Author: David Penn

France’s Groupe BPCE Acquires Munich-based Fidor Bank

France’s Groupe BPCE Acquires Munich-based Fidor Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Fidor Bank, Mergers & Acquisitions

FidorBank_homepage_July2016

Digital banking pioneer Fidor Bank has been acquired by Groupe BPCE of France; terms were not disclosed. Fidor  Bank founder and CEO Matthias Kröner will remain with the company.

Quoted in the Financial Times, BPCE chairman François Perol said the acquisition “demonstrates our commitment to innovation, to developing a customer-centric approach enabled by digital banking technology, and to be more involved in the digital and mobile banking field.” Kröner, whose bank expanded to the U.K. last fall, added that the acquisition will accelerate Fidor’s international expansion “and drive the development of our innovative digital technology even further.”

Fidor_stage_FinDEVrNY2016

Fidor Bank Chief Innovation Officer Patrick Gruban during his presentation at FinDEVr 2016 New York.

Munich-based Fidor Bank was founded in 2009, and has 350,000 members and 120,000 customers in Germany and the U.K. The bank garnered a reputation for leadership in digital banking, partnering with Currency Cloud last fall to support SEPA Direct Debit functionality, and being the first bank to deploy the Ripple protocol for cross-border transfers in 2014, as well as making inroads into social media, P2P lending, and crowdfunding. The bank participated in FinDEVr 2016 New York this spring where Chief Innovation Officer Patrick Gruban presented “How to Start Your Digital bank—Mobile Apps and APIs Included.”

Earlier this month in Wired magazine, Fidor was profiled as “the fintech bank run by its customers.” The bank announced new offices in Dubai last month and in May, Fidor reported that its technology would be used to help launch the new O2 mobile bank account. The bank was inaugurated into The FinTech50 for 2016 in April.

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Savedroid Launches Intelligent Savings App

Savedroid Launches Intelligent Savings App
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Deposits, Checking, Savings, CDs, savedroid

savedroid_homepage_July2016

Straight outta beta, savedroid’s intelligent savings app is now available for free at Google Play.

“Saving has been a super boring and complicated subject,” savedroid founder and CEO Dr Yassin Hankir said. “Many prefer to go to the dentist than to speak with a financial adviser. We change that. With savedroid, saving is finally integrated into the daily lives of users and is fully automated.”

savedroid_app_1Savedroid enables users to set behavior-based rules called “smooves” that help steer a small amount of money toward savings for various goals. For example, set aside $1 for every cup of coffee you buy at your favorite cafe, or $5 every time you spend more than an hour on social media. The savings strategy works as well for short-term goals like a vacation a few months from now or longer-term goals like saving for college. Hankir added: “We make saving exciting, convenient and rewarding, and thus particularly suitable for the target group of millennials.”

The savedroid app comes with a virtual MasterCard courtesy of a partnership with Wirecard, which also processes payments for users by way of an e-money account. “In Wirecard, we have found a reliable and experienced partner for this process, [one that] fulfills all the relevant technical and banking standards,” Hankir said.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, savedroid made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016. The company raised $1 million in seed funding last month in a round led by the investment and development bank Rheinland-Pfalaz (ISB) and featuring the participation of several angel investors.

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Personetics

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

Personetics_homepage_July2016

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

Using AI-powered predictive analytics, Personetics Anywhere enables financial institutions to deliver timely responses, insight, and advice over popular messaging and personal assistance platforms.

Personetics is:

  • AI-powered, self-learning, and packed with financial knowledge
  • Highly secure and easily controlled by your financial institution
  • Able to work across all messaging platforms

Why it’s great
Personetics Anywhere allows financial institutions to quickly deploy a chatbot solution that can respond to customer requests and deliver smart, timely insight and advice in a conversational medium.

Personetics_DavidSosna3Presenter

David Sosna, CEO and Co-founder
Sosna is a 20-year fintech veteran. Personetics is his third startup following BI leader Gilon and Actimize, a leading provider of financial analytics acquired by NICE systems.
LinkedIn

 

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Tango Card

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

TangoCard_homepage_July2016

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

Tango Card’s RaaS API automates e-gift cards, digital prepaid rewards, and donations to power engagement programs and simplify payment disbursal.

Tango Card:

  • Integrates a digital reward catalog/program into your app/platform
  • Drives engagement with instant reward-delivery
  • Provides expert support by Tango Card team on all rewards

Why it’s great
If you use rewards to drive engagement, Tango Card will make the process simpler for you and create more impact for each reward recipient.

TangoCard_DavidLeedsPresenter

David Leeds, CEO
Leeds has solid experience starting, scaling, and managing large enterprise businesses. He was co-founder and SVP at FiberTower. He has built a culture of expertise and customer service at Tango Card.
LinkedIn

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Backbase

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

Backbase_homepage_July2016

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

Backbase is on a mission to empower financial institutions to accelerate their digital transformation and effectively compete in a digital-first world.

Backbase offers “the best practice for fast, simple, seamless, omnichannel onboarding using the latest modern mobile technology for simplified Know Your Customer and seamless data-gathering technologies.”

Why it’s great
Backbase reveals a true omnichannel onboarding process across mobile, desktop, and tablet.

Backbase_JoukPleiterPresenters

Jouk Pleiter, CEO, Co-founder
Pleiter is CEO and co-founder of Backbase. He formerly served as president and co-founder of Tridion, one of the world’s leading WCM software vendors.
LinkedIn

Tim Rutten, Pre-Sales Engineer
Rutten is the pre-sales engineer at Backbase, a software company founded in 2003 that delivers omnichannel banking solutions for financial institutions across the world.
LinkedIn

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: SpeechPro

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

SpeechPro_homepage)July2016

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

SpeechPro and Acuant announce Welcome Onboarding, a new customer signup solution that combines document scanning and biometrics in a single session for whole touchpoint lifecycle management.

Welcome Onboarding features;

  • Document scanning extracts customer data, shortens session
  • Liveness detection and tampering detection provide security
  • Multichannel biometric enrollment provides full lifecycle 2FA

Why it’s great
One app simplifies new customer onboarding and provides password-free, biometric-secured access for multiple channels, including mobile devices, the web, IVRs, and contact center agent conversations.

SpeechPro_PhilShinnPresenter

Phil Shinn, CTO
Shinn holds a doctorate in linguistics from Brown, five patents, and served on the board of directors of the Applied Voice Input Output Society and the Association of Voice Interaction Designers.
LinkedIn

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Blockstream Acquires Bitcoin Wallet Solution GreenAddress

Blockstream Acquires Bitcoin Wallet Solution GreenAddress
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Green Address IT, Mergers & Acquisitions

GreenAddress_homepage_July2016

Terms have not been disclosed, but today we learned that Blockstream has agreed to acquire bitcoin wallet software maker and FinDEVr alum, GreenAddress.

Adam Back, Blockstream president, called GreenAddress a company with a “demonstrated track record of delivering an industry-leading product that prioritizes security, privacy, and convenience.” Back said the acquisition was key to Blockstream’s goal of building out its sidechain technology roadmap. “The addition of an open source, well-tested production quality wallet was a natural choice,” Back said. “It increases the reach of our platform and allows us to meet the requirements of our enterprise applications.”

GreenAddress_stage_FinDEVr2014

GreenAddress founder and CEO Lawrence Nahum during his presentation, “GreenAddress: Instant and Secure Bitcoin” at FinDEVr 2014 in San Francisco.

Writing at the GreenAddress blog, company founder and CEO Lawrence Nahum thanked those who have been using GreenAddress’s bitcoin wallet and ensured that GreenAddress wallets will continue to work (“Your funds are safe by design,” Nahum wrote). He listed a number of upcoming improvements to the technology, including a multiplatform wallet library, better privacy and security, as well as sidechain support. This last enhancement will enable GreenAddress wallet holders to manage other assets in addition to bitcoin, including assets to be developed by Blockstream and others over the coming months and years.

FinDEVr_SF2014_Alum_buttonFounded in 2013 and headquartered in Malta, GreenAddress participated in the inaugural FinDEVr developers conference in San Francisco in 2014. The company’s presentation, titled “GreenAddress: Instant and Secure Bitcoin,” focused on bitcoin’s multi-signature features, which pave the way for both better security and services like instant confirmation to make arbitration easier. Earlier this year, GreenAddress launched its replace-by-fee option, which aims to facilitate bitcoin transactions. Its wallet is available in both iOS and Android.

With more than $76 million in funding, Blockstream is a Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based blockchain firm that specializes in sidechains. Sidechains are decentralized P2P networks that promote interoperability between blockchains, helping to improve liquidity and reduce fraud in alternative-currency transactions. Speaking of the importance of the technology, Blockstream investor Reid Hoffman wrote that the success of the company “will in turn generate new waves of technical and entrepreneurial innovation; it will help make Bitcoin the kind of open, highly adaptive platform upon which a vast array of complementary products and services can be built.” And with GreenAddress now onboard, let the building begin.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Buzz Points, Checkbook.io, Coinbase, Fiserv, Kantox, Kontomatik, Larky, Ledger, Quantopian, Venmo

On Finovate.com

  • Quantopian Receives Undisclosed Amount from Steve Cohen’s Point72

On FinDEVr.com

  • Venmo Enables Payments in Merchant Apps

Around the web

  • Kontomatik introduces Financial Health Indicator for small- and medium-sized lenders.
  • Venmo’s in-app payments technology emerges from beta.
  • Kantox processed $100 million in transactions in the six months since the debut of its API.
  • Kony launches MobileFabric, which features a model-driven approach to mobile app development using microservices.
  • American Banker’s Association features results from banks using Fiserv, Buzz Points and Larky for customer loyalty and rewards.

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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Avadian CU Chooses Jwaala’s Ignite Plaform for Online and Mobile Banking

Avadian CU Chooses Jwaala’s Ignite Plaform for Online and Mobile Banking
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Jwaala

Jwaala_homepage_July2016

Birmingham, Alabama’s Avadian Credit Union is the latest FI to deploy Jwaala’s digital banking platform, Ignite.

“We got the contract hammered out in less than 30 days, and three days after the contract was signed, Jwaala had a server built and ready for us to start working with,” said Alpesh Patel, Avadian AVP of information technology. “We were under the gun with our current system’s end of life looming, but Jwaala really came through for us.”

Avadian CU not only had to beat the deadline of its sun-setting home-banking platform, but also recover from an attempt to work with a different vendor in 2014. A lack of progress after several months led Avadian to look for alternatives, which is when Jwaala stepped in. Moreover, Jwaala’s Ignite platform will replace both of Avadian’s online and mobile banking systems, another plus as far as the credit union is concerned. “Running a single solution for both online and mobile will streamline the back-office administration process,” Patel says. “(This) will also create a more consistent member experience.”

With more than 65,000 members, 17 branches, and more than $600 million in assets, Avadian CU is one of the largest credit unions in Alabama. Last fall, Avadian again earned a 5-star Superior rating from bank- and credit union-rating company BauerFinancial, which signified the credit union as among the best in the nation in terms of capital, loan quality, and profitability. Avadia CU was launched in 1934 as Alabama Telco Credit Union.

Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Jwaala demonstrated its MoneyTracker BOB at FinovateSpring 2009 and is one of the 20 “charter presenters” at the very first Finovate conference. The company celebrated signing its 100th credit union client, Palisades FCU ($150 million in assets) last year and now includes more than 120 credit unions among its clients.

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Peter Thiel Takes $3.5 Million Stake in Curated Investing Platform, nextmarkets

Peter Thiel Takes $3.5 Million Stake in Curated Investing Platform, nextmarkets
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: nextmarkets

nextmarkets_homepage_July2016b

You may or may not agree with his politics, but his taste in investments is hard to beat.

At least that’s our take on Peter Thiel’s latest $3.5 million investment in Cologne, Germany’s nextmarkets GmbH. The stake reportedly is part of a larger “seven-figure sum” the company is raising in its current investment round, which features participation from FinLab and EXTOREL.

Already looking forward to seeing nextmarkets put the capital to use growing the business, Stefan Schutze, CEO of FinLab, praised both the company’s platform and its ability to get “such strong and well-known partners” to invest in nextmarkets’ vision of democratizing the financial markets. Dominic Heyden, co-founder and CTO of FinLab, said, “After nearly two years in development, we can now offer the world’s most innovative platform that intelligently combines e-learning with trading.”

Manuel and Dominic Heyden, who in 2008 co-founded another Finovate alum, the social trading app ayondo, (and sold it for a significant profit in 2014), have leveraged their experience combining trading and technology to create nextmarkets. The platform gives average traders and investors everyday, real-time access to the strategies used by professionals. The trading coaches on the platform also provide risk-management advice for investors who follow their trades and investments. nextmarkets calls its approach “curated investing and it applies to equity trading, FX trading, as well as other markets.

Speaking of the investment, Heyden was effusive in his praise of both his company’s new investors as well as the funding’s potential to drive nextmarkets’ growth. “We see it as a clear endorsement of both our concept and business model as well as our long-term vision,” Manuel Heyden said. “(We are) very proud that we were able to win over experienced investors.”

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Cologne, Germany, nextmarkets demonstrated its web and iOS app at FinovateEurope 2015.

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With Dashlane’s Spaces for Mobile, Passwords Connect the Professional and the Personal

With Dashlane’s Spaces for Mobile, Passwords Connect the Professional and the Personal
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dashlane

Dashlane_homepage_July2016

Spaces for mobile is Dashlane’s latest solution to help employees in the BYOD (bring-your-own-device) era. Based on the desktop version launched in June, the technology gives employees using Android, iPhone, and iPad devices safe and easy access to both their professional and personal Spaces within the platform.

“Password management blurs the line between home and work,” Dashlane CEO Emmanuel Schalit said. “If an employee practices safe password habits at home, that same mindset will carry over into his or her workplace.” Spaces for mobile will allow users to toggle between personal and professional spaces from the same mobile device, as well as to transfer items back and forth between spaces.

New personalization, help, and onboarding guides have been added. The solution also features an enterprise control which allows an employer to quickly restrict access to professional spaces without interfering with personal space on the platform. The Dashlane blog underscored this feature when Malaika Nicholas, community manager, wrote that the controls enabled “business owners, company executives, and IT administrators … to oversee the password health and security of their entire organization and every employee through the centralized admin console, while still maintaining employees’ privacy.”

Dashlane’s identity- and access-management solutions are used by both consumers and businesses to securely manage passwords, credit card data and other sensitive information. The company uses advanced encryption and local storage to serve more than 5 million users, with more than 6,000 companies subscribing to its enterprise service, Dashlane Business.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in New York City, Dashlane demonstrated its core technology at FinovateEurope 2013. In June, the company unveiled its redesigned iPhone and iPad solutions, the same month Mashable featured the technology in its list of “7 can’t miss apps.” Dashlane attracted a $22.5 million investment in May in a round led by new strategic partner TransUnion that took its total funding to more than $53 million. Former Fab.com executive David Lapter joined the company as CFO this spring.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bill.com, Corezoid, Dashlane, Fiserv, Kasasa, nextmarkets, Q2ebanking

On Finovate.com

  • With Dashlane’s Spaces for Mobile, Passwords Connect the Professional and the Personal
  • Peter Thiel Takes $3.5 Million Stake in Curated Investor Platform, nextmarkets GmbH
  • A Look at the First Week of Nasdaq’s Fintech Index

Around the web

  • Bill.com co-founder and CEO Andrew Housser weighs in on the relationship between new and traditional credit scoring.
  • Dakota Plains Credit Union to deploy integrated technology suite from Fiserv.
  • American Banker column on new core banking vendors features Corezoid.
  • Deposit Accounts blog features Kasasa.
  • Finextra: Q2 ready to support same-day ACH payments.

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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