Author: David Penn

Finovate Global Caribbean: Instant Payments, Digital Banking, and Credit Analytics

Finovate Global Caribbean: Instant Payments, Digital Banking, and Credit Analytics
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, Finovate Global, PayPal

This week’s edition of Finovate Global highlights recent fintech announcements from the countries of the Caribbean.

Belize Bank Inks Digital Modernization Partnership with Backbase

The biggest bank in Belize is also among the first financial institution in the Caribbean to embrace a full retail and business digital banking stack in addition to AI-powered lending and onboarding. Belize Bank Limited announced this week that it has partnered with Backbase in a major, six-year partnership to implement the company’s AI-native banking OS.

The financial institution, with more than $1 billion in total assets and the nation’s largest branch network, had sought a platform that would scale with its growing operations and provide consistently high-quality digital experiences across its customer base. Deploying Backbase’s AI-native Banking OS for both retail and business banking will enable Belize Bank to replace fragmented workflows with self-service, accelerated digital onboarding, and unified cash-flow visibility for business customers. Importantly, Backbase’s Banking OS sits above Belize Bank’s existing banking core, leveraging Backbase’s Connectivity Layer (Grand Central) to provide seamless integration with the bank’s existing systems.

“Belize Bank is exactly the kind of institution Backbase was built for—a market leader that takes its responsibility to customers seriously and wants technology that matches that ambition,” Backbase CEO Jouk Pleiter said. “Embarking on this comprehensive modernization across retail, SME and digital lending is a true reflection of the strategic discipline of the team at Belize Bank. We are proud to partner with them to architect the financial backbone of Belize’s future economy.”

Belize Bank Limited is both the country’s oldest and largest financial institution. The full-service commercial bank holds approximately 43% of the nation’s total banking assets and serves 100,000 retail and business banking clients. Headquartered in Belize City, Belize Bank was founded in 1987.

“Our strategic partnership with Backbase represents a transformative step toward delivering a new era of banking—one that is seamless, intelligent, personalized, and built around the evolving needs of our customers,” Belize Bank Limited Executive Chairman Filippo Alario said. “By combining Backbase’s innovation with Belize Bank’s commitment to excellence and customer-first vision, we are laying the foundation for a future where digital banking goes beyond transactions—creating more meaningful connections, empowering our customers, and transforming the way Belizeans experience banking.”

Four-time Finovate Best of Show winner Backbase was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Amsterdam. The company’s AI-native Banking OS transforms fragmented banking operations and workflows into a unified frontline in which customers, employees, and AI agents work as one across digital channels, front-office, and operations. More than 120 leading banks around the world use Backbase’s technology solutions across verticals ranging from retail, small business, commercial, and private banking to wealth management.

Creditinfo Group Acquires EveryData Group to Boost Caribbean Presence

UK-based Creditinfo Group has completed its acquisition of EveryData Group, a data, analytics, and software company operating in the Caribbean. The acquisition is the culmination of a long-term partnership between the two firms, and will enable Creditinfo Group to bring advanced technology and new data solutions to financial institutions and consumers throughout the region. The greater technology integration and shared infrastructure across Creditinfo Group’s global network will also benefit customers of both firms.

“This acquisition reinforces our commitment to helping build stronger financial ecosystems around the world,” Satty Saha, Group CEO at Creditinfo Group, said. “EveryData has built an impressive business with a strong reputation across the Caribbean, and together we are well positioned to bring greater innovation and value to customers throughout the region. By combining our global expertise with EveryData’s deep local knowledge, we can accelerate the delivery of new products and technologies that improve access to finance and support economic growth.”

The transaction fortifies Creditinfo Group’s international presence, specifically in the Caribbean, adding primary credit bureau operations across Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, and the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) of St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Anguilla, and Montserrat. The company noted that it will continue investing in technology, talent, and innovation throughout the region, helping leaders and professionals in financial institutions make better decisions while promoting financial inclusion and sustainable economic development.

Barbados Launches Instant Payment System BiMPay

Launched by the Central Bank of Barbados, a new instant payment scheme BiMPay is now available to individuals and businesses in the country. The new system operates 24/7, on weekends and public holidays, enabling users to send and receive money in seconds. BiMPay, according to officials, will help modernize the country’s financial system by making payments faster, more efficient, and more convenient. The first transaction on BiMPay was conducted by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who sent money to a local vendor.

“A modern economy needs a modern payment system,” Central Bank Governor Kevin Greenidge said. “People need to be able to send money quickly. Businesses need to be able to receive funds and have them available to spend. Vendors want to get their funds and access their money immediately. We need a space to innovate, to compete, and to build the fintech industry that needs to be built.”

The launch of BiMPay comes after months of testing with financial institutions and other stakeholders. Currently, six commercial banks and the country’s three largest credit unions are connected to the BiMPay system. Seven institutions are also linked to the BiMPay e-wallet, which enables users to make payments, request funds, and complete transactions using phone numbers, email addresses, or QR codes.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Israel-based payments and loyalty platform Nayax teamed up with mark-to-market credit and structured finance infrastructure company Zaria Systems.
  • One Zero, a digital bank based in Egypt, announced a new initiative to allow customers to use the AI agent of choice to receive financial information.
  • PayPal and stc pay Bahrain launched a cross border transfer service.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Creditinfo Group aquired EveryData Group to boost its presence throughout the Caribbean
  • Grupo Cibest acquired 100% of Colombian fintech Avista Colombia.
  • Belize Bank announced a new six-year partnership with Backbase to modernize its digital banking operations.

Asia-Pacific

  • Malaysian fintech and digital bank Boost launched its agentic AI banking platform.
  • South Korean fintech KSNet signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solana Foundation to jointly build next-generation digital asset payment infrastructure.
  • VNExpress looked at the evolution of Vietnam’s digital asset industry.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Lithuanian regtech solution provider iDenfy has added Czech Bank iD to its verification platform.
  • Wealth management platform FNZ announced plans to sell its German FNZ Bank business to Advent.
  • Cryptocurrency platform Bybit obtained an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license in Austria.

Photo by Jamie Tudor on Unsplash

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Tavant Integrates with Dark Matter’s Empower LOS

Tavant Integrates with Dark Matter’s Empower LOS
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Tavant
  • AI transformation specialist Tavant is integrating its TOUCHLESS AI mortgage automation platform with the Empower loan origination solution (LOS) from Dark Matter Technologies.
  • The integration is designed to reduce workflow fragmentation and manual handoffs, support faster decision-making, and a more connected loan manufacturing process.
  • Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and founded in 2000, Tavant most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego.

AI transformation specialist Tavant announced the integration of its TOUCHLESS AI mortgage automation platform with Dark Matter Technologies’ Empower loan origination solution (LOS). The integration brings Tavant’s AI-driven automation capabilities to the Empower ecosystem, enabling lenders to streamline underwriting, accelerate cycle times, boost loan quality, and deliver Tavant’s exception-based, data-driven, loan decisioning technology to Empower LOS users.

“Tavant is focused on helping lenders transform mortgage operations with classical, generative, and agentic AI-based automation that delivers measurable efficiency, higher levels of operational productivity, and a far better borrower experience,” Tavant Head of Fintech Products Mohammad Rashid said. “Our integration with Dark Matter extends that vision by augmenting the Empower LOS with TOUCHLESS automation capabilities, making it easier for lenders to adopt agentic workflows, exception-based processing, and automated underwriting and decisioning.”

The integration enables lenders to automate key stages of the mortgage lifecycle, including loan setup, document classification, data extraction and intelligent comprehension, processing, underwriting, conditions management, and pre-close quality checks. The solution provides lenders reduced cost per loan, automation of repetitive and time-intensive tasks, improved data accuracy and consistency. This is thanks to standardized, AI-powered automation and the ability to scale loan production without significant increases in headcount.

The partnership between Tavant and Dark Matter will also be a boon for borrowers, who will benefit from faster approvals, fewer requests for documentation, and a more predictable and transparent lending timeline.

“We designed Empower as an open platform so partners can connect their best ideas directly to our lenders,” Dark Matter CEO Vikas Rao explained. “Tavant’s TOUCHLESS integration is a strong example of the innovation an open platform makes possible, giving lenders more ways to automate and close faster.”

Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and founded in 2023, Dark Matter offers an integrated platform for modern mortgage operations that combines its Empower LOS, next-generation automation, and powerful servicing capabilities to streamline and simplify the lending lifecycle. In addition to Empower LOS and its loan servicing solution Elevate, Dark Matter also offers Exchange: a connected partner marketplace for compliant, secure integrated access to a range of service providers, and Aiva, which provides AI-powered automation for documents, income, asset, and post-close quality control.

Tavant made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2017 and most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. At the conference, the Santa Clara, California-based company demonstrated its LO.ai solution, an AI-powered platform that enhances loan officer productivity and borrower empowerment. LO.ai integrates generative AI, voice-enabled conversational AI, and advanced data security measures to lower costs, increase lead conversion, and guarantee compliance with industry regulations.

Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash

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FinovateFall 2026: My Top Five Agenda Picks

FinovateFall 2026: My Top Five Agenda Picks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2026

FinovateFall 2026 is just over a month away. Coming to New York’s Marriott Marquis Times Square, from September 9 through 11, this year’s FinovateFall conference will feature both the familiar—in the form of our signature, seven-minute live fintech demos and standout keynote addresses—and the new, as represented by initiatives ranging from our Credit Union Spotlight to our Executive Debates to our special IMPACT Funders and Founders event.

With so much on offer, it can be easy to miss or overlook a session, panel, or address. To this end, we’re going to spend the next few weeks highlighting some of the presentations we think you won’t want to miss. Today, we look at some of the mainstage addresses on the agenda across all three days of the conference.

Special Address: If You Already Own the AI, Then Why Are You Still Shopping

Featuring Melissa Solis, CEO of Inbenta, this presentation will discuss why most customer experience AI fails on the basics and how to tell apart a vendor that actually delivers from one that just demos. Solis also will offer a framework for auditing your customer experience against what you actually need rather than simply what you are being sold.

Headquartered in Texas, Inbenta offers an agentic AI platform, Encore, that serves financial services, e-commerce, healthcare, and travel with more than 98% accuracy, near-zero hallucinations, full auditability, and more than 850 integrations to help avoid vendor lock-in.

Wednesday, September 9: 10:10 am—10:25 am

Special Address: Introducing Madison—Agentic Workbench for Banks

This session, led by Siva Surendira, Founder and CEO of Lyzr AI, will show how Architect by Lyzr enables business users to describe a problem and get a working, governed AI agent in minutes. Surendira will also explain how thousands of those AI agents provide leadership with a live, crowdsourced view of where automation ROI truly lives.

Lyzr is a category leader in agentic AI infrastructure. The company’s technology powers the internal AI platforms of firms including Accenture and Prophet.

Wednesday, September 9: 3:15 pm—3:30 pm

Special Address: Trust at the Speed of AI

In this special address, Charlie Schilling, CEO of Macabacus, explains why trust rather than caution is what unlocks AI’s full value in finance: trust that the model being built is accurate, trust that the data is consistent across the pitch, and trust that every piece of content is on brand.

Based in New York, Macabacus is a productivity and brand compliance suite for investment banks, private equity, venture capital, financial planning and analysis (FP&A) teams, and consulting firms.

Thursday, September 10: 9:25 am—9:40 am

Quick Fire Keynote: Fraud in the Age of AI. How to Respond When the Attacker Has Better Tools Than You

Senior Director, Global Banking and Payments Intelligence for JD Power, Jennifer White, will share her insights on the challenges faced by banks, credit unions, financial services providers, their members and customers when it comes to the rise of AI-powered fraud and financial crime. White will discuss how fraud and financial crime are being increasingly globalized and industrialized, and how defenses against these threats must evolve in order to keep individuals and systems safe.

JD Power is a leader in business-critical data and intelligence that supports automated decision-making. The company’s proprietary data, advanced analytics, and deep industry expertise supply lenders, insurers, original equipment manufacturers, and other firms with guidance and intelligence about customer interactions with their brands, products, and services.

Thursday, September 10: 4:55 pm—5:05 pm

Out of the Box Keynote Address: AI-Enhanced CX to Create Trust and Loyalty

Jon Lakefish, Founder of the Lakefish Group, will deliver a practical guide to all the AI tools currently available to help enhance the customer experience and how to make the most of them. Lakefish will also host a special hands-on, interactive session in the afternoon (1:10 pm—2:00 pm) in which he will walk participants through real scenarios so they can experience firsthand how AI can save time and money, while enhancing decision-making.

Lakefish Group provides speaking and hands-on workshops, as well as consulting and training, to help businesses take advantage of modern, practical AI tools to enhance their marketing and branding initiatives.

Friday, September 11: 9:50 am—10:20 am

FinovateFall 2026 comes to the Marriott Marquis Times Square, September 9—11. Save up to $400 when you book your ticket by August 21.

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10x Banking Raises £40 Million from AshGrove Capital

10x Banking Raises £40 Million from AshGrove Capital
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: 10x Banking, Funding
  • Core banking platform 10x Banking has raised £40 million ($53.8 million) in funding from AshGrove Capital. The UK-based fintech will use the capital to drive sales and go-to-market activity.
  • The investment comes in the wake of the pair of major announcements from 10x Banking: becoming EBITDA-positive and topping the 10 million live account milestone.
  • Based in London, 10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. Antony Jenkins is Founder, Chair, and CEO.

SaaS core banking platform 10x Banking has secured £40 million ($53.8 million) from AshGrove Capital. The funding will fuel the UK-based fintech’s sales and go-to-market efforts and comes as the company reports becoming EBITDA-positive and surpassing the 10 million live account milestone. Additionally, in the last 12 months, 10x Banking has onboarded 10+ new financial institutions and boosted annual recurring revenue (ARR) by more than 30%.

In the company’s statement, the firm underscored that its recent positive financial outcomes are the result of growing demand from financial institutions seeking to modernize legacy infrastructure, drive continuous product innovation, or develop the data and flexibility necessary to support AI-enabled banking.

“Financial institutions have a clear ambition to innovate, but many remain constrained by infrastructure that was not built for real-time, digital banking,” 10x Banking Founder, Chair, and CEO Antony Jenkins said. “We created 10x to remove those constraints, enabling financial institutions to launch products faster, serve customers in real time, and compete more effectively. Our platform is now proving its value at significant scale. AshGrove’s investment is a strong endorsement of the progress we have made and will help us meet growing demand from banks around the world.”

10x Banking offers a cloud-native, core banking platform that enables banks to deliver new hyper-personalized products, services, and experiences to both retail and corporate customers faster, more efficiently, and more cost-effectively. The platform processes more than 10,000 transactions per second and runs at 99.99% uptime. Leveraging fourth-generation core banking, 10x Banking features a microservices architecture, real-time data screening, an API-first design, and a managed core that allows banks to configure rather than rebuild for each new offering.

“10x Banking has built one of the most compelling technology platforms in core banking today,” AshGrove Capital Co-founder and Managing Partner Phil Fretwell said. “Delivering a cloud-native platform at enterprise scale is exceptionally difficult, yet 10x has already proven its capabilities across millions of live accounts and with some of the world’s leading financial institutions. We believe the company is well positioned to benefit from powerful industry tailwinds as banks continue replacing legacy systems with more flexible, real-time, and AI-ready infrastructure.”

10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in London. At the event, the company demonstrated its 10x SuperCore Cards solution that enables banks to create a card proposition in minutes using the 10x Bank Manager interface. The technology empowers financial institutions to build and launch an enterprise-grade, full-stack, functional cards business solution in as little as 12 weeks. Founded in 2016, 10x Banking counts leading financial institutions such as Westpac and Chase UK among its customers.

Photo by Aron Van de Pol on Unsplash

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Ariel Leachman of Bluum Finance on the Rise of Embedded Investing

Ariel Leachman of Bluum Finance on the Rise of Embedded Investing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, Bluum Finance, Interview

Credit union members and community banking customers readily trust their credit unions and community banks with their capital when it comes to saving and borrowing. But what about investing? In most instances, those same members and customers will seek out other institutions and businesses when it comes to investing for the future and managing their wealth.

What if credit unions and community banks instead could keep those members and customers by catering to their investing and wealth management needs? How might this positively impact customer and member relationships and deepen engagement?

This week, our Finovate First-Timers series features Ariel Leachman, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Bluum Finance. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California and founded in 2025, Bluum Finance offers a unified platform for embedded wealth management and investing, providing brokerage and AI-powered advisory infrastructure via APIs. The company combines multi-asset, multi-market brokerage, custody, and reporting in a single integration, enabling credit unions, banks, and fintechs to offer seamless investing experiences for their members and customers. Bluum Finance made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. Co-founder Ope Sonusi is CEO.

In our conversation, Leachman discusses the opportunity that credit unions and community banks have by integrating investing and wealth management capabilities directly into their existing platforms. Leachman also explains how Bluum Finance streamlines the process for smaller financial institutions, delivering access to a range of asset classes and international markets via a single API. Finally, she shares her thoughts on what it will take to make cross-border investing as easy and commonplace as cross-border payments.

What problem does Bluum Finance solve and who does it solve it for?

Ariel Leachman: Credit unions, community financial institutions, and consumer fintechs have built strong relationships with their customers. The challenge is that when those customers are ready to start investing and building wealth, they often have to leave for another platform. Bluum enables fintechs and financial institutions to launch investing and wealth management directly within their existing platform, enabling them to expand their offering, generate new revenue, and strengthen customer relationships.

How does Bluum solve this problem better than other companies?

Leachman: Many embedded investing platforms focus primarily on trade execution. We take a broader approach by combining multi-asset investing, AI-powered wealth management, and the underlying brokerage infrastructure in a single platform. Rather than having to stitch together brokerage, custody, compliance, reporting, and portfolio guidance from multiple providers, our partners can launch through one API while we manage much of the complexity behind the scenes. Our platform also supports a range of asset classes and international markets, giving financial institutions a single platform to help their customers build diversified investment portfolios.

Who are Bluum’s primary customers and how do you reach them?

Leachman: Our primary customers are consumer fintechs, community banks, and credit unions that want to add investing and wealth management to their existing product offering without the high cost and operational lift of building a brokerage platform from scratch. Most of these institutions already have strong customer relationships and are looking for practical ways to expand their offering while keeping the experience simple for both their teams and customers. We primarily reach them through direct relationships, strategic partnerships, and industry events like Finovate.

Can you tell us about a favorite implementation or deployment of your technology, or a particularly valuable partnership experience?

Leachman: One of the most rewarding parts of building Bluum has been working with financial institutions that genuinely want to help their customers build long-term wealth. Credit unions, in particular, have earned a tremendous amount of trust within their communities. Helping them extend that relationship beyond everyday banking into investing feels especially meaningful because it allows more people to access wealth-building tools through an institution they already know and trust.

What in your background gave you the confidence to respond to this challenge?

Leachman: As co-founders, we’ve spent years working in financial services and technology before launching Bluum. My co-founder, Ope Sonusi, spent his career building fintech platforms for US and international markets, and I spent my career in investment banking and private equity, building deep expertise in capital markets, investment products, and financial institutions. As we spent more time speaking with financial institutions and fintechs, one thing became clear: many wanted to offer investing, but the infrastructure required to do it was too costly and complex. That insight became the foundation for building a platform like Bluum Finance.

You demoed at FinovateSpring in May of this year. How was the experience?

Leachman: FinovateSpring was a great experience. It gave us the opportunity to demo the Bluum platform and engage directly with credit unions, community financial institutions, fintechs, and industry leaders to better understand their priorities around investing, wealth management, and member engagement. The event reinforced our view that embedded investing and wealth management are becoming essential components of the modern digital banking experience, and that financial institutions are looking for simple, compliant solutions they can bring to market quickly.

You have talked about the opportunities in frontier and emerging markets and how the challenge is making cross-border investing as seamless as cross-border payments. Can you elaborate on this idea?

Leachman: Cross-border payments have become dramatically easier over the past decade. Today, a financial institution can enable cross-border payments through a single integration without having to build the underlying infrastructure. Cross-border investing hasn’t evolved in the same way. Offering investment access across markets still requires coordinating brokers, custody providers, regulatory requirements, and reporting, which creates a lot of complexity.

Our goal is to simplify that experience so financial institutions can offer access to both US and international markets without having to manage the high cost and onerous operational lift themselves. We believe the next evolution of financial services will make cross-border investing as seamless and accessible across global markets.

What are your goals for Bluum Finance over the balance of 2026 and into next year?

Leachman: We are focused on growing our partnerships with financial institutions, consumer fintechs, and credit unions. We’ve seen strong interest from institutions that want to offer investing but don’t want to build and operate the infrastructure themselves, so we’re focused on helping more partners bring those capabilities to market. We’re also excited about expanding the range of investment opportunities available through Bluum, including private markets and digital assets.

Photo by PiggyBank on Unsplash

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Connect Credit Union Turns to Appli for AI-Powered Smart Financial Calculators

Connect Credit Union Turns to Appli for AI-Powered Smart Financial Calculators
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Appli
  • Connect Credit Union, a Florida-based financial institution with $103 million in assets, has partnered with smart financial calculator builder, Appli.
  • Appli’s AI-powered calculators are designed to turn passive visitors into active financial consumers by enabling them to assess loan opportunities, calculate property values in real-time, plan for retirement, and more.
  • Founded in 2024 and headquartered in Cedar Hills, Utah, Appli made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025 in New York.

Florida-based Connect Credit Union has teamed up with Appli, builder of AI-powered smart financial calculators, to provide members with a new, interactive way to learn about their lending options, assess how best to save for future goals, and identify optimal savings instruments.

“Connect’s members are digitally savvy, and they expect that from every part of their credit union experience now, not just online banking,” Appli CEO Tim Pranger said. “Rolling this out right after their website relaunch means members will see it as part of one connected upgrade, not a separate tool bolted on later.”

Appli’s AI-powered smart financial calculators are designed to convert passive visitors into active financial consumers. Embedded in websites, mobile banking apps, and across marketing campaigns, Appli’s solutions deliver real-time, personalized experiences that boost consumer confidence and drive conversions, giving financial institutions the ability to guide customers and members through major loan and savings decisions.

The credit union will use Appli’s calculators for auto loans, personal loans, mortgages, and balance transfers. Scheduled to go live with the new offering in September, Connect Credit Union anticipates introducing smart calculators for other products over time. The partnership comes in the wake of the credit union’s website relaunch of its website, making the calculators part of the institution’s brand refresh.

“Financial decisions can feel overwhelming, particularly when members are trying to determine what fits comfortably within their budgets,” Connect Credit Union EVP/COO Cynthia Ryan said. “Appli gives our members an easy, interactive way to explore financial scenarios, better understand their options, and make decisions with greater confidence. This partnership allows us to combine the convenience of technology with the personal service and trusted guidance our members expect from Connect Credit Union.”

Connect Credit Union serves employees of the State of Florida, retirees of the Florida Department of Transportation, and those who live and work in Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, De Soto, Glades, Okeechobee, and Charlotte counties in south and central Florida. Founded in 1962, the financial institution has $103 million in assets and offers services and products including auto loans, mortgages, home equity and personal loans, debit and credit cards, as well as savings, checking, and money market accounts.

Founded in 2024 and headquartered in Cedar Hills, Utah, Appli made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Smart Financial Calculators and its newest loan lead generation platform. Appli’s technology is designed to capture high-intent shoppers, convert interest into action, and provide financial institutions with data-driven insights to help them grow deposits, increase loan volume, and secure long-term revenue growth.

Interested in companies that are developing innovative solutions for credit unions and their members? FinovateFall 2026 will feature a special credit union spotlight and networking session on Tuesday, September 8. Learn more about this unique, invite-only opportunity.

Photo by Roman on Unsplash

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Visa Acquires Behavioral Biometrics Innovator BioCatch for $2.4 Billion

Visa Acquires Behavioral Biometrics Innovator BioCatch for $2.4 Billion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Mergers & Acquisitions, VISA
  • Digital payments giant Visa has agreed to acquire fraud and financial crime prevention platform BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash.
  • The acquisition will add to Visa’s existing cyber, fraud, risk, and security solutions and provide greater defense against newer threats including account takeover and money mule fraud.
  • BioCatch was founded in 2011. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

Visa has inked a definitive agreement to acquire behavioral and device intelligence innovator BioCatch. Visa will purchase the company from funds advised by Permira and other shareholders for $2.4 billion in cash. The move will add to Visa’s current array of cyber, fraud, risk, and security solutions and is expected to be especially helpful in managing threats such as account takeovers, scams, money mules, and application fraud.

Subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of all relevant regulatory approvals, the acquisition is expected to close by the end of Visa’s fiscal Q2 of 2027.

“Real-time insights into customer intent continue to grow increasingly essential for institutions to establish trust within digital banking sessions,” BioCatch CEO Gadi Mazor said. “For more than a decade, we’ve demonstrated behavior’s unique ability to distinguish the criminal from the legitimate. In the last couple of years, we’ve shown how real-time intelligence-sharing networks between our customers can amplify the power of our behavioral intelligence further still. Together with Visa, we’re even better positioned to advance our mission of making the world a safer place to transact and protect consumers from financial crime.”

BioCatch offers AI and machine learning-based solutions that analyze thousands of application, behavioral, device, and network signals such as keystrokes and mouse activity, touch gestures, and device handling. This enables BioCatch’s technology to detect fraud and distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent users in real time. BioCatch’s models provide continuous monitoring to assess user intent and identify signs of potential coercion or manipulation throughout the digital banking session. More than 350 financial institutions around the world leverage BioCatch’s technology to protect 760+ million users from fraud and financial crime.

Visa’s acquisition of BioCatch comes at a time when AI, biometrics, identity, cyber defense, and fraud prevention are converging. To this point, in addition to this week’s transaction, Visa has launched its Visa Vulnerability Agentic Harness solution, an open-source, AI security tool to help customers spot and mitigate vulnerabilities at scale. Visa noted in a statement that, over the last five years, the company has invested more than $13 billion in technology and infrastructure to secure its payments ecosystem and drive fraud rates lower.

“Account takeovers and scams cost the global economy over $1 trillion annually and AI is enabling these attacks at unprecedented scale,” Visa’s president of value-added services Andrew Torre said. “BioCatch will help our clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment. This acquisition is part of our strategy to help clients prevent cyber threats upstream, building trust into every transaction.”

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in New York, BioCatch made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. In the years since then, the company has grown into a major financial crime prevention platform analyzing 18 billion user sessions per month and protecting 1.7 billion devices. In 2025 alone, BioCatch assessed more than $17 trillion in transactions and prevented $4 billion in fraud.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Fintech Rundown, Ripple, VISA

August is off to an auspicious start in the fintech world, with news of acquisitions in behavioral biometrics and regtech, and good news for a pair of firms seeking approval to initiate digital asset operations in New York and the UK, respectively. Be sure to swing by Finovate’s Fintech Rundown all week long for the latest updates and fintech headlines!

Wealth management

Asset and wealth management software specialist ZILO launches its digital transfer agency platform, integration mutual fund administration with digital asset capabilities.

Payments

London-based financial services provider Teya unveils new payments card machine.

Fraud prevention

Visa agrees to acquire behavioral biometrics company BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash.

Bank of America to acquire UK-based information security firm MDSec Consulting.

Digital assets

Circle secures limited purpose trust charter from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

Robinhood receives authorization from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to offer cryptocurrency services in the country.

Capital markets tokenization platform Licuido announces strategic investment from Ripple.

Unlimit Crypto, a division of financial infrastructure company Unlimit, secures a Crypto-Asset Service Provider license from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.

Regtech

Enterprise financial controls and reconciliation automation company AutoRek acquires UK-based compliance platform Grath.

Credit unions

Appli, maker of AI-powered smart financial calculators, inks partnership with Florida-based Connect Credit Union.

Photo by Christina & Peter from Pexels

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EnFi Secures $15 Million to Bring Agentic AI to Commercial Lending

EnFi Secures $15 Million to Bring Agentic AI to Commercial Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: EnFi, Funding
  • AI-native lending platform EnFi has raised $15 million in Series A funding. The round was led by FINTOP and the investment brings the firm’s total capital raised to date to $22.5 million.
  • The funds will be used to enable the Boston, Massachusetts-based fintech to scale its offering, grow its team, and boost its go-to-market efforts.
  • EnFi made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall 2025 in New York. Co-founder Joshua Summers is CEO.

Here’s some Finovate alumni funding news from earlier this year that slipped beneath our radar: EnFi, which leverages agentic AI to complete end-to-end commercial lending workflows, has raised $15 million in Series A funding. The Massachusetts-based fintech will use the capital to scale its technology, grow its team, and accelerate go-to-market efforts.

The investment takes the company’s total funding to $22.5 million. The round was led by FINTOP, and featured participation from Patriot Financial Partners, Commerce Ventures, Unusual Ventures, and Boston Seed Capital. In its statement, the company noted that these investors collectively span more than 150 financial institutions. FINTOP’s network of strategic investors consists of approximately 90 community and regional banks. Patriot Financial Partners has invested in 66 banks through its three active funds. Commerce Ventures has more than 20 strategic enterprise limited partners (LPs), including seven of the largest banks in the US.

EnFi enables commercial lenders to rapidly scale their portfolios while enhancing risk management. The firm’s AI agents can be deployed across the full commercial credit spectrum and loan lifecycle to boost the capacity of lending professionals by completing a range of end-to-end tasks, from deal screening to portfolio monitoring. Readily deployable and productive within 60—90 days, EnFi’s agents help lenders originate and manage more loans efficiently, leading to greater profitability and lower rates of loss.

An under-discussed challenge for lenders in the US is what EnFi referred to as a “growing talent crisis.” Noting that “tens of thousands of credit analyst positions remain unfilled at any given time”—despite $112 billion spent annually on credit labor—many institutions have been compelled to make tradeoffs that undermine their potential as lenders. These include processing fewer loans, lowering underwriting standards, and overworking existing lending teams.

This point was underscored by both FINTOP Partner John Philpott and Citadel Credit Union Chief Lending Officer Michael Desimone. Philpott warned that “the human talent pool cannot scale at the rate credit demand is growing.” Desimone highlighted the importance of being able to “respond to rising demand more efficiently without increasing … our risk profile, by extending the capacity of our credit teams.” Citadel Credit Union went public about its deployment of EnFi’s technology in February, when the funding announcement was made.

“We have seen this consistently across hundreds of conversations with lenders,” EnFi Co-founder and CEO Joshua Summers said. “Our investors have wide exposure to the challenge through their banking LP networks and portfolio investments. They are investing in agentic human infrastructure, not just software. EnFi enables commercial lenders to operate beyond traditional capacity limits while strengthening risk oversight and accelerating credit decisions.”

Founded in 2024 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, EnFi made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the company introduced its AI-native lending platform and showed how its suite of agentic AI solutions handles data ingestion and extraction, automated spreading, and relationship management. The technology also features orchestrations that combine agents into larger automated workflows such as deal screening, underwriting, and portfolio monitoring. EnFi’s agentic infrastructure delivers audit-ready accuracy with human oversight, enabling rapid deployment, full data access, and seamless legacy system integration for high-performance lending.

Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash

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Heritage Hub Federal Credit Union Partners with Kiro Money to Launch AI Money Coach

Heritage Hub Federal Credit Union Partners with Kiro Money to Launch AI Money Coach
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Kiro Money
  • Agentic financial intelligence platform Kiro Money has teamed up with Houston, Texas-based Heritage Hub Federal Credit Union.
  • Heritage Hub FCU, founded in 2025, will leverage Kiro Money’s technology to power its new Heritage Hub AI Money Coach, which provides members with personalized, expert-informed financial guidance.
  • Headquartered in San Francisco, Kiro Money made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego.

Kiro Money, an embedded agentic financial intelligence layer for digital platforms, has announced a partnership with Heritage Hub Federal Credit Union. The Houston, Texas-based financial institution has teamed up with Kiro to deploy its new branded AI financial tool, the Heritage Hub AI Money Coach. Accessible directly from the Financial Literacy page of the credit union’s website and powered by Kiro’s AI, the new offering gives Heritage Hub FCU members access to personalized, expert-informed financial guidance—without requiring additional staff or scheduled appointments.

“144.7 million Americans are credit union members, not customers, served by institutions built on ‘people helping people,’ not quarterly earnings,” Kiro Money CEO Alisha Chowdhury wrote on the company’s LinkedIn page. “They show up for the communities big banks overlook. But even the most mission-driven credit union can’t sit a coach next to every member, 24/7. That’s the gap Kiro Money closes.”

The new offering is scheduled to launch on August 1 as a free resource for members. The AI money coach tracks member finances in real time, aggregating data across linked accounts to monitor multiple categories simultaneously. The solution tracks real-time bank account balances, integration data across institutions, historical spending patterns, cash flow, tax records, and investment portfolio information, including total asset holdings and performance returns. The AI money coach also tracks the user’s progress toward financial goals, such as buying a home, saving for retirement, and building an emergency fund. This enables the solution to provide accurate, contextual responses to a range of both common and complex financial queries.

In a post on the Heritage Hub FCU’s LinkedIn page, the institution’s President and CEO Bolaji Ajimotokan discussed the current affordability challenges faced by many households and explained how this context helped convince him of the value of partnering with Kiro Money. “For many households … housing costs and insurance premiums, in particular, remain well above pre-pandemic levels, even as the rate of increase slows. That distinction matters. A slower rate of increase is not the same as relief, and for a lot of our members, the everyday questions haven’t gone away: How do I build a buffer for rising insurance costs? Is this the right time to lock in savings at a fixed rate? How do I budget when my fixed costs keep shifting? This is part of why we partnered with Kiro Money to launch the Heritage Hub AI Money Coach … to help members work through exactly these kinds of questions, grounded in our own products and expertise, whenever they come up.”

Launched in October 2025 to serve underbanked African-American and Latino communities in the Houston area, Heritage Hub FCU offers free checking, competitive auto loans, high-interest money market accounts, and tax preparation services. Deposits are protected up to $250,000 by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and the financial institution is Kiro’s first credit union partner.

Founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Kiro Money made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. At the conference, the company demonstrated its financial intelligence technology that routes financial queries from individuals to specialized agents capable of providing answers to complex financial questions, offering product recommendations, enabling account opening and portfolio adjustment, and more. Kiro’s AI chat agents also leverage real-time user context to identify “moments of intent” when customers need guidance. The white-label offering can be deployed securely via API or embedded code and features enterprise-grade security.

Interested in companies developing solutions for credit unions? Our Credit Union Spotlight at FinovateFall is a unique opportunity for credit union executives to connect and network with a curated selection of fintechs with targeted solutions for credit unions. Find out more about this invite-only event.

Photo by Dennis Lamberth on Unsplash

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FinovateFall 2026 Agenda Revealed!

FinovateFall 2026 Agenda Revealed!
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2026

It may feel like peak summer now, but the fall is right around the corner. That means our flagship fintech conference—FinovateFall 2026—is only weeks away!

Don’t worry—you’ve got plenty of time to buy your ticket (taking advantage of early-bird savings) and book your room. You’ve also got all the time in the world to learn more about what we’ve got in store for you this year. We’ll be introducing many of the event’s top attractions over the coming days and weeks here on the Finovate blog. For now, to whet your appetite for our autumn event, here’s a look at the recently released FinovateFall 2026 agenda.

Day One—September 9

FinovateFall 2026 starts strong with a battery of live, fintech demos featuring companies innovating in AI-enabled back-office automation, financial literacy, lending, transaction intelligence, embedded finance, and wealth management. The morning will also feature special addresses on topics such as AI and e-commerce and the global economic and geopolitical landscape. We will also present our Breaking News session featuring top fintech analysts discussing the latest headlines that everyone at FinovateFall will be talking about. Heading into the lunch break, we’ll showcase another round of demos from companies offering solutions to automate payments, enhance customer communications, fight fraud, and help institutions meet regulatory requirements.

The demo sessions after the lunch break will feature a range of innovators demonstrating their solutions for financial advisors building out their wealth management offerings, banks seeking to benefit from advanced payment technologies, and small businesses looking for affordable, flexible financing. The day’s content ends with a keynote address on stablecoins and tokenized deposits and our power panel on the opportunities that agentic AI is bringing to financial institutions featuring panelists from Prudential, University of Michigan Credit Union, and Gradient Labs.

Day Two—September 10

The second day of FinovateFall starts with a Finovate favorite: our Analyst All Stars presentations, which borrow our seven-minute format from our demoing companies to present recent research on fintech trends ranging from the relationship between banks and fintechs to AI visibility to adaptive customer onboarding. The morning will also include a special address from Macabacus CEO Charlie Schilling on why trust, not caution, is what unlocks AI’s full value in finance.

Our demoing companies return to the stage on Day Two, with technologies that are enabling lenders to streamline mortgage processing, helping advisors boost customer engagement, and bringing voice security solutions to banks and other financial institutions. The day will feature a total of four demo sessions with fintech innovators delivering rapid-fire demonstrations of their solutions for lending and underwriting, fraud prevention and dispute resolution, authentication and identity verification, payments, and more.

The final content presentations of the day will include a Special Address from Jawwad Rasheed of Camunda, a Quick Fire Keynote from J.D. Power Senior Director Jennifer White, and a Power Panel on financial crime risk moderated by StrategyBRIX CEO and Managing Partner Jas Randhawa. Our Best of Show awards will be held at the end of the day on Day Two during the drinks and networking reception.

Day Three—September 11

With the demos done and Best of Show trophies awarded, Day Three of FinovateFall is all about content: this is true for both our invite-only opportunities such as our Community Bank Spotlight & Breakfast and our IMPACT Funders & Founders event, as well as for our general session and industry stage presentations.

In the plenary, FinovateFall attendees will enjoy a pair of special addresses including an out-of-the-box keynote from AI expert Jon Lakefish on AI-enhanced CX to create trust and loyalty. The morning will also feature a Power Panel on the customer experience as a profit engine, moderated by Beyond the Arc’s Steven Ramirez.

Following a morning break, it’s time for our industry stages—conferences within the conference that allow for deeper examinations and discussions on topics such as AI & Innovation, Customer Experience & Trust, and The Future of Money.

Back in the general session after the lunch break, Day Three of FinovateFall resumes with a pair of Power Panels: one on embedded finance and platform economics and another on bank-fintech partnerships and the transition from competition to collaboration and co-creation. The day concludes with our Fireside Chat on the current US administration and its approach to financial services and fintech regulation, followed by our Investor All-Stars roundtable featuring investors from across the country talking about where the smart money is investing in fintech and why.

This is just a quick overview. There’s so much more to FinovateFall this year—from our pre-event exclusives for banks and credit unions on September 8 to our Executive Briefings on Women in Fintech, Community Banking, Embedded Finance, and more. To learn more about everything FinovateFall 2026 has to offer, check out the agenda, now available at our FinovateFall hub.


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Goodfin Launches QSBS Venture Fund, Matching Private Market Returns with Tax Savings

Goodfin Launches QSBS Venture Fund, Matching Private Market Returns with Tax Savings
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Goodfin
  • Agentic wealth platform Goodfin has introduced its Goodfin QSBS Venture Fund. The new offering gives accredited investors access to high-growth startups while taking advantage of Qualified Small Business Stock tax benefits.
  • Expanded as part of the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), QSBS enables eligible holders to exclude up to 100% of federal capital gains on qualifying startup equity.
  • Headquartered in San Francisco and founded in 2022, Goodfin made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. Anna Joo Fee is Founder and CEO.

Agentic wealth platform Goodfin has announced the launch of its Goodfin QSBS Venture Fund. The new fund is designed to help accredited investors access high-growth startups while optimizing for Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) tax benefits. The fund gives investors exposure to venture and Y Combinator-backed companies that have been vetted for IRC Section 1202 / QSBS eligibility, and the opportunity to take advantage of major federal capital gains tax savings.

“QSBS is one of the most under-used advantages in venture investing, but also one of the most complex to get right,” Goodfin Founder and CEO Anna Joo Fee said. “Goodfin built this fund to remove that friction.”

Intended to encourage investment in small businesses and startups, QSBS are shares in eligible small businesses that qualify for significant federal tax advantages under Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code. These benefits include a capital gains tax exclusion of up to 100% when investors sell QSBS. This is a substantial potential savings insofar as long-term capital gains are typically taxed at up to 20%. Factor in the net investment income tax of nearly 4% and the QSBS exclusion can save investors nearly 24% in federal taxes.

The QSBS tax incentive has been available to founders, early employees, and investors since 1993. The policy was given a major upgrade last year as part of the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). This added a new, more flexible tiered exclusion schedule, a higher exclusion cap, and an expansion in the universe of eligible companies to cover more growth-stage startups. These new rules only apply to QSBS issued or acquired after July 4, 2025.

The Goodfin QSBS Venture Fund offers a curated portfolio of early-stage startups backed by Tier 1 investors and Y Combinator. Typically at Seed through Series C level, these firms are chosen based on investment merit and are evaluated and verified for Section 1202 eligibility before investment and monitored throughout the duration of the holding. Investors can invest directly through the Goodfin QSBS Venture Fund or roll over current gains from a previous investment, taking advantage of built-in optimization from day one.

“The idea behind the fund is simple: the best tax advantage in venture shouldn’t be the one investors and founders discover too late,” Goodfin Head of Memberships and Partnerships Mika Arai wrote on the company blog. “QSBS allows eligible holders to exclude up to 100% of federal capital gains on qualifying startup equity—potentially millions of dollars per investment. Yet it remains one of the most underused benefits in the market, largely because it’s one of the hardest to get right.”

What makes it difficult to bring this opportunity to investors? One major factor is that QSBS eligibility has to be both established and maintained during the entire holding period and companies can inadvertently compromise their QSBS status by making otherwise innocuous structuring decisions. Goodfin has teamed up with CapGains, a tax optimization platform, to ensure that every company in the fund is analyzed and vetted for Section 1202 and then monitored throughout its holding period.

The new fund is an opportunity for accredited investors to pursue private market returns and secure a targeted tax outcome in a single, professionally-managed investment vehicle. It can also give founders a competitive edge when it comes to fundraising and attracting talent. Investors are becoming increasingly interested in QSBS-eligible companies and because QSBS offers such significant tax advantages at exit, QSBS-eligible companies give investors a tangible reason to invest early.

“Whether you’re investing in the next great startup or building one, QSBS can transform your financial outcome—and the post-OBBBA rules make the opportunity larger than it has ever been,” Arai wrote. “The Goodfin QSBS Venture Fund is designed to help you capture the full benefit you can earn, with eligibility verified and monitored from day one.”

Founded in 2022 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Goodfin made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Goodfin Go solution, which provides sophisticated investors in pre-IPO companies with guided, hyper-personalized, end-to-end investing capabilities. Goodfin Go conducts deep research, portfolio analysis, and real-time investment execution, leveraging a purpose-built agentic orchestration system that uses vetted data sources, multiple AI models, and proprietary insights from the Goodfin platform. Advisor-vetted, Goodfin Go meets the standards of the CFA Level III exam.

If you’re interested in pre-IPO companies and promising startups, Finovate’s IMPACT Funders & Founders event is for you. Co-located with FinovateFall, IMPACT serves as a dedicated funding marketplace where breakthrough fintechs meet active investors across the investment spectrum.

Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

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