Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Truphone Raises $339 Million to Fuel Global Expansion.
  • Best of Show Winner Voleo and Nasdaq to Launch Equity Trading Competition.

Around the web

  • New York Life launches student loan repayment program; partners with Student Loan Genius.
  • NCR unveils new mPOS solution, Ring Up, designed for U.S. micro businesses.
  • Invstr to offer fractional share trading via partnership with DriveWealth.
  • MarketEarlybird announces availability on cloud-based workflow and collaboration platform, Symphony.
  • Quadient (formerly GMC Software) expands Partner Advantage Program.
  • Top Image Systems eFLOW Remit tops 50 billion transactions.
  • Ondot Systems brings its card control technology to Access Softek mobile banking platform.
  • Pendo launches Pendo Machine Learning Platform (PMLP).
  • ICBA adds CECL Solution from ProfitStars to Preferred Service Provider Program
  • Finastra adds three new CU clients
  • Kony to power next-gen digital platform for NRT and Sightline.
  • Pendo Systems selected by SWIFT as One of 16 Fintechs to Exhibit at SIBOS 2017.
  • 35 Finovate alums named in IDC Financial Insights’ top 100 fintech rankings

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.

EVRY Announces Five-Year, $18.7 Million Card Deal with Finland’s Aktia Bank

EVRY Announces Five-Year, $18.7 Million Card Deal with Finland’s Aktia Bank

Thanks to a new partnership, EVRY will provide Finland’s Aktia Bank with the “entire value chain for card payments,” including virtual debit and credit cards for the bank’s digital, Aktia Wallet. The agreement is valued at $18.7 million (NOK 150 million) and will last for five years.

Christer Jonsson, SVP of Card for EVRY Financial Services referred to the deal as an expansion of the company’s current relationship with the bank. “Digitalization and new market entrants are creating a need for solutions to be even more personalized and customized,” Jonsson said. “We will help with this through our specialist expertise and thus create digital advantage for Aktia.”

The agreement with Aktia Bank calls for EVRY to deliver everything from physical credit and debit cards to services such as card administration, authorization processing, and transaction monitoring. Virtual cards are also an area of focus for the Finland-based bank, which will be among the first customers of EVRY’s new technology for digitizing cards on mobile devices. “We are working hard to offer new solutions that will make it easier for our customers to manage their finances on a day-to-day basis,” Director of Loans and Cards for Aktia Bank, Anton Tulikoura said, “and this collaboration with EVRY will help accelerate developments in this area.”

Delivering credit and debit cards to more than 100 card issuers in 12 countries, EVRY demonstrated its personal finance solution Spendific at FinovateEurope 2015. Founded in 1962 and headquartered in Oslo, Norway, the company processes up to 250 card transactions per second, issues 25 million cards each year, and monitors more than one billion card transactions every year as part of its fraud mitigation efforts.

Last month, EVRY announced a five-year, IT consulting partnership with Statoil, and extended its IT services agreement with the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. In August, Danish IT services firm Bankdata chose EVRY’s Cash Management solutions in a $3.75 million (NOK 30 million), three-year deal. And earlier this year, EVRY reported that it would continue IT infrastructure management for Sweden’s central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, for another two years. Björn Ivroth is EVRY’s CEO.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  •  Luxoft Acquires UNAFORTIS to Broaden Client Base within Financial Services.
  • EVRY Announces Five-Year, $18.7 Million Deal with Finland’s Aktia Bank.
  • OurCrowd Opens Office in Spain, Lays Down Roots with Strategic Partnership.

Around the web

  • Trulioo launches its Global Business Verification service.
  • Diebold partnership with Transguard to expand service and technology offerings in the UAE.
  • Ethiopia’s Cooperative Bank of Oromia goes live with core banking solution from Temenos.
  • Pindrop Security leverages machine learning and a “customer consortium of shared fraudsters” to introduce Pindrop Protect 4.0.
  • Quovo unveils new account authentication solution, Autoverified Micro-deposits.
  • Xero partners with UK fintech Curve to automate expense management.
  • Zopa searches for new borrowers through Saffron Building Society loan partnership.
  • Sberbank, Russia’s Largest Bank, Announces Payment Solution.
  • DefenseStorm Renews SOC 2 Compliance.

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.

Swych Seals Series A Funding

Swych Seals Series A Funding

Digital gifting platform Swych has closed its Series A round with a “major strategic capital investment” from UAE Exchange Group. The amount of the investment was undisclosed.

“Swych’s global gifting technology and vision fits well with our strategy to foster purpose-based money transfers,” UAE Exchange Group CEO Promoth Manghat said. “As a group, we are always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with organizations that drive innovation, provide differential services and promote digital initiatives,” he added. “In Swych, we see a unique value proposition that checks all these boxes.”

Swych’s platform gives users the ability to send “swychable” digital gifts from their mobile device that are redeemable for electronic gift cards from more than 120 retail partners. Users can also upload their plastic gift cards to the Swych mobile app and checkout using their smartphone to scan the bar code at the register. They can also earn rewards points that can be used to buy “swychable” gift cards. Businesses can use the company’s GiftBot platform or its “Gifting-as-a-Service” APIs to produce their own customized digital gift cards.

UAE Exchange and Swych will work together to develop digital gifting services for international markets, with a U.S.-to-India service under consideration as an initial launch. Swych founder and CEO Deepak Jain underscored the opportunity of leveraging UAE’s international reach, saying it would “greatly accelerate Swych in its mission to become the leader in digital cross-border gifting services globally.” A money transfer, foreign exchange, and payments solutions provider, UAE Exchange has in excess of 200,000 agent locations in more than 160 countries and 15+ million customers worldwide. UAE Exchange was established in 1980 and is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Plano, Texas-based Swych won Best of Show for its demonstration of the Swych Mobile Gifting Platform at FinovateFall 2016. The mobile app is available for free at both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Tuition.io Raises $7 Million in Series B

Tuition.io Raises $7 Million in Series B

In a round led by Wildcat Venture Partners and featuring participation from current investors Mohr Davidow Ventures and MassMutual Ventures, student loan repayment assistance platform Tuition.io has raised $7 million in new funding. The Series B round brings the company’s total capital to more than $15 million.

“We are committed to expanding our student loan assistance offerings and driving mass adoption until student loan repayment assistance becomes a national and even international employee benefit standard,” Tuition.io CEO Scott Thompson said. Thompson also referred to student loan repayment assistance as a global competitiveness issue for companies “in the increasingly aggressive race to hire and retain top talent.”

Scott Thompson, Tuition.io CEO, discussing the challenge of helping millennials manage student loan debt with Finovate Director of Strategy Lisa Moyle at FinovateFall last week.

“Tuition.io’s value to our partners and their employees is clear,” General Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners Bryan Stolle added. “The company is changing the face of employee benefits while helping address a national crisis that is only slated to get worse,” Stolle said.

In addition to the funding, the company also announced a new office in San Mateo, California, which will be staffed by a pair of new executives: Scott Simmons and Danica Bracy. Simmons will serve as Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer. Bracy will oversee management of the client portfolio as Senior Director of Partner Success.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Tuition.io demonstrated its technology a year later at FinovateFall 2012. The company was named a preferred provider by global health, wellness, and career consulting leader Mercer in September. This summer, Tuition.io announced that it would administer the new Student Loan Reduction Program for the City of Memphis. CEO Thompson participated in our Finovate Talks interview series during FinovateFall this year, opining on the topic “How Can We Help Millennials Work Through the Student Loan Debt Crisis?”

AutoGravity Teams Up with Hyundai Capital America

AutoGravity Teams Up with Hyundai Capital America

Thanks to a new partnership between Finovate Best of Show winner AutoGravity and Hyundai Capital America, California car buyers using AutoGravity have new financing options when looking to buy a Hyundai, Kia, or Genesis vehicle. “With the growing number of consumers embracing AutoGravity, as well as the seamless integration of AutoGravity with dealer process, we felt that this was the perfect opportunity to test the platform,” Hyundai Capital America President and CEO Ross Williams said.

AutoGravity founder and CEO Andreas Hinrichs said the partnership with Hyundai Capital America – which does business as Hyundai Motor Finance, Kia Motors Finance, and Genesis Finance – will give users of the auto buying and financing app a greater range of financing options. “AutoGravity brings the car financing experience into the digital age where today’s consumer wants to find it: in the palm of their hand,” Hinrichs added.

Available in at both the Apple App Store and at Google Play, AutoGravity’s free app digitally connects prospective car buyers and leasers with lenders and dealers. Partnerships with leading banks and captive lenders like Hyundai Capital America enable car shoppers to arrive at the dealership with everything from vehicle selection to financing already ready-to-go. Since its launch in 2016, more than 700,000 consumers have downloaded AutoGravity’s app.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Irvine, California, AutoGravity demonstrated its app at FinovateFall 2016, winning Best of Show. Last month, the company was highlighted by GoBankingRates as one of the best personal finance apps and featured by AutoFinance News as one out of 10 auto finance and mobility companies leveraging AI. AutoGravity announced an investment from VW Credit, Volkswagen’s finance division in July, a partnership with Fletcher Jones Auto Group in June, and won the 2017 North American Frost & Sullivan Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award in May.

A Look Back at FinovateFall’s Four-Day Flow

A Look Back at FinovateFall’s Four-Day Flow

Adding a pair of Discussion Days to Finovate’s traditional Demo Days format, has made it that much easier for Finovate attendees to answer the question perennial post-conference question: “So. What did you think?” Two days of keynote speeches, panels, and presentations – to say nothing of another two days of networking – gave Finovate attendees time to digest, discuss, and debate many of the ideas, technologies, and solutions that dominated the conference.

Indeed, with more than 500 minutes of live demos on Days One and Two, and twin-track, double-barrel breakout sessions and panels on Days Three and Four – it seems like the only more valuable commodity than cool fintech last week was the time to take it all in.

So with that in mind, here are a trio of Big Themes that go a long way toward defining both the content of and conversation around FinovateFall 2017.

Best of Show 2.0

Bringing our Best of Show winners on stage to kickoff the Discussion Days was a great opportunity to once-again highlight the achievements of some of our most innovative companies – as chosen by Finovate attendees. In addition to giving those who missed parts of our Demo Days the opportunity to meet our Best of Show winning companies, our panel also gave the companies the chance to reintroduce themselves and their technologies, as well as talk about their overall Finovate experience.

The Best of Show panel also helped shine a spotlight on which subsectors within fintech are really experiencing significant innovation. Think PFM is dead? Meet Envestnet | Yodlee, a multiple Best of Show winner with a new, less sophisticated take on promoting and supporting financial health and wellness. Have a hard time telling one chatbot from another? Not those who voted for Finn.ai, another multiple Best of Show winner, whose virtual banking assistant continues to impress.

From new payment technologies (Jiffee) and security solutions (SpyCloud) to customer insight technologies (Sensibill), more social approaches to investing (Voleo), and an easier way to contribute to your favorite causes (Sustainably), the Best of Show panel was a well-placed bridge to the broader discussions and deep dives on Days Three and Four.

Power to the Panel!

When it comes to getting down to fintech’s brass tacks, give me a stage filled with some of our industry’s most loquacious luminaries. Whether the topic is banking for the underbanked or blockchain technology, there’s nothing like a panel of fintech potentates to remind us of what matters to consumers, merchants, and financial institutions alike.

And what did we learn? From panelist and keynote speaker alike, it is clear that the rise of AI will be the most dominant feature of our technological future – and this will be as true for fintech as for any other subset such as biotech or insurtech. Dave Birch, Director of Innovation for Consult Hyperion, announced during his keynote speech, “Your AI will be selling financial services to my AI,” while members of our AI showcase discussed the numerous ways AI is already helping us meet challenges ranging from customer engagement to workflow automation to fraud management.

And of course big props to Day Four keynoter Tim Urban of @WaitButWhy fame whose “The AI Revolution and the Road to Superintelligence” provided a thoughtful, rousing, occasionally frightful but always entertaining exegesis on AI.

In addition to artificial intelligence, there was plenty of old school human brain power at work, as well. Consider Bradley Leimer’s interview with Jon Stein of Betterment, the informative exchange between John Waupsh and Jim Bruene on community banking, and Ghela Boskovich discussing women and investing during the Wealth Management & Investing Summit track for just a few samples of the high-calibre conversation during our Discussion Days.

Where All the Fintech Women At?

There is no doubt that fintech – like the rest of technology – is becoming a more diverse place for entrepreneurs and technologists of all backgrounds. Sometimes the networking sessions at a Finovate conference can resemble a gaggle at the United Nations as the mix of Baby Boomers, GenXers, and Millennials from across the world come together to talk fintech.

Gender diversity is another area where fintech in general and Finovate in specific have made strides. In what might be the largest number of women leading or participating on the Finovate stage, our Demo Days featured Olivia Lovenmark (Voleo), Ana Silva and Sara Martins (ITSector), Janice Diner (Horizn), Meggie Ladlow (United Income), Nikhita Iyar (Moxtra), Inbal Tirosh (Endor), Izabella Gawron (ING Bank Slaski), Sarah Clark (Mitek), Elisabeth Asirifi (cyberProductivity), Ellison Anne Williams (ENVEIL), Lauren Matheson (PromonTech), Diana Winstanley (ebankIT), Harini Padmanabhan (Envestnet | Yodlee), Lisa Shields (FI SPAN), and Donna Tilden (RateSeer).

But our work is far from done. As more than one attendee noted, our panel on fintech incubators on Day Four featured 14 startups showcased by seven accelerators – but nary a woman on stage. “Let’s fix this!” one attendee tweeted – and we agree. For those of us who play any role in helping encourage and enable the next generation of fintech entrepreneurs, ensuring the representation of #womenintech needs to be job one.

We hope you enjoyed our expanded FinovateFall 2017. For more coverage of the conference, check out our Best of Show review, our Twitter coverage, and our upcoming Finovate in the Press feature!

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • With New Funding, Prosper’s Valuation stands at $550 Million.
  • Tuition.io Raises $7 Million in Series B.
  • AutoGravity Teams Up with Hyundai Capital America.

Around the web

  • Infosys Finacle partners with ToneTag to leverage sound wave technology to drive contactless authentications and transactions.
  • PYMNTS interviews Jumio CEO Stephen Stuut on the challenge of combating cybercrime in “real time.”
  • Xero teams up with TradeGecko to help Singapore’s SMEs Go-Digital.
  • Bento for Business appoints Jeff Pomeroy to the role of Vice President of Product.
  • ThreatMetrix Announces Smart Authentication Platform.

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.

Somerset Trust Leverages MalauzaiOne to Bring Digital Banking to Business Customers

Somerset Trust Leverages MalauzaiOne to Bring Digital Banking to Business Customers

Courtesy of its partnership with Malauzai, Somerset Trust Company is extending its digital banking service to its business customers. The West Pennsylvania-based community bank will use the same MalauzaiOne digital banking platform it rolled out to retail customers last year, giving business users digital access to their accounts and easier ways to manage payments and receivables.

“The response to our digital banking offerings from our retail customers has been tremendous,” Somerset Bank COO John Gill said. He credited the alliance with Malauzai for giving the bank the ability to “design a cutting-edge banking solution that both our retail and business customers can use interchangeably and seamlessly.” Somerset Bank’s deployment of Malauzai’s technology for retail users was recognized by the inaugural Best of FinXTech Awards, sponsored by Bank Director.

In his statement, Malauzai Chief Product Officer Robb Gaynor highlighted this same advantage of using a single platform for both retail and business banking. “It is great to see banks like Somerset benefit from what Malauzai’s single platform delivers: better engagement with customers, less complexity in their back office and ultimately much lower costs to support the digital channels.”

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Malauzai demonstrated its Conversational Banking for Businesses at FinovateFall 2017 (demo video available soon). The company has more than 425 customers using its technology and more than 800,000 active end users. In August, Malauzai added the Public Service Credit Union (PSCU) with more than $2.3 billion in assets and 219,000 members to the list of FIs using MalauzaiOne Digital Banking. Back in May, Malauzai’s partnership with fellow Finovate alums OnDot and Vantiv enabled Vantiv to launch a youth spending solution called Family Manager: SmartKid Control.

Malauzai has raised more than $25 million in funding and includes Live Oak Banking Company and Wellington Management among its investors. Tom Shen is CEO.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Enabled by AI, Self-Service Is the Future of Banking

Around the web

  • eWise offers free access to Categorization-as-a-Service (CaaS) API.
  • Mastercard to introduce contactless payments in Myanmar courtesy of partnership with Co-Operative Limited Bank (CB Bank).
  • Michigan-based Marshall Community Credit Union hires Insuritas.
  • Tesobe announcing APIDays Berlin on 7 & 8 November
  • Pascal Gauthier nominated President of cryptocurrency & blockchain security company Ledger
  • Hyundai Capital America joins the AutoGravity car shopping and financing platform
  • Coinbase announces Ethereum & Litecoin vaults
  • Pirean’s Access: One wins Cloud Security Product of the Year at the 2017 Computing Cloud Excellence Awards.

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.

Bill.com Wins New Partner and Strategic Investor in JP Morgan Chase

Bill.com Wins New Partner and Strategic Investor in JP Morgan Chase

Business payments network Bill.com announced this week that JP Morgan Chase will leverage Bill.com’s technology to add an automated payment solution to its digital platform for businesses. The new solution is scheduled to be unveiled in 2018, and is designed to give businesses and easier and faster way to send invoices and get paid.

CEO of Commercial Banking for JP Morgan Chase, Doug Petno, called the partnership part of the bank’s drive to “deliver more value and functionality” to clients.  JP Morgan Chase Business Banking CEO Andrew Kresse added that teaming up with Bill.com would enable Chase to become what he called “the easiest bank to work with.” Kresse explained this meant “finding ways to help businesses move toward digital automation and quicker time to money.” He added, “this solution does just that.”

The new B2B solution is slated to reduce bill management time by up to 50%. Businesses will be able to send and receive electronic payments and invoices, electronically store and manage documents, and enable workers and customers to use efficient, digital workflows. The solution will be able to synch with other accounting platforms, removing the need for manual data entry. “Chase clients will be able to say goodbye to sending and receiving paper checks and hello to a new era of time and cost savings,” Bill.com CEO and founder Rene Lacerte said.

In addition to the integration, JP Morgan Chase has made a strategic investment in the Palo Alto, California-based company. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. But Bill.com is believed to have raised more than $159 million in funding. JP Morgan Chase joins Bank of America and Silicon Valley Bank, as well as Scale Venture Partners and Emergence Capital Partners among Bill.com’s investors.

Founded in 2006, California, Bill.com demonstrated its CashView solution at FinovateSpring 2012. The company has more than 2.5 million members in its networking sending and receiving more than $36 billion in payments each year. Partnered with four of the top 10 banks in the U.S. and more than half of the top 100 U.S. accounting firms, Bill.com teamed up with Commerce Bank in July to help FI launch its automated AR/AP service CashFlow Complete.  Also this summer Bill.com announced deeper integration with Intuit’s QuickBooks and a similar initiative with fellow Finovate alum, Expensify. The company began the year by forging a strategic partnership with Capital One – and Gusto – to help development financial management solutions for SMEs.

Join the Next Wave of InsurTech Innovators! Call for Demos at InsurTech Rising

Join the Next Wave of InsurTech Innovators! Call for Demos at InsurTech Rising

InsurTech – if 2016 was all about the hype, this year is about where it’s delivering value.

The digital and business strategies of insurers are in closer alignment and InsurTechs continue to accelerate the industry’s transformation, connecting the old and new worlds. Partnerships between the big and small continue to multiply and the benefits of these symbiotic relationships begin to be felt, with some insurers on the road to change and some InsurTechs on the route to scale.

Yet a number of questions come to mind when thinking about the impact of InsurTech:

  • Are new tech-driven propositions really gaining traction in the market and, if so, where? Where should insurers place their bets?
  • If InsurTech has been largely product innovation focused to date, when can we expect disruptive business models to emerge, and what will they look like?
  • Where can we see InsurTechs taking on the less “sexy” areas of the value chain and creating value by transforming the core of insurance?

These are sure to be some of the big talking points at InsurTech Rising in October (16-18) when we bring together C-Level insurers and innovators to discuss the future of an industry at a turning point.

For InsurTechs with a solution that can deliver value and impact, InsurTech Rising is the platform to showcase your offering to an audience of 700+ insurance execs and investors. Apply now to stake your place among the next wave of InsurTech innovators.