FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: Comarch

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: Comarch

Comarch_homepage_Apri2016

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

Comarch is a leading software house in Europe. Comarch Wealth Management is, in turn, a solution allowing banks to devise investment strategies fully aligned with their clients’ needs and objectives.

Features:

  • Consolidation of key data on all assets belonging to affluent individuals or families
  • Personalized financial planning and investment advisory in one powerful app
  • A whole new customer experience

Why it’s great
It significantly assists financial institutions in letting clients stay in control of their assets (and never lose sleep over losing them out of sight).

Presenters

Comarch_JFilipiakJerry Filipiak, CEO and Chairman of the Board
CEO of Comarch Inc. and founder of SoInteractive, Filipiak has studied at Virgina Tech and Cornell University. His passion lies in theoretical computer science.
LinkedIn

 

 

Comarch_DianaChinDiana Chin, Human Resources and Operations, New York City
Chin served in telecommunications before joining Comarch Inc. and becoming an integral part of their New York operational team.
LinkedIn

 

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: SWITCH

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: SWITCH

SWITCH_homepageApril2016

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

SWITCH is a Seattle-based fintech company developing the first automated payment card and online account updater to help consumers update their cards and payment methods wherever they shop online.

Features:

  • Users can update their credit cards where they shop online.
  • Card issuers can get their cards into circulation faster.
  • Merchants can ensure the card they have on file stays current.

Why it’s great
SWITCH’s innovative technology for card updating and visibility utilizes patent-pending machine-learning technology to benefit card issuers, merchants, and consumers alike.

Switch_ChrisHopenPresenter: CEO Chris Hopen, founder
Now on his third startup, Hopen combines deep experience in networking and security technologies along with a savvy business sense to developing solutions for the fintech market.
LinkedIn

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: Moven

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: Moven

Moven_homepage_April2016

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

Brett King, CEO of Moven, and Rizwan Khalfan, chief digital officer of TD Bank, will demo the TD MySpend app for the first time at FinovateSpring.

Features:

Moven and TD Bank will demo MySpend, a complete integration of the Moven platform within TD Bank’s mobile ecosystem.

Presenters: Brett King, CEO and founder, Moven; Rizwan Khalfan, chief digital officer, TD Bank

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Malauzai to Offer Geezeo-Powered PFM Tools”

On FinDEVr.com

  • “FinDEVr New York Presentation Videos Live on FinDEVr.com”

Around the web

  • Top Image Systems appoints Kristian Niklasson as its new chief services officer.
  • Alkami Technology teams up with Easy Solutions to add anti-fraud technology to its digital banking platform.
  • Irish Tech News interviews Moven CEO Brett King. See Moven at FinovateSpring next month in San Jose.
  • Fiserv Investment Services President Cheryl Nash named executive leader for Envestnet Institute On Campus’ “Women in Wealth Management” program.
  • API report covers Streamdata.io.
  • ThreatMetrix launches new release with deeper decision analytics, enhanced mobile offering, and stronger authentication capabilities.
  • BehavioSec, Nationwide, Unisys Team Up on Biometrics.

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.

Refund.me Brings its Air Travel Compensation Service to Businesses

Refund.me Brings its Air Travel Compensation Service to Businesses

Refundme_homepage_April2016b

With Business Solutions, refund.me is extending its air travel compensation service to the enterprise.

New European Union laws mandate compensation for air passengers who experience flight cancellations, delays, and overbookings. Refund.me automatically analyzes and processes flight compensation claims which, for businesses that have employees traveling in Europe, helps companies both save money as well as recoup costs.

“By outsourcing the claims process to refund.me, companies avoid the costs of internal legal and administrative teams necessary to analyze and process complex flight data and compensation claims,” explained Eve Büchner, refund.me’s CEO and founder.

Read more about refund.me in our recent profile of the Palo Alto, California-based company.

refundme_b2b_homepage

refund.me Business Solutions is a new, B2B, web portal that exists next to the company’s consumer flight compensation website. Business Solutions is geared toward travel management companies, corporate travel managers, and consolidators, and can be customized to match specific corporate travel policies and practices. Refund.me estimates that 11 million air passengers a year are eligible for more than 5 billion euros in compensation for flight cancellations and other disruptions.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, refund.me can be seen demonstrating its Flight Compensation service at FinovateEurope 2016. It acquired Travel Notes earlier this month for an undisclosed sum. Refund.me serves air travelers in 145 countries filing claims against more than 350 airlines, and claims a success rate of 98% in securing compensation.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Aire Receives Funding from Accion Venture Lab”
  • “Refund.me Brings its Air Travel Compensation Service to Business”
  • “Credit Sesame Launches SnapLoan, The Amazon One-Click for Consumer Loans”

On FinDEVr.com

  • “Envestnet | Yodlee Unveils its Risk Insight API”

Around the web

  • Global Debt Registry announces plans to bring loan-validation technology to marketplace lending industry.
  • CryptoCoinNews takes a look at recent funding for Stratumn, a blockchain development platform.
  • P2Binvestor teams up with independent adviser, MW Eaglewood Americas.
  • Locavesting profiles StreetShares, which in mid-May will begin lending to small businesses.
  • Crowdfund Insider interviews Cloud Lending CEO Snehal Fulzele.
  • Cachet Financial and Ingo Money renew partnership.
  • Ripple adds former HSBC payments executive and SWIFT board member, Marcus Treacher, as its new global head of strategic accounts.
  • LendKey announces it has underwritten, originated, and deployed more than $1 billion in capital to borrowers.

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.

Straight Outta Beta: Flex Credit from BlueVine Now Available for SMEs

Straight Outta Beta: Flex Credit from BlueVine Now Available for SMEs

BlueVine_homepage_April2016

BlueVine’s latest offering, Flex Credit, is fresh out of beta and ready for small businesses looking for a line of credit between $5,000 and $30,000. The new product adds a new financing option to BlueVine’s cloud-based financing platform, helping the company expand beyond its base business of invoice factoring.

“Since pioneering online invoice factoring, we’ve gained remarkable traction and are currently on track to fund more than $200 million in working capital in 2016,” said Eyal Lifshitz, CEO and founder of BlueVine. “This platform expansion will continue to fuel that growth by allowing us to serve both B2B and B2C businesses.”

BlueVine_stage_FF2014_2

Pictured (left to right): BlueVine’s Edward Castaño, VP operations, and CEO Eyal Lifshitz demonstrated the BlueVine platform at FinovateFall 2014.

Flex Credit allows businesses to borrow funds as needed and to have available credit restored as the borrowed amounts are paid back. Businesses can be approved for Flex Credit in 24 hours, and funds come with no maintenance fees and no penalties for unused credit or prepayment. Interest rates start as low as 6.9%, and repayments are made in fixed weekly installments over a six-month period.

In addition to the launch of Flex Credit, BlueVine announced that Ana Sirbu will join the company as its new vice president of finance and strategy. Sirbu, a former Google Capital manager, will leverage her experience at Google to oversee BlueVine’s financial management and growth strategy. “BlueVine has brought an intuitive technology platform, accessibility, and transparency to an underserved small business market,” Sirbu said. “I am excited to work with the team to bring our products to many more customers and contribute to BlueVine’s next stage of growth.”

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, BlueVine demonstrated its platform at FinovateFall 2014. The company raised $40 million in a Series C led by Menlo Ventures back in January, taking its total capital to more than $64 million.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Straight Outta Beta: Flex Credit from BlueVine Now Available for SMEs

Around the web

  • CAN Capital reaches $6 billion milestone in working capital provided to small businesses.
  • Bloomberg Quick Take features FutureAdvisor, Wealthfront, Betterment, and Financial Guard in a look at robo-advisers.
  • Misys adds Mourad Ayachi and Bob Kubala to its investment management division.
  • “CardFlight Releases New Data Showing Trends on EMV Chip Card Usage in the United States”
  • The NYT ranks top fintech companies, including multiple Finovate & FinDEVr alums.

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.

Finovate Debuts: Refund.me Helps Banks Improve the Travel Experience for Cardholders

Finovate Debuts: Refund.me Helps Banks Improve the Travel Experience for Cardholders

Refundme_homepage_April2016

Have a cancelled or delayed flight while traveling through Europe? The good news is that air passengers in Europe are covered by an EU regulation that mandates compensation from the airline for passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled.

The problem is that securing this compensation often feels like more trouble than it’s worth. And that’s where refund.me comes in.

Refund.me is a global air-passenger-rights service provider. Its white-label solution analyzes cardholder data for airline ticket transactions, extracts itinerary data, and then automatically notifies passengers when a flight has been delayed, cancelled, or overbooked. Refund.me lets passengers know if they are eligible for compensation and then helps process and secure the funds from the airline.

And this week, refund.me announced that it had acquired fellow alum, Travel Notes, a company that built an app that extracts itinerary information from credit and debit cards to avoid denials when traveling abroad. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Travel Notes was founded by Hudson Chilton, currently the chief business development officer for refund.me, and debuted its technology at FinovateFall 2015.

Company facts:

  • Founded in 2012
  • Headquartered in Palo Alto, California
  • Received refund.me claims from customers in more than 140 countries, using more than 350 airlines, in more than 450 airports
  • Eve Buechner is CEO
  • Average compensation time of 100 days

Talking about the technology during his Finovate demonstration, Chilton explained that the goal is to help banks improve their cardholders’ travel experiences. By integrating refund.me’s solution into their credit and debit cards, banks can “turn an inconvenient, stressful situation into a moment of joy” by putting the bank in the role of “the hero.”

Refundme_stage_FEU2016

Pictured: Refund.me Chief Business Development Officer Hudson Chilton demonstrated his platform’s Flight Compensation service at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

“You’re able to become the hero because there are laws in the European Union that require the airlines to pay you compensation if your flights are delayed, cancelled, or overbooked,” Chilton said. “There is between $5 and $10 billion in unclaimed funds every year that should be going back into your cardholders’ wallets.”

At FinovateEurope 2016, Chilton demonstrated two of the company’s products: a white-label European Union Flight Compensation offering and a Refund.me Retroactive program. The latter reviews historic flight data going back three years for potentially delayed, cancelled, or overbooked flights for which cardholders may be eligible for compensation. Refund.me Retroactive also provides banks with data such as the overall amount of compensation available to their cardholders and the routes and names of airports with the most frequent delays.

——–

HudsonChilton_RefundmeWe spoke with Chilton briefly on rehearsal day at FinovateEurope, then followed up a few weeks later with a few questions by e-mail.

Finovate: What problem does refund.me solve?

Hudson Chilton: refund.me helps financial institutions strengthen the features and benefits of their cards by putting money back in the pockets of cardholders who have been impacted by a delayed, canceled, or overbooked airline flight. Whenever a cardholder purchases an airline ticket with their financial institution’s card, refund.me helps them secure compensation from their airline for delayed, canceled, or overbooked flight.

image010Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Chilton: Our customer base includes large financial institutions in the United States, along with travel management companies, large corporations, and individual customers from 145 countries across five continents, filing claims against more than 350 airlines.

Finovate: How does your technology solve the problem better?

Chilton: Our white-label solution for financial institutions helps banks truly differentiate their credit/debit card offering to their cardholders. A partnership with refund.me gives your cardholders a reason to purchase their airline flights on your card, not the other cards in their wallet. When they book their flights using your financial institution’s card, they will have peace-of-mind knowing they can quickly and easily secure compensation from their airline for a delayed, canceled, or overbooked flight.

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

Chilton: Providing our refund.me compensation-solution to financial institutions is a natural progression from our prior experience in both the financial industry and travel industry. refund.me was established in 2012 and has been helping clients from 145 countries across five continents, filing claims against more than 350 airlines. In 2014, the Financial Times praised refund.me as a “legal industry pioneer” in its Innovative Lawyers Report.

——–

Check out the video from refund.me’s FinovateEurope 2016 demo.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Live Trading Launches on SwipeStox for iOS & Android”
  • “Finovate Debuts: SBDA Group Turns Raw Banking Data into Targeted Marketing”

Around the web

  • D3 Banking subscribes to market intelligence solution, FI Navigator.
  • California-based Yolo FCU chooses Insuritas to open and run its turnkey insurance agency.
  • Oregon’s Rivermark Community CU to deploy online and mobile banking solutions from Digital Insight.
  • PayNearMe facilitates users to pay for their taxes in cash.
  • Lending Club partners with Funding Circle and Prosper to launch Marketplace Lending Association.

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.

Finovate Alums Dominate The FinTech50’s Inaugural Hall of Fame

Finovate Alums Dominate The FinTech50’s Inaugural Hall of Fame

Fintech50_homepage_April2016

FinTechCity unveiled its new FinTech50 Hall of Fame this week at the Money 20/20 event in Copenhagen, Denmark. Finovate alums took six out of the ten spots.

The “founding ten members” of TheFinTech50 Hall of Fame are companies that “have featured on our radar since the days when they could reasonably be called startups,” say FinTech50 founders Julie Lake and Nicky Cotter, writing in The FinTech50 2016 Yearbook. “In recognition of their pioneering spirit and competitive staying power, we felt they deserved their own special place within a list of remarkable game-changers,” the founders wrote.

FinTechCity also presented The FinTech50 2016, its roster of the fifty hottest FinTech businesses in Europe. Of the 50 companies selected by the panel of more than 30 industry experts who poured over more than 1,200 candidates, a full baker’s dozen were Finovate—or FinDEVr—alums.

Read the full list.

Lake and Cotter called this year’s competition “the most hotly contested FinTech50 in its four-year history.” The founders also highlighted differences from the 2015 list, with this year’s roster featuring more companies innovating in “security, compliance, and risk.”

Also noteworthy was the number of European fintech companies from the United Kingdom (more than 30 out of the 50). The founders credited this to the U.K.’s broader access to funding, as well as the region’s local talent, and “favorable regulatory environment.” Lake and Cotter also praised other emerging European fintech communities in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Stockholm.

In addition to The FinTech50 2016 and its new Hall of Fame, FinTechCity also announced its FinTech20 India and FinTech20 Hong Kong. Finovate alums were represented here with Demystdata (FinovateAsia 2012) earning a spot in the Hong Kong 20, and Bank Bazaar (FinovateAsia 2012) getting recognition in the India 20. Lastly, The FinTech50 shared “The Hot Ten,” a roster of companies on their watch list for 2016. Here, Finovate alum, Ormsby Street (FinovateFall 2015), was recognized on that list.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Scalable Capital Scores $7.9 Million”
  • Check out this week’s FinDEVr APIntelligence.
  • “Finovate Alums Dominate The FinTech50’s Inaugural Hall of Fame”

Around the web

  • New strategic partnership connects Klarna’s checkout solution with Modo’s digital payments hub.
  • NICE Actimize unveils its Actimize AML Essentials, AML cloud solution.
  • Ixaris spins off its payment technology division, Ixaris Technologies.
  • European payment providers partnered with TSYS to get access to alerts service.
  • Misys teams up with Dorsum to enable FusionBanking Essence customers to trade directly from their accounts.
  • Payroll in Xero now available in Georgia, reaching 21 states.
  • Richard Steggall, co-founder and CEO of Urban FT, chats with PYMNTS.

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.