Author: David Penn

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Baker Hill, Dynamics, eToro, Kapitall, Klarna, Kyckr, Motif Investing, Narrative Science, Taulia

On Finovate.com

  • Dynamics Leverages Sprint’s Wireless Network for New IoT Connected Card.
  • Kyckr Lands Global Payment Provider Client.

Around the web

  • Taulia announces milestone, accelerating $1 billion in invoices in a single day.
  • Klarna extends partnership with ACI Worldwide, now reaching 10 major markets including the U.S. and U.K.
  • Marquette Bank ($1.6 billion in assets) builds on existing relationship with Baker Hill by adding risk management, loan origination and other solutions.
  • Datanami highlights Narrative Science’s natural language processing tech.
  • Disruptor Daily names eToro, Motif, Kapitall among 9 companies to watch in 2018.

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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Fintech News from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

Fintech News from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateMiddleEast 2018


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As Finovate prepares for its first conference in the Middle East, here’s a round up of recent fintech news and need-to-knows from the MENA region. Learn more about how to join us in Dubai in February for FinovateMiddleEast.

  • Jordan’s first bank, Jordan Ahli Bank launches beta version of chatbot service.
  • Alrajih Islamic Bank for Investment and Financing selects Path Solutions’ Islamic core banking system, iMAL.
  • Mortgagetech Meets Crypto Assets: New Sharia-compliant crypto currency for purchasing property slated for June launch in Dubai.

MENA Fintech Fact: 86% of MENA area adults do not have access to a bank account. But the number of startups in the MENA region doubled from 46 to 105 from 2012 to 2015.

  • Crowdfunding platform for farmers, BOOSTani wins first prize at Startup Weekend Bekaa in Lebanon.
  • Egyptian payments firm Fawry announces plans to expand nationwide in 2018.
  • ACI Worldwide partners with HyperPay to bring real-time fraud prevention solutions to ecommerce merchants in the MENA region.

Thought Leadership Fintech – 6 disrupters facing the Middle East – Mossadiq Ali Ghanghro, Middle East Director in Transaction Services for PwC, writes about top themes in fintech in the MENA region.

  • Bahrain Middle East Bank to deploy OneSumX from Wolters Kluwer for core banking and reporting.
  • NCR to introduce bitcoin-enabled ATMS in the UAE. Join Finovate in Dubai in March for FinovateMiddleEast.
  • Moneyfellows wins MetLife Foundation Inclusion Plus competition in Egypt and Lebanon.

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Insuritas Launches i-Insure Platform with 42 P&C Carriers

Insuritas Launches i-Insure Platform with 42 P&C Carriers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Insuritas

When you are a company like Insuritas it can be a challenge to make a big news splash. A frequent deal-maker, the insurtech headlines are filled with news of financial institutions that Insuritas has partnered with, enabling them to market and sell insurance products to their customers as easily as their own banking products.

And that makes today’s news that much more special. Insurtias has announced today that it has successfully launched its i-Insure platform with 42 of the leading auto and home insurance carriers in the U.S.

“We have built powerful, trusted partnerships with the nation’s leading auto & home insurance carriers, and have emerged as one of the fastest growing insurance distributors in the country with our third consecutive year of 40%+ growth in profitable premium,” Insuritas CEO Jeff Chesky said.

i-Insure enables property & casualty carriers to access more than 180 fields of data to deliver bindable rates within the firm’s virtual agency platform that reaches more than nine million retail households. The technology gives carriers the ability to drive and promote specific innovations and products to customers and is integrated with Insuritas’ partner bank and credit union loan origination and online banking platforms.

“As our bank and credit union partners deploy our virtual insurance agency platforms deeper inside their ecosystems, and leverage their trusted customer and member relationships, we can now further refine personalized insurance shopping and buying to the over 9 million customers in our addressable market,” Chesky explained.

A popular choice for banks and credit unions looking to add insurance services to their offerings, Insuritas has teamed up with FIs from across the country including Indiana’s Owen County State Bank ($201 million in assets), Michigan’s Marshall Community Credit Union, and Ohio’s Independent Bank ($2.6 billion in assets) in the second half of 2017 alone. The company’s platform leverages data analytics, robotic process automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence to help insurance carrier’s “further refine their products, pricing, and conversation rates,” said Insuritas CTO Tracy O’Brien. “A year in the making in collaboration with our carrier partners,” O’Brien said, “i-Insure is a unique, agnostic multichannel middleware that allows our carrier partners to deploy their innovations in real-time.”

Founded in 1998, Insuritas demonstrated its SmartCART technology at FinovateSpring 2014. The SmartCART platform enables online banking customers to shop for financial products inside a bank or credit union’s online ecosystem, giving consumers an Amazon.com-like shopping, single-click checkout, and after-sale online account management experience. The company, which is headquartered in East Windsor, Connecticut, has raised more than $10 million in funding.

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Daon Forges Strategic Partnership with North African Technology Innovator GEMADEC

Daon Forges Strategic Partnership with North African Technology Innovator GEMADEC
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daon

A new strategic partnership agreement has been signed between biometric authentication and identity assurance innovator Daon and GEMADEC. The partnership will enable GEMADEC, a North African security and document dematerialization firm to extend its services to customers in North Africa and French-speaking African countries.

“GEMADEC is already working in the field of security and biometrics, supporting the Postal organizations as a trusted third-party in the implementation of a legally valid electronic certificate (PKI) production platform and also offers electronic signature solutions,” GEMADEC CEO Touhami Rabii explained.

Daon CEO Tom Grissen praised GEMADEC’s “long-standing experience and demonstrated success internationally,” and sees the potential for the partnership to make a “significant impact in the financial and public sectors.” Founded in 1977, GEMADEC currently operates in 22 countries and serves as a world reference in hybrid mail for postal organizations looking to modernize their operations. The company has also provided security, biometrics, and digital identity services for public institutions in North African nations such as Gabon, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and in Djibouti.

Headquartered in Reston, Virginia and founded in 2002, Daon demonstrated IdentityX, its universal mobile biometric authentication platform at FinovateFall 2016. Daon provides multi-channel, biometric authentication and identity management solutions that leverage technologies such as device-binding, geolocation, and liveness detection. The company’s offerings have been deployed in a number of verticals including digital banking and payments verification, border management and employee credentialing, and national ID and cloud authentication.

In October, Daon teamed up with fellow Finovate alum Kony, bringing a suite of authentication tools to Kony’s digital banking platform. The company added Eyeprint ID to its platform in June, courtesy of a partnership with another Finovate alum, EyeVerify. This spring, Daon announced an integration with Experian’s fraud and identity platform, CrossCore.

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Vera Hires First Chief Financial Officer and Adds Technical Talent

Vera Hires First Chief Financial Officer and Adds Technical Talent
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Vera

Enterprise data security specialist Vera is starting the new year with a pair of big new hires – including the company’s first chief financial officer.

“Vera has a phenomenal opportunity ahead of it to transform the data security market and redefine how enterprises protect their most valuable data,” Sam Wolff, Vera’s new Chief Financial Officer said in a statement. “It’s a very exciting time to be joining a company with such potential.”

Wolff (pictured above) comes to Vera after serving as Chief Financial officer for Birst, a cloud-based business intelligence software solution provider acquired by Infor earlier this year. Previous to this, he was CFO for digital ad targeting data management platform, BlueKai. Wolff also spent several years working with Yahoo! in corporate financial planning and analysis, investor relations, and other areas. Wolff has a Bachelors degree from Harvard University and earned his MBA in Finance from Indiana University Bloomington.

Vera CEO and co-founder Ajay Arora praised Wolff’s “deep experience leading durable SaaS businesses,” and said the hire was part of the company’s effort to “level up our ability to scale both our organization and our technology.”

The other part of this effort was the hiring of new senior VP of Engineering, Wesley Yeremenko (pictured below). Formerly the head of Advertising Technology at Adobe Primetime, Yeremenko was also Chief Technical Officer for Auditude (since acquired by Adobe), and VP of Engineering for OpenDNS (since acquired by Cisco), and AdBrite. He has a Master of Science from Kiev State Polytechnic University. Arora highlighted Yeremenko’s nearly 20 years of experience working with high-scale, high-visibility SaaS systems and his “proven ability to build internet-scale platforms.”

Founded in 2014 and based in Palo Alto, California, Vera demonstrated its Vera Security solution at FinovateSpring 2016. The company’s focus on protecting data in transit in real time across users, devices, apps, and platforms has earned Vera partnerships with firms ranging from General Electric to fellow Finovate alum, Twilio. In November, Vera launched its enterprise-grade encryption for e-mail solution, Vera for Mail. Last May, the company announced a $15 million strategic investment from Hasso Plattner that took Vera’s total capital to more than $50 million.

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Finovate Alums Garner $2.7 Billion in 2017, $730 Million in Q4 Alone

Finovate Alums Garner $2.7 Billion in 2017, $730 Million in Q4 Alone
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings

Updated! Funding for fintechs is back on the rise. We tallied up equity funding in 2017 and our totals show that Finovate alumni pulled in $2.7 billion over the course of the year. This marks the fourth consecutive year alums passed the $2 billion mark and pushes the 4-year total to more than $10 billion. 

In the fourth quarter of 2017, Finovate alums raised more than $730 million, beating last year’s Q4 total by more than $30 million. Q4 2017 also marked a resumption of the strong Q4s of last year and 2014.

Previously Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q4 2016: More than $700 million raised by 26 alums
  • Q4 2015: More than $302 million raised by 28 alums
  • Q4 2014: More than $1.4 billion raised by 26 alums
  • Q4 2013: More than $294 million raised by 17 alums

Q4 2017’s largest equity investment was the $280 million raised by TransferWise in November. Coming in second place was the $130 million in capital raised by BlueVine in October. The top 10 overall investments for the fourth quarter of 2017 totaled $654.7 million or more than 90% of the total alum funding for the quarter.

Top 10 Equity Investments (equity only)

  1. TransferWise: $280 million
  2. BlueVine: $130 million
  3. Feedzai: $50 million
  4. Passport: $43 million
  5. Credit Sesame: $42 million
  6. BankBazaar: $30 million
  7. TrueAccord: $22 million
  8. Featurespace: $21.9 million
  9. BondIT: $18.3 million
  10. Simility: $17.5 million

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q4 2017.

October 2017: More than $337 million raised by 12 alums

  • BankBazaar: $30 million – post
  • BLUERUSH: $1.3 million – post
  • BlueVine: $130 million – post
  • BondIT: $18.3 million – post
  • Credit Sesame: $42 million – post
  • Featurespace: $21.9 million – post
  • Feedzai: $50 million – post
  • Finn.ai: $3 million – post
  • Omnyway: $12.75 million – post
  • SelfScore: $12 million – post
  • Tink: $16.5 million – post
  • Wealthify: undisclosed – post

November 2017: More than $308 million raised by three alums

  • PayStand: $6 million – post
  • TransferWise: $280 million – post
  • TrueAccord: $22 million – post

December 2017: More than $89 million raised by eight alums

  • Avoka: $12 million – post
  • Financeit: undisclosed – post
  • NuCypher: $4.3 million – post
  • Passport: $43 million – post
  • Payoneer: undisclosed – post
  • Prevoty: $13 million – post
  • SBDA: undisclosed – post
  • Simility: $17.5 million – post

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the fourth quarter of 2017, 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.

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In the Navy: nCino Brings its Bank Operating System to World’s Largest Credit Union

In the Navy: nCino Brings its Bank Operating System to World’s Largest Credit Union
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: nCino

With more than $87 billion in assets, more than seven million members, and 300 branches, Navy Federal Credit Union is known as the largest credit union in the world. So it is a pretty big deal for the team at nCino to announce that NFCU has selected the North Carolina-based fintech’s Bank Operating System to help support its continued growth.

“With nCino, our employees can service members with key insights gained on the digital banking platform,” SVP for Consumer and Business Lending for NFCU Dave Ledwell explained. “We want to provide an experience that is quick, effortless and enjoyable, and we see nCino as being the tool to provide these things and more.” Ledwell called NFCU’s military-based membership – including veterans and their families – “some of the best borrowers of any financial institution.”

Left to right: Jonathan Rowe (CMO), Trisha Price (EVP, Product Development and Engineering), and Nathan Snell (Head of Innovation and Design) demonstrating nCino’s Bank Operating System at FinovateEurope 2017.

nCino’s platform will enable bank professionals to facilitate the full process of business lending from application to funding faster and more accurately. The technology also gives banks an edge in customer engagement by providing what nCino SVP of Community and Regional Financial Institutions Paul Clarkson called “a clearer view of members’ needs.”

“Rapidly growing and service-oriented institutions like Navy Federal require an innovative solution that enhances the loan process in order to provide the highest levels of convenience and service to its members,” Clarkson said.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina. nCino demonstrated its Bank Operating System at FinovateEurope 2017. Last month, the company announced that Ithaca, New York’s CFCU Community Credit Union ($1 billion in assets) would deploy its Bank Operating System to better serve its 70,000 members.

The firm has raised more than $81 million in funding – most recently a $17 million private equity round in August – and includes Insight Venture Partners among its investors. Named to Deloitte’s 2017 Technology Fast 500 in November, and having earned the top spot in Aite Group’s report on global commercial loan origination in October, nCino has also partnered with Iberiabank of Lafayette, Louisiana, and teamed up with community bank ConnectOne Bank in recent months. Pierre Naudé is CEO.

Watch our interview with nCino Head of Innovation and Design Nathan Snell as he discusses personalization and the customer experience with Finovate research analyst Julie Muhn.

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Union Mobile Financial Technology Partners with Transaction Controls Specialist Tranwall

Union Mobile Financial Technology Partners with Transaction Controls Specialist Tranwall
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Tranwall

Courtesy of a new partnership between Australia’s Tranwall and Union Mobile Financial Technology, transaction control technology is headed to card and account holders in China. With Tranwall’s platform, customers will be able to manage both card and account transactions in real time, using a variety of channels including their smartphones. Customers can manage transactions by merchant type or switch off certain transaction types (tap-to-pay, ATM) entirely. Available as both an integrated solution to an FI’s mobile banking app or as a standalone solution, the new platform helps increase customer engagement while simultaneously reducing fraud and fraud-related costs.

“This is a significant agreement for the growth of our business and provides the opportunity for Tranwall to market the technology to UMFs existing Chinese client base, and new clients,” Tranwall co-CEO Greg Haynes said. Hayes pointed out that UMF is partnered with more than 110 FIs, more than 3,000 large corporations, 700,000 SMEs, and more than 450 million individual consumers. “We are very proud to have an organization of this standing in our camp, providing local credibility to the technology and services we provide,” he said.

The APAC market is an area of emphasis for Tranwall, Hayes said, and the company plans to invest “significant resources” in China’s banking market. China has an enormous card market, the largest in the world,in fact. This, coupled with its leadership in mobile banking technology and mobile payments adoption (more than $5 trillion in mobile payment volume last year), make the region a priority for firms like Tranwall that give consumers more control over their card accounts. “(We) expect that the Chinese adoption of Tranwall technology will lead to market acceptance throughout the wider Asia market,” Hayes said.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Perth, Australia, Tranwall demonstrated its Transaction Control for Business solution at FinovateFall 2015.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ethoca, Finastra, Fiserv, Infosys, Kinetica, Passport, Ripple, Tradeshift

On Finovate.com

  • Passport Raises $43 Million from Bain Capital.
  • Tradeshift Partners with Infosys to Help Clients Digitize Supply Chain Management

Around the web

  • Finastra CMO Martin Häring discusses mobile payments with Tearsheet.
  • Abu Dhabi-based LuLu Exchange to deploy AML Risk Manager from Fiserv.
  • Ripple’s XRP now available on 50 exchanges worldwide.
  • Kinetica listed among ProgrammableWeb’s Most Interesting APIs in 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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ACI Worldwide Partners with HyperPay to Help Fight Fraud in the MENA

ACI Worldwide Partners with HyperPay to Help Fight Fraud in the MENA
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide

Cyberfraud fighters in the MENA regions gained new allies this week. ACI Worldwide has announced that it will collaborate with HyperPay to offer integrated, real-time fraud prevention solutions for e-commerce payments for merchants in the Middle East and North Africa.

The need for ever-more capable fraud fighting technology is a key factor in ensuring the growth of  – and trust in – e-commerce. And the MENA region is no exception. “While the growth opportunity is considerable, we also know that merchants need to protect their revenues and secure their transactions, as well as be responsive to the evolving threat of fraud,” HyperPay CEO Muhannad Ebwini said. He added that ACI’s Universal Payments solutions – including UP Payments Risk Management – “perfectly complement our local knowledge and experience” and that he “fully trust(s) ACI to deliver a sophisticated, real-time fraud detection and prevention solution that protects our customers.”

Left to right: Wolfgang Berner (Director, Product Global eCommerce), Christian Schonhuth (Solution Consultant), and Grit Ruehling (Sr. Product Manager) during their presentation Simple, Global, and Secure eCommerce Payments with ACI Worldwide’s Next Generation API.

Echoing Ebwini’s sentiments, Manish Patel, ACI Worldwide GM for the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, also underscored the importance of trust. “eCommerce in the MENA region is growing rapidly, as consumers move from cash-based transactions to using cards and other online payment methods,” Patel explained. “As this shift – with mobile acting as an additional catalyst – gathers pace, retailers need to gain the trust of consumers and protect themselves against the risk of fraud across multiple channels.”

A major MENA area payments service provider HyperPay uses ACI’s UP eCommerce Payments solutions to provide cross-border payments services. This week’s news means HyperPay will open access to ACI’s UP Payments Risk Management solution, as well. The Risk Management technology leverages adaptive machine learning and a “shared intelligence approach” that also takes advantage of the insights gained from global risk analysts to refine fraud-fighting strategies for e-commerce merchants and PSPs.

Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Elkhorn, Nebraska, ACI Worldwide demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2011 in partnership with MShift. More recently, the company participated in our developers conference, FinDEVR Silicon Valley 2016, showcasing its COPYandPay, SAQ-A compliant JavaScript payment form solution. The presentation, led by ACI Worldwide’s Wolfgang Berner (Director, Product Global eCommerce), Grit Ruehling (Sr. Product Manager), and Christian Schonhuth (Solution Consultant), was titled Simple, Global, and Secure eCommerce Payments with ACI Worldwide’s Next Generation API. The presentation also included a live demonstration of the omni-channel capabilities of the company’s UP eCommerce Payments solution, as well as how to configure and integrate ACI’s ReD Shield real-time fraud prevention.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Avoka, Currency Cloud, Insuritas, Ripple

On Finovate.com

  • ACI Worldwide Partners with HyperPay to Help Fight Fraud in the MENA.

Around the web

  • FST Media talks with Avoka Chief Experience Officer Derek Corcoran.
  • Ripple reports that XRP is now available on 50 exchanges around the world.
  • Indiana-based Owen County State Bank ($201 million in assets) partners with Insuritas.
  • PYMNTS.com interviews Currencycloud head of U.S. product, Arshi Singh.

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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Meed Leverages ID Verification Solutions from Jumio to Serve the Underbanked

Meed Leverages ID Verification Solutions from Jumio to Serve the Underbanked
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Jumio

Identity verification innovator Jumio is teaming up with Santa Monica, California-based fintech Meed. The Finovate Best of Show winner will provide the Meed with ID verification, identity verification, and document verification services to accompany Meed’s suite of financial services.

“Our innovative business model puts a premium on global coverage, KYC/AML compliance and a seamless customer experience,” Meed Chief Operating and Technology Officer Stephen Landry said. “We looked at many providers, but found the Jumio solution to be superior based (on) the quality of their global footprint and the sophistication and accuracy of their biometric-based identity verification.”

Jumio leverages biometric facial recognition, machine learning, and human review to provide ID verification, KYC and AML services to companies in the financial services, higher education, retail, and sharing economy industries. To date, the company has verified almost 100 million identities issued by more than 200 countries from real time online and mobile transactions.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of GlobeOne, Meed is a socially-responsible financial health firm that partners with banks and other FIs to deliver financial services to the underbanked. The company will deploy Jumio’s Netverify solutions to verify the authenticity of government-issued ID, as well as the digital identities of new users. Successfully authenticated users are then routed swiftly and directly to regional member banks. The company is active in Vietnam and plans to expand to the United States and Latin America in 2018. Les Riedl is CEO.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Jumio demonstrated its Netverify Document Verification solution at FinovateSpring 2017. The technology enables users to scan a wide variety of documents even when those documents are folded, crumbled, or wrinkled. Jumio teamed up with Plynk in August, providing identity verification for the European money messaging app and partnered with Branddocs TrustCloud, bringing its technology to Spain and Latin America. Named to the European Fintech 100 this fall, Jumio unveiled eyeball tracking as a new aspect of Netverify’s “liveness” check in July and announced a collaboration with Monzo in June. Jumio was acquired by Centana Growth Partners in May 2016 for $850,000.

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