Author: David Penn

SelfScore Raises $7 Million to Bring Credit to International Students

SelfScore Raises $7 Million to Bring Credit to International Students
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings, SelfScore

SelfScore_homepage_August2016

Palo Alto-based SelfScore has raised $7.1 million in additional Series A funding. The round, led by Pelion Venture Partners and including existing investors, Accel Partners and Aspect Ventures, brings the data-analytics startup’s total capital to more than $15 million.

“Some of the most successful companies in this country were started and are run by international students,” SelfScore CEO and co-founder Kalpesh Kapadia said. “Our goal is to use this new round of funding to further educate current and future international students about why they should care about credit, and empower them to build it.” In addition to education, SelfScore plans to use the capital to expand its credit card portfolio and speed up new product development. As part of the investment, Blake Modersitzki, managing partner at Pelion, will join SelfScore’s board of directors.

SelfScore_stage_FF2014b

SelfScore CEO and co-founder Kalpesh Kapadia demonstrated his technology at FinovateFall 2014.

SelfScore has leveraged its expertise in data analytics and machine learning to create a proprietary algorithm that provides insights into consumer behavior, including creditworthiness. From its inception as a “scoring as a service” supplement to FICO scores, the consumer analytics company launched its dedicated MasterCard credit card geared specifically for international students this spring, and has since seen 3x growth in the number of signups month-over-month. Pointing out that the SelfScore has managed its growth “with very little capital deployed,” Modersitzki added, “SelfScore’s unique data analytics and machine-learning approach is a game-changer for unleashing financial freedom with today’s generation of international students.”

Founded in 2014, SelfScore demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2014. The company was profiled by Tech in Asia and CardRates.com in June, and hired a new CMO, Venkat Bala, in April. Bala was formerly VP, head of early-stage consumer cards at Wells Fargo.

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Liferay

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Liferay
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2016, FinovateFall 2016 Sneak Peek, Liferay

Liferay_homepage_August2016

FF2016-Logo-wdate-largeA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on 8/9 September 2016. Register today.

Liferay Digital Experience Platform (DXP) helps you create, manage, and deliver unique banking experiences consistently across every touchpoint by aggregating customer data from disparate systems.

Features:

  • Deliver unique, personalized customer experiences in context
  • Gain a comprehensive, single view of the customer
  • Lay the foundation for ongoing digital transformation

Why it’s great
Liferay DXP enables a deeper customer relationship from the beginning through a better understanding of what your customer wants.

Liferay_HenryNakamuraPresenters

Henry Nakamura, Sr. Customer Experience Manager
Nakamura puts customers’ needs first in building Liferay’s CX Department. He does it all, from journey mapping and engagement plans, to building a reference program.
LinkedIn

 

Liferay_KevalMehtaKeval Mehta, Account Manager
Mehta has worked on technical pre-sales and has a deep technical understanding of the product. He currently helps customers create solutions using Liferay.
LinkedIn

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Slice Launches Smart Shopping Assistant Extension for Chrome

Slice Launches Smart Shopping Assistant Extension for Chrome
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Slice

Slice_SliceWatch_homepage_August

You’ve got a PFM app to help you manage your finances and a robo-adviser to help you with your investments. So why not let technology help you save money when it comes to shopping?

Online shopping solution provider Slice debuted its Slice Watch Chrome Extension this week. The new smart-shopping assistant allows users to track the prices of products as they browse online, alerting them that a given website supports Slice Watch. Shoppers click on the teal-colored Slice Watch button to get a pop-up that allows them to add the item to their watch list. If the price of the item drops, the shopper gets an e-mail notification. Slice Watch is currently supported by retailers such as Amazon, Macy’s, Anthropologie, Target, and Nordstrom, among others.

“Right in time for this year’s Labor Day sale season,” wrote Julia Handel at the Slice blog, “meet your smart shopping assistant that’ll save you time, money, and your sanity.”

Slice_stage_FS2015

Slice COO and co-founder Harpinder Singh demonstrated the Slice Platform API at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

Boasting the largest and most comprehensive collection of item-level purchase-data from more than two million online consumers, Slice enables financial institutions, e-commerce merchants, and others to build features and applications to improve customer engagement, personalization, and marketing efforts. Slice also provides consumers with a free app that makes it easy to track all online purchases, price drops, product recalls, as well as store receipts. The Slice app is available on both Android and iOS.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Slice demonstrated its Platform API at FinovateSpring 2015. The company was acquired by Rakuten for an undisclosed sum in the summer of 2014. Read our Finovate Debut profile of Slice from last summer.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Agreement Express, CBW Bank, Entersekt, Experian, FF, FutureAdvisor, inSpirAVE, Kabbage, Liferay, Lighter Capital, SelfScore, Slice, Temenos, Xero

On Finovate.com

  • Slice Launches Smart Shopping Assistant Extension for Chrome
  • SelfScore Raises $7 Million to Bring Credit to International Students

Around the web

  • Temenos to provide core banking solutions for international microfinance specialist, Microcred.
  • US Bank Wealth Management to launch automated investing courtesy of new partnership with FutureAdvisor.
  • Entersekt brings its Transakt technology to the Middle East in collaboration with IST Networks.
  • Fortune follows CBW Bank’s journey.
  • Lighter Capital launches $25 million AppExchange Fund for Salesforce partners building AppExchange apps.
  • Crowdfund Insider interviews Rob Frohwein, Kabbage CEO and co-founder.
  • Xero named most-loved accounting software for second year in a row.

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.

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Meet The ID Co: miiCard Rebrands as DirectID Spurs Growth

Meet The ID Co: miiCard Rebrands as DirectID Spurs Growth
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: MiiCard, The ID Co.

TheIDCo_homepage_August2016

In rebranding as The ID Co., James Varga’s identity-verification startup will be better poised to provide businesses and consumers with better fraud protection, faster onboarding, and easier, safer login and checkout capabilities. DirectID and miiCard will serve as The ID Co.’s two core business units, with miiCard Digital Passport “helping consumers own and manage their identities,” Varga explained, and DirectID B2B “more deeply embedding identity in business processes.”

“Our mission is to create a layer of trust online, a digital world where you can trust that people really are who they say they are,” he added. “Our new company name represents who we are, and better reflects our mission to help solve one of the greatest challenges of our time.”

Growth of The ID Co.’s DirectID B2B service in particular helped drive the rebranding decision. Currently deployed at leading banks, wealth management firms, and online lenders, the technology helps improve onboarding conversion rates, reduce fraud and improve underwriting accuracy by factoring in data sources such as Bank Verified Identities and financial transaction histories.

Launched in the fall of 2014, DirectID provides an “all-in-one solution” that is especially effective for the affordability testing in high-value, online transactions. The company’s consumer platform, miiCard (My Internet Identity Card) provides a “consumer-centric identity” for online and mobile users, including a digital passport being piloted with the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace and the state of North Carolina.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, The ID Co. demonstrated miiCard Identity as a Service at FinovateFall 2013. The company has raised more than $9 million in funding and was an inaugural member of  fintech accelerator, SixThirty. Vargas sat down with American Banker last summer to discuss the challenges of online identity verification and the role of banks as a “source of trust.”

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Financeit Launches Direct-to-Consumer Financing Platform, Financeit Direct

Financeit Launches Direct-to-Consumer Financing Platform, Financeit Direct
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinanceIt

FinanceIt_homepage_August2016

Financeit Direct is a new, direct-to-consumer financing platform from Financeit that transforms traditional point-of-sale financing into a mobile-enabled, paperless process that works for small- and medium-sized business.

“Throughout beta testing, merchants described Financeit Direct as a revolutionary tool that can be customized for their work schedules and routines,” Financeit founder and CEO Michael Garrity said. “Consumers love the quick and easy application process and the added privacy and security, along with Financeit’s competitive interest rates.”

Financeit_stage_FF2013

(Left to right): COO Casper Wong, CTO Paul Sehr, and CEO and founder Michael Garrity demonstrated Financeit at FinovateFall 2014.

Financeit Direct allows customers to use their mobile devices to complete financing applications by uploading documentation such as a voided check or a pay stub. Customers can review rates and get instant credit decisions via their mobile device as well. Calling Financeit Direct “the first point-of-sale financing platform to take full advantage of the mobile revolution,” Financeit CTO Paul Sehr said the technology was already seeing “huge traction” among beta testers, most of whom have begun to use the platform for financing “big-ticket purchases.”

Founded in 2011, Financeit announced the launch of its U.S.-compliant platform at FinovateFall 2014 and demonstrated the technology in partnership with fellow Finovate alum, FIS. The company has processed more than $1.5 billion in loans from more than 5,000 merchant partners since inception. Financeit is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and has raised more than $21 million in funding. In June, it announced an agreement with ClearFlow for a $30 million credit facility. The company’s COO, Casper Wong, was featured in Notable this spring.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Betterment, CustomerXPs, FinanceIt, Nopsec, Nous.net, The ID Co., True Potential

On Finovate.com

  • Financeit Launches Direct-to-Consumer Financing Platform, Financeit Direct
  • Meet The ID Co.: miiCard Rebrands as DirectID Spurs Growth
  • Nous Launches New Trading App TIQL for a Safer Way to Trade
  • Check out this week’s FinDEVr APIntelligence

Around the web

  • Uber partners with Betterment to offer drivers flexible retirement accounts that will be fee-free for a year.
  • CU Broadcast features NopSec CTO Michelangelo Sidagni.
  • True Potential teams up with UBS Asset Management to launch five, new multi-asset funds.

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.

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Narrative Science Turns Images into Insights for Tableau Software

Narrative Science Turns Images into Insights for Tableau Software
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Narrative Science

NarrativeScience_NarrativesforTableau

Is a picture really worth 1,000 words? Thanks to a new partnership between data-visualization solution-provider, Tableau software, and natural language generation (NLG) specialist, Narrative Science, we may soon find out.

With the new Narratives for Tableau, users of Tableau Server and Tableau Public will be able to generate natural language explanations of their data visualizations. Narratives for Tableau is available as a free Google Chrome extension, and the company says the extension is the “first step” toward a greater integration between the two technologies. “We are thrilled to be partnering with Tableau, a company that equally shares our passion of helping people understand their data and act on it immediately,” Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel said. He praised the idea of putting Advanced NLG technology at the front of the data-discovery process, which he said gives users “the best and easiest asset for understanding and sharing information narratives.”

NarrativesforTableau_art

Click image to see a video of Narratives for Tableau’s features.

Francois Ajenstat, chief product officer for Tableau, said that empowering customers and providing easy-to-use technology were important to his company. Narratives for Tableau, said Ajenstat, is an example of both concepts, and provides an opportunity to “further enable Tableau users to quickly understand what is most interesting and important in their data.”

Narrative Science’s work with Tableau is the latest in a series of recent collaborations. The company partnered with Vermilion Software in May, enabling asset managers to use NLG technology to create portfolio commentary. In April, Narrative Science unveiled Narratives for Power BI, a new extension developed in partnership with Microsoft that gives managers “insightful stories” from their business intelligence data. The company began the year with the launch of Narratives for Qlik, which adds NLG narratives to Flik’s visual analytics and business intelligence functionality.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Narrative Science demonstrated its Quill Financial solution at FinovateFall 2013.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bluescape, EyeVerify, Fiserv, Kasasa, LendingFront, LendUp, nanoPay, NCR Corporation, Slice, Temenos, TransferTo

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • NCR launches innovation lab at its new global headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
  • London-based BACB to replace its legacy IT systems with CorporateSuite from Temenos.
  • TransferTo integrates paysafecard as payment option within Safemoni app.
  • Slice launches browser add-on to send an email when the price of an item drops.
  • Kasasa now has 400 community FIs using its rewards account offering.

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.

 

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Signature & Teller: Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka Chooses Fiserv

Signature & Teller: Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka Chooses Fiserv
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Fiserv

Fiserv_homepage_August2016

Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka’s next core-account-processing platform and front-end teller system will come from Fiserv.

The bank, the product of a merger between subsidiaries MBSL Savings Bank and MCSL Financial Services, said its selection of Fiserv’s Signature core-accounting processing and Teller front-end teller systems was based on its need for “stability, flexibility, and scalability,” according to Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka CEO T. Mutugala. He said that the growth of the bank’s network and customer base meant seeking solutions that would also make it more affordable to run multiple systems, and added that Fiserv’s technology had already been “proven locally in Sri Lanka” as well as around the world.

Live in more than 40 countries, Signature helps mid-tier and larger banks serve enterprise clients as a multilingual, multicurrency core-accounting processing platform. Teller is a full-featured, branch-tellering and transaction-processing solution that provides tools to automate daily operations and give management the visibility and controls necessary to remain compliant and operate safely within a global context.

Fiserv has made a major impact in the Asia Pacific region, with clients in 13 countries within an area including Australia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Nevertheless, the news from Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka arrived as Fiserv also announced two new credit-union clients back in the United States. Badlands FCU ($27 million in assets) in Glendive, Montana, and Danville City Employees FCU ($25 million in assets) both have elected to deploy Fiserv’s integrated OnCU core-account-processing solutions suite.

Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Fiserv demonstrated its Mobiliti Enterprise solution at FinovateSpring 2016. With more than 13,000 customers and 21,000 associates around the world, Fiserv was named a Fortune magazine World’s Most Admired Company for the third year in a row in 2015, the same year the company was recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best Employers.

Interested in fintech in Asia? Join us as Finovate returns to the APAC for FinovateAsia 2016 on 8 November 2016. Whether you have new fintech innovations to show or are looking for the key technology to take your solution to the next level, FinovateAsia is a great way to make your splash in the Asian fintech scene. 

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, CR2, Fiserv, Guardian Analytics, Kontomatik, Misys, Q2, Q2ebanking, RAGE, ThetaRay

On Finovate.com

  • Signature & Teller: Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka Chooses Fiserv
  • Compass Plus Partners with Mutual Trust Bank

Around the web

  • Botswana Savings bank (BSB) deploys BankWorld ATM from CR2, launches Smooth Visa Debit Card.
  • DataInformed column on operational analytics highlights RAGE Frameworks.
  • Guardian Analytics launches real-time ACH solution to protect against fraud risk created by same-day ACH.
  • Bob Michaud joins Q2 as chief security officer.
  • CIO Review profiles ThetaRay and its CEO, Mark Gazit.
  • CSI teams up with ACI Worldwide to power its card-fraud-protection technology.
  • Kontomatik announces expansion to Portugal, the ninth country where its API is available.
  • FusionBanking Essence from Misys goes live with Myanmar’s Yoma Bank.

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.

 

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PayPal Partners with Xero to Support B2B Invoice Payment

PayPal Partners with Xero to Support B2B Invoice Payment
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: PayPal, Xero

Xero_homepage_August2016

PayPal has teamed up with Xero to enable small business users of the cloud-based accounting platform to pay for platform-generated invoices with PayPal. Along with this new PayPal Express Checkout option, users will also be able to track outstanding invoices and get real-time updates when invoices are paid.

Previewing the partnership, Xero CTO Craig Walker wrote on the company blog: “This update will deliver a seamless new checkout experience for customers that will make it easy for invoices to get paid as soon as they are received, using Xero’s online invoices and PayPal Express Checkout.” Walker added that the new integration would also make payment reconciliation and automatic fee creation easier.

PayPal_homepage_August2016

Steve Fusco, PayPal’s VP and GM for North American distribution, underscored Walker’s emphasis on the problem small businesses face with unpaid invoices. “Sometimes it feels like you have to go above and beyond to get your invoices paid,” he said. “But with PayPal Express Checkout, we are offering Xero customers a faster and simpler way to get paid, and reduce time spent on the payment process to just a couple of clicks.”  The technology is scheduled to be available “in the next few weeks.”

In writing about the news earlier this week, PYMNTS.com noted that the partnership with PayPal would help with Xero’s efforts to expand beyond its home market in New Zealand. Xero integrated with fellow Finovate alum BizEquity and launched a direct feed partnership with leading southeast Asia FI, UOB, earlier this month. In July, Xero announced a partnership with Commonwealth Bank, the largest bank in Australia.

Both a Finovate and FinDEVr alum, Xero demonstrated its Business Identification solution at FinovateSpring 2011. The company also presented its technology at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014, contributing a presentation and workshop on “Building an API-driven Ecosystem for Small Business.” Xero was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand.

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in San Jose, California, PayPal demonstrated its Instant Account Creation technology at FinovateEurope 2012. The company also participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, in 2014.

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