Author: David Penn

Coupa Software Teams Up with Tuition.io

Coupa Software Teams Up with Tuition.io
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Tuition.io

Tuition.io is on a roll. Less than a week after the company announced a partnership with Estee Lauder to help its employees better manage student loan debt, the Los Angeles, California-based fintech has teamed up with business spend management platform Coupa Software to do the same for its workers.

“Coupa has a long history of championing a people-centered corporate culture, and this is another way to continue their mission of offering best-in-class employee benefits,” Tuition.io CEO Scott Thompson said. “With the student debt crisis continuing to escalate, it is not a matter of if, but when companies will do their share to find solutions. We are excited to work with Coupa as they lead the way.”

The partnership will enable Coupa cmployees who enroll in the program get monthly disbursements to help them pay down the principal in their outstanding student loans. Parents who take out Parent PLUS loans to help fund their children’s higher education can also take advantage of the benefit. All full-time Coupa workers in the U.S. are eligible to participate in the new program.

Pointing to the high number of Americans with student loan debt – estimated at more than 44 million Americans, Coupa VP of People Ray Martinelli praised Tuition.io’s ability to provide “a benefit that helps our employees overcome this burden and start building toward their future sooner rather than later.” Martinelli added that the partnership means that not just employees will get help managing their debt, but also their extended families. “It reinforces our commitment to our employees’ success,” he said.

Trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker “COUP”, Coupa Software’s cloud-based business spend management platform links hundreds of organizations and institutions with millions of suppliers around the world. The company has a market capitalization of $2 billion, and more than 450 customers in more than 40 countries.

Tuition.io demonstrated its platform at FinovateFall 2012. In December, the company announced that it would power a student loan debt reduction benefit for MidWestOne Financial Group’s Educational Assistance Program. Earlier in 2017, the City of Memphis announced that it would use Tuition.io to support student loan debt reduction program for its workers.

In terms of funding, Tuition.io most recently announced a $7 million investment last September led by Wildcat Venture Partners and featuring participation from current investors Mohr Davidow Ventures and MassMutual Ventures. The funding took the company’s total capital to more than $115 million.

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Banco Santander to Leverage Ripple Tech to Offer Same Day Mobile International Payments

Banco Santander to Leverage Ripple Tech to Offer Same Day Mobile International Payments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ripple

Banco Santander announced that the mobile app it plans to launch in the first quarter of this year will feature instant payments powered by technology from Ripple. The new service will enable customers to make same-day, cross-border payments.  P2P payments, a digital wallet, and PFM functionality will also be part of the app

Using its own internal staff, the Spanish bank has piloted the technology for the past 18 months. The testing involved Apple Pay transactions between £10 and £10,000 and relied on Touch ID to ensure secure logins. Santander said it believes it will be “one of the first global banks to roll out distributed ledger technology based payments for individuals” and expects to initially launch the app in four countries simultaneously (believed to be Spain, Brazil, the U.K., and Poland, see below).

News of the new solution was sleuthed in part by analysts participating in Banco Santander’s 2017 earnings presentation which featured the below slide previewing the firm’s plans for same day mobile international payments in “3 clicks & 40 seconds.”

“The need for finance has evolved from providing a Pound in your pocket or card in your purse, where you pay at a till, to being seamlessly integrated into a new, always on, connected lifestyle,” said a representative of Banco Santander in Coinspeaker last week. “At Santander we work hard to ensure our banking is simple, personal and fair and believe new Blockchain technology will play a transformational role in the way we achieve our goals and better serve our customers, adding value by creating more choice and convenience.”

This news comes just a few months after Santander U.K. announced that it will partner with American Express to use Ripple’s technology for cross-border, B2B payments. Interviewed earlier this year, Head of Technology Innovation at Santander UK, Ed Metzger, praised Ripple’s advantages over SWIFT. “We chose Ripple because of its speed, transparency, and certainty … these three characteristics provide relief to the pain points of international payments.”

Making its Finovate debut as OpenCoin at FinovateSpring 2013, Ripple is based in San Francisco, California and was founded in 2012 by Chris Larsen. Last month, the company launched a trial with MoneyGram that will include leveraging XRP for remittances and the potential integration of Ripple’s xVia, an API that facilitates sending payments across multiple networks using a standard interface.

Ripple introduced its Infrastructure Innovation Initiative in December, an effort to help central banks, regulators, and market infrastructures test and pilot blockchain-based solutions. In October, the company launched a new accelerator program and incentives to encourage banks to become more involved in blockchain technology.

With more than $93 million in funding, Ripple includes Santander Innoventures, SBI Investment, Core Innovation Capital, and IDG Capital Partners among its investors. Brad Garlinghouse was appointed CEO of the company in the fall of 2016.

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Ohpen Raises $31 Million to Support Global Expansion

Ohpen Raises $31 Million to Support Global Expansion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Ohpen

Cloud-based core banking technology innovator Ohpen has just sealed a Series C round led by private equity firm Amerborgh that will bring an additional $31 million (€25 million) in funding to the Amsterdam, Netherlands-based fintech. The company said that the investment will help it prepare for expansion into new markets, including the addition of a third headquarters in Germany, France, Canada, Australia, or the United States. The financing takes Ohpen’s total capital raised to $50 million (€40 million), and adds to a $17 million Series B investment the company secured from Amerborgh in July of last year.

“We’re just scratching the surface,” Ohpen founder and CEO Chris Zadeh said. “Ohpen is changing the core banking software industry, advocating a totally digital solution that is based on one version of the platform for all clients and countries.” He added, “This has never been done before; it requires creativity, commitment and also the necessary capital to implement our vision.”

Calling Ohpen’s core banking technology “the future of the core banking industry,” Amerborgh Nederland MD Michel Vrolijk emphasized the company’s ability to turn ideas into action. Vrolijk said the fintech’s ability to execute was “unparalleled” and added that expansion will be a key next step for the company. “Launching the third country is crucial for Ohpen’s strategy and Amerborgh is thrilled to support them at this decisive point in their growth story.”

Founded in 2009, Ohpen demonstrated its core banking platform at FinovateFall 2012. The company sees itself as part of the solution for financial services companies riddled with outdated legacy banking technology. Its core banking engine provides both BPO services and SaaS solutions to banks, insurance companies, and asset managers.  With more than 150 employees, the company has offices in the Netherlands, the U.K., and Spain.

Last November, Ohpen announced that De Volksbank, a retail and small business bank in the Netherlands had migrated more than 120,000 investment accounts to Ohpen’s platform. This followed a July partnership with multinational financial giant, Aegon through which the two firms will develop a new platform to support “the full scope of Aegon’s services in the Netherlands.”

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TransferWise to Power Payroll for Crowdfunding Platform Seedrs

TransferWise to Power Payroll for Crowdfunding Platform Seedrs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: TransferWise

 

One of the challenges of having a global workforce is ensuring that all workers are paid promptly in their local currencies. We learned last week that crowdfunding platform Seedrs has found a solution to this problem in the form of a new partnership with international money transfer innovator and FinovateEurope alum, TransferWise.

TransferWise will process payments for Seedrs at the real exchange rate directly from Reuters using its batch payments tool. This option enables businesses to settle international and domestic payroll with one click, sending up to 1,000 payments at a time directly to payees’ accounts. Businesses benefit from TransferWise’s competitive exchange rates and workers appreciate payments that arrive within 1 to 2 days.

The speed of TransferWise’s international payments was among the reasons why one current client, Travelopo, uses the company’s batch payment tool. Speaking for the company, which formerly transferred millions via a well-known international bank, Travelopo founder and CEO Roger Fenton explained that faster payments and even a small savings in the exchange rate can make a significant difference over time.  “As an international business, we settle invoices in sterling and euro – so the cost can hit us or our supplies,” Fenton said. “With TransferWise, everyone is better off.”

The new partnership with Seedrs comes in the wake of news that TransferWise has opened up its borderless account beyond business users. Launched for business customers in the spring of 2017, TransferWise announced that it would roll out the multi-currency accounts to consumers in the first quarter of this year. As for Seedrs, the crowdfunding firm enters 2018 having recorded what the company called “our most successful year to date” in 2017, earning accolades from the British Small Business Awards as Alternative Finance Platform of the Year, and providing funding to companies like Finovate alum Revolut.

Founded in 2010, London-based TransferWise demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2013. The company raised $280 million in funding back in November in a Series E round led by Old Mutual Global Investors and VC firm IVP. The investment boosted the TransferWise’s total capital to more than $396 million and gave the firm an estimated valuation of $1.6 billion.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Behalf, Blockchain, CapitaWorld ME, Dorsum, Equifax, Personetics, TransferWise, Wealth Migrate

On Finovate.com

  • TransferWise to Power Payroll for Crowdfunding Platform Seedrs.
  • Behalf Lands Equity Funding and Secures $150 Million in Debt Financing.
  • Blockchain Appoints New President and Chief Legal Officer.

Around the web

  • Challenger bank Tandem to leverage Personetics Cognitive Banking Brain to provide personalized financial guidance for customers.
  • Equifax introduces commercial credit data sharing solution for SME lenders.
  • Bluefin Payment Systems partners with EDC Corporation to improve security for credit card transactions.

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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Xero Announces Partnership with IT Management Solutions Provider Kaseya

Xero Announces Partnership with IT Management Solutions Provider Kaseya
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Xero

Cloud-based accounting platform for small businesses Xero has signed a deal with IT management solutions provider, Kaseya, that will provide direct integration between BMS by Kaseya and Xero. Kaseya’s business management solution supports the back-end operations of managed service providers (MSPs) and mid-market enterprises (MME); the integration will ensure synchronized financial and operational data between both Xero and Kaseya’s platform.

General Manager for Cloud Computing at Kaseya Jim Lippie said, “As the industry’s only next generation PSA (professional services automation), BMS empowers our customers to be more profitable and operationally efficient through easy to access data capture and analysis.” He added that it was critical for PSAs to stay innovative in order to avoid what he called “the problems inherent in first-generation PSA solutions,” and pointed to Kaseya’s new relationship with Xero.

“Our latest partnership with Xero provides an added layer of financial intelligence that can be leveraged within BMS’ single pane of glass,” Lippie said. “This powerful integration saves our MSPs countless hours of admin and back office time.” Specifically, MSPs will be able to see client information such as invoice history, payment status, credit status, and products and services purchased in one location. Accounting departments benefit from seamless synchronization of operational data such as tickets and time tracking.

This week’s partnership news is accompanied by an announcement that Xero has opened its “newest and largest global office” in Wellington, New Zealand. The new HQ now supports more than 650 Xero staffers who were previously working in three separate locations around the city.

Founded in 2006, Xero demonstrated the Business Identification feature of its cloud-based accounting platform at FinovateSpring 2011. The company also participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014, presenting “Building an API-Driven Ecosystem for Small Business.”

The partnership with Kaseya is Xero’s second of 2018. The company announced an agreement with DBS (the Development Bank of Singapore) in January, which will give the bank’s small business customers the ability to have their transactions automatically imported to their Xero accounts. Last fall, Xero was named to KPMG/H2 Ventures’ Fintech 100, and teamed up with Worldpay to simplify invoicing for small businesses.

With more than 1 million subscribers, Xero’s technology integrates with more than 600 business apps. The publicly-traded company has a market capitalization of $3.4 billion ($4.7 billion NZD) and is currently trading on both the New Zealand and Australian stock exchanges under the ticker symbol “XRO.”  Xero is planning to transition to a sole listing on the Australian exchange later this year.

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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.

  • Cryptocurrency exchange BitOasis to add Ripple to its platform.
  • Gulf Business interviews Dubai Chamber president and CEO Hamad Buamim on the importance of developing a culture of innovation.
  • Saudi Arabia’s mada payment system chooses FIME to develop bespoke cloud-based testing platform and certification process.

MENA Fintech Fact UAE startups received 70% of all investment amounts in 2017, with Saudi Arabia seeing the biggest pick up in investments, a gain of 4%. The two most active VC firms in 2017 were 500 Startups and Middle East Venture Partners.

  • Dubai-based IBC Group-owned Acumen Advertising to now accept payment in digital currency.
  • Tehran Stock Exchange to reduce settlement cycle to T+2 from three business days.
  • Bahrain Fintech Bay (BFB) and Fintech Consortium (FTC) team up with U.S.-based fintech RobustWealth to provide robo advisory services.

Thought Leadership – Challenges, Successes and Opportunities of Financial Inclusion in MENA – A Webinar on Fintech in the Middle East with Hans Henrik Christensen (CEO, Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority) and Devie Mohan (CEO, Burnmark). Thursday, February 8.

  • Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) reports value of financial transactions via Fawry electronic payment network in Egypt grew to EGP 25 billion ($1.4 billion USD) in 2017.
  • Luxury retailer Al Tayer Insignia announces acceptance of mobile payment platform, Alipay, at select outlets.
  • Forbes presents its list of the Top 100 Startups in the Arab World for 2017.

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Personetics Powers New Intelligent Financial Assistant Didi from Israel Discount Bank

Personetics Powers New Intelligent Financial Assistant Didi from Israel Discount Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Personetics

Israel Discount Bank is jumping on the intelligent assistant bandwagon. This week, the bank launched its new digital financial assistant, Didi –  a solution powered by Personetics‘ Cognitive Banking Brain.

“Utilizing advanced AI capabilities to provide personalized and proactive guidance is quickly becoming a must-have for financial institutions that want to increase customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty,” Personetics co-founder and CEO David Sosna said. “While digital banking assistants are gaining popularity, the ones that will stand out will be those that deliver smart interactions based on true understanding of each customer’s financial behavior and needs.”

Digital banking assistants may offer efficient customer service, but the key to higher engagement lies in the ability to offer insight and guidance that is both personalized and proactive. Didi, which will be available for free to all Discount Bank customers via the mobile app, leverages Personetics’ Cognitive Banking Brain, which analyzes specific transactions to spot spending issues or opportunities for greater saving.

“Proactively providing insight and advice, Didi is always one step ahead, empowering customers to be more efficient and effective in managing their money,” Head of Technologies & Operations division at Discount Bank, Levi Halevi, said. In addition to delivering AI-powered personalized insights and guidance, the technology also features “hundreds of pre-built insights” which, in addition to being market-tested by banks around the world, will help Discount Bank roll out the technology that much more quickly.

At FinovateFall 2016, CEO Sosna and Solution Architect Sudharshan Krishnan demonstrated Personetics Anywhere, a chatbot solution for financial services providers that works across most common messaging platforms. Last fall the company launched a new service, Personetics Act, designed to give banks a new way to help customers repay their student loans ahead of schedule. Also last fall, Royal Bank Canada announced that it was leveraging the company’s technology to deliver two new services – AI-powered finance guidance and an automated savings program – through its mobile app.

Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, Personetics was featured in our look at fintech innovation in Israel. The company has raised $18 million in funding and includes Lightspeed Venture Partners, Viola Ventures and Sequoia Capital among its investors.

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Fenergo Forges Strategic Partnership with Arachnys

Fenergo Forges Strategic Partnership with Arachnys
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Fenergo

Client lifecycle management technology specialist Fenergo announced a strategic partnership with another regtech innovator, Arachnys, this week. The agreement will integrate Arachnys’ due diligence research and management solution within Fenergo’s end-to-end on boarding workflow. The combination of Arachnys search, audit trail, and reporting functionality with Fenergo’s regulatory rules and risk scoring engine will give FIs a comprehensive KYC and CLM solution. Investment, corporate, and private banks alike will benefit from an integrated audit trail, automated periodic review, and accelerated on boarding and compliance for businesses.

Fenergo CEO Marc Murphy called partnerships like this “key” to his company’s ability to expand and better serve its clients. Adding that “our community is seeking to deploy new technologies for automating regulatory compliance,” Murphy praised Arachnys’s use of robotics for investigative processes in particular as “cutting edge.”

“We are delighted to partner with Fenergo to improve the visibility and tracking of due diligence processes across the customer risk lifecycle, eliminating the need to work across multiple systems,” said Arachnys president Ed Sander. “The harmony between Fenergo’s rules engine and Arachnys’s search, audit trail and reporting techniques will convert compliance into an accelerator for top line revenue.”

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Fenergo demonstrated its Deal Manager client on boarding and account opening solution at FinovateEurope 2012. More recently, the company partnered with BNP Paribas to deploy its Client Lifecycle Management solution, and teamed up with compliance and risk management solutions provider Opus to improve integration of risk relevant data in the KYC process. In December, the company was recognized by Chartis RiskTech100 as the only CLM provider in the top 40 of the world’s major risk and compliance technology companies.

Fenergo has raised more than $80 million in funding. The company includes Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund, Aquiline Capital Partners, Insight Venture Partners, and Investec among its investors.

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Finect Raises Capital as BME Takes Minority Stake

Finect Raises Capital as BME Takes Minority Stake
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finect, Funding

Spanish fintech Finect announced today that Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME) has acquired a 9.7% stake in the company in a transaction valued at “lower than one million euros.”

Finect provides a social trading community for investors to communicate with and learn from financial professionals. Nearly two million users take advantage of Finect’s solutions, including its financial aggregator for portfolio tracking, interactive “pildoras” to respond to specific user questions, and a knowledgeable community of both private and professional investors.

“The transaction is a milestone in our mission to assist investors in their financial decisions,” Finect CEO Antonio Botas said. “BME will bring us experience and leadership, both financial and technological, which are of great help towards our goal of improving the finances of investors.”

BME CEO Javier Hernani added, “This investment and the alliance with Finect is another step forward in the company’s diversification policy and growth of the business’ technological area. The objective of BME is to offer its clients and investors a wide range of services and products so that they can compete in the complex financial and digital environment in which they operate.”

BME’s investment comes amid a major digitalization initiative for the Spanish stock market operator, which is moving to increase the role of technological consultancy services among its offerings. BME integrated its IT, consulting, regulation, and innovation value-added services into BME Inntech last year, as part of this process.

With origins as a social network for financial advisors, asset managers, and their clients, Finect was launched by founder Nicolas Oriol in Spain in 2008 and in the U.S. in 2012. The company demonstrated its Global Library and Pros on Products solutions at FinovateFall 2013. Global Library facilitates content sharing between financial advisors and their customers. Pros on Products makes it easy for financial professionals to track investment products on the Finect platform, along with peer opinions, real time news, and social media. We highlighted the company in our RegTech Reality Check back in October 2016.

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Meniga to Support Digital Transformation for French Banking Group, BPCE

Meniga to Support Digital Transformation for French Banking Group, BPCE
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Meniga

With FinovateEurope right around the corner, our antennae is tuned to any and all news from what Americans call “The Old Country.” The latest dispatch features European digital banking solutions provider – and multiple Finovate Best of Show winner – Meniga and its newly announced partnership with France’s second largest banking group, BPCE.

“Meniga is excited to be partnering with BPCE,” Meniga co-founder and CEO Georg Ludviksson said. “We have been very impressed by BPCE’s commitment to digital innovation and their clear focus on their mobile banking application through a simple and personal user experience.”

Per the agreement, BPCE will deploy Meniga’s technology across its Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne in France. The first phase of the rollout will feature Meniga’s Financial Activity Feed, a real-time spending overview with personalized, data-driven alerts and insights for customers. The partnership comes as the EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2) compels new relationships between banking customers, financial services providers, and third party fintechs.

“As we enter into an era of open banking, we look forward to working closely with Meniga to transform our digital customer experience,” said Francois Perol, BPCE CEO. “Meniga’s data-driven digital banking solutions will help accelerate our digital transformation journey and help us adapt to the ever-evolving needs of our customers.”

Winner of Best App and Best Web Solution at the Icelandic Web Awards for 2017 earlier this month, Meniga was named one of five Reyjavik startups to watch by Wired in December and announced a new deployment of its technology at Spanish bank IberCaja in November. Meniga has raised nearly $23 million in funding, most recently picking up an $8 million investment in April. The company has offices in London, Reykjavik, Stockholm, and Warsaw, and serves more than fifty million digital banking users in 20 countries.

Meniga’s most recent Finovate appearance was at FinovateEurope last February. Ludviksson and Chief Product Owner Finnur Magnusson demonstrated Personal Finance Challenges, a new UX and API designed to help users take short-term actions that can improve their financial fitness. The solution leverages goal-making, community reinforcement, and “nudges” to help users accept and meet challenges that will encourage better financial habits. Challenges won a finalist spot at the FStech Awards earlier this month.

Be sure to check out Meniga’s latest solution when the company returns to FinovateEurope next month in March.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Actiance, Finect, Handle Financial, LendUp, Meniga, Neustar, OurCrowd, Tinkoff Credit Systems, Tuition.io

On Finovate.com

  • Tuition.io to Power Student Loan Repayment Benefit for Estée Lauder Employees.
  • Check out sneak peeks from next month’s FinovateEurope presenting companies:
  • Meniga to Support Digital Transformation for French Banking Group, BPCE. See Meniga at FinovateEurope 2018 in March.
  • Handle Financial’s Prism Mobile App Reaches $1 Billion in Bills Paid.
  • Finect Raises Capital as BME Takes Minority Stake.

Around the web

  • Actiance forges partnership with Relativity to bring seamless data delivery to eDiscovery platform.
  • Neustar unveils multi-factor authentication risk assessment tool to help enterprises mitigate fraud risk.
  • Tinkoff Bank and AHML to launch joint venture to offer mortgage loans via new electronic platform.
  • Y Combinator interviews Jake Rosenberg, cofounder and CTO of LendUp.
  • VentureBeat highlights OurCrowd, which has raised $650 million for 145 startups and plans to top $1 billion 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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