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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Polish IT solutions provider Comarch announced a strategic partnership with DSK Bank.
The partnership will help accelerate a strategic digitization program the bank launched in 2021.
Comarch has been a Finovate alum for more than a decade, making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013 in London.
Comarch, an IT solutions provider and systems integrator based in Poland, has forged a strategic partnership with DSK Bank. The partnership will accelerate the Bulgaria-based financial institution’s ongoing strategic digitalization efforts, which began in earnest in 2021.
“We are delighted to support DSK Bank in achieving its digitalization goals with our cutting-edge IT solutions,” Comarch Group CEE Director Piotr Kusek said. “This partnership underscores our mutual commitment to introducing innovative strategies that will transform the banking landscape and elevate financial services to a new level.”
An international IT business solution provider, Comarch employs 6,400 engineers, business consultants, marketing specialists, and other professionals who help optimize operations and business processes for companies in a wide variety of verticals including telecommunications and financial services. Comarch’s clients include BP Global, Telefónica Global, and Vodafone Germany.
Part of the OTP Banking Group, DSK Bank is Bulgaria’s largest bank. The institution was founded in 1951, and has total assets of more than $15.8 million (€14.74 million). In the spring of 2022, DSK Bank teamed up with another Finovate alum, Backbase, to support its digital transformation efforts.
Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Kraków, Poland, Comarch made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013. Within a few years, the company reported revenues in excess of PLN 1 billion, hired its 5,000th employee, and opened its 90th worldwide office. Comarch launched its modern financial platform for business, Apfino, in 2021, and unveiled Poland’s first commission-free shopping platform, Wszystko.pl, in 2023.
This year, the IT solutions provider has extended its partnership with Dutch telecommunications operator KPN, teamed up with insurance company P&V Group – which will adopt Comarch’s Employee Benefits solution – and announced a collaboration with UAE-based telecommunications company and ICT player du. Last month, Comarch joined the European Loyalty Association, partnered with charitable organization The Blind Loyalty Trust, and secured accreditation as a Peppol Service Provider in Malaysia.
Loan intelligence system company Parlay will join Mastercard’s Start Path Small Business program. Parlay is one of eight companies selected.
Parlay’s technology complements a bank’s or credit union’s loan origination system to streamline and enhance small business loan processing.
Parlay made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024 in May as part of our Sustainability & Inclusion Scholarship program.
Parlay, which offers an AI-powered Loan Intelligence System (LIS) to help community banks and credit unions boost small business loan volume, is one of eight startups selected to participate in Mastercard’sStart Path Small Business program.
The incoming cohort consists of startups that have shown “dedication to democratizing financial tools and providing cutting-edge services for SMEs,” Mastercard noted in a statement. The statement underscored specific functions – such as spend management, onboarding, risk monitoring, loan approvals, and embedded finance solutions – that innovative fintech startups are helping digitize for small businesses.
Joining Parlay in the upcoming cohort of the program are Ballerine, Boost, CredibleX, Digi, Merge, Prime Dash, and RedOwl. The four-month program will give these startups the opportunity to leverage Mastercard’s network and subject matter expertise to forge product partnerships that help small businesses digitize their operations.
Parlay’s embedded fintech software helps lenders achieve a 64% increase in approved loans and an 87% reduction in manual underwriting workload. A white-label solution that complements loan origination systems, Parlay’s technology enables lenders to generate high-quality loan packets and maximize the eligible applicant pool. The company’s LIS also offers readiness insights to help businesses improve their creditworthiness; pre-screening to identify prime, marginal, and ineligible candidate pools; and pipeline analytics to enable loan officers to monitor applicant progress and underwriting eligibility.
“After a decade of work in economic development, our team realized that 77% of small businesses still struggle to access affordable capital and lack the insights need to navigate the lending process,” Parlay founder and CEO Alex McLeod said in a statement announcing the final eight startups invited to join the program. “We envision a future where community lenders, powered by Parlay’s AI-driven loan intelligence system, can get millions more small businesses approved for loans using unique, personalized insights that help both lenders and borrowers.”
Parlay made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in May as part of our Sustainability & Inclusion Scholarship program. The program is designed to spotlight underrepresented founders, as well as startups that are tackling issues such as climate change, diversity, and financial inclusion. Scholarships provide startups with complimentary demo participation, as well as the ability to network with our 2,000+ senior-level fintech attendees, fellow demoing companies, and more.
Past scholarship winners include Best of Show winning companies like Debbie, which won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2023, as well as Kobalt Labs and Remynt, both of which won Best of Show at FinovateSpring 2024.
Founded in 2022, Parlay is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.
There was a time when robo-advisory represented the peak of fintech’s contribution to the wealth management industry. And these services continue to be popular options for a new generation of savers and investors. The Statista Market Forecast indicates that the robo-advisor market worldwide is expected to grow by more than 6% by 2028, with more than 34 million investors relying on robo-advisors.
At the same time, enabling technologies like machine learning and AI are generating new ways for fintechs to bring the benefits of technological innovation to the wealth management industry. But it is important for fintechs to avoid building solutions in search of problems. What are some of the real trends and true pain points in the industry that fintechs may be able to help solve?
Democratization
One major theme in wealth management is democratization. For generations, wealth management has been the province of, to put it bluntly, the wealthy. Services were often expensive and opaque for the growing number of upper-middle class and middle-class investors of the 1980s and 1990s.
There is still a healthy market for high net worth investors, of course. But we have seen a major trend toward leveraging technology to make some wealth management services that were previously available only to the elites accessible to investors of lesser means.
There is also another way of looking at democratization in wealth management. In the same way that technology is enabling average investors to access increasingly sophisticated wealth management services, so is technology making it possible for smaller providers to compete with larger wealth management rivals. Fintechs that can help smaller firms and family offices do more with less may find significant opportunities among the growing group of wealth management entrepreneurs.
Personalization
Personalization has increasingly been seen as table stakes in financial services, and with good reason. Whether you are involved in payments or lending or ecommerce, the ability to get relevant products and services in front of your customers is paramount. Not just knowing what customers might want but also being able to deliver is what separates those businesses that gain new customers and keep the ones they’ve got, from those who struggle to do so.
Fintechs can enhance the customer experience by, for example, ensuring that wealth managers can communicate with clients in their channels of choice – and are able to bring significant functionality to those interactions in those channels with video or co-browsing. Knowing which customers are more likely to respond positively to new or alternative investment strategies, for example, or to other complementary products or services can go a long way toward building better engagement and loyalty.
Operations
One of the less flashy areas where fintech technologies can help drive innovation in wealth management is in back-office operations. This is also where enabling technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are delivering Automation 2.0 to intelligently streamline manual tasks and complex procedures. This trend, which has brought speed, accuracy, and cost-cutting to industries throughout financial services, is one that will benefit wealth management service providers significantly.
Moreover, many of the other trends in wealth management – such as the challenges of managing (and securing) ever-growing volumes of data, keeping up with evolving regulatory changes – are made possible by operations teams that have these powerful, enabling technologies at their disposal. For wealth management service providers who are not yet maximizing their teams or these technologies, fintechs can help them close the gap.
Decisioning
From buy-and-sell decisions to strategic portfolio allocations, wealth management is about making good, consistent decisions. Not only do wealth management service providers constantly seek to improve their investing strategies – one area where fintechs can provide specific expertise – but also these firms need to think about more than just maximizing returns. Keeping portfolio volatility at an acceptable level based on the risk tolerance and profile of the individual investor is just one example of another important function of the successful wealth manager.
Making good decisions is also about accountability. Having systems in place that ensure that processes are explainable and auditable is critical to accountability. It is also vital to an institution’s ability to learn, adapt, grow, and improve.
Compliance
Keeping up with the latest regulations is important for all financial service providers – and wealth management companies are no different.
As mentioned previously, one of the biggest benefits of enabling technologies like machine learning, AI, and Automation 2.0 is the ability for firms to track regulatory changes and ensure that their operations are able to meet new standards. An article earlier this year in Financial Planninglisted 10 separate regulatory issues that wealth management firms are likely to face this year, from regulations on marketing language to rules governing digital assets. Moreover, many wealth management firms have internal rules and mandates based on the type of investments they offer and to whom. As such, remaining compliant with an institution’s own governing policies is also a challenge for which regtechs in our industry can provide assistance.
Growth
One of the most exciting ways that fintechs can bring innovation to wealth management services providers is to enable them to grow and expand their businesses by offering services that, while complementary, could be difficult to offer (much less integrate) without technology partners.
Whether through APIs or embedded finance, there are a range of complementary services that fintechs can provide to wealth managers. From insurance to estate planning to secure document digitization and storage, fintechs are able to provide services that wealth management customers often need, but are inclined to get elsewhere. By adding these solutions and services to their product mix, wealth managers can dramatically increase their capacity to grow.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but the companies have been partners since the spring of 2022.
ThetaRay made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2015.
AI-powered financial crime detection technology company, ThetaRay, has acquired European screening company, Screena. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Screena specializes in screening individuals, companies, and other entities against sanctioned party lists. The company’s APIs support syntactic, phonetic, and semantic matching, as well as multicultural recognition services. Each of these technologies is valuable at a time when more companies and financial institutions are taking advantage of opportunities in cross-border payments and trade.
From navigating spelling differences and out-of-order components to comprehending multiple alphabets including Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese, and Thai, Screena has a near 100% true detection rate and screens 500+ transactions per second in live conditions. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Luxembourg, Screena helps financial institutions identify bad actors who may be engaged in activities ranging from money laundering to drug trafficking to terrorist financing.
Screena CEO Cédric Iggiotti said that the integration with ThetaRay was a “game-changer” for the company. “For too long, screening was siloed from other critical financial crime detection tools,” Iggiotti said. “Our partnership with ThetaRay not only meets stringent regulatory demands but also significantly enhances our crime detection capabilities, as evidenced by our recent successes with major financial institutions.”
ThetaRay and Screena have been partners since the spring of 2022, when ThetaRay chose the startup as its screening solutions partner. In a statement on this week’s acquisition, ThetaRay CEO Peter Reynolds spoke of the company’s “mission to power the global fight against financial crime” through the use of AI-enabled technologies. He added that the acquisition “furthers our commitment to delivering an end-to-end platform that enables banks, fintechs, and regulators to effectively identify financial crime – vital capabilities to grow and operate a financial institution today.”
Israel-based ThetaRay made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2015. Today, the company has more than one billion users, enables more than 11 billion in trusted transactions a year, and monitors more than $15 trillion in transactions annually. The company’s signature offerings include its transaction monitoring and screening solution, SONAR, as well as its Customer Risk Assessment (CRA) product unveiled earlier this year.
Reynolds was named CEO of the company last summer. He succeeds Mark Gazit, who had been ThetaRay’s CEO for more than 11 years.
This morning CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz reported that 97% of the Windows sensors knocked out during CrowdStrike’s botched software update a little over a week ago are back online. That’s great news for those companies still reeling from one of the biggest IT outages in history.
When it comes to cybersecurity companies, CrowdStrike is widely considered to be a belle of the ball. Here’s wealth manager Josh Brown, a shareholder in the company since 2020, bringing the roses less than a year ago:
You can talk as much about cloud and mobile and social and machine learning and distributed computing and generative AI as you’d like, if you can’t secure your data and provide safe access to users, you have nothing. Literally ….
Spending on top-of-the-line security solutions has now been enshrined into securities law, in addition to all the other reasons to take this stuff seriously, such as not getting sued into the stone age by your customers or forced to make Bitcoin ransom payments to international cyber terrorists ….
As a business manager, you would cut IT spending on literally anything else first. A small handful of publicly traded companies have what I consider to be a massive runway ahead of them. CrowdStrike is aiming to become the Salesforce of the industry.
To recap: Friday morning, July 19, a bug in a CrowdStrike software update resulted in major IT outages that grounded flights and brought chaos to banks and other businesses around the world.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” CrowdStrike’s Kurtz wrote on the social media platform X the morning afterward. “Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.”
As we learn more about exactly what happened, is there a particular insight here for banks, fintechs and financial services companies? At a time of heightened concern over third-party risk in our industry, the CrowdStrike outage is yet another reminder of the importance of not only choosing technology partners carefully, but also of ensuring resiliency in the event of an issue with a partner.
The latter is especially pertinent here. Many of the challenges and controversies with regard to third-party risk management in financial services involve the latter, vetting issue, primarily. A signature example is the case of Synapse, the fintech whose allegedly improper handling of customer funds led to more than 200,000 users losing access to their money and numerous disputes with banking partners. CrowdStrike is being accused of no such malfeasance and will, in all likelihood, remain a major player in the cybersecurity industry, with its reputation scratched perhaps but probably not scarred.
That leaves us with resiliency. In banking, the definition of resiliency has expanded significantly in recent years. From the failures of the banking crisis to the strains of the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying economic slowdown a little over a decade later, banks have dealt with major challenges to both financial and operational resiliency.
The CrowdStrike outage represented a different type of disruption, and one that may be less amenable to the solutions that have ensured bank resiliency in the past (i.e., leadership, talent, and technology). Given many of the common complaints when technology disappoints, it’s worth wondering if we should look at ourselves, not just our institutions, for greater “resiliency.”
To this end, compare the CrowdStrike outage to the AT&T breach this spring. Unlike with CrowdStrike, AT&T reported that “AT&T data-specific fields were contained in a data set released on the dark web.” The breach did not allegedly have “a material impact on AT&T operations.” But it did represent the kind of security challenge that cybersecurity companies are built to prevent, and that banks and financial services companies need to be prepared for. When I read “released on the dark web,” I thought of Finovate Best of Show winner SpyCloud, the Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity company that specializes in retrieving stolen credentials from the dark web.
And it appears as if more and more banks and financial institutions are getting the message. In the past few years, companies like Corsound AI (FinovateEurope 2024 Best of Show winner) to 1Kosmos (FinovateSpring 2023 Best of Show winner) have stood out among fellow fintechs for their innovations in everything from deepfake detection to passwordless authentication. As FinovateFall 2024 draws near, it will be interesting to see what innovations the current crop of cybersecurity specialists bring to the current challenges faced by banks and financial services companies alike.
Core banking platform 10x Banking released its first “meta core” platform for banks.
10x Banking’s meta core will enable banks and financial services companies to accelerate their digital transformations.
10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023.
Cloud-native core banking platform 10x Bankinglaunched a new category of core banking technology today. The company’s new “meta core” is designed to help banks and financial services companies accelerate their digital transformations.
“From my experience, running a bank is all about managing risks, and we’ve designed our meta core to specifically remove the key risks that banks face when upgrading their core,” 10x Banking Founder and CEO Antony Jenkins said. “10x Banking is the first company in the world to offer a ‘meta core,’ which for the first time gives banks a clear roadmap to full transformation.”
10x Banking’s meta core enables banks and system integrators to focus development efforts exclusively on high-value code. By abstracting away common product elements, including the core ledger, the new platform empowers banks to create and maintain as little as 2,000 lines of code for a single customized banking product. This represents a reduction of up to 10x in code base compared to neo-code platforms. The difference is even bigger compared to legacy cores, where the reduction in code base can be as high as 10,000x.
Key to these efficiency gains is the firm’s development tool ProductKit, which is built on 10x Banking’s SuperCore technology. ProductKit features a set of pre-built modules which abstract away the complexity that comes with building deposit and lending products for retail, SME, and corporate banking customers. The platform also puts a premium on the developer experience. Developers can fully customize all of the pre-built modules at every level using any coding language. This helps teams quickly create highly customized banking solutions and experiences without excessive costs or extensive development resources.
“The ‘meta core’ provides banks with the best of all worlds,” Jenkins added, “flexibility on the one hand and unlimited scalability on the other hand. The benefits are much faster speed to market, enterprise-grade security, the ability to unlock data for AI, and a lower cost base.”
London-based 10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. At the event, 10x Banking demoed its 10x SuperCore Cards solution, which enables banks to build a card proposition in minutes using its 10x Bank Manager interface. The technology empowers financial institutions to build and launch enterprise-grade, full stack functional card business solutions in as little as 12 weeks.
10x Banking began the year securing a $45 million investment in a round led by existing investors BlackRock and J.P. Morgan. The funding took the company’s total equity capital to $297 million, according to Crunchbase. Also in January, 10x Banking announced a partnership with mortgage origination platform Mast, enabling real-time connectivity between the two systems. 10x Banking includes challenger bank Chase UK, Westpac, and Old Mutual, the second largest financial services company in Africa, among its customers.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global highlights recent fintech news from Singapore.
Monetary Authority of Singapore announced plans to invest $74.36 million (100 million Singaporean dollars) to fund quantum computing and AI projects. The funding is part of the Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Grant Scheme (FSTI 3.0) designed to support banks and other financial institutions as they innovate and develop capabilities in both quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
This month’s investment comes in the wake of a $110 million infusion into FSTI back in August 2023. The FSTI 3.0 was launched in 2022 as part of an effort to fortify and future-proof Singapore’s position as a major international fintech hub. MAS originally pledged 150 million Singaporean dollars to the scheme over a three-year period, and this month’s investment is an addition to that amount. The scheme is live until March 2026, but could be extended.
Given the emphasis on AI in financial services of late, MAS’s interest in quantum computing and its applications for banks and financial services companies is especially noteworthy. MAS will support eligible financial institutions with up to 50% funding for the construction of quantum computing technology centers. Companies that develop quantum computing-based cybersecurity solutions can receive up to 30% in co-funding.
With regard to AI, MAS is also supporting the development of AI innovation centers. Again, one of the main areas of emphasis is cybersecurity, which MAS identified as a use case for the first pilot project. Noting that AI tools have become “more widely accessible” and that “financial institutions have been progressively adopting AI,” MAS also observed that the degree of “AI-readiness and adoption” across financial institutions in Singapore is uneven. The AI component of FSTI 3.0 is designed in large part to remedy this.
Blockchain-based financial infrastructure company Partior has raised more than $60 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Peak XV Partners (previously known as Sequoia Capital India & SEA). Valor Capital Group and Jump Trading Group also participated as new investors along with existing shareholders J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered, and Temasek.
Founded in 2021, the Singapore-based company offers banks unified, ledger-based interbank rails for real-time clearing and settlement. Partior’s 24/7 blockchain network works with real-time local currency payment and RTGS systems globally and facilitates direct and indirect settlement flows with market participants. The shared ledger further supports transfers with real-time settlement finality, providing instant liquidity and transparency compared to the sequential processing typical of legacy payment systems.
“Partior is breaking down silos and rewriting the rules for cross-border clearing and settlement,” Partior Chief Executive Officer Humphrey Valenbreder said. “We see a very bright future for blockchain-based frictionless, cross-border transactions. Having some of the world’s best banks and investors back our vision validates this even further.”
The fresh capital will fuel new capabilities including intraday FX swaps, cross-currency repos, Programmable Enterprise Liquidity Management, and Just-in-Time multi-bank payments. The funding will also enable Partior to integrate a range of new currencies beyond currently supported USD, EUR, and SGD.
“As one of the founding shareholders of Partior, we’ve always believed in the transformative potential of its technology to shape global financial market infrastructure. This latest round of investment is a testament to the incredible progress Partior has made toward this endeavor,” Temasek Managing Director for Investment (Blockchain) Pradyumma Agrawal said.
DBS and Deloitte have teamed up to launch the Sustainability Accelerator Tool. The new offering will help SMEs in Singapore accurately assess their sustainability maturity levels and identify and address gaps in their efforts.
The two firms hope to empower 1,000 SMEs in Singapore over the next 12 months with the new solution, and plan to introduce the tool to other markets from the next year forward.
“The Sustainability Accelerator Tool is unique in its ability to provide SMEs with meaningful and practical guidance,” Deloitte Southeast Asia Sustainability & Climate Leader Brian Ho said. “Leveraging Deloitte’s expertise in sustainability transformation, it not only identifies strengths and gaps, but also provides actionable recommendations to enhance sustainability performance.”
Three key benefits of the new offering are industry-specific analysis, which provides insights into unique sustainability challenges; customized strategic recommendations based on the degree of progress (“emerging,” “maturing,” or “leading”) the business has achieved in its path toward greater sustainability; and regional adaptability to ensure that the solution can be used by SMEs across Asia.
SMEs using the tool also get a customized Sustainability Readiness Report which gives them an analysis of the company’s sustainability maturity, as well as provides insights on how to address any specific sustainability challenges they may have.
“The Sustainability Accelerator Tool is the latest in our ongoing efforts, where we strive to futureproof SMEs through practical and holistic solutions,” DBS Group Head of Corporate and SME Banking Koh Kar Siong said.
The introduction of the Sustainability Accelerator Tool follows the spring launch of DBS’s ESG Ready Programme to help SMEs efficiently transition to lower carbon business models. Headquartered in Singapore, and boasting a presence in 19 markets, DBS provides a full range of consumer, SME, and corporate banking services. The firm has been named “Safest Bank in Asia” by Global Finance for 15 consecutive years from 2009 to 2023.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Central and Eastern Europe
International embedded finance platform Liberis announced its entry into the German market in partnership with Nexi.
Lithuanian identity verification company iDenfy unveiled its automated utility bill verification tool.
Germany-based private markets platform bunch secured $15.5 million in Series A funding.
India-based payments and API banking company Cashfree Payments secured a payment aggregator-cross border license from the RBI.
Latin America and the Caribbean
The Brazilian central bank announced a pause in their plan to add recurring payments to its Pix platform.
Argentine fintech Tapi secured $22 million ahead of its expansion into Mexico.
BBVA opened an international cybersecurity center in Mexico.
Asia-Pacific
Melbourne, Australia-based Airwallex secured an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) the first major payments company to do so.
Bank Indonesia and Bank of Korea inked a MoU to encourage cross-border payments between the two countries.
In a bid to become a “global fintech hub,” the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has invested $74.36 million (100 million Singaporean dollars) into quantum computing and AI projects.
Sub-Saharan Africa
South African fintech Peach Payments acquired custom software development firm Operativa.
Online investing and savings service Wealthify introduces its new Chief Executive Officer Richard Ambrose.
Ambrose will succeed Andy Russell, who has served as CEO of the company for the past four years.
Wealthify made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in London in 2017.
U.K.-based online investing and saving platform Wealthify has appointed Richard Ambrose as its new Chief Executive Officer. Ambrose replaces Andy Russell, who had served as CEO of the company since the summer of 2020.
“It’s been a privilege to lead Wealthify over the last four years,” outgoing CEO Andy Russell said. “I am very proud of our purpose-driven strategy, our culture of accessibility and quality, and the resulting growth we’ve achieved during this time.”
Most recently General Manager (GM) of Payments at Papaya Global, Richard Ambrose worked as CEO of Azimo for more than three years from 2019 to 2023. Before his appointment as Azimo CEO, Ambrose had been the company’s Chief Operating Officer for two years. He also held numerous roles during his nearly six-year tenure at PayPal, joining the company as Marketing Director for the U.K. in 2011 and eventually becoming Senior Director, Chief of Staff, EMEA.
“I am thrilled to join Wealthify as CEO,” Ambrose said in a statement. “Its mission to make investing more affordable and accessible for everyone is in the best traditions of fintech. Wealthify has built some great technology, and I’m proud to be joining its brilliant team.”
Wealthify is dedicated to using technology to democratize investing. The company offers a range of investment and savings solutions, from ISAs, GIAs, and SIPPs to an instant access savings account. Customers can open investing accounts for as little as £1 (£50 for pensions), and manage their funds via the Wealthify app or website. Wealthify uses passive investment vehicles such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to build different investment plans based on the investor’s risk tolerance. Ranging from “Cautious” to “Ambitious,” Wealthify also offers “Ethical” versions of each plan that use negative screening to exclude companies from industries such as tobacco, weapons, and gambling, as well as positive screening to include businesses that have demonstrated a commitment to corporate ethics, social justice, and/or sustainability.
Founded in 2014, Wealthify made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateEurope in London. Wealthify began this year partnering with ClearBank, which now serves as the embedded banking partner for the company’s savings product.
U.S. Bank launched its Accounts Receivables platform, U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables, in partnership with Billtrust.
U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables will help businesses keep costs low and benefit from real-time visibility into cash flow and financial position.
U.S. Bank most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2021 in New York.
Courtesy of a partnership with Billtrust, U.S. Bank has launched its new comprehensive accounts receivable (AR) platform. U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables will help suppliers accelerate cash flow, lower costs via automation, and provide better payment experiences.
“Suppliers face many challenges from the time they receive an order until the cash is in their account. This includes numerous manual and paper-based steps, a cumbersome credit process, billing errors, and payment delays,” U.S. Bank Global Treasury Management Head of Product Alberto Casas explained. “With U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables, businesses can transform their entire receivables process to drive down costs and gain real-time visibility into their financial position and cash flow.”
U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables combines U.S. Bank’s payment and risk management capabilities with Billtrust’s AR technology. The new offering is comprised of five core solutions – invoicing, payments, cash application, collections, and credit – each of which enhances the B2B receivables process. U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables builds on the bank’s complementary digital payment solutions, such as U.S. Bank AP Optimizer, which automates accounts payable operations from invoice receipt to payment disbursement. Together the two offerings enable companies to digitize and automate their end-to-end payment processes.
With $680 billion in assets, U.S. Bancorp is the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the firm serves millions of customers locally, nationally, and around the world with services including consumer banking, business banking, commercial banking, institutional banking, payments, and wealth management. Billtrust, which partnered with U.S. Bank to launch the bank’s new AR offering, is an integrated AR solutions provider whose technology is used by more than 2,400 companies worldwide. These clients range from Coca-Cola and FedEx to Staples and United Rentals.
Earlier this month, Billtrust announced that it had extended its collaboration with Visa to support its Business Payments Network (BPN). Introduced in partnership with Visa in 2018, BPN links suppliers to buyers via connectivity to their preferred bank and payables providers. Headquartered in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, and founded in 2001, Billtrust was acquired by EQT Private Equity for $1.7 billion in 2022.
U.S. Bank most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall in 2021. At the conference, the bank demoed its U.S. Bank Card as a Service (CaaS) solution. The technology enables fintechs and other businesses to extend corporate credit digitally, and to create a custom virtual payment experience for customers via API integration.
Financial services company Rabobank has turned to Zafin to optimize its pricing, billing, and invoicing capabilities.
The partnership will help Rabobank fulfill its mandate of becoming a 100% digital institution.
Zafin made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017. The company was acquired by Nordic Capital earlier this year.
Multi-national banking and financial services company Rabobank has tapped SaaS core modernization solutions provider Zafin to optimize its pricing, billing, and invoicing capabilities.
“Innovation lies at the heart of Rabobank’s digital transformation journey,” Rabobank Manager (Payments) Paul Wolda said. “It supports our mission of ‘growing a better world together’ and our goal to improve the everyday life of our customers.” Wolda praised Zafin’s reputation around the world and said that the partnership “reinforces our commitment to invest in innovative technologies that modernize our legacy applications, drive operational efficiencies, lower costs, and offer our clients a more personalized and sophisticated banking experience.”
The partnership comes as Rabobank pursues its mandate to become 100% digital. The firm will deploy Zafin’s platform, replacing its current pricing tools, and lowering the cost of creating, changing, and launching customized product propositions and pricing to its clients. Rabobank will leverage the platform to access a consistent view of product, billing, and invoicing data across channels. This will reduce revenue leakage and deliver real-time insights into preferences and needs of Rabobank’s diverse retail and corporate customer base.
“Our partnership with Rabobank is a significant milestone in our mission to deliver core modernization solutions for the banking industry,” Zafin SVP of EMEA Sales Hali Khan said. “For decades, Rabobank has maintained leadership in sustainability-oriented banking, and we are excited to help transform its pricing and billing capabilities in the Netherlands.”
Active in 37 countries, Rabobank is an international financial services provider offering retail banking, wholesale banking, private banking, leasing, and real estate services. Headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands, Rabobank was first established in 1895 as a local credit cooperative for farmers and even today maintains a market share of more than 85% in the country’s agrarian sector. Rabobank launched its first internet only savings bank, Rabobank.be, in 2002.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Zafin demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2017. The company was acquired by Nordic Capital in February of this year. In May, Zafin co-founder Al Karim Somji announced that he would step down from the role of CEO after more than two decades in leadership.
“OrboGraph’s expertise in check fraud detection perfectly complements our expertise and, together, we can offer a powerful tool that seamlessly integrates check image display functionality and common check risk data sources,” Featurespace President of Americas Carolyn Homberger said.
Many consumers, especially younger consumers, have abandoned paper checks. In fact, some analysis suggests that paper checks represent less than 5% of transactions in the U.S. as of 2022 (compared to 17% for cash and more than 31% for credit and charge cards). At the same time, that relatively modest amount of paper check writing still amounts to $27 trillion in value. It is also worth noting that while paper checks have become less common in consumer transactions, paper checks are still used in nearly half of all B2B payments according to Paystand.
This means that there is an ample opportunity for fraudsters. In fact, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has reported that check fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent and, as of 2023, represents more than a third of all fraud at depository institutions.
To this end, the integration of Featurespace’s financial crime prevention technology with OrboGraph’s check processing automation and fraud detection software and services will enhance detection of fraudulent checks and reduce the number of false positives for banks and financial institutions in the U.K.
“Check fraud is a growing and concerning area of financial crime – we know banks and financial institutions are experiencing a rise in reports and are in need of more advanced tools that can tackle the issue,” OrboGraph CEO Barry Cohen said. “Combining our expertise with Featurespace will enable us to deliver a more robust and comprehensive fraud detection solution, helping financial institutions to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated check fraud schemes.”
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Cambridge, U.K., Featurespace made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2016. The company returned to the Finovate stage later that year to demo its technology at FinovateFall in New York. Today, the company processes more than 50 billion events a year, and protects 500 million customers in 180+ countries from fraud risk. Featurespace’s signature solution, its ARIC Risk Hub, leverages Adaptive Behavioral Analytics and Automated Deep Behavioral Networks to model and predict individual behavior in real-time to enhance fraud prevention and anti-money laundering efforts.
This spring, Featurespace forged a partnership with The Knoble, an alliance of financial services professionals, regulators, and law enforcement that focuses on crimes such as human trafficking and elder financial exploitation. In May, the company announced the results of a pilot project with Pay.UK designed to defend consumers from Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud. Featurespace’s proof of concept detected more than $178 million (£138 million) in fraud with a 5:1 false positive ratio. Applying its Generative AI solution TalllierLTM enabled Featurespace to boost its fraud detection rates to 56%, identifying an additional $51 million (£40 million) in fraud.
“Fraud is the single largest crime in the U.K. It accounts for 40% of all crime and contributes to £2.3 billion in losses annually,” Featurespace CEO Martina King said. “But the UK is leading the charge to tackle this issue and the game-changing pilot with Pay.UK is one that the world has been watching. It shows the immense power of collaboration and technology, and the scale of positive change that is possible when the payments industry works together to tackle fraudulent activity.”
Featurespace has raised more than $108 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company’s investors include Chrysalis Investments, MissionOG, and Insight Partners.
A nearly ten-year old acquisition may turn out to be Klarna’s secret weapon to improve security during the checkout process.
The Swedish payments company announced this week that it has integrated a new payment service into its Klarna PayNow product suite. The integration is designed to improve checkout security and has been made possible thanks in large part to Klarna’s acquisition of Germany-based Sofort in 2014.
“We are integrating Sofortüberweisung into the Klarna environment to offer consumers and merchants the best of both worlds: the familiar Sofort payment process combined with the smoother, more secure payment experience and global reach of Klarna,” Klarna Chief Commercial Officer David Sykes said. “The combined product is better for merchants and consumers, and (is) also a platform for Klarna to expand the functionality of Sofortüberweisung globally.”
Sofortüberweisung is a bank-to-bank payment service that Klarna gained access to by acquiring Sofort GmbH in 2014. Klarna has been incorporating Sofort’s technology into its solutions since 2017, and has launched the service in some of its other markets around the world, including the U.K. With this week’s integration, consumers will be able to track their Sofortüberweisung payments from within the Klarna app, as well as make payments without having to re-enter their payment information. This, combined with Klarna’s two-factor authentication, facilitates both greater convenience and increased security.
To that point, customers will need a Klarna account in order to take advantage of the Sofortüberweisung integration, and the company notes 95% of Sofort customers already have one. Klarna also reports that the “improved user-friendliness” of the integration has produced a 5% increase in conversion rates for consumers who use it.
Founded in 2005, Klarna made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2012. In the decade-plus since then, the company has grown into a major e-commerce and payments business with 150 million total active customers in its network – including 34 million in the U.S. With more than 500,000 total merchants using its technology, Klarna facilitates two million transactions per day.
The company also recently made headlines with word that it is preparing for an initial public offering in the U.S. as early as the first half of 2025. Also this month, Klarna announced that it had partnered with Adobe Commerce to make it easier for merchants on the platform to implement Klarna’s Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services.
“Consumers are embracing the flexibility that Buy Now Pay Later services can provide, with Adobe Analytics data showing over 11 percent growth this year,” Jason Knell, Adobe Sr. Director, Content & Commerce Partners, said. “Klarna’s global footprint enables Adobe Commerce merchants to meet the changing needs of their customers and stay competitive in today’s digital economy.”
Klarna is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Sebastian Siemiakowski is Klarna’s CEO.
