This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
April is Financial Literacy Month. And while we are all getting an intensive course in trade policy these days, a few hours spent shoring up financial literacy (including how to handle market downturns!) is always time well spent.
With this in mind, today we showcase Finovate alums in recent years that have made financial literacy a key part of their mission when it comes to building new fintech solutions.
To learn more about Finovate alums innovating in the area of financial literacy before 2023, check out our previous Financial Literacy content, including Best of Show winners that are innovating in this space!
AI-powered anti-money laundering (AML) company Hawk has raised $56 million in Series C funding.
The investment will fuel product innovation for the Munich, Germany-based fintech, as well as power the company’s expansion plans.
Hawk made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022 in San Francisco. The company was founded in 2018.
Hawk , a company offering AI-powered anti-money laundering (AML), screening, and fraud prevention solutions, has secured $56 million in Series C funding. The fintech, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022, will use the capital to help Tier 1 banks leverage AI to fight financial crime. The investment adds to the more than $134 million the company has already raised.
“Every financial institution that wants to reduce compliance workloads and increase the accuracy of risk detection should be using AI to achieve those goals,” Hawk CEO Tobias Schweiger said. “The results are compelling—we’ve been able to increase alert accuracy to almost 90% in some cases, while significantly cutting false positives. We’re also uncovering twice as many previously undetected cases of ‘novel’ criminal activity.”
Hawk’s funding round was led by One Peak, which joined existing investors Macquarie Capital, Rabobank, BlackFin Capital Partners, Sands Capital, DN Capital, Picus, and Coalition.
Hawk’s technology empowers banks to move beyond traditional, rules-based anti-money laundering and fraud fighting methods that often produce a sizable number of false positives that require human review and intervention. This drives up the cost of fighting financial crime. Further, fraudsters are increasingly adept at circumventing and subverting rules-based AML and fraud detection strategies. To address this, Hawk puts AI-powered technology to work increasing the fraud detection accuracy to find more crime while keeping false positives low.
“AI is in our DNA at Hawk,” Schweiger said. “Our mission is to provide financial institutions with the technology, the expertise and the support that they need to realize the transformative impact that machine learning and generative AI can have across their anti-financial crime operations.”
With more than 80 customers around the world, Hawk boasts partners ranging from large Tier 1 banks to mid-market financial institutions and fintechs. Hawk’s latest investment will help bring continued product innovation to these firms, as well as support the company’s expansion plans.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Munich, Germany, Hawk made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022 in San Francisco. At the conference, the company demonstrated its AI Surveillance Suite, which uses a combination of AI and traditional rules to identify anomalous behavior in real-time.
Hawk began this year with the launch of its Anti-Money Laundering AI Overlay, which enables banks to reduce false positives and detect novel crime without having to swap out the current AML systems. The solution, according to Hawk Chief Product Officer Wolfgang Berner, is “delivering prediction accuracy in excess of 85% (and) reducing false positives to less than 15%.” Berner underscored that the overlay achieved all of this via AI optimization “rather than a total system overhaul.”
In February, the company appointed Ben Pannier as Chief Technology Officer. Pannier comes to Hawk having held leadership positions at firms including Tide, Zalando, and PayU. That same month, Hawk was named to the Chartis 2025 Financial Crime and Compliance 50 for its real-time transaction monitoring technology.
Netherlands-based software platform company Topicus launched Akkuro, its composable banking platform.
The new offering combines multiple Topicus Finance solutions with capabilities from fellow Finovate Five Degrees, which Topicus acquired in 2023.
Topicus most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope 2023.
Software platform developer Topicus unveiled its latest solution this week. The company launchedAkkuro, its composable banking platform, which leverages a wide variety of capabilities to enable banks and fintechs to build and deploy new financial solutions quickly, with greater flexibility and control.
Akkuro combines the functionality of multiple Topicus finance solutions with the deep capabilities of fellow Finovate alum Five Degrees, which Topicus acquired in 2023. The new offering consolidates Five Degrees’Matrix CRM and Neo Core Banking products with Topicus finance solutions such as Fyndoo Lending to provide end-to-end financial experiences, as Topicus Finance CEO Clint van Haalen underscored in a statement.
“Akkuro allows us to orchestrate the entire banking lifecycle, from investments and core banking to CRM for banks and lending,” van Haalen said. “We’re merging decades of banking expertise with a relentless drive for innovation, delivering a unified platform that empowers financial institutions to build scalable, intuitive, and future-ready solutions.”
One of the biggest trends in digital transformation, composable banking gives financial institutions a way to create and deliver financial products and services faster, and with greater flexibility. Via embedded technologies, APIs, and third-party partnerships, the modularity of composable banking enables financial institutions to respond more quickly not only to new innovations and shifting customer preferences but also to changing regulatory guidelines and mandates.
Topicus made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2014 in London. The company most recently appeared on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope 2023, where it demonstrated its Fyndoo lending platform. Topicus acquired Five Degrees later that year. The company began 2025 by taking a stake in another Finovate alum, Asseco Poland, acquiring a 9.99% position in the IT solutions provider.
Topicus is headquartered in Deventer, the Netherlands.
The news that both eToro and Klarna have put a temporary hold on their separate IPO plans tells you all you need to know about the level of concern over the new Trump Administration trade and tariff policy. Regardless of the next twists and turns in the stock market, Finovate’s Fintech Rundown will be here all week with the latest in fintech news and updates.
Payments
Bluefinboosts security, flexibility with addition of network tokenization to its ShieldConex Tokenization-as-a-Service and Orchestration platforms.
Indian payment orchestration platform Juspayraises $60 million in Series D funding.
Airwallexenables business to receive and hold funds in Israeli Shekels (ILS) via its Global Accounts and multi-currency wallet.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech developments in Canada.
Float Unveils Float FX to Help Canadian Businesses Save on Currency Conversion Costs
Toronto, Ontario-based business finance platform Floatunveiled a new solution for Canadian businesses this week. The new offering, Float FX, will enable Canadian companies to instantly convert funds at rates as much as 90% lower than with traditional banks. Float noted that the solution is part of the company’s broader goal to help support businesses that do business in the US as they navigate volatility in both currency markets and US trade policy.
“With the Canadian dollar under pressure and potential trade disruptions looming, we designed Float FX to give Canadian businesses an advantage when operating across the border,” Rob Khazzam, Co-Founder and CEO of Float, said. “Combined with offering high-yield interest on CAD and USD balances, Float provides material opportunities for companies to save on costs and protect margins—at a time when every dollar counts.”
Even before recent trade tensions with the US, businesses in Canada were facing significant challenges when it came to currency exchange. According to a recent survey—The Financial Outlook of SMBs in 2025—Float learned that more than half of the Canadian businesses queried said that they struggled to deal with high fees and poor exchange rates. In their report, Float pointed to legacy banking infrastructure and inefficient processes as the culprit, noting that many companies continued to patronize financial institutions that required time-consuming in-person visits and manual reviews, or long settlement times. This leaves businesses with exposure to fluctuations in potentially volatile exchange rates, as well as increasing their vulnerability to hidden fees.
Float FX will offer fees of 0.25% all-in, a figure that is up to 90% lower than that offered by Canadian banks. Companies will also benefit from seamless, built-in currency conversion within the Float platform, enabling them to convert, hold, and spend USD in a single location.
With more than 4,000 Canadian companies as customers, Float offers a business finance platform that helps businesses spend, save, and scale. Founded in 2019, the company provides corporate cards, automated expense management, next-day billpay, high-yield accounts, and more.
Float began the year securing $70 million CAD in Series B financing in a round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. OMERS Ventures, FJ Labs, Garage Capital, and Teralys also participated in the investment. The funding brought the company’s total funding to more than $120 million CAD in the past year. Float has used the capital to expand its product offerings and recruit talent.
Banco Santander, Kraken Secure Key Canadian Approvals to Fuel Expansion
Canadian regulators are in a “yes” mood of late when it comes to helping fintechs expand operations in the country. This week we learned that Banco Santander has secured a Canadian banking license as part of the financial institution’s effort to grow its footprint in the Americas. Also this week, crypto exchange Kraken reported that it had obtained a Restricted Dealer registration from the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).
First up, Banco Santander. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), Canada’s banking regulator, authorized Banco Santander’s Santander Consumer Bank to begin operations in March. Banco Santander has been active in the Canadian market since acquiring car financing company Carfinco Financial Group in 2014. The firm applied for a Schedule II banking license in 2019, which allows subsidiaries of foreign banks to offer financial services including deposits, lending, wealth management, and credit cards. Santander Consumer Bank was incorporated as a federally regulated financial institution in 2024 by Canada’s Minister of Finance, with OSFI approval being the final step.
Second, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has secured a Restricted Dealer registration in Canada that will enable the firm to better serve its customers in the country. As part of the announcement, the exchange announced that it would offer free Interac e-Transfer deposits to all of its Canadian clients.
“This achievement marks the culmination of a rigorous pre-registration undertaking (PRU) process, during which Kraken consistently enhanced its governance, security, and compliance protocols to meet the highest industry standards,” the Kraken blog stated this week. “As a result, our Canadian clients now benefit from a solid regulatory foundation, ensuring access to some of the most innovative and secure crypto products in the local ecosystem under the supervision of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).”
In addition to securing its restricted dealer registration, Kraken also announced the appointment of Cynthia Del Pozo as the company’s new Canadian General Manager. With nearly 15 years of experience in corporate development, operations, and fintech consulting, Del Pozo will guide an operation that has grown significantly in recent years, including surpassing $2 billion CAD in combined client assets under custody and a doubling of both team size and the number of monthly transacting users during the PRU process.
“Canada is at a turning point for crypto adoption, with a growing number of investors and institutions recognizing digital assets as a vital part of the financial future,” Del Pozo said in a statement. “The Restricted Dealer registration is a testament to the high bar Kraken has always set for consumer protection, client service, and robust security.”
Founded in 2011, Kraken enables more than 10 million traders and investors to buy and sell more than 200 digital assets and six different national currencies including USD, GBP, EUR, CAD, CHF, and AUD on its platform. David Ripley and Arjun Sethi are co-CEOs.
Meet Finovate’s Newest Canadian Alums!
Over the past year, Finovate has been proud to host a handful of innovative fintechs headquartered in Canada. Below is a look at four firms, all Canada-based, that have demonstrated their fintech innovations live on the Finovate stage of late.
PromoComply – Montreal, Quebec – FEU 2025: Offers technology that automates compliance for financial promotions, reducing legal risks, and enhancing transparency for consumers in real time.
TRIYO – Toronto, Ontario – FS 2024: Offers a work intelligence platform that integrates with existing systems, processes, and workflows to bring visibility to high-value processes across financial services.
Brim Financial – Toronto, Ontario – FF2024: Works with financial institutions, fintechs, and brands to enable them to offer their customers an end-to-end credit card and payments platform.
ZayZoon – Calgary, Alberta – FF2024: Offers an embedded Earned Wage Access (EWA) solution to enable small and mid-sized businesses to offer EWA directly from their own platforms.
Next month at FinovateSpring, we’re happy to introduce our audience to one more Canadian fintech, Cinareo Solutions (Toronto). For more about our upcoming FinovateSpring conference, visit our FinovateSpring hub today!
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Money movement innovator Wise Platform has partnered with UK-based digital bank Zempler Bank.
The partnership will enable Zempler Bank to launch a new Outbound International Payments service that will allow its customers to make international payments in both USD and EUR.
Wise has 16 million individual and business users around the world. The London-based company made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013.
Wise Platform has partnered with UK-based digital bank Zempler Bank, which helps small businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, and individual customers do business globally. Courtesy of the partnership, Zempler Bank will launch a new Outbound International Payments service that will empower more than 500,000 Zempler customers to send payments internationally in both USD and EUR directly within the Zempler app.
The integration will give Zempler customers fast, secure international payments when sending money to USD accounts in the US and when sending funds to EUR accounts inside the SEPA region. The integration will also provide transparent pricing and no hidden fees; Wise relies on the mid-market exchange rate without mark-up. Lastly, all transactions are handled within the Zempler app—though a desktop-based online banking version of the technology is expected to be available soon.
“We know that the launch of Outbound International Payments will be a popular benefit for many of our customers, particularly the ambitious small businesses looking to develop relationships with overseas suppliers and partners,” Zempler Bank CEO Rich Wagner said.
The partnership comes as small businesses face significant barriers to global expansion. One of the challenges is the complexity and cost of cross-border banking. Based on a survey commissioned by Wise from international research firm Edgar, Dunn & Company (EDC), small businesses in the UK sent more than £485 billion overseas last year, with the amount expected to grow to nearly £530 billion in 2025. Yet, at the same time, small businesses are expected to lose more than £5 billion in hidden fees this year alone.
“We understand that even the smallest businesses might want or need to work internationally, whether that’s importing a key product or component or outsourcing a task to an overseas expert,” Wagner added. “Many of our business customers are already using Wise, so it was a natural choice to partner with them to integrate that familiar functionality within our own simple-to-use banking app.”
Making its Finovate debut in 2013 as TransferWise, the company rebranded to Wise ten years later. Today, the UK-based firm offers an account that individuals and businesses can use to hold more than 50 different currencies, transfer funds between countries, and spend money overseas. Co-founded by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus and launched in 2011, Wise currently boasts 16 million users around the world. The company processes £9 billion in cross-border transactions every month, saving consumers £1.5 billion a year.
Wise’s partnership news comes as the company announces the opening of a new, larger office in Singapore. The new office comes as Wise notes that its Singapore team has doubled since 2022. Additionally, Wise’s local customer base in the region grew by 30% last financial year.
“Singapore is a cornerstone of our operations in Asia Pacific, and this new office is a key milestone in strengthening our regional presence,” Shrawan Saraogi, Singapore CEO and APAC Head of Expansion at Wise, said. “It reflects our continued investment in the country’s fintech ecosystem and our mission to provide the best way to move and manage money globally.”
SumUp announced the launch of a wide range of new products and solutions at its annual event this week.
The new offerings include a proprietary Tap to Pay on Android solution, an upgraded Business Account, as well as enhancements to its point of sale solution.
London-based SumUp won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013.
Ecommerce and payments platform SumUp took the occasion of its annual Beacon event to announce the launch of a range of new products designed to address a variety of merchant pain points. These solutions include an in-house Tap to Pay solution for Android, and a number of new features to its platform designed to help merchants of all sizes improve cash flow, efficiency, and customer engagement as they scale.
“Each of the products we launched demonstrates how the SumUp product ecosystem has grown to cover the critical needs of businesses at each stage of operations, from micro businesses to established ones with complex operations and many employees,” SumUp Chief Product Officer Anna Kuriakose said. “We believe that SumUp’s integrated ecosystem—which brings together the different aspects of running a business—is incomparable in the value it delivers to our customers.”
SumUp’s Tap to Pay on Android enables merchants to accept contactless payments directly from the thousands of phone brands and models that are not iPhones. The size and variety of the Android market, relative to iOS, has given Android a larger market share in EU countries in particular. SumUp’s proprietary Tap to Pay solution will provide a faster, more streamlined, and more reliable experience for merchants and consumers who have opted for Android. Further, SumUp’s solution features enhanced card detection, PIN entry to boost security at checkout, and delivers higher transaction success rates thanks to SumUp’s payment infrastructure and the absence of upfront costs.
Tap to Pay is currently active in Europe and Brazil. The company plans to introduce the technology in Chile, Colombia, Peru, the US, and Australia “soon.”
SumUp also unveiled a handful of new tools for merchants. These include enhancements to its SumUp Business Account. With SumUp’s new Business Account Plus, merchants will benefit from new features for multiple balances, as well as the ability to issue and track several cards and bulk transfers. The new Plus accounts are slated to go live across core markets later this month.
Additionally, SumUp introduced an upgrade to its Point of Sale solution called POS Plus. Designed with retailers such as restaurants and beauty salons in mind, POS Plus offers features such as PIN-based employee profiles, one-tap promotions, kitchen order management, and the ability to flag out-of-stock items. POS Plus is expected to be introduced to select EU markets in April.
Along with these new solutions, SumUp also announced the release of its new Solo Lite card reader, a new Kitchen Display System (KDS) to help streamline restaurant operations, and more.
Founded in 2012, SumUp won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. In the years since then, the UK-based fintech has become the partner of more than four million merchants in 36 markets around the world. With 3,000+ employees in 20 offices globally, SumUp offers payment acceptance solutions, tools to help merchants better manage and save money, and innovative technologies to enhance order management and sales. Co-Founder Daniel Klein is SumUp’s CEO.
Most recently, SumUp announced a partnership with FreedomPay to provide retail and hospitality businesses with a payment system with offline capabilities—including for remote merchants. The system will also feature the ability to access a payment processing service from a single provider, regardless of location.
“At SumUp, we are dedicated to empowering merchants with payment solutions that are as straightforward as they are secure,” SumUp Commercial Lead Joey Oliver explained. “With FreedomPay as our partner, we’re advancing our commitment to making top-tier payment technology accessible and effective for every business.”
This year’s FinovateSpring conference in San Diego (May 7 through May 9) will feature six separate streams that will enable attendees to participate in deep-dives and extended conversations about some of the most dynamic areas of fintech and financial services.
From AI, customer experience, and open banking to innovations in lending and payments, our stream sessions will help professionals in fintech and financial services take better advantage of the trends that are driving innovation in our industry.
Tickets for FinovateSpring are available now! Visit our registration page today and take advantage of early-bird savings!
Artificial Intelligence
This stream will feature a fireside chat on the real use cases for AI in banking and financial services. Theodora Lau of Unconventional Ventures and Arvind Ayyala of Geodesic Investments will discuss how smart players are using AI to solve real pain points for their businesses and their customers.
This stream will also feature a Power Panel on how financial institutions can better leverage generative AI. This panel, moderated by Lau, will include insights from Chad Smith of Better.com, Alisa Rusanoff of Crescendo Asset Management, and Tamara Zaichkowsky of Acrisure.
Customer Experience
The Customer Experience stream will include a keynote address from Sean Albertson, Founder and CEO of CX4ROCKS on the battle for customer trust and ways that banks can make every department responsible for customer experience. The Customer Experience stream will also feature a Special Address from Kyle Mack, CEO and Co-Founder, Middesk.
The Customer Experience Power Panel will examine how financial institutions can deliver outstanding omni-channel CX and move away from a siloed approach to blend human and digital CX. This panel will include Kaushal Pandia of U.S. Bank and Glenn Borok of Jump Capital. Beyond the Arc CEO Steven Ramirez will moderate.
Future Banking
The Future Banking stream will feature a keynote address from Tiffani Montez, Principal Analyst, Insider Intelligence, on “The Bank of 2030: How to move from a product-centric design to life-stage banking and compete with big tech companies that are already experience-led.”
Shining a spotlight on the issue of bank modernization, this Power Panel will examine how banks can modernize their tech estates to be fit for the digital future. The panelists will discuss the key questions—and answers—around technology, cloud, business and operational models, risk, talent, and culture. Moderated by JT Thykattil, VP & Research Director, Forrester Research, the panel will include Aditya Vikram Singh of Capital One and Katie Quilligan of BankTech Ventures.
Future Lending
The Future Lending stream will include a keynote address on capturing the opportunity of SME lending and how financial institutions can successfully engage this market.
The Future Lending stream will also feature a Power Panel on the rise of embedded lending. The panelists will discuss how embedded lending is moving beyond Buy Now, Pay Later and discuss ways financial institutions can participate in the growing ecommerce trend. The panel will include Diksha Gera of Bloomberg Intelligence, Ibrahim Al Suwaidi of DCM, Jamie Twiss of Beforepay, and Rob Seidman of U.S. Bank Avvance.
Future Payments
The Future Payments stream will include a keynote address from Lindsay Lehr, Managing Director, Payments and Commerce Market Intelligence (PCMI), titled, “Are Real-Time Payments Ready to Take Off?” Lehr’s address will answer the question “is faster always better?” and look at the challenges involved when building products on top of RTP and FedNow rails.
The Future Payments stream will also feature a Special Address: “Navigating Regulation Uncertainty While Gearing Up for Growth.” Patrick Dix, Vice President, Client & Association Engagement, SHAZAM, will share his insights on this topic and the importance of “picking the right payments partner.”
Moderated by Rutger van Faassen of InformationBanker, the Future Payments Power Panel will discuss how new technologies, new competitors, new business models, and embedded payments will shape the future of the payments market. Sharing their insights will be Ipsita Basu of Shopify, Jim Colassano of The Clearing House, and June Yuan of Wise Platform.
Open Banking
Our Open Banking stream features a keynote address on the future of open banking, a deep dive into Rule 1033, and a look at how open data will impact the US banking industry.
The Open Banking stream will also include a Power Panel on compelling use cases for open banking in the US and what financial institutions in the US can learn from the success of open banking in the rest of the world. Joining the Power Panel will be Nirvikar Jain of Woodside Capital Partners.
Tennessee-based paytech Transcard has brought generative and agentic AI capabilities to its vendor network management solution, SMART Exchange.
The new capabilities will automate onboarding and Know Your Business (KYB) processes to modernize B2B payments.
Founded in 2005, Transcard made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016.
Payments technology company Transcard has enhanced its vendor network management solution, SMART Exchange, by adding generative and agentic AI capabilities. The new capabilities will automate onboarding and Know Your Business (KYB) processes, modernizing B2B payments with an improved user experience and transforming the way buyers and suppliers integrate and orchestrate payments.
“I’m excited about the modern enhancements and agentic AI capabilities we are adding to our SMART Exchange payment solution,” Transcard CEO Greg Bloh said. “The new streamlined onboarding process and dedicated portals are set to revolutionize how businesses interact, pay, and manage their vendors.”
Transcard’s AI-powered solution removes the need for using call centers for vendor onboarding and enablement. In addition to streamlining and automating the supplier KYB process, the technology benefits buyers by making vendor information and payment instructions easier to manage, and integrates seamlessly with ERP or systems of record to ensure data synchronization with updates in near real-time. The enhancements provide suppliers with a streamlined onboarding process that enables them to validate business information, choose payment preferences, receive payments, and more. Suppliers also can access early financing options to boost cash flow and leverage a self-service portal that helps them manage business information, historical transactions, documentation, and payment preferences.
“We crafted these enhancements to address the struggles daunting buyer and supplier payments today and we’re excited to provide our customers with a modern, digital B2B solution powered by AI,” Bloh added.
Thanks to the addition of generative AI and agentic AI capabilities, Transcard’s SMART Exchange platform will provide proactive recommendations on trends and ways that companies can optimize cash flow and automate manual tasks. The solution can be embedded within a customer’s ERP or core system and connects to existing bank accounts to support payment orchestration for businesses regardless of size. Part of Transcard’s SMART Suite family of embedded payment solutions, the technology supports disbursements, receivables, account-to-account (A2A) payments, cross-border payments, AI insights, and supply chain financing.
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Transcard made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016. Today, Transcard has served more than 500 companies and offers 50+ separate payment functions. The company began the year announcing an expansion to Canada and, shortly afterwards, unveiled its multi-party lienholder payment solution, which streamlines the multi-party payment process when a lienholder is involved.
“Designed in collaboration with major insurers, mortgage servicers, and banks, we look forward to transforming the current lienholder endorsement process to an improved digital experience that reduces weeks to minutes,” Transcard EVP and Global Head of Insurance Hodgen Mainda said.
The challenge of third-party risk in financial services was one of the biggest stories in 2024. From the fallout from the Synapse bankruptcy to the data breaches at firms such as Fidelity and Finastra, banks, fintechs, and financial services alike have been put on notice to put greater scrutiny on whom and how they forge partnerships.
These challenges have only become more intense this year. While regulations are tightening in Europe and the UK, a more permissive regulatory environment is developing in the US. How can banks, fintechs, and financial services companies navigate this emerging landscape to bring new products and services to customers while ensuring that their data and finances are safe?
We interviewed Jenna Wells, Chief Operating Officer with Supply Wisdom, to talk about the issue of third-party risk management in financial services in 2025. Wells talks about how third-party risk in financial services is evolving, and what companies need to do in order to better manage it.
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2017, Supply Wisdom made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. The company helps businesses better manage risk and build operational resilience. Supply Wisdom provide continuous full-spectrum third-party and location risk intelligence and risk actions in real-time to prevent disruptions, enhance risk management efficiency, and lower costs. Tom Thimot is CEO.
Our conversation with Jenna Wells is also the final installment of Finovate’s commemoration of Women’s History Month for 2025. Previous interviews include our Q&As with Tracy Moore of Fenergo and with Stav Levi-Neumark of Alta.
What are the current challenges your customers are facing?
Jenna Wells: The biggest challenge our customers face today is the sheer complexity and speed at which third-party risks are evolving. As a whole, companies are under immense pressure to monitor their vendors, suppliers, and other third parties more effectively across financial, cyber, ESG, geopolitical, and operational risk domains without adding significant costs or delays to their business processes. Traditional risk assessment methods, which rely on periodic reviews and self-reported questionnaires, are no longer sufficient in an era where threats emerge in real time and rarely any warning.
Additionally, companies are struggling with regulatory compliance, particularly with new frameworks like DORA in the EU, new AI risks and regulations, and emerging cyber risk mandates. Many organizations simply lack the tools, resources, or expertise to stay ahead of these challenges.
Lastly, the evolving geopolitical landscape and regulatory environment require companies to keep an eye out for location-specific risks on top of the traditional domains. Monitoring third parties alone is no longer sufficient—you must monitor the locations that they are operating from!
Can you talk about the challenge of third-party risk specifically, which became a major concern in 2024?
Wells: Third-party risk became a critical concern in 2024, exposing just how fragile global supply chains can be. This was starkly evident in global events like the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and earthquakes in Taiwan, which disrupted key transportation routes and severely impacted businesses dependent on the affected port. Companies with suppliers, logistics partners, and critical infrastructure tied to these regions faced massive operational slowdowns, financial losses, and regulatory challenges. These disruptions reinforced a key lesson: risks stemming from a single geographic point of failure can have widespread consequences across all industries.
Static, periodic risk assessments are no longer enough. The new standard is continuous, real-time risk monitoring that provides visibility into financial stability, cybersecurity, compliance, and operational resilience—not just for direct suppliers, but across the entire supply network.
This shift is particularly crucial in industries reliant on complex, geographically dispersed supply chains, where a localized disaster—whether infrastructure failure, geopolitical instability, or extreme weather—can ripple outward, affecting entire markets. The challenge is no longer just about assessing third parties. It’s about identifying vulnerabilities deep in the supply chain.
How does Supply Wisdom help companies manage these risks?
Wells: Supply Wisdom provides real-time, AI-driven continuous monitoring across seven critical risk domains: financial, operational, compliance, cyber, sustainability, Nth party, and location-based risks. Instead of relying on outdated, self-reported assessments, or the need to use multiple tools to monitor single domains, we aggregate and analyze data from hundreds of thousands of open sources, giving our customers a live, always-on view of their third-party supplier and critical ecosystem.
By leveraging AI to turn massive amounts of data into actionable intelligence, we enable organizations to identify emerging risks early, mitigate issues proactively, and avoid costly disruptions. Our platform reduces the manual burden of risk management, allowing teams to focus on strategic decision-making rather than chasing data.
Supply Wisdom recently published its top 10 predictions for third-party risk management in 2025. Of those predictions, which do you think is the least conventional?
Wells: One of the more unconventional predictions is the rise of “Nth-party accountability” as a regulatory and business priority. Until now, companies have focused primarily on direct third-party risks, but regulators and stakeholders are increasingly scrutinizing deeper layers of the supply chain. This includes fourth, fifth, and even sixth-party risks.
As supply chains become more interconnected and reliant on subcontractors, understanding who your third parties depend on and where they are located has become just as critical as assessing the vendors themselves. Geographical risks like political instability, natural disasters, regulatory changes, and ESG concerns can have cascading impacts throughout the supply chain, even if they originate at the Nth-party level.
We anticipate that in 2025, organizations will be expected to not only monitor but also take responsibility for the risk posture of their vendors’ vendors. This requires real-time visibility into where these extended third parties operate and the regional risks that may affect them. This shift demands an entirely new approach to risk visibility, and Supply Wisdom is already helping companies address this challenge with location-based monitoring, real-time risk intelligence, and deep Nth-party insights.
What role do technologies like AI and strategies like predictive risk modeling play in Supply Wisdom’s approach to risk management and intelligence?
Wells: AI and predictive risk modeling are foundational to how we help companies stay ahead of emerging threats. Our AI-powered platform continuously scans and analyzes millions of risk signals across financial, cyber, ESG, geopolitical, and operational domains, detecting anomalies and trends that may indicate potential threats before they materialize into full-blown crises.
Predictive risk modeling and trend analysis takes this further by using historical data, machine learning algorithms, and real-time signals to forecast risks before they impact business operations. For example, we can predict financial distress in a vendor before it becomes public knowledge or identify early signs of operational instability in a supplier’s key locations.
In short, Supply Wisdom stands for proactive risk management and innovation. We’re known in the industry as the only full-stack risk intelligence platform that provides real-time, continuous monitoring with actionable insights.
A wave of new regulatory policies is coming, particularly in the EU. Are you optimistic about the new policies? Do you feel as if organizations are ready to comply?
Wells: I am optimistic about these policies because they are pushing organizations towards a higher standard of operational resilience and risk management. Regulations like DORA in the EU are reinforcing the idea that businesses cannot afford to be passive when it comes to third-party risk—they need real-time, continuous oversight. However, I don’t think most organizations are fully prepared for these changes.
A majority of organizations do not have a complete inventory of their third parties or outsourced services and, without this, they cannot ensure compliance with these regulations. Unfortunately, it’s most likely that these companies still rely on outdated, static assessment models that won’t meet compliance requirements.
The good news is that regulatory clarity is driving investment in solutions like Supply Wisdom, which help organizations not only meet compliance mandates but also improve their overall risk posture in the process.
In the US, there is more uncertainty about which direction regulations are likely to go. What do you see happening with financial services and fintech regulation in the US this year?
Wells: If US firms want to compete and do business in Europe; they need to comply with those specific mandates. But unlike the EU—which has taken a structured approach with DORA—the US regulatory landscape is evolving in a more fragmented manner. However, we expect to see increased scrutiny from agencies like the SEC, OCC, and CFPB on third-party risk, particularly in areas like cyber resilience and AI disclosures.
The financial services and fintech sectors will likely see more pressure around vendor risk management, with a greater emphasis on continuous monitoring, and incident reporting requirements. As regulatory guidance increases, companies will need to be proactive in adopting best practices that align with global compliance trends, rather than waiting for enforcement actions to dictate their next steps.
What are your near-term goals for Supply Wisdom?
Wells: My immediate focus is on accelerating customer adoption of continuous risk monitoring. We want to ensure that organizations not only understand the importance of real-time risk intelligence through continuous monitoring, but also have the tools to integrate it seamlessly into their existing workflows.
Additionally, I’m prioritizing scaling our operations to meet the growing demand for proactive risk management solutions. That means enhancing our AI capabilities, monitoring for AI as an emerging risk, expanding our risk intelligence coverage, and strengthening our partnerships with other industry leaders.
What can we expect from Supply Wisdom in 2025?
Wells: 2025 will be a transformational year for Supply Wisdom and the third-party risk management industry as a whole. We are investing heavily in AI-driven risk prediction, enhanced regulatory compliance automation, and planning ways to go deeper and wider into Nth-party risk visibility.
You can also expect to see more partnerships with technology and service providers to create a more integrated risk management ecosystem. Our goal is to make continuous risk monitoring the new standard, so that businesses can operate with greater confidence, resilience, and agility in an increasingly complex world.
B2B payments and invoicing network TreviPay has introduced new B2B purchase controls.
The controls will leverage automation to help reduce manual reconciliation activity and enhance compliance with procurement requirements.
Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, TreviPay made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.
Global B2B payments and invoicing network TreviPay recently unveiled new, advanced purchase controls. This new offering will enable businesses to configure and enforce customized B2B purchase policies that are aligned with their procurement requirements. The purchase controls respond to pain points in the B2B purchasing process, automating controls to reduce payment delays, minimizing manual reconciliation, and making it easier for companies to remain compliant.
“Creating frictionless B2B commerce experiences is critical for driving long-term buyer loyalty for our clients,” TreviPay Chief Product and Technology Officer Dan Zimmerman said. “TreviPay’s advanced purchase controls provide businesses with the flexibility to customize guardrails ahead of the ordering process so they can optimize access to spending and help maintain accurate records.”
The new offering comes as businesses increasingly recognize the value of invoice customization when it comes to offering a seamless purchasing experience. According to a study conducted in partnership with Murphy Research, 78% of B2B buyers indicated a need to customize or control aspects of their purchasing experience. To this end, TreviPay’s advanced purchase controls feature a variety of configurable options including:
Purchase Order (PO) Number Requirements to ensure that charges cannot be processed without a valid PO number
Amount-Based PO Thresholds to automatically enforce PO requirements for transactions that exceed a buyer-defined threshold
Unique PO Number Validation to prevent duplicate PO numbers to maintain accurate records and avoid issues with reconciliation
Custom PO Number Format to ensure all PO numbers follow the specific format required by the buyer’s system.
In a statement, the company noted that these options work across all purchasing channels, whether online, in-store, or via sales teams. Automatically flagging and stopping non-compliant transactions at the point of purchase helps businesses avoid the time-consuming and costly communications that are often required in order to answer questions and resolve discrepancies when issues with purchase orders arise.
“Traditional complexities in the order-to-cash process, such as missing or incorrect purchase order information, can cause delays in merchants getting paid,” Zimmerman explained. “By addressing common challenges or slowdowns in the ordering processes, we’re helping our clients minimize the strain on A/R teams and grow their business, without compromising the quality of the buying experience.”
Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, TreviPay made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Small Business Supplier Payments Network (SBSN). SBSN empowers banks to expand their offerings to small businesses by enabling them to access the small business B2B trade credit market. Member banks can leverage SBSN to customize their solutions, define and execute go-to-market strategies, manage risk, and set supplier fees—all while establishing exposure targets, growth rates, and profitability.
In addition to the purchase controls announcement, TreviPay also recently unveiled new features including risk-based pricing to boost credit accessibility, shared buyer codes in its mobile app to share or extend purchasing ability to unauthorized users on a temporary basis, and enhanced visibility into upcoming disbursements.
March has been a busy month for TreviPay. Along with launching new features, the company reported that it is the latest issuer on UATP’s network for corporate business travel payments. Also this month, TreviPay announced a new collaboration with HSBC to streamline B2B payments for businesses via flexible payment options and financing solutions at the point of sale.
“Supporting a seamless e-commerce and omni-channel purchasing journey and offering the right payments and invoicing options are gateways to building loyalty with business buyers,” TreviPay CEO Brandon Spear said. “With HSBC on board, TreviPay has additional tools to scale our technology and leverage an API-based model to move into new markets.”
This week’s edition of Finovate Global features an interview with Stav Levi-Neumark, CEO and Co-Founder of revenue workforce solutions provider Alta.
Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Israel, Alta leverages data and AI to help drive revenue growth at every level for businesses. The company’s AI Revenue Workforce agents ensure that everyone on the team is connected, aligned, and equipped with the data insights and AI automation they need to enable their businesses to scale efficiently and grow faster. Alta’s agents have helped produce a 3x increase in qualified leads, a 15% increase in win rates, and a 80% reduction in costs.
Our conversation with Levi-Neumark is also a part of Finovate’s and Finovate Global’s commemoration of Women’s History Month. Be sure to check out her thoughts on gender diversity, current opportunities for women in fintech, as well as her advice for female CEOs.
Can you tell us a little bit about Alta and the revenue workforce solutions business?
Stav Levi-Neumark: AI is impacting almost every industry now. But go-to-market and revenue teams across many vertical markets are struggling to fully harness AI for sustained growth. Choosing the right tools to enhance capabilities of salespeople while also automating relevant tasks is a real challenge.
Alta is an AI revenue workforce that is data-driven. It supports revenue teams, allowing each person to be like a 10x version of themselves.
Alta agents automate repetitive and mundane tasks that require limited human oversight, such as researching potential leads and conducting personalized outreach across multiple channels. The agents also provide actionable insights based on real-time data across all revenue functions. This streamlined workflow helps companies achieve improved revenue growth by working more efficiently, accelerating their sales cycle, and enabling humans to focus on relationship-building opportunities, strategic, and creative work.
Who are Alta’s primary customers and how do you reach them?
Levi-Neumark: Alta has really diverse customers across virtually every business sector, and they range from SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. We’ve been able to ramp up the number of clients we have really quickly as well, adding almost 100 customers in less than six months.
Your latest solution—AI Revenue Workforce—leverages innovations in agentic AI. Can you talk about how this technology and new product empower go-to-market and revenue teams?
Levi-Neumark: Agentic AI has endless potential to dramatically improve efficiency and drive revenue growth. By leaving automated tasks to AI agents, human-led go-to-market and revenue teams can work smarter and faster, focusing their attention where it matters most: developing strategy, building relationships, closing deals, and increasing ROI through creative thought.
AI agents in Alta’s workforce include Katie, a Sales Development Representative (SDR), Luna, an AI RevOps agent, and Alex, an AI Calling agent. The workforce can integrate into more than 50 internal and external marketing, sales, and revenue systems that include CRMs, ERPs, payment, advertising, social media tools, and more.
Alta is a very young company, founded in 2023. There has been a lot of discussion about the current environment for tech startups. How would you characterize the climate for startups today?
Levi-Neumark: The founders who thrive will be those who can harness technological advancements while building businesses with solid foundations that can stand on their own, beyond the AI hype. Here’s the advice I typically share when talking with other tech founders:
Success means your customers attribute significant revenue growth directly to your product. When they look at their business results and can clearly see your impact on their bottom line, that’s when you’ll know you’ve truly succeeded.
Maintaining balanced, healthy growth is key. While it may be tempting to focus more attention on one specific area of your organization, it’s critical to ensure all departments grow at an equal pace.
Be proactive rather than reactive to market shifts to position yourself ahead of certain trends. When deeply focused on product development and customer acquisition, it’s easy to miss emerging signals from the broader ecosystem.
Alta recently secured $7 million in seed funding. What does this investment mean for the company and what will it enable Alta to do?
Levi-Neumark: This funding solidifies Alta’s position as an industry leader in workforce intelligence automation. It will allow Alta to continue developing out-of-the-box solutions that redefine the relationship between AI and sales teams to unlock limitless revenue growth opportunities.
We plan to utilize the investment to expand into new markets, grow operations, scale R&D, and accelerate product development to meet increasing market demand from enterprise and mid-market customers. In fact, we are currently developing our newest AI agent, Greg, a sales assistant for account executives, to further bolster our workforce’s capabilities.
You are one of very few female CEOs in the enterprise AI space. Are there unique challenges to greater gender diversity in enterprise AI compared to other areas of technology, fintech, or financial services?
Levi-Neumark: I don’t feel there are unique challenges specific to the AI space compared to other tech sectors. The gender diversity issues we face in enterprise AI mirror what we see across technology, fintech, and financial services more broadly.
The fundamental challenges remain consistent: representation gaps, unconscious bias in hiring and promotion, and the need for more visible role models.
That said, I prefer to focus on the opportunity. AI is still a relatively young field, and at the end of the day, our success is what will define us. I hope more female founders and women will enter this market and look forward to welcoming them.
What advice would you give to female CEOs, especially those who are new to the role?
Levi-Neumark: I would advise female CEOs, especially those new to the role, to build strong support networks early. Connect with other female founders and executives who understand your specific challenges—these relationships become invaluable resources for candid advice and emotional support that you can’t always find within your company.
Trust your unique leadership style and perspective. There’s often pressure to conform to traditionally masculine leadership traits, but the most effective leaders bring their authentic selves to the role. Your different viewpoint is actually a strategic advantage that can help identify opportunities others might miss.
Be strategic about which battles to fight. As a female CEO, you’ll likely face additional scrutiny and challenges. Learn to distinguish between issues that are worth addressing directly and those where it’s better to let your results speak for themselves.
Prioritize building a diverse leadership team from the start. This not only leads to better decision-making, but also creates a culture where different perspectives are valued.
Finally, remember that your visibility matters. By succeeding in your role, you’re creating pathways for others. Share your journey, mentor upcoming leaders, and when possible, be the voice and representation you wished you had when starting out.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
UK-based open banking payments company Atoa announced an integration with New Zealand-based small business platform Xero.
