Henry’s banking division announces that seven banks will implement its Core Director core processing platform.
  • FlexTrade to integrate Kensho into its FlexTRADER EMS real-time event feed.
  • Finastra hires new Chief Product and Technology Officer, Eli Rosner.
  • iSignthis subsidiary, iSignthis eMoney, forges payment aggregation agreement with American Express Australia.
  • Best of Show winner Trusona joins ForgeRock’s identity management platform.
  • Gartner recognizes BRIDGEi2i with an Honorable Mention in the Magic Quadrant for Data and Analytics Service Providers, Worldwide.
  • Kabbage shows loan growth via the mobile channel, with 17% of all SMB loans and 15% of total dollars accessed via its platform coming through mobile.
  • Find Biometrics interviews Deepak Dutt, president and CEO of Zighra.
  • Payfone on track to authenticate 19 billion transactions for Fortune 100 clients in 2018.
  • Fort Dodge Family Credit Union to implement Larky Engagement Platform.

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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Gro Solutions to Streamline Onboarding for Congressional FCU

Gro Solutions to Streamline Onboarding for Congressional FCU
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Gro Solutions

With more than $900 million in assets, Congressional FCU has selected Gro Solutions’ Gro Checkout to streamline its digital onboarding process. A feature of the company’s Digital Sales Platform, Gro Checkout helps banks and credit unions better meet the expectations of mobile-first banking customers with a simple, intuitive, and friction-free application experience.

“Reducing friction in the application process lowers abandonment and leads to a better user experience, more potential members, and ultimately more sales growth,” Gro Solutions CEO David Eads said. “With Gro, Congressional Federal Credit Union can ensure a high quality of service via the digital channel, providing its members with a great experience every time, no matter their need.”

For Congressional FCU, the adoption of Gro Checkout will help the credit union better onboard customers in general and mobile-first customers in specific. By making it easier for customers to access specifically what they want, and only requiring the minimum necessary in terms of customer data, Gro Checkout can help the financial institution better serve and grow its 47,000-strong membership.

“When our members come to us through the digital channel, their needs can be varied, and we wanted a way to serve them that didn’t require them to wait or go through unnecessary steps,” Manager of eCommerce for Congressional FCU Devin Calef said. “With Gro, we can connect our members directly to the product they’re interested in, gathering only the necessary information along the way so it doesn’t slow down the application process, providing a smooth experience for our members from beginning to end.”

The partnership with Congressional FCU is the second major headline for Gro Solutions this month. The company announced earlier in March that it was bringing its Gro Checkout solution to 4Front CU, a Michigan-area credit union with more than $488 million in assets. “We sought a true, 100 percent digital process, and we’ve found it with Gro,” 4Front CU eServices manager Bryson Wilbert said in a statement when the deal was reported. In January, Gro announced that Surety Bank, a Florida FI with $106 million in assets, was implementing Gro Checkout in support of its digital transformation efforts.

Founded in 2015, Gro Solutions demonstrated an extension of the Gro Digital Sales Platform at FinovateFall 2017. The company has raised more than $4 million in funding and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Peoples Trust Company Picks Finastra for Commercial and Consumer Lending

Peoples Trust Company Picks Finastra for Commercial and Consumer Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finastra

Peoples Trust Company of Saint Albans, Vermont has picked Finastra’s Total Lending solution to better manage its commercial and consumer lending processes. The solution includes Finastra’s Fusion LaserPro, Fusion DecisionPro, and Fusion CreditQuest products, and will help Peoples Trust Company increase efficiency and improve the customer experience from origination through booking. Integrated into the bank’s core system, Finastra’s technology will speed the lending process for borrowers and give the bank improved compliance and risk management.

“Finastra’s suite of integrated lending products provides a comprehensive and flexible platform that spans the entire lending workflow, from start to finish,” Finastra CEO Nadeem Syed explained. “By automating once manual processes and cutting out complexity, the Peoples Trust Company will be able to offer an improved experience to their borrowers and focus greater attention on what matters: building deeper customer relationships.”

Angela M. Poirier, CRCM SVP, Chief Loan Specialist for Peoples Trust Company emphasized customer engagement in her statement as well, noting that a service that kept customer needs front and center was key to the decision to choose Finastra. “When it came to replacing our current lending platform, we knew we needed a partner that could also deliver on that promise,” Poirier said.

Formed last year as the result of a merger between Misys and D+H, Finastra is one of the largest financial services technology companies in the world with more than 10,000 employees and more than 9,000 customers in 130 countries. With more than $2 billion in revenues, Finastra is headquartered in London, and is partnered with 48 of the top 50 global banks.

Earlier this month, Finastra announced that the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade for Vietnam (Vietcombank) had selected its technology to drive its digital transformation. In February, the company unveiled its tailored Fusion Treasury solution for Russia and the CIS, and announced that South Africa’s Absa Bank would go live with its CLS platform, PAYplus. Finastra began 2018 with the acquisition of FX e-trading platform, Olfa Soft SA, and the launch of the Future of Banking Center of Excellence at Cyberport in Hong Kong.

Prior to forming Finastra, Misys demonstrated its FusionFabric.cloud development environment at FinovateEurope 2017. The company has since welcomed a number of early adopters to its open architecture ecosystem including APAC-based InfoTrie, HedgeSPA, and Paretix. The company’s FusionFabric.cloud received a technological boost from Microsoft earlier this month, when the Redmond, WA software company announced that its cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, will underpin Finastra’s solution.

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Endor Raises $45 Million in ICO

Endor Raises $45 Million in ICO
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Endor, Funding

Predictive analytics specialist Endor has raised $45 million in an initial coin offering that was launched just last month. This fast funding is a reminder that ICOs as a funding source for startups will be one of the big fintech stories of 2018.

“During the pre-sale we received a staggering amount of participation requests,” the company’s homepage reads. “Our motivation was to allow as many contributors as possible to participate, which was achieved by significantly limiting the individual contribution amounts, This torrent of support allowed us to reach our pre-defined cap of $45 million.”

More than a funding source, Endor’s ICO will also be the key to accessing the company’s predictive analytics platform. Known as “Google for predictive analytics,” Endor combines massive computing and MIT-developed proprietary social physics technology to create a predictive analytics platform that responds to questions asked in plain language with automated accurate predictions. This is accomplished without requiring coding experience or expertise in data science. And after the company’s successful ICO, all that businesses will need in order to take advantage of the new technology is a pocket full of EDR, the company’s cryptocurrency tokens.

Left to right: Endor Chairman Doron Alter and COO Inbal Tirosh demonstrating the company’s predictive analytics platform at FinovateFall 2017.

The company has developed the ENDOR.coin protocol to help “democratize data science,” specifically by making predictive analytics more accessible to SMEs. Endor issued 1.5 billion EDR tokens, with 20% of the total available as part of the ICO. The company says that 40% of the tokens generated will be used to finance R&D efforts. The tokens were initially priced at $0.27 USD. In his review of the offering at CryptoCompare, Ricardo Bago points out that companies will pay in tokens for prediction analysis of their data and are compensated with EDR token “when insights derived from their data are being used for predictions.” This, Bago suggests, helps “incentivize the contribution and maintenance of high-quality data streams.”

For a deep dive into the data science behind, social physics and the Endor protocol, check out the white paper from Altshuler and Pentland published earlier this year. The technology promises:

  • Constantly-expanding catalogue of predictions
  • Do-it-yourself API for advanced users
  • Automatic fusion of private and public data
  • Guaranteed data privacy
  • “Predictions by the people for the people”

Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Endor demonstrated the company’s predictive analytics platform at FinovateFall 2017. Endor was named a Cool Vendor in 2017 by Gartner, and a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. The company was featured earlier this month in a profile on UTB (Use the Bitcoin). Yaniv Altshuler is co-founder and CEO, having taken the helm from Doron Alter who transitioned to the position of company Chairman at the beginning of the year. Endor includes Coca-Cola, Twitter, and Mastercard among its clients and is partnered with fellow Finovate alum, Market Prophit.

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TD Bank to Deploy nCino’s Bank Operating System

TD Bank to Deploy nCino’s Bank Operating System
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: nCino

Chalk up another big win for nCino. The Wilmington, North Carolina-based fintech has signed a deal with TD Bank that will put nCino’s Bank Operating System to work for the bank’s corporate and commercial lending divisions.

The technology, demonstrated at FinovateEurope 2017 last year, is already live with employees in TD Bank’s TD Equipment Finance department. nCino’s platform will give prospective business borrowers faster decisions on their loan requests, as well as add transparency to the loan process. The Bank Operating System will also enable the bank’s credit risk management, sales, and underwriting professionals to benefit from insights into TD Bank’s commercial lending portfolio and better collaborate on deals. Built on top of Salesforce.com, nCino’s Bank Operating system features CRM, loan origination, account opening, workflow, content management, business process management, customer engagement, and instant reporting all on a single platform.

“It’s great to see employees at TD Bank already experiencing many of the benefits of the nCino Bank Operating System – from greater efficiency to increased productivity to an elevated customer experience,” nCino CEO Pierre Naudé said. “We see this collaboration between our organizations as a natural fit and are very excited to continue strengthening and expanding our partnership with this innovative top 10 U.S. bank.”

Anthony Sasso, president of TD Equipment Finance, added, “As the bank continues to deliver on its vision to transform commercial lending, it’s essential that we have the best tools and technology to help our customers achieve their financial objectives.” TD Bank has more than nine million customers and 1,200+ locations in the American northeast and mid-Atlantic regions, as well as in metropolitan D.C., the Carolinas, and Florida. Headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, TD Bank is a member of TD Bank Group and is a subsidiary of The Toronto-Dominion Bank of Toronto, Canada.

News of nCino’s partnership with TD Bank is the company’s second major announcement in March. Earlier this month, the fintech partnered with the Yorkshire Building Society in the U.K., which will use nCino’s Bank Operating System to enhance its corporate lending efforts. Also this month, nCino announced that it was teaming up with consulting firm, Enforce, to help community-based FIs adopt cloud-based solutions. The company began 2018 with a pair of big headlines: an investment round led by Salesforce Ventures that took nCino’s total capital to more than $81 million, and a deal with the world’s largest credit union, Navy CU, with more than $87 billion in assets.

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NetGuardians Bolsters Cybersecurity for Steward Bank

NetGuardians Bolsters Cybersecurity for Steward Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: NetGuardians

Swiss cybersecurity specialist NetGuardians will bring its fraud fighting solutions to Zimbabwe’s Steward Bank.

“By signing up with NetGuardians, Steward Bank will not only benefit from our real-time fraud mitigation solution, but will also become part of the NetGuardians’ global community, sharing fraud mitigation best practice(s),” NetGuardians CEO Joël Winteregg said. “Together, they put Steward Bank at the forefront of fraud prevention, helping to keep its customers’ balances safe and its reputation sound.”

With NetGuardians’ technology Steward Bank will be able to monitor all user behavior in real-time for both its ebanking and mobile banking channels. The platform blocks atypical and suspicious behavior and sends alerts to the appropriate monitoring personnel. NetGuardians says their technology reduces the number of false positives by 80% and reduces fraud management time by 93%.

Steward Bank CEO Lance Mambondini pointed to the integration of Netguardians’ technology as an example of the promise and challenge for banks undergoing digital transformation. “Digitization opened up new channels for the bank and helped us grow. We needed a more effective and proactive system to monitor the subsequent increase in transactions and complexiy of the bank to prevent fraud,” Steward Bank CEO Lance Mambondiani said. “We picked NetGuardians because it is a solution made specifically for banks and is proven to cut fraud across all channels.” Steward Bank will integrate NetGuardians’ platform into its core banking system, T24, from Temenos.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Yverdon-les-bains, Vaud, Switzerland, NetGuardians demonstrated its FraudGuardian solution at FinovateAsia 2016. FraudGuardian helps banks and FIs spot and identify fraudsters, and is especially effective in helping FIs limit the 70% of fraud that is internal. The solution monitors user activity across all channels, IT layers, and transactions and uses dynamic profiling, pattern-based intelligence, and predictive analytics to detect anomalous behavior and provide banks with the opportunity to take proactive steps.

Last month, NetGuardians announced an agreement with FirstOntario CU, integrating its anti-fraud solution with the credit union’s Temenos T24 core banking system. Back in December, NetGuardians kicked off a partnership with Masaref Business & Systems Consulting. This deal will make NetGuardian’s cybersecurity solutions more accessible to financial institutions in the Middle East.

Named to the Chartis RiskTech 100, NetGuardians has raised more than $14 million in funding (CHF 13.5 million) and includes Freemont Management, Swissom Ventures, Polytech Ecosystem Ventures, and MoneyTime Ventures among its investors.

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Finovate Global: Fintech News from the Periphery

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bambu, Finovate Global, Flywire, Neener Analytics, Personetics, Revolut, Turnkey Lender

As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global: Fintech News from the Periphery is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Asia

  • Singapore Business Review names Turnkey Lender and Bambu among Singapore’s hottest startups.
  • Citi introduces Facebook Messenger bot in Singapore as initial stage of wider worldwide rollout. (link)
  • Revolut founder and CEO Nikolay Storonsky discusses plans for APAC expansion with TechWireAsia.

Africa

  • Flywire and Flutterwave partner on cross-border payments & receivables in Nigeria.
  • Africa-based fintechs picked up almost one third of all Venture funding in Africa in 2017, according to a report from Disrupt Africa.
  • Village Capital Fintech Africa Cohort 2018 lists its incoming class of 12 startups.

MENA

  • Fintech Circle and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) to launch fintech education courses.
  • Gulf News Banking takes a look at the digitization of the fintech sector in the Middle East.
  • Bahrain-based security startup, Eazy Financial Services, launches first biometric payment network in MENA.

LATAM

  • Neener Analytics Completes Proof-of-Concept with Jamaican Payday Lender.
  • Alipay partners with Openpay to connect Chinese consumers with merchants in Mexico. (link)
  • Amazon.com unveils first debit card in Mexico as part of e-commerce initiative.

CEE

  • Personetics Brings Cognitive Banking to Romania’s Banca Transilvania.
  • Sberbank to host the first International Cybersecurity Conference in July.
  • CEE Fintech Survey for 2017 cites Poland’s fintech industry as the region’s most vibrant.

Top image designed by Freepik

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