Author: David Penn

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Betterment, Dwolla, Venmo

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • Business Insider profiles the all-female management team of Betterment for Business.
  • The Des Moines Register reports on Dwolla and how its FiSync payments network could serve as a model for a nationwide effort.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

The Way to San Jose: FinovateSpring Has Sprung!

The Way to San Jose: FinovateSpring Has Sprung!
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2016

FS2016_TitlesWordCloud_FinalWho goes all the way to San Jose, California, for a fintech conference, you ask? A better question might be, who doesn’t? On Friday, we learned that FinovateSpring 2016 had sold more than 1,500 tickets, making it the biggest ever. But don’t worry if you haven’t picked up your ticket yet, there’s still plenty of time.

FinovateSpring is less than 48 hours away. And while presenters, attendees, and even a few members of the Finovate team are still making their way toward California’s third largest city (and home of the San Jose Sharks!), rest assured that we’ll be ready with everything you need for two rewarding days of live fintech demos and networking starting bright and early Tuesday.

On that note, here are a few tips and reminders to help you make the most of your week.

Schedule
Registration begins at 8:00 AM on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. The first demo on both days begins at 8:45 AM. Tuesday’s demos will wrap up at about 4:00 PM. The final demo on Wednesday will end at approximately 2:40 pm. Networking with an open bar will close out each day with Best of Show winners announced during Wednesday’s networking session.

We hope to see you here in sunny San Jose this week for what promises to be a great spring event. There’s still time to pick up your ticket—visit our registration page and save your spot today.

FS2016_SundayEveningPost_image

Venue
FinovateSpring returns to the City National Civic facility in downtown San Jose, California.

135  West San Carlos Street
San Jose, CA 95113

Presenters
FinovateSpring features 72 companies demonstrating the latest in fintech innovation in live, seven-minute presentations from the stage. No slides. No videos. No Powerpoint. Just the tech, the whole tech, and nothing but the tech.

Learn more about our presenting companies through our FinovateSpring Sneak Peek series, as well as at our FinovateSpring Presenters Page.

FS2016_PresentingCompanies_ART

Get Social
And once you’re registered for FinovateSpring 2016, be sure to let the world know you’re coming via Bizzabo, our social events app.

Download the Bizzabo app from the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, or use Bizzabo’s online web interface. Search for “Finovate” and use the same email address that you used to register for the conference as your login.

We’re super-excited about another FinovateSpring here in San Jose and hope that you’ll join us in person or online (follow the conference on Twitter @Finovate!). Until then, check out our FAQ page for answers to common questions and for answers to uncommon questions, shoot us an email at info@Finovate.com.

FinovateSpring 2016 is sponsored by The Bancorp, Accenture, Association for Financial Technology, Cyberport/InvestHK, FT Partners, Greater Zurich Area/Swiss Business Hub,  Hudson Cook, KPMG, and Leverage PR.

FinovateSpring 2016 is partnered with Acuity Market Intelligence, Aite Group, American Bankers Association, Bank Innovators Council, BankersHub, Bankless Times, BayPay Forum, Bitcoin Magazine, bobsguide, Breaking Banks, Byte Academy, California Bankers Association, Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, Celent, Cointelegraph, Digital Currency Council, EbankingNews, FemTechLeaders, Filene Research Institute, The Fintech Times, IDC Financial Insights, Javelin, Juniper Research, Korea FinTech Forum, Mercator Advisory Group, Payments & Cards Network, The Paypers,PitchBook, Plug and Play, SME Finance Forum, and Western Independent Bankers.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entrust Datacard, Payoneer, Thinknum, Twilio

On Finovate.com

  • “The Way to San Jose: FinovateSpring Has Sprung!”

Around the web

  • CFO interviews Michael Levine, Payoneer‘s Chief Financial Officer.
  • The Ruby Rogues talk with Ruby-developer Greg Baugues of Twilio.
  • Entrust Datacard announces EMV instant-issuance milestone of more than 10 million cards issued in the U.S. in one year.
  • Benzinga interviews Justin Zhen and Gregory Ugwi, Thinknum co-founders.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Azimo, blooom, Cloud Lending, Expensify, Kabbage, NCR Corporation, PayItSimple, Xero

Around the web

  • Blooom CEO Chris Costello participates in a discussion on youth and savings.
  • NCR partners with Huntington Technology Finance, providing lease financing for NCR ATMs. See NCR in San Jose next week at FinovateSpring.
  • Crowdfundinsider features an interview with Cloud Lending CEO Snehal Fulzele.
  • PaySimple teams up with Fundera, a small-business-lending marketplace.=
  • Xero and Expensify form partnership.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Debuts: myInvenio Turns Data Analysis into Process Intelligence

Finovate Debuts: myInvenio Turns Data Analysis into Process Intelligence
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Debuts, myInvenio

myinvenio_homepage_May2016

With its first product, myInvenio, Cognitive Technology brings the blessings of big-data visualization to the banking industry.

myInvenio analyzes the structured and unstructured data that financial institutions already have in their logs to help managers uncover inefficiencies and discover roadblocks. Leveraging Cognitive Technology’s talents in process intelligence, big data analytics, and data mining, myInvenio enables CIOs to analyze, monitor, and optimize banking processes.

“With myInvenio you can analyze the past, the present, and you can predict the future of your processes, providing the banking organization with a perfect solution for the process and operations governance,” says Massimiliano Delsante, myInvenio’s CEO.

Like most data-visualizing technologies, seeing is believing. So be sure to check out myInvenio’s demo video from FinovateEurope for the full effect. The technology uses color, arrows, and even animated images to automatically visualize—and in some instances dramatize—business activities such as loan issuance. Accessing different views via an analytics dashboard allows managers to spot areas of potential non-compliance or to drill down to determine which processes are the most time-consuming and inefficient.

myinvenio_FEU2016_stage

Pictured (left to right): Cognitive Technology’s Modesta Jonauskyte, sales and marketing, and CEO Massimiliano Delsante demonstrated myInvenio at FinovateEurope 2013 in London.

“Imagine how much time you would spend to get this kind of information using a traditional business-process-analysis approach,” myInvenio’s Modesta Jonauskyte said from the Finovate stage in London. “Instead of hiring a consultant, taking weeks or even months to interview all of the resources involved in the process, here you have myInvenio immediately indicating to you the most critical activities and resources involved.”

Managers can take advantage of the cloud-based, responsive technology to track process performance remotely via iPad, as well. The Performance View allows users to run an animation that follows a timeline of the various processes. KPIs, waiting times, waiting queues, resource allocation, and more.

myInvenio_CrossPlatform

myInvenio integrates with BPM and BI platforms and is fully compatible with BPMN2.0 and XPDL2.1. And courtesy of the myInvenio Connector for Qlikview and Qlik Sense, users of this popular business-intelligence solution now have access to myInvenio’s data-visualization technology, turning “data analysis into process analysis.”

Company facts:

  • Founded in 2013
  • Headquartered in Sliema, Malta
  • More than 200 registered users
  • Employs 14
  • Launched myInvenio in January 2015

We spoke with Delsante and Jonauskyte about myInvenio on rehearsal day during FinovateEurope in February 2016. We followed up by email.

Finovate: What problems does myInvenio solve?

Massimiliano Delsante: Nowadays, organizations need a solution to quickly react to the fast-paced financial market. myInvenio is a Process Mining and Operational Intelligence solution that allows you to manage your financial process transformation by automatically reading the data and analyzing banking/financial processes. myInvenio constantly monitors your banking processes, performances, and compliance. It identifies bottlenecks, critical activities and resources, as well as suggests the improvements and transformations needed in order to anticipate the trends of the market.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Delsante: Although business-process analysts can be advantageous optimizing any business process, so far myInvenio solution has been successfully implemented within financial, automotive and manufacturing industries. These industries remain at the top of myInvenio priority.

myInvenio_ConformanceComplianceCheck

Finovate: How does myInvenio solve the problem better?

Delsante: myInvenio is a disruptive solution to automatically analyze your banking processes, identifying your process behaviour, compliance, performances, the resources involved and the resource collaboration. It provides advanced analytics features to constantly monitor process deviation, KPIs alignment, and the bottlenecks of resources, and activities.

Also, myInvenio is a cross platform, multi-user solution that is available to be used on any device. It is flexible and scalable. You can either start analyzing a single area of your organization’s data using myInvenio cloud online version covering your overall banking processes, or you can move to the on-premise solution when in need to manage big data analysis.

myInvenio has a very friendly user interface, so finance analysts without technical IT backgrounds can quickly get a grip of myInvenio features and to analyze their organization’s processes. It has a well-defined dashboard that ensures 100% analytics reliability besides reducing banking process analysis time and costs.

myInvenio_ActivityMap

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of myInvenio.

Delsante: myInvenio was implemented within a large-scale banking organization, Credem, that has a wide banking network in Italy. Credem used myInvenio to optimise their loan application process and to later constantly monitor the process performance following the events happening in real time.

The bank is moving toward the adoption of myInvenio as the solution for banking process governance and operational intelligence.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Delsante: myInvenio team benefits from 20 years of experience in process management and analysis across banking, automotive, and fashion industries. Working with many customers and helping them tackle process-management issues, the development of an effective and easy-to-use Process Mining solution became a necessity.

myInvenio_SocialNet

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives that we can look forward to seeing over the next few months?

Delsante: Following the success of Finovate, myInvenio is being presented at many other events and conferences with the focus on financial industries and digital business transformation. On 5th of May, myInvenio will be present at FinTechStage hosted in Milan and the 7th of June, myInvenio success stories in automotive industry will be presented at Ferrari headquarters in Maranello by Ferrari CIO and other important representatives.

Finovate: Where do you see your company a year or two from now?

Delsante: myInvenio’s main goal remains to meet the highest expectations of its customers as well as to become a standard solution for the business process digital transformation in financial, automotive, and manufacturing industries.

Check out myInvenio’s demonstration video from FinovateEurope.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

From Billpay to Blockchain: The Themes of FinovateSpring

From Billpay to Blockchain: The Themes of FinovateSpring
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2016

FS2016_horizontal_logo_wdate

What’s changed between last year and the themes that are dominating FinovateSpring 2016?

“Mobile,” “Payments,” “Banking,” “Apps,” and “Investing” are key concepts again this year. But there may be no better metaphor for the changing landscape of fintech than the fact that “Billpay,” one of the larger themes of 2015, is out and “Blockchain” is in.

FS2016_Theme_Cloud_FinalThat said, there’s more to 12 months of fintech innovation than the spread of distributed-ledger technologies and the mainstreaming of personal finance (note that “PFM” failed to make FinovateSpring’s theme-cloud for the second year in a row). “Voice” appears for the first time as a significant theme in our cloud as more companies explore voice technologies as a solution for everything from authentication to customer engagement. And the rise of artificial intelligence is revealed by new themes, such as “Predictive,” as in Predictive Analytics, or “Cognitive,” as in cognitive computing, and even “Workflow,” which recognizes the way AI and machine learning are combining to automate and improve business processes for banks and other financial institutions.

This is the kind of peek into the future of fintech that FinovateSpring provides. Join us next week in San Jose as 72 companies from around the world take the stage for two days of innovation and high-caliber networking. Tickets are on sale now, so be sure to register today and join more than 1,500 fellow fintech professionals, our biggest Bay Area event ever, at one of the key events in the fintech calendar.

And if your appetite needs further whetting, here’s an updated look at the innovators that will be demoing their technologies live on stage May 10 & 11.

We hope we’ll see you there! In the meanwhile, learn more about the companies that will be on stage in our FinovateSpring Sneak Peek series, and please visit our FAQ or email us at spring@finovate.com with any questions.

FinovateSpring 2016 is sponsored by The Bancorp, Accenture, Association for Financial Technology, Cyberport/InvestHK, FT Partners, Greater Zurich Area/Swiss Business Hub,  Hudson Cook, KPMG, and Leverage PR.

FinovateSpring 2016 is partnered with Acuity Market Intelligence, Aite Group, American Bankers Association, Bank Innovators Council, BankersHub, Bankless Times, BayPay Forum, Bitcoin Magazine, bobsguide, Breaking Banks, Byte Academy, California Bankers Association, Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, Celent, Cointelegraph, Digital Currency Council, EbankingNews, FemTechLeaders, Filene Research Institute, The Fintech Times, IDC Financial Insights, Javelin, Juniper Research, Korea FinTech Forum, Mercator Advisory Group, Payments & Cards Network, The Paypers,PitchBook, Plug and Play, SME Finance Forum, and Western Independent Bankers.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Brett King and the Disruptions of the Augmented Age

Brett King and the Disruptions of the Augmented Age
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Book Review

Augemented_BookCoverWhat does it take to thrive in a world of rapid technological change?

Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane, the new book by Moven founder and CEO Brett King, marks the latest addition to a growing literature of futurism and prognostication on technology. And while King calls himself “ultimately an optimist,” Augmented threads the needle between the tech utopianism of a Ray Kurzweil, and the more anxious voices (at least where technologies like artificial intelligence are concerned) of visionaries ranging from Elon Musk to Neil Bostrom.

Augmented puts the current boom in the context of previous periods of rapid technological change. King dissents from the view that our current wave pales in comparison with other eras. Instead, he refers to the impact of the smartphone on personal finance (“Only 40% of the world had access to banking before mobile,” he points out) and talks about the transformative power of innovations like 3D printing in medicine and meta-materials in energy.

These innovations will force people to ask new ethical questions, such as “Should it be legal for a person to have an otherwise healthy limb amputated in favor of an enhanced prosthetic one?” But many of the thorniest questions in King’s view will revolve around what to do with all those workers displaced by increasingly productive “labor-saving” solutions. Augmented features a sobering table of jobs likely to survive the transition he believes is already underway, and those that are not. “Every business with a traditional business model that has resisted technological change has failed,” King says.

Augmented_BrettKingSo what are 21st century technological revolutions made of? King sees four key disruptors that will define the way we will live in the decades to come: artificial intelligence, smart infrastructure, healthcare technology, and what he calls embedded and distributed experiences. This last category includes the sort of virtual technologies that companies like Facebook have made major investments in, as well as the “Internet of Things” concept that King describes as a world in which “everything is able to give feedback.”

And while there will be some who will have none of this noisy, intrusive world, King is betting that most of us will find our place in it. Consider his take on privacy. For King, social media like Instagram and LinkedIn (to say nothing of  what we’ll have by mid-century) provide something equally as valuable in the augmented age: validation. “Lack of a digital identity may make you less trustworthy in the new world,” King suggested. In a world in which privacy and security remain important—if not even more so than today—the ability to quickly and accurately establish identity also becomes important, even if all that means is having an accurate and up-to-date Facebook page.

The inevitability of change is a key takeaway. And the irony may be that the technology will be the easy part. “There will have to be a mindset shift from the traditional values of baby boomers to the acceptance of change-mentality of millennials,” King says. And it is his own generation X, currently entering middle age, that will be key in making that transition happen.

Much of King’s message, however, is that as inevitable as the discomfort of disruption is, we’ve been through this before and tended to like what we found on the other side. “It is important to help people get ready for this,” he said, summing up his reason for writing Augmented. And to the extent his predictions prove prescient, forewarned is forearmed.

Meet Brett King in San Jose next month as his company, Moven, demonstrates its latest technology live on stage at FinovateSpring, May 10 and 11.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Zooz Raises $24 Million in its Largest Funding

Zooz Raises $24 Million in its Largest Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Zooz

Zooz_homepage_May2016

In a round led by Target Global Ventures, Israeli payments technology innovator Zooz  just raised $24 million in new capital. The investment takes the company’s total funding to more than $40 million and will enable Zooz to accelerate growth, build and develop new products, and expand in both existing and new markets.

In thanking both new and current investors, Zooz CEO Oren Levy said that the growing interest on the part of merchants is playing a key role in driving adoption of new payment technologies. “Retailers now understand the need for smart payment platforms that can help them expand into new markets quickly and cost-effectively,” he said, “and that is where we excel.”

Zooz_stage_FF2013

Pictured (left to right): Peter Donarski, senior executive, First Data, and Noam Inbar, VP business development at Zooz, demonstrated Zooz Transforming Checkout at FinovateFall 2013.

Saying that Zooz is in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the growth in the global payments market, Target Global Ventures’ general partner Shmuel Chafets praised the way the Zooz platform “optimizes and simplifies the payments process, meeting a crucial industry need that will only increase.” The round also featured participation from new investors Fang Fund, iAngels, and Kreos Capital, as well as existing investors Blumberg Capital, lool ventures, Rhodium, Claltech, XSeed Capital, and CampOne Ventures, as well as angel investor Eilon Tirosh.

Since the company’s last funding round in the summer of 2014, Zooz added offices in London, Berlin, and San Francisco and increased headcount by 50%. In April, Zooz integrated eCommerce, CRM, ERP and other technologies from Nodus Technologies into its platform, one month after announcing support for Android Pay. The company added Chester Ritchie, formerly of Worldpay, as its new EVP of sales and development in February. Ritchie spoke about Zooz’s payment technology in a company profile for The Green Sheet in April.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Raanana, Israel, Zooz demonstrated its Transforming Checkout solution at FinovateFall 2013.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: NIIT Technologies

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: NIIT Technologies
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2016, FinovateSpring 2016 Sneak Peek, NIIT Technologies

NIITTechnologies_homepage_May2016

FS2016-wdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on May 10 & 11. Register today.

NIIT Technologies introduces its High Value Targeting Engine, an application of Digital Foresight, that can help grow your business by identifying emerging opportunity and risk using collective, open source intelligence.

Features:

  • Links people, places, events, wealth, networks
  • Identifies opportunities and risks associated to life events
  • Understands which factors and stimuli are correlated with customer behavior

Why it’s great
Digital Foresight can deliver contextually relevant experiences across the customer life cycle by integrating our System of Insight with the System of Engagement platforms.

Presenters:

NIIT_Technologies_AshleyLukeAshley Luke, Director, Data Science
Luke is responsible for innovations in data science as part of the Digital Foresight practice. He leads projects on customer analytics and business intelligence.
LinkedIn

 

NIIT_Technologies_JimDeCiccoJames De Cicco, Head of Sales, Banking and Financial Services
De Cicco has 25+ years of experience in the financial services space covering a number of leadership roles. Prior to joining NIIT Tech, he was general manager and Head of Americas for GoldenSource.
LinkedIn

 

NIIT_Technologies_GauravMistryGaurav Mistry, Manager, Business Development, Banking and Financial Services
Mistry has 7+ years of experience in banking/financial service/product sales and is responsible for business development for banking and financial vertical at NIIT Technologies.
LinkedIn

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: Mitek

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: Mitek
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2016, FinovateSpring 2016 Sneak Peek, Mitek

Mitek_homepage_Mar2016

FS2016-wdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on May 10 & 11. Register today.

Mitek, a global leader in mobile capture and identity-verification software-solutions will be demoing an omnichannel approach to mobile ID verification including multiple factors of authentication.

Features:

  • Omnichannel capabilities for seamless digital onboarding or ID verification
  • Additional factors of authentication for added security
  • Exceptional user experience

Why it’s so great
Our innovation will allow FIs to bridge the digital divide across their online channels to onboard more customers, more securely.

Presenters

Sarah Clark, General Manager – Identity, Mitek Systems
LinkedIn

Steve Craig, Director, Products and Experience at Mitek
LinkedIn

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: NuData Security

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: NuData Security
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2016, FinovateSpring 2016 Sneak Peek, NuData Security

NuDataSecurity_homepage_May2016

FS2016-wdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on May 10 & 11. Register today.

NuDetect from NuData Security verifies users online through real-time behavioral analytics, identifying good users from bad across web, mobile, and app environments.

Features:

  • Verify legitimate known users and provide them with a good experience
  • Identify higher risk activities like automated, anomalous, and fraudulent behavior
  • Leverage extensive behavioral network

Why it’s great
Last year, NuData analyzed more than 38 billion behaviors, building deep intelligence around billions of profiles. NuDetect is trusted by some of the largest banks and financial institutions in the world.

Presenters

NuData_RyanWilkRyan Wilk, VP of Customer Success
Wilk has 10+ years of experience managing trust and safety teams for companies such as StubHub and Universal Orlando. He is responsible for ensuring the success of every NuData customer.
LinkedIn

 

NuData_RobertCappsRobert Capps, VP of Business Development
Capps is a recognized technologist, thought leader, and adviser with 20+ years of experience in the design, management, and protection of complex information systems to counter cyber risks.
LinkedIn

 

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: ThreatMetrix

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: ThreatMetrix
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2016, FinovateSpring 2016 Sneak Peek, ThreatMetrix

ThreatMetrix_homepage_May2016

FS2016-wdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on May 10 & 11. Register today.

ThreatMetrix, the Digital Identity Company, is the market-leading cloud solution for authenticating digital personas and transactions on the Internet.

Features:

Digital Identity Graph is a global, anonymized, real-time risk system that separates good customers from fraudulent users for financial institutions.

Why it’s great
The ThreatMetrix Digital Identity Graph is a game-changing new technology in the risk-based authentication and cybersecurity area.

Presenters

ThreatMetrix_AndreasBaumhofAndreas Baumhof, Chief Technology Officer
As the technology lead for ThreatMetrix, Baumhof is also an internationally renowned cybersecurity expert with deep experience in encryption, PKI, malware, and phishing.
LinkedIn

 

 

Dean Weinert, Director of Mobile ProductsThreatMetrix_DeanWeinert
Weinert is a noted industry expert in issues relating to online fraud, cybercrime and information security. He has worked for ThreatMetrix for eight years as director of mobile products.
Linkedin

 

 

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook