FinDEVr Preview: Expensify

FinDEVr Preview: Expensify

FinDEVrSV16-withdateFinDEVr Previews highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Early-bird savings end Friday, so pick up your ticket today to save your spot.

CEO David Barrett will discuss how Bedrock became the infrastructure backbone of Expensify’s explosive growth, and how Bedrock can be used to scale your company.

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Why it’s a must-see

Expensify will be introducing its open-source project built for developers to strengthen and enhance your developer’s toolbox for data storage, caching, and job management, and illustrate how it can be used to help scale your company.


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FinDEVr Preview: Wootrader

FinDEVr Preview: Wootrader

FinDEVrSV16-withdateFinDEVr Previews highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Early-bird savings end Friday, so pick up your ticket today to save your spot.

Wootrader will introduce its new configurable stock market dashboard platform, FinanceBoards, and explain how anyone, from first-time investors to financial institutions, can benefit from the ability to access—in one place, on their own configurable dashboards—a wealth of classic, as well as new, financial data.

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Why it’s a must-see

The fintech industry is split between institutional systems with many decades of in-depth data and innovative, laser-focused startups with unique datasets. FinanceBoards builds a bridge to integrate any custom API from company financials, technical charts and indicators to website SEO metrics, Facebook “likes” and Appstore downloads and ratings.


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FinDEVr Preview: Hyperwallet

FinDEVr Preview: Hyperwallet

FinDEVrSV16-withdateFinDEVr Previews highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Early-bird savings end Friday, so pick up your ticket today and save your spot.

With Hyperwallet, see how some simple code can make it easier to pay your independent contractors, suppliers, and resellers almost anywhere in the world. Learn how RESTful payout APIs can ensure a frictionless end-user experience, secure connections to a scalable global financial network, and direct payouts through payee-directed optionality.

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Why it’s a must-see

A must-attend for developers tasked with solving payment issues within their marketplace or on-demand economy platform, this presentation of Hyperwallet’s developer toolkit (global payout REST APIs, SDKs, JavaScript widgets and web hooks) will demonstrate how attendees can integrate worldwide payout functionality into their platform in 10 minutes or less.


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FinDEVr Preview: 1787fp

FinDEVr Preview: 1787fp

FinDEVrSV16-withdateFinDEVr Previews highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Early-bird savings end Friday, so pick up your ticket today and save your spot.

1787fp will showcase how our mobile app can help millennials take control of finances.

1787fp will be introducing a cutting-edge mobile app that helps consumers track finances and manage investments.

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Why it’s a must-see

Managing finances is time-consuming, but everyone has to do it. Today’s investors visit multiple websites to track their financial accounts.

By using 1787fp’s software, consumers can properly manage their finances and maximize their potential savings and future wealth accumulation.


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Finicity Unveils New ACH Account Verification API

Finicity Unveils New ACH Account Verification API

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Thanks to Finovate/FinDEVr alum Finicity, developers have a new API to use to add account verification to their payment and investment apps. Finicity’s new ACH Account Verification API gives developers the ability to quickly verify necessary account information for initiating inbound ACH account transfers.

“At Finicity, we’re committed to expanding our APIs and services to enrich existing partner offerings and open new partner markets,” Nick Thomas, co-founder and president of Finicity Data Services said. “The ACH Account Verification API accomplishes both by providing foundational payment and investment-account funding services across a high percentage of deposit accounts in the U.S.”

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Finicity President and co-founder Nick Thomas during his presentation “The Launch of Real-Time Transaction Push” at FinDEVr New York 2016.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Murray, Utah, Finicity demonstrated its TxPUSH API for fintech apps at FinovateSpring 2015. The company is also a veteran of the FinDEVr developer conferences, presenting “The Launch of Real-Time Transaction Push” at FinDEVr New York 2016 earlier this year. Finicity has raised more than $18 million in funding, and last fall acquired fellow Finovate alum, Aurora Financial Systems.

With more than 1,400 direct integrations to help app builders add new client onboarding and ongoing funds-verification sourcing, Finicity has the broadest coverage of directly sourced account information in North America. The company won the Finance API of the Year award from API World in August, and partnered with fellow FinDEVr alum, Intuit Developer Group, when the company decided to discontinue its financial services APIs this spring.

Talking about his company’s experience onboarding and working with new clients at FinDEVr New York 2016 this spring, Finicity’s Nick Thomas said, “It’s a fascinating place to be, to be in the platform space, and to see all this amazing innovation that’s happening. You think you’ve seen exciting stuff today. You have no idea what cool things are coming down the pipeline.” If “exciting” and “cool” are words you use to describe the latest in tools, tips, and tricks for fintech developers, then join us October 18 and 19 for FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016. Stop by our registration page today and take advantage of early-bird pricing through Friday.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Finicity Unveils New ACH Account Verification API

Around the web

  • OutsideIQ and Pegasystems team up to help FIs meet KYC requirements.
  • Misys launches Platform-as-a-Service strategy by opening its FusionFabric platform to third parties.
  • Credit Karma reaches 60 million users; to begin offering mortgages.
  • ACI Worldwide to offer cloud-based payment-connectivity to SWIFT.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Ripple Raises $55 Million Series B; Announces New Bank Partners

Ripple Raises $55 Million Series B; Announces New Bank Partners

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The news last week that Ripple raised $55 million in Series B financing is a reminder of how a growing number of financial institutions are using digital currencies to improve the cross-border payments process. The investment comes courtesy of Standard Chartered, Accenture Ventures, SCB Digital Ventures, and SBI Holdings, and also featured participation from Santander Innoventures and Venture 51.

“Our mission is to make cross-border payments truly efficient for banks and their customers, and in doing so, lay the foundation for an Internet of Value where the world moves money as easily as information,” Ripple co-founder and CEO Chris Larsen explained. Ripple will use the funding, which takes the company’s total capital to more than $93 million, to grow its customer base and its team, as well as help secure strategic partnerships.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Ripple demonstrated its technology as OpenCoin at FinovateSpring 2013. An innovator in using digital currencies and distributed ledger technology to help increase the efficiency and lower the costs of cross-border payments for FIs, Ripple added multi-sign functionality to its consensus ledger in July, a month after the company announced that it was working with seven banks to “accelerate and improve” their cross-border payments service. Ripple picked up the first New York BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services this summer, and began the year partnering with SBI Holdings in a joint venture called SBI Ripple Asia that will bring Ripple’s cross-border payment solution to banks in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Ripple currently features 15 of the top 50 global banks in its global network, with pilot projects for more than 30 banks already completed. Calling the company “one of the most advanced distributed financial technology” firms in the industry, Global Head of Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered Alex Manson pointed out that Ripple’s technology was already a “tested and viable solution.” This, Manson said, would lead the way for collaboration between Standard Chartered and Ripple to “co-develop more use cases to better serve our clients and their ecosystems’ needs in an evolving marketplace.” Accenture’s Richard Lumb added that the use-cases for distributed financial technology go beyond cross-border payments, including services like real-time reporting and fraud detection.

In addition to the funding, Ripple announced a number of new additions to its network. These banks include:

  • BMO Financial Group
  • Mizuho Financial Group (MHFG)
  • National Australia Bank (NAB)
  • Siam Commercial Bank (SCB)
  • Shanghai Huarui Bank
  • Standard Chartered

Larsen called 2016 “the year where the most forward-thinking financial institutions are actually using blockchain technologies for payments and settlements rather than as an experiment.” He called the new additions a “major endorsement” of Ripple’s technology and the company’s capacity to build a “modern payments system to enable new economic opportunities and the seamless flow of value around the world.”

Hoyos Labs Rebrands as Veridium, Launches New Biometric Authentication Solution

Hoyos Labs Rebrands as Veridium, Launches New Biometric Authentication Solution

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With the launch of its new, end-to-end biometric authentication solution—VeridiumID—the security innovator that demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2014 as Hoyos Labs is now Veridium.

Company COO Todd Shollenbarger said, “We’re going to replace what you know (passwords) with what you are (biometrics) to safeguard enterprises from fraud and data breaches.” Pointing to the issues that typically inhibit broader adoption of biometric technology, such as high cost and technical complexity, Shollenbarger added that Veridium’s use of SaaS delivery for the backend—and the user’s smartphone to handle the image-capture for authentication—helps reduce both cost and complexity. “We’re making biometric authentication a solution of today, not tomorrow,” he said.

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VeridiumID gives businesses the ability to leave password-based authentication and instead incorporate biometric methods using face, voice, or fingerprint. The combination of biometrics and multiple authentication factors in its new solution gives customers of financial services companies the ability to access their accounts and transact without cards and PIN codes, eliminates the need for insurance cards as an authentication tool in healthcare, and helps governments manage physical access in a more efficient and less cumbersome and costly way.

A server-based solution working with a mobile app and a front-end, mobile SDK, the technology uses virtual cryptography to break biometric data into pieces. Storing and distributing the data this way makes it harder for hackers to steal or compromise an entire biometric piece of data, such as a fingerprint. VeridiumID uses liveness detection, accommodates a number of plug-and-play biometric libraries, and provides support for an Active Directory or a FIDO authenticator. Deployable in the cloud or on-site, VeridiumID requires no additional hardware.

The goal of the rebrand from Hoyos Labs to Veridium is to focus the company’s efforts in four key areas: financial services, healthcare, government, and the Global 2000. Veridium says it seeks to leverage its eight patents (with another 34 pending), as well as numerous R&D breakthroughs, to build an open standard for authentication that will defend the enterprise against data breaches today, while remaining flexible enough to “ensure continual iteration and enable the solutions to evolve at the forefront of the industry.”

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York City, Veridium demonstrated the mobile app of its identity-assertion platform at FinovateFall 2014. The company also has offices in the U.K. (Oxford and London), as well as in Boston, Massachusetts, and Timisoara, Romania.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Ripple Raises $55 Million Series B; Announces New Bank Partners
  • Hoyos Labs Rebrands as Veridium; Launches New Biometric Authentication Solution

Around the web

  • Wipro establishes blockchain research center at its Begaluru campus.
  • Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) chooses biometric authentication from Finovate newcomer Daon. Video of Daon’s debut at FinovateFall will be available soon.
  • CBIC to join SecureKey’s Concierge, an authentication service.
  • Braintree SDK to help merchants in Europe accept UnionPay to better reach Chinese consumers.
  • Fidor Bank teams up with GFT Technologies to build mobile banking app.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Alkami Technology Inks Digital Banking Deal with Desert Schools FCU

Alkami Technology Inks Digital Banking Deal with Desert Schools FCU

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One of our oldest alums just inked a deal with the biggest credit union in Arizona.

Alkami Technology, which demoed at FinovateSpring 2009 as iThryv and transitioned to its current incarnation a year later, announced this week that Desert Schools Federal Credit Union will use its ORB (Online Relationship Builder) digital banking platform. Desert Schools FCU is the largest credit union in Arizona, with $4 billion in assets and more than 220,000 online banking users.

Stephen Bohanon, chief strategy and sales officer for Alkami Technology, cited research indicating that mobile banking provided an “immediate lift in overall satisfaction” in praising his company’s partnership with Desert Schools. “Financial institutions like Desert Schools are embracing this shift in consumer expectations by investing in digital technology that delivers a superior, engaging experience,” Bohanan said.

Alkami’s ORB platform will give members of Desert Schools FCU access to a wide array of features inducing retail and business banking tools, mobile, billpay, PFM, P2P payments, and more. The technology will also enable Desert Schools to build their own apps and product extensions, as well as introduce additional, new features to provide its members with what Alkami calls a “highly, customized digital banking experience.”

And this is exactly what the Arizona-based credit union was looking for. “We selected Alkami for their modern and engaging user experience,” SVP of digital strategy for Desert Schools FCU, Tim Lipsky, said, “as well as their flexible and extensible platform, which aligns with our vision to strengthen our digital capabilities to meet our members’ needs.”

Based in Plano, Texas, Alkami Technology teamed up with security specialist Easy Solutions this spring, bringing enhanced fraud protection to Alkami’s digital banking platform. The company’s ORB was recognized in the 2015 GonzoBanker awards as part of Tim Daily’s “Online Banking/Mobile Banking Franken-Banking Product.”

Juvo’s Global Launch Features Finovate Debut and $14 Million In New Funding

Juvo’s Global Launch Features Finovate Debut and $14 Million In New Funding

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There are many great ways to kick off a global launch. We like to think demonstrating your technology live on stage at a Finovate conference is one.

But we’ll concede that announcing a $14 million funding-round featuring participation from the former CEOs at companies like AT&T Wireless, Telefonica International, and Vodafone Group is pretty good, too.

“Only Juvo can deliver financial services to millions of underserved consumers around the world instantly,” former NYSE CEO and Juvo investor, Duncan Niederauer said. He praised both the company’s leadership and its track record, saying Juvo was in a strong position to help mobile operators transition to digital technology as well as respond to “the wider socioeconomic issues around financial inclusion for all.”

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CEO and founder Steve Polsky and VP of Product Development Jason Robinson demonstrated Juvo Identity Scoring at FinovateFall 2016.

Juvo’s Identity Scoring technology leverages data science, machine learning, and game mechanics to provide financial identities to underserved populations around the world. Founded by CEO Steve Polsky, Juvo has a market footprint in 23 countries across four continents, giving the technology a reach of more than 100 million. Identity Scoring analyzes both subscriber and usage data in real-time to give mobile operators the consumer data they need to improve engagement and support growth. The company says that mobile operators using the solution have seen gains of 10% to 15% in average revenue per user, and has enabled them to offer high-value financial services.

“Juvo starts by reimagining the prepaid experience and encouraging identity-based relationships between subscribers and their mobile operators,” Polsky explained. “Juvo helps turn a previously ‘invisible’ customer into a ‘visible’ one,” he said, “opening doors for the customer, the mobile operator, and financial service provider alike, and bringing us closer to our vision of financial inclusion for all.”

Founded in March 2014 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Juvo demoed its Identity Scoring solution at FinovateFall 2016 last week. Juvo’s investors include Wing Venture Capital, Freestyle, and Seed-Resolute.

Malauzai Features Enhanced Card Management, Personalization in Latest SmartApps Release

Malauzai Features Enhanced Card Management, Personalization in Latest SmartApps Release

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Enhanced card management and personalized transactions are among the new features for the latest edition Malauzai Software’s mobile and online banking SmartApps. Enhanced card management improves security by giving users the ability to switch cards on and off, establish accepted merchants and dollar thresholds, and transaction categories. And the personalized-transactions feature enables users to attach a photo or image to any transaction to make it easy to record and track spending.

“The recent developments within our SmartApps enable banks and credit unions to offer truly distinct digital channels that combine custom designs and analytics to allow consumers and small businesses to better control their finances,” says Robb Gaynor, chief product officer for Malauzai, headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Bill Bunn, SVP and head of retail banking at Park Sterling Bank, praised Malauzai for being “quick to market with new products and features that positively impact our customers.” Bunn says he appreciates how Malauzai’s technology has helped banks like his—with $3.2 billion in assets—compete with its larger rivals. “We love that we can get in front of customers and show that we can provide the same, if not better, products that the big banks provide,” Bunn said, “and Malauzai helps us do that.”

In addition to enhanced card management and personalized transactions, the new features to SmartApps include a Family Financial Manager that enables users to create apps for additional users (such as family members or financial advisers) and a “View as User” feature that enables professionals at financial institutions to “see what the customer sees” from their own consoles to better respond to questions and help solve problems.

Founded in 2009, Malauzai Software demonstrated its MOX Pay Powered by Visual App Builder at FinovateSpring 2016. The company has more than 85 employees, and its solutions are live with more than 400 banks and credit unions. Earlier this summer, Malauzai announced that it was adding mobile deposit functionality to its MOX Everywhere Suite, courtesy of a new partnership with fellow Finovate alum, Cachet Financial Solutions. Malauzai teamed up with Finovate alum Geezeo in April 2016 to bring PFM tools to more community financial institutions, and in March, the company joined BizEquity (yet another Finovate alum) in earning recognition at the Bank Director’s FinXTech Awards.