Author: David Penn

TransferTo Adds Digital Wallet to Payments Network via Cellum Partnership

TransferTo Adds Digital Wallet to Payments Network via Cellum Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: TransferTo

Courtesy of a new strategic partnership, European mobile wallet provider Cellum will provide its international money transfer services by way of TransferTo’s cross-border mobile payments network. “Cellum is always looking at ways to expand its portfolio with meaningful services that allow us to offer even more value to our partners,” Cellum CEO János Kóka said. “Our strategic partnership with TransferTo strengthens our position as the one-stop mobile wallet provider of choice in Southeast Asia and beyond.”

“We are happy to collaborate with Cellum and open the doors for their partners to reach our global network, and look forward to the opportunity of expansion by adding further digital wallet providers,” TransferTo CEO Peter De Caluwe added.

Founded in 2006, TransferTo enables FIs and digital financial service providers around the world to offer international mobile airtime top-ups and money transfers to and from emerging countries. TransferTo’s real-time network reaches more than 135 countries, connecting mobile money operators, wallet providers, and money transfer operators with banks, FIs, NGOs, and e-commerce merchants.

The company demonstrated its Mobile Money Hub at FinovateFall 2015. Last month, TransferTo and banking software provider Fern Software were awarded a grant from the United Nations Capital Development Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformation (SHIFT) Challenge Fund. The goal of the fund is to use remittances to improve the financial lives of women in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Also in November, TransferTo announced the hire of a new VP for Business Development, Djibril Diallo, to lead operations in West and Central Africa, and added a new Chief Financial Officer, Dan Gardner, who is a former executive at Transfast and Payscout.

This fall, TransferTo reported 8x revenue growth in international money transfer transactions over the past six months with more than six million transactions. The company partnered with South East Asia’s leading mobile ride-hailing platform, Grab, to facilitate real-time earnings payouts for Grab drivers, and teamed up with IN Switch to support international money transfer services in Latin America.

TransferTo has raised $6.5 million in funding and includes STC Ventures and Ingenico Healthcare/e-ID among its investors. Peter De Caluwe, the company’s current CEO, joined the company in May as global Chief Operating Officer and was promoted to chief executive in August when TransferTo founder Eric Barbier transitioned to the role of President and board member. The company is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Dubai, London, and Miami.

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

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateMiddleEast 2018, Thomson Reuters

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.

  • Al Baraka Banking Group partners with Path Solutions to deploy iMAL Islamic core banking system.
  • UAE Exchange to launch gocash card and mobile app courtesy of partnership with online travel firm, Cleartrip
  • Thomson Reuters celebrates 150 years in the Middle East and North Africa at event in Egypt

MENA Fintech Fact In the Middle East and North Africa, nearly three out of every four fintech startups are based in four countries: the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, or Lebanon. Half of all MENA fintechs launched after 2012.

  • Online real estate marketplace and KPMG Global Fintech Top 50 member Wealth Migrate opens office in UAE, announces new country CEO, Lee-Ann Rush.
  • Group Chairman and CEO of Path Solutions, Mohammed Kateeb, named to World’s Top 50 Most Influential Leaders in Islamic Economy for third consecutive year.

Thought Leadership  Fintech is the new oil in the Middle East and North Africa – Forbes looks at how regulators and governments in the MENA region are “thinking more deeply about the impact that fintech companies will have on the broader economy.”

  • Entrepreneur Middle East features investor forecasts for the MENA region in 2018.
  • Alrajih Islamic Bank for Investment and Financing chooses Islamic core banking system iMAL from Path Solutions.
  • Al Baraka Banking Group (ABG), Kuwait Finance House-Bahrain (KFH-B), and Bahrain Development Bank (BDB) form fintech consortium, Algo Bahrain, to build Sharia-compliant banking solutions.

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Financeit Recapitalizaton Gives Goldman Sachs Majority Stake

Financeit Recapitalizaton Gives Goldman Sachs Majority Stake
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinanceIt, Funding

Point-of-sale financing provider Financeit completed an investment round today with existing shareholder Goldman Sachs. The round gives the firm a majority stake in the Toronto-based fintech.

Michael Garrity, CEO and President of Financeit, said the investment was a sign of Goldman Sachs’ “continued confidence in our leadership team, our business model, our platform, and the ability to grow our service.” He highlighted the recent integration with Centah, a SaaS workflow and lead management solutions provider, as an opportunity to expand into the home improvement industry “from lead generation to closing the sale.”

Financeit helps merchants increase closing rates and transaction sizes by enabling them to offer customers affordable monthly or bi-weekly payment plans. The cloud-based technology provides a fast and transparent application process for consumers, and helps merchants better manage cashflow, get paid sooner, and offer customers additional payment options. Financeit is free to use, and requires no merchant fees.

But Financeit adds a twist. “We service the transaction on both sides,” Garrity explained during his Finovate demo. “On one side we have a set of merchant partners who rely on us to power sales at the point-of-sale every day with our innovative solutions. On the other side, we have a set of financial institutions who rely on us to originate and to manage these loans on their behalf in their name and within their compliance framework.”

Financeit most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2014, during which the company, in partnership with fellow Finovate alum FIS, launched its U.S.-compliant POS financing platform. Founded in 2011, Financeit was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list in July and in June, the company received new funding capacity of $85 million from a “major Canadian life insurance company.” Since inception, the company has worked with more than 7,000 merchant partners in Canada and processed more than $2.5 billion in loan applications.

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BLUERUSH Introduces New CEO and Director Steve Taylor

BLUERUSH Introduces New CEO and Director Steve Taylor
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BLUERUSH

Steve Taylor will take the reins at BLUERUSH, the company announced today. Taylor, a current BLUERUSH director, replaces Larry Lubin who will remain with the firm as President and as a director.

“Since getting involved in Bluerush I have become increasingly impressed with the team and the market opportunity for the Digital Reach and Individeo platforms,” Taylor said. “We are now beginning to put the sales, marketing, and R&D elements in place to accelerate the transformation of Bluerush into a SaaS business.”

Additionally, Round 13 Capital co-founder John Eckert will join BLUERUSH’s board of directors. Round 13 contributed to the company’s recent fundraising effort along with the Capital Founders Fund.

Above: BLUERUSH President Larry Lubin demonstrating Individeo at FinovateFall 2017.

“I am very excited to have Steve Taylor on board as the CEO and John Eckert join our Board,” Lubin said. “Steve has been instrumental in helping us develop a roadmap that will help us grow our recurring revenues and he will be in an even better position to drive this as the CEO.”

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, BLUERUSH demonstrated its Individeo platform at FinovateFall 2017. Individeo leverages big data visualization to produce personalized videos that help financial services customers better understand their financial options. Also active in healthcare and media verticals, the company’s flagship solution, Digital Reach, gives sales and marketing professionals personalization, distribution, and tracking of content, providing a high level of control over how content is distributed and to whom.

In October, the company announced a $1.3 million fundraising, featuring participation from Round 13 and Capital Founders Fund, as well as now-CEO Steve Taylor. BLUERUSH is a publicly-traded company on the TSVX under the ticker symbol “BTV” and has a market capitalization of $5 million.

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Backbase 6 Features New Digital Banking Backend, Open Banking and PSD2 Readiness

Backbase 6 Features New Digital Banking Backend, Open Banking and PSD2 Readiness
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase

Just in time for the holidays, Backbase has released version 6 of its next generation digital banking platform. The enhancements include a cloud native architecture, digital banking accelerators, a new digital banking backend, a new entitlements product line, and what Backbase VP of Product Management Jelmer de Jong called “an API architecture ready for the Open Banking and PSD2 future.”

“Backbase continues to lead the digital banking revolution, driving modernization and innovation to accelerate digital transformation in all key banking segments,” he said. The company made the announcement at its annual customer conference, Backbase Connect last month.

Above: Backbase Global Head of Solutions Engineering Tim Rutten (left) and CEO and founder Jouk Pleiter (right) demonstrating Your Everyday Bank at FinovateEurope 2017.

The release of Backbase 6 is the result of two years of collaboration and beta testing with the company and its customers and partners. Among the major new features of Backbase 6 are:

  • Ready-to-go Banking
  • Digital Banking Services
  • Backbase Entitlements
  • Dynamics Forms / Dynamic Case Management
  • Experience Manager
  • Cloud Native Architecture
  • PSD2 and Open Banking-Ready APIs
  • Comprehensive SDKs

During his Backbase Connect presentation, de Jong highlighted a number of Backbase 6 features, including retargeting, which enables FIs to use offline resources in a customer database to engage clients with more targeted offers and services. “These capabilities enable banks and credit unions across the globe to reach their full digital potential anytime, anywhere, on any device,” de Jong said. The platform has been available to Backbase customers since late November, and customers can determine when and how to adopt and upgrade their systems on their own schedule.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Backbase demonstrated its Everyday Bank concept, in which banks and other FIs can remove friction from low-value interactions and transactions and “amplify” higher-value ones. A multiple-time Best of Show winner, Backbase announced last month that France’s mobile-only Orange Bank had gone live with Backbase’s Omnichannel Banking platform. Earlier this year, the company partnered with fellow Finovate alum eWise, bringing account aggregation to Backbase clients via its Open Banking Marketplace.

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Simility Adds PayPal as Strategic Investor in Latest $17.5 Million Fundraising

Simility Adds PayPal as Strategic Investor in Latest $17.5 Million Fundraising
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Simility

Fraud and risk management innovator Simility locked in $17.5 million in new funding today. The Series B was led by Accel and featured a strategic investment from fellow Finovate alum, PayPal. “This latest funding round will enable us to enter our next phase of growth by bolstering our world-class team of industry veterans in sales, customer success and data science to meet market demand,” Simility co-founder and CEO Rahul Pangam said.

Current investors The Valley Fund and Trinity Ventures also participated in the round, which brings Simility’s total capital to $25 million. Team members from Simility shared their thoughts on the funding and the future of the company in a blog post this morning.

“My team has helped turn our visionary idea into leads among banking customers,” Head of Latin America Sales Paulo Moura wrote. “This second round of funding means more to us than money; it’s also the touching realization that we’ve earned investors’ confidence in our viability as a company, not just a promising startup.”

Above: Simility Head of Engineering Ravi Sandepudi (left) and CTO/Co-Founder Kedar Samant (right) during their presentation “Fraud Mutates – Detect, Understand, and Block It” at FinDEVr London 2017.

“Everything follows from a great team, I’ve learned,” Simility co-founder and CTO Kedar Samant added. “This new funding round will empower Simility to grow our teams and scale up our operations so that more enterprises can better manage fraud and risk.”

Recent news from Simility only underscores the company’s commitment to adding talent. Simility hired Mick Martin as VP of Sales, named Glenn Cobb as VP of Solution Engineering in August, and brought onboard Lynn Strand as VP of Marketing – all in Q3 of this year. The company noted that today’s investment will enable it to grow its sales operations in the U.S., Brazil, and Europe, as well as expand its data science teams in Europe, and add to partnerships in Europe and India.

Founded in 2014, Simility is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. This summer at our developers conference FinDEVr London, Simility’s Kedar Samant (co-founder and CTO) and Ravi Sandepudi (Head of Engineering) led a presentation titled Fraud Mutates – Detect, Understand and Block It which explained how feature engineering and real-time fraud detection pipelines gives businesses the ability to adapt to evolving cyber threats.

Simility’s technology was featured in Network World’s New Products of the Week in March, the same month Simility unveiled its AI-powered Adaptive 3-D Secure solution. Adaptive 3-D Secure is designed to identify high-risk transactions, leveraging machine learning to examine a wide variety of attributes in real-time, including device fingerprinting, geolocation, and in-session behavioral analytics.

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NetGuardians Teams Up with Masaref Business & Systems Consulting

NetGuardians Teams Up with Masaref Business & Systems Consulting
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: NetGuardians

The new partnership between NetGuardians and Masaref Business & Systems Consulting (Masaref-BSC) will bring the Swiss fintech’s anti-fraud solutions to even more FIs in the Middle East, according to Director and Board member Oliver Trancart. “Fraud is a growing concern worldwide and the Middle East is no exception,” Trancart said. “So we think NetGuardians’ expertise can really make a positive impact.”

NetGuardians Middle East Business Development Manager Abdallah Djedid credited Masaref’s knowledge and experience in both Temenos’ technology and Islamic core banking systems, calling the firm “an obvious choice for a local partner.” Masaref is a major Temenos T24 implementation partner, and was awarded Best Core Banking Implementer in Egypt in 2015 by Global Banking and Finance. The firm, based in Cairo, Egypt with offices in Riyadh and Beirut, was founded in 2014 after the merger of Masaref Consulting and Business & Systems Consultancy.

Expressing his confidence in the partnership, Masaref Chariman Dr. Mohamed Goneid said, “More banks and financial institutions using T24 will finally have the peace of mind of top fraud protection. Together with NetGuardians, we will help financial institutions in the Middle East to cater for their most challenging requirements.”

NetGuardians’ technology automates compliance and enables financial institutions to more effectively combat fraud. The company’s platform leverages Big Data, dynamic profiling, pattern-based intelligence, and predictive analytics to analyze not just transaction level activity, but real-time behaviors across the entire bank system. This is key, NetGuardians believes, because out of the $67 billion in estimated banking fraud costs every year, 70% of that fraud is internal and remains undetected. During the company’s 2016 FinovateAsia demonstration of FraudGuardian, NetGuardians Digital Marketing Manager Mine Fornerod showed how the solution is able to correlate user behavior to identify even complex fraudulent behavior in real-time with 100% accuracy.

Founded in 2007, NetGuardians is headquartered in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland and has offices in Singapore, Kenya, and Poland. The company began 2017 with news that Nigeria’s Keystone Bank would deploy its real-time fraud protection platform. More recently, NetGuardians raised more than $8 million in Series C funding, taking its total capital to more than $14 million. The company was named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2015 and was added to Planet Compliance’s RegTech 100 earlier this year. Joel Winteregg is CEO and co-founder.

Interested in fintech in the MENA region? Visit our FinovateMiddleEast page to find out more about our upcoming fintech conference in Dubai.

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Multiple-Time Best of Show Winner Avoka Raises $12 Million in New Funding

Multiple-Time Best of Show Winner Avoka Raises $12 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avoka, Funding

Digital customer acquisition technology innovator Avoka has raised $12 million (16 million AUD) in equity funding in a round managed by Moelis Australia. Investors included both existing and professional backers, and the company says the funds will be used to support growth plans already underway in Australia, North America, and Europe. “Our planned pace of growth continues across all three of our target geographies,” Avoka founder and CEO Phil Copeland said, “and this financing allows us to maintain an aggressive expansion in our technology, sales, partner and customer success organizations.”

Avoka added in a statement that the company plans also to “focus on investment and hiring to support current and projected customers.” This includes a plan to boost staff numbers by 50% by the end of the current fiscal year. This week’s funding, which echoes a similar investment from last summer, takes Avoka’s total capital to more than $24 million.

Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Avoka most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2017. Hali Khan, Director of Business Development, showed how Transact Insights, a new module of Avoka’s Transact 5 platform, gives businesses the insights and analytics necessary to ensure optimization of the account opening experience. With regard to digital account opening, for example, Transact Insights reveals areas of abandonment, frequent error, as well as where users are spending the most time in order to help business analysts make specific changes and improvements.

Avoka provides solutions for a variety of industries within financial services, including retail, business, and commercial banking, wealth management, superannuation, and insurance. The company, a multiple Finovate Best of Show award-winner, includes five of the top 10 banks in Australia, four of Europe’s 10 leading banks, and eight of the top 50 banks in the United States among its customers.

In August, Avoka announced record growth for a second year in a row and in June, the company introduced its CX Design for Banking offering to help FIs decrease application abandonment and boost conversion rates. Last month, Deloitte recognized Avoka’s 1.76x revenue growth over the past three years, adding the firm to its Technology Fast 50 roster.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avoka, Experian, FIS, Fiserv, Five Degrees, Hyperwallet, Kinetica, NetGuardians, Overbond, Privakey

On Finovate.com

  • NetGuardians Teams Up with Masaref Business & Systems Consulting.
  • Hyperwallet Now Supports Payouts from Amazon’s Australia Marketplace.
  • Multiple-Time Best of Show Winner Avoka Raises $12 Million in New Funding.

Around the web

  • Fiserv signs agreements with Illinois Educators CU in Illinois and Members Financial FCU in Texas.
  • ABN Amro leverages Matrix from Five Degrees to launch its wealth management solution, Prospery.
  • Overbond appoints George Harrington as new Head of U.S. Business Development.
  • FIS connects Fifth Third Bank customers to The Clearing Houses’ Real-Time Payments system.
  • Kinetica appoints Paul Appleby as CEO.
  • Experian Receives Top Workplace Honor for Fifth Consecutive Year.
  • Technical.ly: Privakey locks down patent for ‘a password-free future.’

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.

  • Fidor opens regional headquarters in Dubai Silicon Oasis.
  • Saudi Stock Exchange selects Nasdaq in post-trade technology infrastructure overhaul.
  • Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) signs fintech innovation cooperation agreement with Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

MENA Fintech Fact Fintech investments in the MENA region in 2017 amounted to more than $24 million, a gain of more than 13% over the previous year. According to BCG, the MENA region has experienced the “most explosive growth” in recent years in terms global fintech funding compared to other areas.

  • Al-Thiqa Islamic Bank in Iraq goes live with new core banking technology from ICS Banks.
  • Axis Bank leverages Ripple to provide cross-border payments between Singapore and UAE.
  • Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) signs MOU with national health insurance company, Daman, to colloborate on insurtech solutions.

Thought Leadership Is MENA ready for FinTech? – Thomson Reuters blog post looks at how a balance between regulation and innovation could pave the way for greater financial inclusion for the region’s 86 percent of adults in the region without bank accounts.

  • ADGM named “Financial Center of the Year (MENA) for second year in a row by Global Investor/ISF.
  • Dubai International financial Center (DIFC) establishes $100 million fund for investments in early-stage, growth fintech startups.
  • Bahrain Economic Development Board partners with FinTech Consortium to launch “the largest dedicated fintech hub in the Middle East and Africa,” Bahrain FinTech Bay (BFB).
  • Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) signs collaboration agreements with regulators in Hong Kong.

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FI.SPAN Partners with Beanworks to Build B2B Payments Hub

FI.SPAN Partners with Beanworks to Build B2B Payments Hub
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FI.SPAN

Financial services management platform FI.SPAN inked a new partnership this week with Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based Beanworks to build a “world-class business-to-business payments hub.” The new BeanPay platform will give Beanworks’ business customers many of the same vendor payment capabilities that banks have. FI.SPAN will provide pre-integrated third party fintech solutions into the hub, and will manage payment processing via “strategically curated API connections.”

FI.SPAN CEO and founder Lisa Shields praised the combination of Beanworks’ accounts payable automation UX and a “very modern portfolio of payment services.” She said, “Beanworks believes in our vision of sharing modern business services within the corporate customer’s primary business applications.”

Calling manual reconciliation and file transfer “no longer acceptable,” Beanworks CEO Catherine Dahl said, “Our mission is to make the life of the treasurer easier.” Beanworks is cloud-based AP software – integrated with most common accounting platforms such as Intuit Quickbooks, Microsoft Dynamics, and Xero – that automates invoice data entry and invoice-to-purchase matching. Beanworks is also the AP automation provider of choice for Sage accounting and business management solutions. “FI.SPAN’s solution enables us to immediately and profitably extend our AP workflow through to world class payment capabilities,” Dahl said.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, FI.SPAN demonstrated its platform at FinovateFall 2017. The company’s technology enables banks and other FIs to deploy new business banking services and products, leveraging RESTful API endpoints to give FIs the ability to decide specifically which and how different products and services are available over different channels. FI.SPAN also provides pre-built connectivity to leading ERP platforms, empowering banks to use ERP as a channel for corporate customers. Read our profile of FI.SPAN from this fall.

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nanopay Launches B2B Payment Platform for International Commerce

nanopay Launches B2B Payment Platform for International Commerce
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: nanoPay

Canada-based payments platform nanopay unveiled its new B2B payments solution for international trading this week. The new platform, which is scheduled to be available to users in February and is currently in private beta, will initially support cross-border payments between the U.S. and Canada. nanopay expects to extend the service to India and China in the second quarter of 2018.

CEO and founder of nanopay Laurence Cooke pointed to the difficulty in paying and getting paid by international trading partners – as well as a lack of visibility – as the challenge the new platform solves. “Business relationships are founded on trust and the nanopay platform eliminates payment risk as an impediment to working together,” he said. “With UPS-like tracking you always know the status of your payment request.”

CEO and founder Laurence Cooke demonstrating nanopay Cross Border / B2B Portal at FinovateFall 2017.

“nanopay’s vision for simple and secure global B2B payments made it an easy choice to implement its platform,” s2H Business Information Systems CEO Sam Andary said. Crediting nanopay’s technology for helping his firm separate itself from its competition, he added, “Our customers will benefit from knowing where their money is at all times and trusting that it’ll be delivered securely – capabilities that customers are growing to expect in this digital age.”

nanopay’s B2B platform supports account-to-account payments, providing full visibility and payment context. This includes ISO 20022 metadata to provide for straight-through processing (STP), and avoids the need for transferring sensitive banking information back and forth. Payment originators will have full visibility of foreign exchange costs when invoices are paid in a different currency, and the platform will be accessible both via API as well as online as a web app.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, nanopay demonstrated its nanopay Cross Border/B2B Portal at FinovateFall 2017. Last month, the company partnered with Interac e-Transfer, providing Canadians with another real-time payment option. Also this fall, nanopay announced a pair of C-level hires, adding new Chief Revenue Officer Nilesh Dusane and a new Chief Risk Officer Amir Sunderji. With more than $10 million in total funding, nanopay includes APAGM, Rohatton, Jarnac Capital Management, and Goldman Sachs among its investors.

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