Author: David Penn

Eight Finovate Alums Join Plug and Play Accelerator’s 2017 Fintech Class

Eight Finovate Alums Join Plug and Play Accelerator’s 2017 Fintech Class
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Capitali.se, Eltropy, HEDG, Hedgeable, Neener Analytics, Qumram, TrueLink Financial, Voleo

Accelerator and global innovation platform Plug and Play revealed its incoming Fall 2017 class this week. And within Plug and Play’s Fintech cohort of 24 startups, eight companies are Finovate alums, including three Best of Show winners.

  • Capitali.se
    • Founded in 2014
    • Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel
    • Shahar Rabin is CEO and co-founder
    • FinovateSpring 2017 demo – Best of Show
  • Eltropy
    • Founded in 2013
    • Headquartered in Milpitas, California
    • Ashish Garg is CEO and founder
    • FinovateSpring 2017 demo
  • HEDG
    • Founded in 2016
    • Headquartered in San Francisco, California
    • Bob Rutherford is CEO and founder
    • FinovateSpring 2017 demo
  • Hedgeable
    • Founded in 2016
    • Headquartered in New York, New York
    • Matthew Kane is Chief Ninja and co-founder
    • FinovateSpring 2017 demo – Best of Show
  • Neener Analytics
    • Founded in 2014
    • Headquartered in San Jose, California
    • Jeff LoCastro is CEO and founder
    • FinovateSpring 2017 demo – Best of Show
  • Qumram
    • Founded in 2011
    • Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland
    • Patrick Barnert is CEO
    • FinovateFall 2016 demo
  • True Link Financial
    • Founded in 2013
    • Headquartered in San Francisco, California
    • Kai Stinchcombe is CEO
    • FinovateSpring 2014 demo
  • Voleo
    • Founded in 2015
    • Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
    • Thomas Beattie is CEO
    • FinovateSpring 2017 demo

Fintech is one of six programs run by Plug and Play (the others are Brand & Retail, Energy & Sustainability, Food & Beverage, New Materials & Packaging, and Supply Chain & Logistics). A total of 101 startups across all six programs were selected from an applicant pool of 2,800. The fall program lasts 12 weeks, ending at the Plug and Play Fall Summit in late October, and will provide startups with access to “world-class mentors, tier one VCs, and C-level executives to propel their businesses to success,” said Principal of Plug and Play Ventures, George Damouny. Opportunities for investment are also a feature of the program. “As an investment group,” Damouny added, “we will have a lot of fantastic investment opportunities, and I’m super excited to be working closely with these startups.”

Joining our eight alums in the fall 2017 Fintech cohort are:

  • Blockdaemon
  • Bouxtie
  • CreditStacks
  • HEXANIKA
  • Income&
  • Keyo
  • Koyfin
  • Synswap
  • LifeSite
  • MIRACL
  • Squirro
  • Novo
  • Qanta
  • Responsive AI
  • Scanovate
  • Tomorrow Ideas, Inc.

“Together, with our team members and community, Plug and Play’s goal is to showcase the startups to at least 30 corporate partners and 30 investors per vertical in the next 100 days,” Plug and Play CEO and founder Saeed Amidi said. More than half the companies in the Fall 2017 class are in the seed stage (57%), with 25% early stage, and 18% growth stage. Additionally, more than a fourth of the Fall 2017 startups are from outside of the United States, including companies from Hong Kong, Ghana, and Switzerland.

Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play has made more than 500 investments in more than 400 companies since inception. The accelerator provides mentorship, co-working space, and opportunities for investment for both seed and more developed companies. Plug and Play’s sizable list of partners includes financial institutions and financial services firms such as USAA, Credit Suisse, Cathay Financial and US Bank. In addition to FinDEVr alums Google Cloud Platform (FD16) and Plaid (FD14), Plug and Play’s data partners include IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Medici, Dun & Bradstreet, Morningstar, and AWS Activate. Graduates of the Plug and Play accelerator include Finovate alums Dwolla (FS15), Lending Club (FS09), PayPal (FE12), and Trulioo (FF16).

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Fidelity Partners with Coinbase on View Balance Feature

Fidelity Partners with Coinbase on View Balance Feature
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Coinbase

The innovation division of Fidelity Investments, Fidelity Labs, and digital asset exchange Coinbase released a new balance viewing feature for investors this week. The move may be a small step for Fidelity brokerage clients who want to see their digital currency assets alongside their other investments. But it is an interesting sign from a company that helped drive mass adoption of and investment in another revolutionary asset class – mutual funds – more than two decades ago.

As Project Manager Kristen Stone noted at the Coinbase blog, the view balance feature was tested on Fidelity employees with digital currency accounts at Coinbase earlier this year. The popularity of the feature led Fidelity to expand the offering to all its customers, which Stone called a testament “to the continued commitment of traditional financial institutions to adopt digital assets and widen access for customers.”

Linking Coinbase accounts to Fidelity is straightforward. Select Add Non-Fidelity Accounts from the All Accounts dashboard. A pop-up enables users to choose between accounts to be added, with the Coinbase option featured. The user will then be taken to their Coinbase account where they can authorize access and complete the account linking process.

This partnership is a small example of how Fidelity has begun to embrace digital assets. Writing for The Street.com, Brian O’Connell and Ross Kenneth Urken noted that the company allows Bitcoin transactions in its corporate cafeteria, and Fidelity employees can donate in Bitcoin to the company’s Charitable Donor Advised Fund. The authors suggested that having a $6 trillion AUM investment company take interest in digital currencies adds a measure of validation for the assets, which are still in infancy.

“Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies are emerging from their infancy but mass adoption is still many years away,” Fidelity Labs Managing Director and SVP Hadley Stern said. At the same time, Stern warned against underestimating the attraction of digital assets and the underlying technology. “Just as many other technologies have done in the past, Bitcoin and blockchain will transform how we manage our finances.”

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Coinbase demonstrated its Instant Exchange at FinovateSpring 2014. A member of CB Insights Fintech 250, Coinbase announced a pilot integration with Western Union in June and added support for Litecoin in May. Coinbase launched its open source, combination messaging app and ethereum wallet, Token, in April. The company has raised more than $112 million in funding, and includes Andreessen Horowitz, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), and Bank of Tokyo – Mitsubishi among its investors. Brian Armstrong is co-founder and CEO.

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Socure Raises $14 Million in New Funding

Socure Raises $14 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Socure

In a Series B round led by Commerce Ventures, digital identity verification specialist Socure raised $13.9 million in new funding. The investment, which also featured the participation of Flint Capital, Santander InnoVentures, Synchrony Financial, Two Sigma Ventures, and Workbench, takes Socure’s total funding to $27.5 million.

“The funding will help us meet the increasing demand by accelerating market penetration in current and new markets, while maintaining our leadership position in the digital identity verification market,” Socure co-founder and CEO Sunil Madhu said. The capital will also go toward growing the company’s sales and support operations, as well as building out its infrastructure.

Pictured: Socure CEO and co-founder Sunil Madhu demonstrating Perceive at FinovateFall 2015.

Socure’s Predictive Analytics Platform helps companies in a number of verticals improve onboarding of new customers and reduce identity fraud. The company’s technology leverages online and offline data, including data from social networks to discern whether or not a given person has been accurately identified. Socure says its technology has improved customer acceptance rates by more than 35% in new account openings. The company’s solutions have also reduced manual review by 90%, producing low historical false positives and eliminating the reliance on knowledge-based authentication. Socure also supports KYC and AML compliance requirements, providing increased fraud capture of 50%.

Calling identity verification “critical to the success of the next-generation financial services and commerce eco-systems,” Commerce Ventures partner Dan Rosen highlighted Socure’s ability to leverage data to determine identity. “Socure has become a leader in digital identity verification by applying state of the art machine learning technologies to 300-plus identity-relevant data sources,” Rosen said. Mariano Belinky, Santander InnoVentures managing partner, added that Socure’s technology was especially useful for providing financing to thin credit file individuals and those from underbanked communities. “There is enormous potential for tackling the issue of financial inclusion, with the help of Socure,” Belinky said.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York City, Socure unveiled its remote facial biometrics solution, Perceive, at FinovateFall 2015. Named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list in June and Planet Compliance’s RegTech Top 100 Power roster in March, the company offered the first SOC2 2 compliant digital identity verification solution late last year. Socure includes a top five U.S. bank, a top five global money transfer provider and a top ten U.S. card issuer among its customers. The company will demonstrate its latest technology – as well as announce a new partnership – at FinovateFall in September. To see Socure, and the rest of our FinovateFall lineup, register today and save your spot.

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Colorado’s PSCU Completes MalauzaiOne Digital Banking Roll Out

Colorado’s PSCU Completes MalauzaiOne Digital Banking Roll Out
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Malauzai Software

Chalk another one up for the Malauzai Monkeys.

The third largest credit union in Colorado, Public Service Credit Union (PSCU) with more than $2.3 billion in assets and 219,00 members, has completed the roll-out of its new digital banking platform – powered by Malauzai Software. PSCU CEO Todd Marksberry said the Austin, Texas digital banking solutions provider was the only company able to deliver a fully-digital banking platform that could serve both its credit unions retail and business members.

“MalauzaiOne Digital Banking was the only solution that provided a unified member experience across all digital channels on a single platform,” Marksberry explained, pointing to the platform’s “feature-rich tools” for PSCU’s business banking members. “Despite the growing number of small businesses nationwide,” he added, “there continues to be a void in terms of digital banking tools that meet their needs.”

With MalauzaiOne Digital Banking, PSCU My eBanking mobile and online banking app users can access a suite of services including online and mobile banking, electronic statements, billpay, check imaging, remote deposit capture (RDC), and text/email alerts. PSCU retail and business members alike can also take advantage of financial management and budgeting tools. And as a single, end-to-end platform, Malauzai chief product officer Robb Gaynor explained, the technology provides a number of advantages for both FIs and customers. “We are easing maintenance, lowering costs, and supporting the overall simplicity of their digital banking efforts,” Gaynor said. PSCU notes that more than 91,000 members are actively using their digital banking technology.

Founded in 2009 and based in Austin, Texas, Malauzai Software demonstrated MOX Pay Powered by Visual App Builder at FinovateSpring 2016. Last month, Malauzai reported more than 200,000 mobile check deposit transactions per month and a monthly increase of 3% to 5% in overall RDC usage this year. In May, the company partnered with fellow Finovate alums Vantiv and OnDot to develop a youth spending solution, Family Manager: SmartKid Control. Malauzai began 2017 with the tailwind of a strong 2016, having expanded its customer base to more than 425 community FIs, grew the number of downloads of its SmartApps to more than 1.2 million, and established more than 200 points of integration, including with more than 40 core banking providers and payment processors. Malauzai has raised more than $24 million in funding and includes Live Oak Banking Company and Wellington Management among its investors.

PSCU is headquartered in Lone Tree, Colorado and was founded in 1938. The credit union has more than 28 branches in Colorado, and offers a wide range of financial products and services including savings and checking accounts, loans, mortgages, mobile banking, online billpay and more.

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$726 Million Raised by 25 Alums in Q2 2017

$726 Million Raised by 25 Alums in Q2 2017
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings

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Updated (4/18/18): Finovate alums raised more than $726 million in the second quarter of 2017. The funding total, which does not include a pair of undisclosed investments for Bitbond and Symbiont, represents one of the highest Q2 fundings for Finovate alums to date (Q2 2015 produced more than $840 million). The second quarter total is more than triple the total funding for alums in the previous quarter, reinforcing the notion that pause in fintech investment over the first few months 2017 has likely passed.

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q2 2016: More than $510 million raised by 23 alums
  • Q2 2015: More than $840 million raised by eight alums
  • Q2 2014: More than $458 million raised by eight alums

The biggest equity deal of the second quarter by far was the $225 million equity investment Klarna received from new strategic investor, Brightfolk in June. The capital infusion made Brightfolk a qualified owner of the company (i.e., owned more than 10%) and gave Klarna an estimated valuation of more than $2.25 billion.

Also impressive was the $120 million raised by Kreditech, which represents the largest equity investment in a German fintech so far. The top 10 investments in the second quarter of 2017 totaled $610 million or more than 80% of the quarter’s total alum funding.

Top 10 Equity Investments (equity only)

  1. Klarna: $225 million
  2. Kreditech: $120 million
  3. Signifyd: $56 million
  4. Zopa: $41 million
  5. Blockchain: $40 million
  6. Scalable Capital: $33 million
  7. Fintonic: $28 million
  8. Additiv: $25.5 million
  9. savedroid: $22 million
  10. Crowdflower: $20 million

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q2 2017.

April 2017: More than $41 million raised by four alums

  • Meniga: $8 million – post
  • Moneytree: $9 million – post
  • Narrative Science: $11 million – post
  • SwipeStox: $13 million – post

May 2017: More than $253 million raised by nine alums

  • Additiv: $25.5 million – post
  • Bitbond: undisclosed – post
  • Kreditech: $120 million – post
  • NetGuardians: $8 million – post
  • Quovo: $10 million – post
  • Signifyd: $56 million – post
  • Symbiont: undisclosed – post
  • Token: $18.5 million – post
  • Vera: $15 million – post

June 2017: More than $432 million raised by 11 alums

  • Blockchain: $40 million – post
  • Cardlytics: $12 million – post
  • Crowdflower: $20 million – post
  • Fintonic: $28 million – post
  • Klarna: $225 million – post
  • Scalable Capital: $33 million – post
  • StockViews: $640,000 – post
  • Stratumn: $7.8 million – post
  • Trusona: $10 million – post
  • Yoyo Wallet: $15 million – post
  • Zopa: $41 million – post

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the second quarter of 2017, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Credit Karma, DemystData, Green Key Technologies, IdentityMind Global, Malauzai Software, Mitek, NCR Corporation, Prosper, Socure, SoFi, Vantiv

On Finovate.com

  • Socure Raises $14 Million in New Funding
  • BioCatch Partners with LexisNexis to Leverage Data and Analytics for Better Risk Management
  • Colorado’s PSCU Completes Digital Banking Roll Out Powered by Malauzai Software

Around the web

  • Voice collaboration specialist GreenKey wins patent for speech-to-text technology.
  • NCR deploys Windows 10 IoT Enterprise with major European financial institution.
  • IdentityMind Global announces enhancements to its Enterprise Fraud Prevention platform.
  • Vantiv goes live with its cloud payment API, triPOS.
  • Forbes lists SoFi, Credit Karma and Prosper in its list of the 10 biggest fintechs in America.
  • ABN AMRO selects DemystData for Launchpad Program.

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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HooYu Brings Identity Confirmation Technology to BCRemit

HooYu Brings Identity Confirmation Technology to BCRemit
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: HooYu

Better onboarding and fewer fraud incidents are the goals of U.K.-based, online money transfer platform, BCRemit. And this week, the UK.-based company partnered with identity confirmation specialist HooYu to help them reach both of those critical objectives.

“HooYu is a great complement to the traditional database identity check approach,” BCRemit Managing Director Oliver Calma said. Because most of BCRemit’s customers are migrant workers without a credit “footprint”, Calma explained, verifying and onboarding them can be a cumbersome process. In addition to making verification and onboarding easier, HooYu’s technology will provide valuable anti-fraud protections. “HooYu also catches fraudsters that sometimes slip through identity database checks where they have already committed identity theft and know the name and address of the person they are impersonating,” Calma said.

BCRemit specializes in providing online money transfer services to migrant workers, particularly from the Philippines, who are employed in Europe. A registered payments institution with the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), BCRemit enables recipients to collect cash at any one of more than 7,000 branches of BCRemit’s pay-out partners. Bank transfers can be made to any bank in the Philippines, including Allied Bank, BDO, and PNB.

Pictured: HooYu Marketing Director David Pope and Product Director Grant Greenwood demonstrating the HooYu identity confirmation platform at FinovateEurope 2017.

Director of Marketing for HooYu David Pope pointed to the ease-of-use of HooYu’s platform for the end user as another major selling point for the technology. “This enables our clients to improve conversion, still offer the consumer a smooth customer journey, and comply with AML regulations,” Pope said.

HooYu demonstrated its global identity confirmation service at FinovateEurope 2017. The company’s technology enables real-time identify verification without requiring any exchange or storage of sensitive personal information like social security numbers. Once integrated into the firm’s online application process, the HooYu service analyzes and cross checks data from the person’s digital footprint. At the same time, the technology extracts, analyzes, and validates information from the person’s ID documentation, including a biometric facial recognition check with the person’s photo ID.

In addition to money transfer firms, HooYu serves lenders, banks, and even individuals with its identify confirmation technology. “It’s our philosophy that in today’s digital age sometimes consumers want to check the identity of other consumers,” Pope said, using the example of P2P commerce via online marketplaces. “And it shouldn’t just be the privilege of big banks or clever online businesses to check someone else’s identity.”

Last month, HooYu announced a partnership with Australia’s first crowd investment platform, Vestabyte. In May, HooYu teamed up with Irish information services provider Stubbs Gazette. The company was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in London, U.K. Keith Marsden is CEO.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BBVA, Digilitimoney, eMoney Advisor, HooYu, Kony, Payoneer, Qapital, Risk Ident, Shoeboxed, StreetShares, Temenos, Trusona, Venmo

On Finovate.com

  • HooYu Brings Identity Confirmation Technology to BCRemit.
  • StreetShares Raises $10.3 Million for “Shark Tank Meets eBay” Approach to P2P Lending.
  • Flywire Expands Operations in Japan, Forms Partnership with Volvo.

Around the web

  • UPS Capital launches cross-border B2B payment service powered by Payoneer.
  • Risk Ident opens new U.S. office at Cambridge Innovation Center, near Boston, Massachusetts.
  • Venmo introduces QR code feature to help users find payee profiles faster.
  • eMoney launches redesigned website with a new UX enhanced navigation and multimedia content.
  • Digiliti Money (formerly Cachet Financial Solutions) appoints interim CEO.
  • Qapital now offers checking account and debit card.
  • BBVA joins Singapore-based trade finance platform Capital and Credit Risk Manager
  • Al Masraf selects Temenos’ digital banking technology
  • Kony announces V8 release of Kony AppPlatform to help developers design, develop and deliver omnichannel apps fast.
  • Shoeboxed launches Fetch, a new expense system
  • Trusona opens new office in Tokyo, Japan.

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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Emirates NBD Enlists Efigence for UX/UI Makeover

Emirates NBD Enlists Efigence for UX/UI Makeover
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Efigence

When we first met efigence back at FinovateEurope 2013, the Polish customer experience designer for financial services companies was sharing the stage with Bank 3.0 innovator mBank. A year later, efigence was back on stage, this time arm–in-arm with SME-banking specialist, Idea Bank.

You get the feeling that efigence has a way with banks.

The latest bank to partner with the company is Emirates NBD, which announced this week that efigence helped the leading Middle Eastern banking group build a new interface and enhanced user experience for its bankingplatform. In addition providing a new graphical user interface (GUI) and improving the platform’s information architecture, the new solution will enable customers to personalize their online experience, manage finances from a “smart insights” equipped dashboard, and use video banking and chat via FaceBanking to talk with a bank advisor. Suvo Sarkar, SVP and Group Head of Retail Banking and Wealth Management at Emirats NBD said the new technology “brings Emirates NBD’s clients to the future of banking.”

“Making use of our broad experience, together with the client’s team, we created a completely new innovative digital banking experience,”Andrzej Szewczyk, VP and MD of Efigence, added. “(This) means that Emirates NBD leaves the competition in its wake. Szewczyk referred to the partnership as “re-invent(ing) digital banking from scratch.”

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, Efigence most recently demonstrated its Efi4 Digital Banking platform at FinovateEurope 2017. The company’s platform includes a tailor-made interface and experience for users, as well as forecasting, payments, and transactions automation modules. With Efi4, Efigence provides a digital banking solution that marries off-the-shelf technology with UI and UX customized for each financial institution. This enables the company’s technology to provide banks with fast implementation, while retaining the look and familiarity of the bank’s brand.

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Roostify Celebrates Growth, Role of External Developers on its Platform

Roostify Celebrates Growth, Role of External Developers on its Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Roostify

How many fintechs can boast of having more external developers working on its platform than in-house talent?

That’s the happy situation Roostify finds itself in. The automated lending technology innovator announced this week that the number of external developers working on the online mortgage platform now exceeds the number of Roostify’s in-house engineers. For newly-hired VP of Products, Sandeep Aji, this milestone is a major validation of the company’s ability to successfully promote the functionality of its API. “Our clients are finding value in the flexibility and extensibility that Roostify offers versus a static, off-the-shelf software program,” Aji said.

Pictured: Roostify co-founder and Head of Product Nathaniel Sokoll-Ward demonstrating the company’s platform at FinovateSpring 2016.

The ability to build customized workflows is at the heart of what is attracting both large enterprise customers as well as “tech-savvy smaller lenders” to Roostify’s platform. The Roostify API enables users to design their own processes to run within the platform and to easily integrate with their own CIS, CRM, LOS, and Access Control systems. This allows a wider number of potential users of the technology, who don’t have to wait for a specific integration for their system. “The API allows them to build that integration themselves and create the workflow that’s right for their business, rather than forcing them to adopt a different program in order to use Roostify,” Aji explained.

Founded in January 2014 and based in San Francisco, California, Roostify demonstrated its SaaS-based, end-to-end lending platform at FinovateSpring 2016. Last month, the company was named to the Forbes 2017 Cloud 100 list and was credited by First California Mortgage (First Cal) for helping them reduce average loan timeframes to 15 days (national average is 43 days). Also a member of CB Insights Fintech 250, Roostify added former Appfluent Technology CEO Frank Gelbart as Chief Revenue Officer in April, and announced a deal to power Chase Bank’s self-serve mortgage platform in February. The company has raised $8 million in funding, and includes USAA and Colchis Capital Management among its investors. Rajesh Bhat is co-founder and CEO.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AutoGravity, Coinbase, Efigence, Icon Solutions, Infosys, Realty Mogul, Roostify

On Finovate.com

  • Roostify Celebrates Growth, Role of External Developers on its Platform.
  • Emirates NBD Enlists Efigence for UX/UI Makeover.

Around the web

  • Icon Solutions initiates functional testing between the Instant Payments Framework and EBA Clearing’s RT1 platform.
  • Infosys to acquire product design and CX specialist, Brilliant Basics.
  • TechCrunch: Coinbase to provide support for Bitcoin Bash in 2018.
  • RealtyMogul.com celebrates the first anniversary of the first crowdfunded REIT, MogulREIT 1.
  • AutoGravity announces reaching 500,000 download milestone for its app.

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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Huntington National Bank Chooses PFM, BFM Solutions from Barcelona-Based Strands

Huntington National Bank Chooses PFM, BFM Solutions from Barcelona-Based Strands
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Strands

Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington National Bank will offer personal finance management (PFM) and business financial management (BFM) solutions from Spanish fintech, Strands. “We are pushing the envelope and delivering a product that will align seamlessly to Huntington’s brand and unique digital banking experience,” Strands CEO Erik Brieva said.

For Strands the partnership is both an opportunity to expand in the North American market as well as a chance to further demonstrate its technology’s difference from traditional PFMs. Strands’ technology combines machine learning, Big Data, and a streamlined UI to provide a personalized, data-driven banking experience used by more than 600 banks including BBVA, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of Montreal. Payments and Channels Director for Huntington Mark Sheehan, called Strands a ‘leader” in the industry and said the partnership would enable the bank to bring “new, customer-centric, digital banking solutions” to its customers and further separate its offerings from those of its competitors. Huntington National Bank has $101 billion in assets, a network of nearly 1,000 branches, and more than 1,800 ATMs in eight states in the midwest.

Founded in 2004 and based in Barcelona, Spain, Strands demonstrated its Business Financial Management solution at FinovateFall 2016. The company has more than 600 product implementations, with 100 million users in 36 countries. Strands has raised $55 million in funding, and includes Debaeque, Dalbergia, Indigo Investment Corporation, and Sequel Venture Partners among its investors. This spring, Strands announced it would provide the PFM technology for the digital banking service launched by Commercial Bank of Africa, the largest bank in Kenya. In December, the company inked a PFM implementation deal with major Colombian bank, Davivienda.

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