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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Embedded finance company Finotta has teamed up with banking software provider ebankIT.
The partnership will integrate Finotta’s Personified Personalized Financial Guidance platform with ebankIT’s digital banking solution.
Both Finotta and ebankIT are Finovate alums. ebankIT most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope in March. Finotta made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022.
Embedded finance company Finotta has forged a new partnership with omnichannel banking software firm ebankIT. The partnership will integrate Finotta’s Personified platform with ebankIT’s digital banking solution in order to deliver better financial wellness tools and Personlized Financial Guidance (PFG) to customers worldwide.
Finotta’s Personified platform provides an automated and personalized mobile banking experience. Personified includes a financial coach, a financial health leveling system, automated financial guidance, predictive product referrals, digitized relationship building, the ability to make internal and external transfers, and more. The suite of solutions helps financial institutions address customer needs and respond to them from within the digital banking platform.
Personal finance is often treated as a local concern. However, Finotta founder and CEO Parker Graham put this week’s integration in an international context. “Financial wellness is a global imperative that transcends borders, affecting individuals and communities everywhere,” Graham said. “In partnering with ebankIT, we’re not just future-proofing financial institutions, we’re elevating the financial well-being of users and underscoring innovation as the bedrock of customer loyalty.”
ebankIT CEO Renato Oliveira said that delivering “humanized, personalized, and accessible digital experiences” is a priority for ebankIT “from day one.” He added, “At ebankIT, we recognize that the future of digital banking hinges on seamless omnichannel capabilities and enriched user experiences.” Oliveira called the partnership with Finotta “an extension of that commitment.”
Founded in 2014, ebankIT is headquartered in Portugal. The company has been a Finovate alum since winning Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2015. The company most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope earlier this year. At the conference, ebankIT introduced a new range of features on its digital banking platform. Among these features was a tool to help banks and credit unions better anticipate customer needs.
Over the summer, ebankIT announced a strategic partnership with digital transformation and cybersecurity consultancy, Online Business Systems. More recently, the company teamed up with Home Trust. Via the partnership, ebankIT helped the Canada-based mortgage broker launch its new digital banking platform.
Founded in 2018, Finotta is a newcomer to the Finovate stage. The Overland Park, Kansas-based company made its debut last year at FinovateFall 2022. Finotta announced in August that its Personified platform increased user engagement to an average of 13 minutes per month. Graham credited the difference between Finotta’s Personalized Financial Guidance platform and traditional personal finance management solutions.
“To better capitalize on existing digital banking investments and increase share of wallet all while lowering acquisition costs, banks need to shift their focus away from PFMs and instead embrace Personalized Financial Guidance,” Graham said. “By focusing on guiding customers through their financial journey, they increase the amount of time users spend in the app.”
Philippines-based digital bank Tonik has entered the insurance business. The neobank announced a new strategic partnership this week with life insurance company Sun Life Grepa Financial, Inc. (Sun Life Grepa).
The partnership will enable Tonik to offer its customers Payhinga, a credit life and disability insurance product. Payhinga gives policyholders access to life and disability insurance with coverage of up to 120% of the loan amount. Further, policyholders can use a two-month payment holiday to reschedule upcoming loan payments in the event of financial difficulty.
“The partnership with Sun Life Grepa will significantly expand our suite of products, and insurance is a highly sought-after addition our customers have been requesting,” Tonik Country President Long Pineda said.
The Philippines’ first, digital-only neobank, Tonik offers loan, deposit, and payment products to consumers via its digital banking platform. The bank teamed up with FC Home Center, launching its Shop Installment Loan with the retailer in August. In June, Tonik announced that it had reached the one million customer milestone. Greg Krasnov (CEO) founded Tonik in 2020.
Speaking of digital banks based in the Philippines, UNO Digital Bank is teaming up with Collabera Digital. A digital engineering services provider, Collabera Digital will help the bank develop and integrate a mini app within superapp GCash.
Collabera Digital provided the strategy to address key issues such as AML and KYC, and built an integrated API platform. The leading superapp in the Philippines, GCash provides a wide range of financial services including money transfer, billpay, savings, investments, insurance, lending, and more. UNO Digital Bank’s integration into GCash will boost access to financial services to individuals across the socio-economic spectrum. The integration also supports the growth of the digital economy via services like mobile banking and digital wallets.
“Our partnership with GCash is significant in scaling and increasing our customer reach,” founder and CEO of UNO Digital Bank Manish Bhai said. “As a greenfield bank, built independently of a larger traditional institution, we have to be innovative in identifying opportunities to grow and expand. GCash, with their 90+ million users and active thrust towards financial inclusion, is a great partner leading to a win-win proposition for both the entities.”
UNO Digital Bank was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Taguig, a city in the Manila metropolitan area. The institution had total assets of $29 million (PHP 1.78 billion) as of end of year 2022.
What are fintechs in the Philippines doing for small businesses? Merchant fintech platform yufinannounced a series of partnerships this week designed to bring new services to Philippines-based merchants. The new additions to yufin’s partnership ecosystem include wholesaler Lots for Less, delivery firm Transportify, and streaming content company Vivamax.
Shubhrendu Khoche, President and co-founder of yufin Philippines, noted that the new partnerships will drive greater digital adoption by businesses throughout the value chain. “As the financial growth engine for small merchants, these new partnerships will create more reasons for digital payment for our small merchants, their shoppers, and suppliers,” Khoche explained.
Founded in 2021, yufin aims to raise the income of 10 million households at least by 50% in the next five years. The company’s partnership ecosystem helps turn small, corner shops into preferred banking and credit hubs for their customers. With a goal of partnering rather than competing with local banks, yufin offers assisted digital financial services that enable underserved communities to leverage technology to improve financial outcomes.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Sub-Saharan Africa
South Africa’s Lipa Payments secured full SDK certification for Tap to Phone from both Visa and Mastercard.
Kenyan fintech and mobility solutions company Data Integrated won approval to operate as a Payment Service Provider from the country’s central bank.
Stitch, a business payments company based in South Africa, raised $25 million in Series A funding.
Central and Eastern Europe
German B2B Buy Now Pay Later payments provider Mondu registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Polish fintech Verestro integrated the Quicko Wallet money transfer service within the Slack application.
Cloover, a climate-based fintech based in Germany, raised €7 million in pre-seed funding.
Middle East and Northern Africa
ACI Worldwideforged a partnership with MENA-based payments and BaaS enabler NymCard.
Payments infrastructure company Finzly secured $10 million in Series A funding this week.
The round was led by TZP Growth Equity. Finzly will use the capital to accelerate expansion.
Finzly won Best of Show for its demos at FinovateWest and FinovateFall in 2020.
Payments infrastructure innovator Finzly has raised $10 million in funding. The Series A round was led by TZP Growth Equity. Finzly, which won Best of Show at FinovateWest and FinovateFall in 2020, will use the investment to accelerate expansion.
“Throughout Finzly’s history, we have carefully invested in disciplined and organic future growth by developing products and solutions that deliver value to our customers by simplifying their operations,” Finzly founder and CEO Booshan Rengachari explained. “This capital raise will enable us to further invest in our product roadmap built around the theme of providing real-time financial services demanded by today’s real-time economy, scaling our product delivery to maintain our high customer satisfaction rate.”
Finzly made its Finovate debut in 2019 and returned to the Finovate stage the following year. The company won Best of Show in the spring of 2020 and again in the fall. Finzly’s technology connects FIs with customers through a modern, digital banking experience and an efficient, real-time payments hub. The company’s “payments core” is a single platform that consolidates all payment rails, simplifying back-office operations and the customer journey. Finzly’s high automation rates enable banks to reduce operating expenses and offer friction-free payments. The company was among the first to offer an API connection to FedNow, the Federal Reserve’s new instant payment service.
Shamit Mehta, TZP’s lead partner on the investment called Finzly “a catalyst in the transition towards more agile and customer-centric banking experiences.” Further, Mehta added that Finzly was “well-positioned to drive significant advancements in how banking and financial services operate and will become a category-defining company.” As part of the funding, Mehta will join Finzly’s board of directors.
Finzly’s investment news comes in the wake of the company’s latest partnership. Metropolitan Commercial Bank, a New York-based financial institution with assets of more than $6 billion, turned to Finzly to enhance its payment operations for ACH, Fedwire, and FedNow. Earlier this year, banking platform Mode Eleven partnered with Finzly to transform its wire and ACH operations.
Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Finzly was founded in 2012.
Fraud prevention platform Darwinium raised $18 million in Series A funding this week.
The company positions its fraud detection processes on the network perimeter to provide better visibility, coverage, and agility.
Recently relocated to San Francisco, California, Darwinium made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year.
Digital security and fraud prevention platform Darwiniumraised $18 million in Series A funding this week. The investment was led by U.S. Venture Partners, and featured participation from seed investors Blackbird, Airtree Ventures, and Accomplice. The Series A takes the San Francisco-based company’s total funding to $26 million. Darwinium will use the additional capital to scale its solution globally.
“AI capabilities have given fraudsters the upper hand of speed, scale, and greater efficiency,” Darwinium CEO and co-founder Alisdair Faulkner explained. “This is why we designed Darwinium to deliver the visibility and coverage of a security tool, the context and insight of fraud solutions, with the agility of AI. It’s the platform that will future-proof organizations against the most complex attacks.”
Darwinium offers two innovations to help companies fight fraud. First, Darwinium moves fraud detection processes to the network perimeter, to “the edge,” as the company refers to the strategy. This gives businesses a comprehensive view of the customer journey at every digital touchpoint, making it easier to distinguish trusted from risky behavior. This approach also gives the technology an advantage over API-based fraud protection solutions. These solutions, according to Darwinium, are not sufficiently agile and lack the context to adequately respond to evolving fraud threats.
Second, Darwinium leverages a SaaS approach to data protection, encrypting and anonymizing data on “the edge.” Any customer data that is subjected to analysis is stored within the business’ own infrastructure with their own digital keys. Darwinium’s technology then uses the anonymized version of this customer data. This enables the information to be processed without being exposed to fraudsters. Darwinium’s approach to securing customer data makes it easy for businesses to comply with consumer privacy regulations such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Founded in 2021, Darwinium made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year. At the conference, the company previewed its fraud prevention platform that leverages individual digital signatures to make sure that website visitors and customers are who they say they are. The company introduced its Continuous Customer Protection platform this spring, simultaneously announcing the firm’s expansion to the U.S. and relocation of its corporate headquarters to San Francisco.
Mahalo Banking launched a new solution to combat credential stuffing.
The new offering, Credential Assurance Technology (CAT), augments the sign-in process to make credential stuffing impossible.
Mahalo Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut last month at FinovateFall.
Mahalo Banking, a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) that took home Best of Show honors in its Finovate debut last month, has launched a new tool to fight credential stuffing. Mahalo’s Credential Assurance Technology (CAT) augments the traditional account sign-in process, disrupting bot functioning and rendering credential stuffing impossible. Importantly, the technology does not require the use of friction-creating methods such as CAPTCHAs.
“With CAT, credit unions can confidently safeguard member accounts and help prevent the attacks that come at a high cost,” Mahalo COO Denny Howell said. He referred to CAT as a result of Mahalo’s “unwavering commitment to producing innovations that address the all-too-common obstacles faced by credit unions to redefine the digital banking experience.”
In a study by the Identity Defined Security Alliance, 84% of respondents said their organizations had experienced a data breach, which often leads to compromised credentials. Cybercriminals can direct automated bots to use this data to hack login credentials – such as those of credit union members.
“If your credit union has not been targeted yet, it’s just a matter of time,” Mahalo President and CEO Jim Stickley said. He noted that it was important that new security measures be as inobtrusive as they are effective. “It was important to use to create a solution that would resolve this issue without adding new barriers or disruption for credit union members,” Stickley said. “What we have created has simply changed the game. When our CAT solution is enabled, credential stuffing simply does not work.”
Founded in 2018, Mahalo made its Finovate debut last month at FinovateFall, earning Best of Show honors from our attendees. At the conference, Mahalo’s Howell and Chief Technology Officer Dan Domek demonstrated how the CUSO had integrated comprehensive neurodiverse functionality directly into its platform. This enables the platform to better serve members that may have unique needs due to autism, dyslexia, epilepsy, color-blindness, or other conditions.
In August, the Troy, Michigan-based fintech announced an expansion of its partnership with fellow Finovate alum Larky. That same month, Mahalo partnered with Providence Federal Credit Union to enhance both online and mobile banking experiences for the credit union’s 16,000+ members.
Is there a subsector of fintech that is more eager to adopt AI than the world of investing and asset management? From the burden of ever-growing amounts of potentially valuable data to the demands of managing risk to the challenge of generating alpha and producing above market returns, there are many ways that wealth management will benefit from innovations in AI – and the people involved in wealth management know it.
Founded by a team of former ETH Zurich researchers, aisot is one of the companies that is dedicated to helping asset and wealth managers make the most of the AI opportunity. The Swiss startup, launched in 2019 and headquartered in Zurich, leverages generative AI and access to market and alternative data sources, to deliver analytics, forecasts, and actionable insights to traders, business analysts, data scientists, and other financial services professionals.
“Information moves markets,” aisot co-founder and CEO Stefan Klauser said at the beginning of his Finovate demo in 2021. “At aisot we give you specialized market insights and full costs. (Our technology) reduces forecasting errors by up to 50%, and can enhance your returns. Whether you are a machine learning expert, a quant, or someone that has not had a systematic approach to data before, aisot’s services are always easy to use.”
aisot co-founder and CEO Stefan Klauser demoing his company’s technology at FinovateSpring 2021.
aisot launched its AI Insights Platform earlier this month. The cloud-based solution enables asset managers and wealth managers to offer their clients personalized investment portfolios at scale. The platform consists of three components: the AI Insights Dashboard, the Custom Feature Suite, and the Product Launch Pad. Via the Dashboard, users can investigate multiple market scenarios and fine-tune investment strategies. Dashboard features include an integrated portfolio builder, an optimizer to analyze historical data and market trends, and a statistical toolkit to enable users to review and evaluate portfolio performance. The platform’s Custom Features Suite allows users to vote on future platform enhancements and additions. The Product Launch Pad gives users the ability to launch structured notes, transforming investment strategies into tradable and liquid securities.
Klauser put the new offering in the context of the company’s overall philosophy as a “digital-first company.” He explained, “We conscientiously push technological boundaries while upholding core principles and stringent controls. Our relentless focus remains on our customer, shaping the platform based on their evolving needs in terms of performance, personalization, and scalability.”
The new product launch comes in the wake of aisot’s rebrand in July. In addition to a preview of the company’s AI Insights Platform and a new website, aisot also shared information about aisot Labs, the firm’s AI engine, as well as the company’s new investment products. These include aisot’s AI Balanced Digital Assets. An Actively Managed Certificate that enables investors to participate in the performance of an underlying investment strategy, AI Balanced Digital Assets is a long only, AI-driven, crypto portfolio built to match the volatility of a Bitcoin or Ethereum tracker while at the same time maximizing performance.
aisot has raised a total of $2.5 million (CHF 2.3 million) in funding, most recently securing $2 million (CHF 1.8 million) in seed capital this spring. The round was led by Haute Capital Partners, with angel investors, including members of the Swiss ICT Investor Club (SICTIC), also participating. The investment will enable aisot to add to its team, drive continued product development, and support the company’s growth projects.
Haute CEO and Chairman Thibault Leroy Bürki praised aisot as “a leading provider of AI solutions for asset and wealth management.” He added, “We chose aisot for their innovative approach to wealth management, advanced AI engine, and ability to generate alpha in real-time … aisot’s AI engine provides clients with the amazing ability to adjust customized portfolios to market trends in real-time while generating alpha.”
Analytics and monitoring solutions company Anodot has launched CostGPT to help businesses monitor cloud costs.
Anodot’s CostGPT leverages AI to enable business managers to learn about and manage their cloud costs data conversationally via chat.
Headquartered in Virginia, Anodot made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateEurope in London.
Advanced analytics and monitoring solutions provider Anodot has unveiled its latest solution, CostGPT. The new AI-powered offering enables cloud users to access accurate and personalized analysis of their cloud costs. With CostGPT, users will be able to better address everything from complex pricing models to cloud resource allocation with a simple query.
In addition to being able to ask the platform questions about cloud costs via chat, CostGPT provides optimization recommendations to help users better understand their cloud spending. The technology helps businesses avoid unnecessary costs, optimize resource utilization, and leverages real-time, intuitive data visualizations to make analysis, planning, and decision-making easier.
“This feature enables users to interact with their cloud cost data conversationally, making it more accessible and effortless than ever before,” Anodot Head of Product Limor Tepper said. “It’s all about ensuring that our users have the answers they need at their fingertips. And it doesn’t stop at text responses; it supplies the answers with graphical results that are easy to understand at a glance.”
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia, Anodot made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022. At the event, the company demoed its Payments Monitoring Tool. The technology leverages AI to monitor and correlate payments activity and business performance. This enables Anodot to spot potential issues and provide users with actionable alerts and forecasts in real-time. Businesses use Anodot to monitor a wide range of operations from front end applications to APIs to payments. Anodot says it has helped companies cut the time-to-detection of revenue-critical issues by up to 80%.
Anodot has raised $64.5 million in funding from investors including Alicorn Venture Capital and Redline Capital. Also last month, Anodot announced a “long-term strategic partnership” with DevOps and FinOps services Automat-IT. The partnership is designed to help consumers maximize their deployments on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Over the summer, Anodot released its annual State of Cloud Cost survey. The report highlighted trends such as the rise of third-party solutions and the challenge of cloud cost transparency.
Investment app Stash announced a $40 million investment on Friday. The investment was led by T. Rowe Price Investment Management.
The New York-based company also announced that former New York Stock Exchange CFO Amy Butte was joining the company as its first-ever independent audit chair.
Stash made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateFall.
Finishing the week with a bang is investment app Stash, which announced a new $40 million investment and first-ever independent audit chair on Friday.
The investment comes courtesy of T. Rowe Rice Investment Management, as well as a combination of strategic and existing investors including Goodwater Capital and Union Square Ventures. The first-ever independent audit chair comes courtesy of former NYSE Chief Financial Officer Amy Butte.
“The addition of Amy, who is amongst the most accomplished leaders in the financial services space, plus a new round of financing from marquee investors, are clear indicators of the strength of Stash’s business,” Stash CEO Liza Landsman said. “It also signals our widely ambitious future.”
A recognized leader in financial services, Butte has taken companies public as a director, advisor, and CFO, including the IPO of the New York Stock Exchange. Butte currently sits on the boards of Bain Capital Specialty Finance and DigitalOcean, and served on the boards of BNP Paribas and Fidelity Strategic Advisers Funds for seven and six years, respectively. In a statement, Butte underscored Stash’s unique approach to helping individuals get started on the road to investing.
“(Stash) is not a tool – it is a business,” Butte said. “It is not simply replicating a traditional workflow online. Rather, it is encouraging and teaching an underrepresented (traditionally ignored) customer segment about the value of investing through a subscription model. It is leveraging technology to make finance both accessible and also understandable.”
A Finovate alum since 2017, Stash offers an investing app that helps users build long-term wealth. With automated investment plans starting as low as $3 a month, Stash helps users build diversified investment Smart Portfolios – that offer exposure to stocks, ETFs, and even cryptocurrencies. Stash also offers personalized investment advice, automated recurring investing, and dividend reinvestments. Stash’s “Stock-Back” debit card solution enables users to earn up to 3% back in stock from regular purchases like gas and groceries.
In the past year alone, Stash has topped $100 million in annual revenue and now includes two million active subscribers on its platform. These subscribers have set aside nearly $3 billion due to regular, automated deposits averaging just $33.
Stash’s fundraising news comes just a few months after the company introduced new Chief Technology Officer Chien-Liang Chou, as well as launched its Internal Developer Portal (IDP), Elevate. Headquartered in New York, Stash was founded in 2015.
London-based fintech and digital wallet HyperJarannounced a partnership with digital gift card network, Tillo. The announcement makes HyperJar the first spending app to integrate instant Cashback Gift Cards. The cards enable customers to earn instant cashback of up to 15% from more than 50 top brands including Ikea and Amazon.
In a statement, HyperJar’s Nicola Longfield underscored that not only was HyperJar the first app to integrate the cashback gift cards with a spending account, but also HyperJar was the first to offer “merchant cashback.” This option enables users to choose a higher cashback rate that is specific to a given merchant.
HyperJar’s partnership news comes one month after the company secured $24 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Susquehanna Private Equity Investments. More than 500,000 individuals, including more than 100,000 child cardholders, use HyperJar’s digital wallets.
A handful of U.K.-based fintechs secured funding this week. Instant payments company Lopay announced a seed investment of $7.3 million (£6 million). Participating in the round were BackedVC, Portage, The Venture Collective, and angel investors. With 20,000 SMEs signed up since launch, the company offers a app that allows small businesses to accept card payments. The app also enables instant access to cleared funds as soon as transactions are completed. Founded in 2022, Lopay plans to use the capital to expand its operations.
Fellow U.K.-based fintech Kennek was another company that locked in seed funding this week. The firm raised $12.5 million in new capital in a round led by HV Capital. Dutch Founders Fund, AlbionVC, FFVC, Plug & Play Ventures, and Syndicate One also participated. The investment follows a $4.5 million pre-seed round closed in February.
Founded in 2021 and headquartered in London, Kennek offers an operating system for lending via a platform that supports the entire lending lifecycle from loan origination to servicing. The company will use the funds to further develop its core technology and add employees.
But the big winner of the week for U.K. fintechs in terms of funding was Untangled Finance. The firm, which operates a tokenized real-world asset (RWA) marketplace, secured $13.5 million in strategic funding in a round led by Fasanara Capital. Founded in 2020, Untangled Finance plans to use the capital for product development and to fuel growth.
The London-based company offers a tokenization platform that facilitates placing traditional financial assets on a blockchain. These real-world financial assets can range from bonds to real estate. Untangled Finance is part of a growing field within the digital asset industry that specializes in asset tokenization, a field that could grow as large as $5 trillion within the next five years, according to a recent report. Note that, along with its investment, Fasanara Capital opened two private tokenized credit pools on Untangled Finance’s platform.
Speaking of DeFi, for those who believe that regulation is the path to greater acceptance of cryptocurrencies, this week’s announcement from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) could be considered good news.
Within 24 hours of its new cryptoassets regulatory regime going live, the FCA has issued 146 alerts to non-compliant companies that were promoting cryptoassets to U.K. customers in violation of the new policy, which was announced earlier this year.
In a statement, the FCA urged consumers to check its publicly available “Warning List” before investing or trading in cryptocurrencies. “We take a risk-based approach, so not alll firms of potential concern will be added straightaway,” the FCA explained. At the same time, regulators hope their Warning List will nevertheless help would-be crypto investors “understand where firms’ promotions may be breaking the law and to consider the promotion with the full information available.”
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
Coinbasesecured a Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Packworks, a Philippines-based fintech, inked a deal to help SMEs secure microfinancing.
Forbes looked at the current challenges facing Chinese fintechs.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Nigerian startup Haba InsurTech raised $75,000 in pre-seed funding.
Fraud analytics and risk management company Lenvi has partnered with secured finance technology provider Lendscape.
The integrated platform will help lenders identify fraud faster, and provide better, more seamless experiences for customers.
Headquartered in Leeds, U.K., Lenvi made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope.
Here’s some news that slipped under the radar in recent days and weeks. Lenvi, a Leeds-based fintech that made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year, has announced a partnership with secured finance technology provider Lendscape. Together, the two companies are offering enhanced digital risk management for lenders. The integrated platform will help lenders identify fraud faster, and provide better, more seamless experiences for customers.
“This collaboration, and the integration of our revolutionary mix of workflow technology and next-level credit risk analytics with Lendscape’s powerful lending technology, represents a major step forward in advancing the commercial finance industry’s capabilities,” Lenvi Chief Executive Officer Richard Carter said.
Lenvi brings an advanced, real-time credit risk analytics solution to the partnership. Combined with Lendscape’s lending technology, the joint offering will help lenders establish creditworthiness faster and more accurately. The collaboration will also support smarter lending decisions throughout the entire loan lifecycle – from application to servicing.
“This partnership allows us to give providers a more holistic view of creditworthiness, empowering them to work smarter, optimize their lending operations, or ultimately unlock more working capital for their SME customers,” Lendscape CEO Kevin Day said.
Lendscape provides 120+ banks and lenders with an end-to-end platform that enables them to offer a wide range of financing products. Both institutional and SME lenders can benefit from the ability to build and deliver innovative financing solutions by using Lendscape’s technology. Lendscape was founded as general IT services provider Hill Price Davison in 1972. The company changed its name to HPD Software in 2000, and rebranded as Lendscape two years later. In July of this year, Lendscape announced that it had secured a “significant investment” from private equity firm Bowmark Capital.
In its Finovate debut in March, Lenvi demonstrated its new loan management platform, PF1. The solution supports a wide range of lending types – from mortgages to unsecured loans. PF1 combines a broad and extendable API-first party support, along with comprehensive lending functionality. This allows for feature toggling along with a fully automated online deployments. At the same time, a React user interface and APIs give users the ability to take advantage of a highly configurable workflow engine while remaining compliant and secure.
Founded in 1988, Lenvi works with more than 150+ lenders, providing lendtech solutions in loan software and risk analytics. The company has managed more than $122 billion (£100 billion) in credit assets on behalf of clients, and processes a new loan application every five seconds on its platform.
Fraud and risk platform DataVisor launched its new AI Co-Pilot solution to enhance real-time fraud defense.
AI Co-Pilot includes AI-automated rule tuning, feature generation and automated debugging, and improved explainability among its features.
DataVisor made its Finovate debut last month at FinovateFall in New York.
Less than a month after making its Finovate debut at FinovateFall, fraud and risk platform DataVisor has launchedAI Co-Pilot. The new offering is a generative AI-facilitated fraud solution designed to catch fraud 20x faster than traditional methods.
AI Co-Pilot helps financial institutions detect fraud in real-time while at the same time reducing the number of false positives. This enables financial institutions to provide effective fraud defense without compromising the user experience with excessive friction.
DataVisor co-founder and CEO Yinglian Xie noted that innovation in the payment space required innovation in the fraud prevention space, as well. With bank transfer and payment fraud losses in the U.S. topping $1.58 billion last year, concerns over fraud risks can serve as an impediment to many financial institutions – especially smaller FIs and credit unions – when it comes to embracing instant payments and other new services that their customers and members want.
“Built on groundbreaking Generative AI technology, DataVisor’s AI Co-Pilot gives financial institutions better intelligence and automation for more effective fraud detection and prevention,” Xie said. “This innovative solution is more accurate, reacts to fraud trends much faster, and improves user experiences and customer support.”
Among the new capabilities delivered by DataVisor’s AI Co-Pilot are AI-automated rule tuning to accelerate the fraud response and improve accuracy, feature generation and automated debugging, and improved explainability to ensure transparency.
“(AI Co-Pilot) considerably reduces the need for analyst resources,” Xie added. “This advancement signifies a pivotal step toward enhanced security and efficiency across the industry.”
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Mountain View, California, DataVisor demoed its fraud and risk platform at FinovateFall last month. At the event, DataVisor’s Ryan Nichols and Kevin McWey showed how the technology’s rules engine, device intelligence, decision engine, and case management combine to enhance fraud detection and minimize losses.
DataVisor has raised more than $94 million in funding. The company includes CMFG Ventures and NewView Capital among its investors. Last month, DataVisor introduced new Chief Revenue Officer Kevin McWey. In July, the company announced that it had partnered with cyber and fraud threat intelligence specialist Q6 Cyber.
This week’s edition of 5 Tales from the Crypto features a pair of stories from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, concerns over crypto-crime and innovations in tokenization from JP Morgan Chase, and a look at a new product, a new partnership, and a new payments license.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced that e-wallet service provider and payment gateway, SticPay will partner with Binance’s payment solution, BinancePay. BinancePay is a contactless, borderless, secure, cryptocurrency payment technology. SticPay will leverage the solution to enhance and streamline its users’ access to a range of leading cryptocurrencies.
SticPay has more than one million users and 5,000 corporate customers in 200+ countries. Courtesy of the new partnership, SticPay users will be able to fund their accounts directly via BinancePay. This will enable them to buy, sell, and send more than 70 leading cryptocurrencies faster and cheaper, which SticPay CEO Sean Park called the company’s mission. “Our users will be able to handle more cryptocurrencies, more efficiently than ever before,” Park said.
The BinancePay news comes just a few weeks after Binance announced that it would sell its Russian business to CommEx. The off-boarding process is expected to take up to a year. Binance said in a statement that the assets of Russian accountholders are safe.
Binance Chief Compliance Officer Noah Perlman noted that the company remained positive on the long-term growth of the cryptocurrency industry worldwide. Nevertheless, he added, “operating in Russia is not compatible with Binance’s compliance strategy.”
The parting of ways between Binance and Russia is total. The company noted that it will have no ongoing revenue split from the sale of its Russia business to CommEx. Binance also did not maintain any option to buy back shares in the business as part of the sale.
Sometimes the gods of cryptocurrency giveth and sometimes they taketh away. In recent weeks, JP Morgan has represented both tendencies with regards to its openness to crypto and digital assets.
A few weeks ago, we learned that JP Morgan Chase UK will ban its customers from making crypto transactions, beginning on October 16. The bank blamed a high number of fraud and scam incidents for its decision. Specifically, according to a bank spokesperson, Chase customers will be unable to buy crypto assets using a Chase debit card. They will also be unable to transfer money to a cryptocurrency account from a Chase account.
Chase is hardly the only financial institution to place limits on its customer’s ability to transact in cryptocurrencies. NatWest limited the amount of money customers can send to crypto exchanges back in March, citing concerns over “crypto criminals.” Santander Bank has also moved to prevent its customers in the U.K. from sending real-time payments to crypto exchanges.
At the same time, JP Morgan Chase has become increasingly interested in blockchain technology and the opportunities in tokenization. This week, JP Morgan unveiled its Tokenized Collateral Network (TCN). The new platform leverages blockchain technology to enable investors to use digital assets as collateral and, further, to transfer collateral ownership without having to transfer assets in the underlying ledgers.
The first public transaction using TCN involved JPMorgan and BlackRock. JP Morgan leveraged its Onyx Digital Assets tokenization platform to convert shares of a money market fund into digital tokens. Those tokens were then transferred to Barclays bank via TCN to be used as a security for an OTC derivatives exchange between JPMorgan and BlackRock.
“The tokenization of money market fund shares as collateral in clearing and margining transactions would dramatically reduce the operational friction in meeting margin calls when segments of the market face acute margin pressures,” BlackRock deputy global COO of cash management Tom McGrath said.
The hope for TCN is that the technology will reduce the number of settlement fails and provide near-instant real-time changes in ownership. TCN is live and a number of clients and transactions are reportedly on deck.
Cryptocurrency exchange Birake Exchange has turned toIDVerse to provide identity verification. The platform specializes in Masternode coins and will leverage its new relationship with IDVerse (formerly known as OCR Labs) to provide KYC and secure digital identity verification (IDV) during the onboarding process.
In a statement, the Romania-based Birake Exchange team underscored its belief in the future of cryptocurrencies and the importance of decentralization. “To mitigate fraud risks while fostering public confidence, judicious customer due diligence through identity verification has become a priority for us,” the team said.
Founded in 2018, the Birake Exchange refers to itself as a “white label crypto exchange” because it offers trading technology that enables its customers to build and brand their own crypto exchanges. The Birake Network has its own blockchain, which is powered by the Birake Coin (BIR).
As OCR Labs, IDVerse demoed its technology at FinovateAsia 2017, winning Best of Show. The company rebranded as IDVerse earlier this year.
Blockchain company Quant has introduced a new solution designed to make blockchain-based transactions more secure for financial institutions. The new offering, Overledger Authorise, helps FIs manage and integrate digital asset private keys with their own current enterprise key management systems. The technology covers the incompatibility gap between existing systems and blockchain private keys by managing the signing of blockchain transactions and key generation.
Quant founder and CEO Gilbert Verdian noted that the success of blockchain technology in banking will depend on innovations in other technologies. “We cannot unlock (blockchain technology’s) true potential without robust and future-proof solutions for cryptographic key management and transaction authorization,” Verdian said.
Overledger Authorise has been stress-tested successfully in Project Rosalind. Project Rosalind is a central bank digital currency project conducted by the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements.
Headquartered in London, Quant was founded in 2015.
Ripple’s Singapore-based subsidiary, Ripple Markets APAC, secured its Major Payments Institution (MPI) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The MAS gave Ripple Markets in-principal approval earlier this year. The license paves the way for Ripple Markets APAC to issue digital payment tokens (DPTs).
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called Singapore “pivotal” to the company’s global business. Ripple established Singapore as its Asia Pacific headquarters in 2017. Garlinghouse referred to Singapore as “one of the leading fintech and digital asset hubs striking the balance between innovation, consumer protection and responsible growth.”
A Finovate alum since debuting as OpenCoin in 2013, Ripple has grown into a major enterprise blockchain solution provider for the financial services industry. Earlier this year, Ripple won a court ruling that its native cryptocurrency, XRP, was a digital token and “not in and of itself a ‘contract,’. As such, the court rules that Ripple was not guilty of selling unregistered securities – as accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2020.
