Author: David Penn

CRIF and Know Your Customer Team Up with Ping An OneConnect Bank to Boost Digital Onboarding for SMEs

CRIF and Know Your Customer Team Up with Ping An OneConnect Bank to Boost Digital Onboarding for SMEs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, CRIF, Daily news
  • CRIF and Know Your Customer will help Ping An OneConnect (Hong Kong) Limited enhance digital onboarding for its SME customers.
  • CRIF and Know Your Customer have collaborated since forging a global commercial partnership in 2021.
  • Headquartered in Bologna, Italy, CRIF made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2014.

Banking credit information provider CRIF and regtech Know Your Customer have partnered to help Ping An OneConnect Bank (Hong Kong) Limited (“PAOB”) improve the digital onboarding process for its SME customers.

CRIF and Know Your Customer have developed a new system that uses real-time registry connections to automatically retrieve documents and map shareholders. The solution provides a centralized place to integrate data from multiple official sources which enables PAOB to streamline the onboarding process for its clients. In addition to leveraging automation to lower costs and reduce the amount of manual labor involved, the new offering supports on-going monitoring requirements, as well. Both CRIF and Know Your Customer offer a wide range of compliance solutions: CRIF provides a portfolio of business data and intelligence, including credit and ESG data. Know Your Customer provides real-time registry connections, Ultimate Beneficial Owner mapping across borders, and modular workflow capabilities.

Ivan Chow, Head of Strategy & Partnerships at PAOB highlighted the challenges facing regional SMEs in the immediate, post-COVID economic environment. Chow noted that the re-opening of places like Hong Kong is not only likely to feature increased business activity, but also increased demand for operating capital financing. “The partnership with CRIF and Know Your Customer will further enhance our customer-centric experience to the SME customers,” Chow said.

The partnership between CRIF and Know Your Customer extends back to 2021. The two companies announced a global commercial partnership in August of that year to help financial institutions pursue their digital transformation objectives. The alliance will combine CRIF’s KYC data offering with Know Your Customer’s platform to facilitate digital corporate onboarding for financial institutions. The agreement also featured a strategic financial investment in Know Your Customer. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. The company said the capital will help it further develop the AI and automation features of its technology.

Founded in 1988, CRIF is headquartered in Bologna, Italy. The company operates in more than 40 countries and includes more than 10,000 financial institutions and 600+ insurance companies among its customers. CRIF made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2014.

Photo by Jimmy Chan

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Currencycloud Partners with Integrated AP/AR Platform Nook

Currencycloud Partners with Integrated AP/AR Platform Nook
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Currency Cloud, Daily news
  • Accounts payable and receivable platform Nook has partnered with Currencycloud.
  • Nook will leverage Currencycloud’s APIs to help its customers manage payments with international suppliers.
  • Currencycloud has been a Finovate alum since 2015. Visa acquired the company in 2021.

Accounts payable platform Nook announced a new partnership with Currencycloud. Nook will leverage Currencycloud’s APIs to enable its customers to manage the full-life cycle of supplier payments. This will help Nook better serve companies who must make multiple transactions and manage other inefficiencies when working with international suppliers.

“The seamless integration with Currencycloud has strengthened our value proposition as an end-to-end accounts payable solution, and has helped us to expand our addressable market to include businesses that need to pay suppliers in multiple currencies,” Nook co-founder and CEO Joe Lines explained.

Nook offers an integrated accounts payable and accounts receivable platform that enables businesses to process, approve, and pay invoices without having to login to their bank or accounting program. The platform features auditable integrated approval workflows, and payments are integrated with both the company’s bank and ledger. The company noted that its platform has enabled users to complete their accounts payable 50% faster than before using the technology.

Currencycloud Chief Revenue Officer Nick Cheetham said that the partnership with Nook was a “perfect example” of how companies can leverage innovation to thrive in the payments space. Calling the support of companies like Nook a part of Currencycloud’s identity from the beginning, Cheetham added “We are eager to see how the platform can expand their customer base and further disrupt the market by integrating our seamless cross-border payment capabilities.”

Currencycloud demoed its technology on the Finovate stage for the first time at FinovateSpring 2015. In the eight years since, the company has grown into a financial infrastructure and enterprise-class solution provider for any business that needs to move money across borders. With nearly 600 employees, Currencycloud maintains offices in New York, Amsterdam, Singapore, Cardiff, and London. The company has processed more than $75 billion in payments and transferred payments to more than 180 countries around the world.

Last month, Currencycloud announced that it was working with Australian multi-asset broker ACY Securities. Currencycloud began the year with a pair of new partnerships: teaming up with Hong Kong-based remittance company Windsor First and venture capital platform Vauban in January. Visa acquired Currencycloud in 2021 for $912 million (£700 million). Mike Laven is CEO.

Photo by Porapak Apichodilok

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Ten Alums Raised More Than $209 Million in Q2 2023

Ten Alums Raised More Than $209 Million in Q2 2023
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, David's column, Funding, Fundings, Quarterly Funding

Do any of these headlines sound familiar?

“Global fintech funding nearly halves to $23B in H1 2023”

“North American Startup Funding Fell Across All Stages in Q2”

“Most Active Investors Pare Dealmaking in First Half of 2023”

These are some of the recent headlines from sources such as Crunchbase News and S&P Global Market Intelligence. While there was some real enthusiasm around Generative AI as the summer began, the reality is that technology investors remain cautious in the face of inflationary fears, higher interest rates, and a number of high-profile blowups in some of the more speculative areas of technology. This challenge has been especially acute in fintech. Not only have concerns over COVID-era overinvestment and “malinvestment” been loud in this space, but also fintech has more direct exposure to some of the economic discontents mentioned above.

The retrenchment in fintech funding was in evidence during Q2 2023 for our Finovate alums, as well. Over the quarter, ten alums raised more than $209 million. This makes Q2 2023 one of the lowest quarters in terms of equity capital raised by our alums in many years. Note that two of the nine alums that reported receiving investment dollars in April, May, and June – Agent IQ and EverC – did not disclose the amounts of their fundings. Nevertheless, this quarter’s total is a clear reflection of the relative tepid investment climate across technology writ large.

Previous quarterly comparisons

  • Q2 2022: More than $984 million raised by eight alums
  • Q2 2021: More than $2.8 billion raised by 14 alums
  • Q2 2020: More than $975 million raised by 15 alums
  • Q2 2019: More than $1.8 billion raised by 29 alums
  • Q2 2018: More than $1.5 billion raised by 26 alums

The biggest fundraising alum of the quarter was NYMBUS. The company enables financial institutions to digitally transform their operations through a variety of solutions including SmartCore, SmartPayments, and its standalone digital bank alternative, SmartLaunch. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, NYBUS made its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall 2019.

Top Equity Investments

  • NYMBUS: $70 million
  • PayNearMe: $45 million
  • BioCatch: $40 million

Other big alumni fundraisers in Q2 2023 were PayNearMe and BioCatch, which raised $45 million and $40 million, respectively. PayNearMe is a three-time Finovate Best of Show winner, making its Finovate debut back in 2010. The Santa Clara, California based fintech offers a cash payments platform that facilitates online purchases and billpay.

Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, BioCatch demoed its technology at FinovateFall in 2014. Since then, the behavioral biometrics innovator has grown into a major player in the advanced fraud protection industry. The firm continuously protects more than five billion sessions per month and serves more than 250 million users around the world. In 2022, BioCatch prevented more than $2 billion in fraud losses.

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q2 2023.

April: More than $35 million raised by three alums

  • EverC: undisclosed – post
  • Stratyfy: $10 million – post
  • Tyfone: $25 million – post

May: More than $127 million raised by five alums

  • Agent IQ: undisclosed – post
  • BioCatch: $40 million – post
  • Cable: $11 million – post
  • Kognitos: $6.75 million – post
  • NYMBUS: $70 million – post

June: More than $47 million raised by two alums

  • PayNearMe: $45 million – post
  • StockRepublic: $2.81 million – post

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the second quarter of 2023 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

Photo by Reynaldo #brigworkz Brigantty

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Consumer Loyalty App loyalBe Partners with Cheddar to Facilitate B2B Pivot

Consumer Loyalty App loyalBe Partners with Cheddar to Facilitate B2B Pivot
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Consumer loyalty app loyalBe is transferring its user base to consumer rewards and payments app Cheddar.
  • The move comes as the Ireland-based company pivots from B2C to B2B.
  • Headquartered in Belfast and founded in 2018, loyalBe launched in Dublin in 2021.

“We literally give you free money for buying stuff you were going to buy anyway,” declares the Twitter page of Irish consumer loyalty app, loyalBe. The message is likely to remain the same. But today we learned that the focus has changed. LoyalBe has forged a strategic partnership with consumer rewards and payments app Cheddar. As part of the partnership, loyalBe will transfer its user base to the London-based company as part of its pivot from B2C to B2B.

LoyalBe CEO Cormac Quinn said that the decision to become a B2B business reflected “a thorough evaluation of our market positioning and long-term growth potential.” Quinn added that the pivot will enable the company to pursue more effectively the “democratization of frictionless reward programs in the marketplace.”

LoyalBe customers will receive instructions on how to transfer their rewards to Cheddar via email and in-app notification. The size of loyalBe’s customer base was not available.

LoyalBe was founded in 2018. The company raised $130,000 (£100,000) in seed funding from Techstart Ventures a year later. By 2020, loyalBe had secured a partnership with Visa as part of a strategy to expand beyond its local market in Northern Ireland. More investment followed in 2021. The company locked in more than $948,000 (£725,000) in funding from both Techstart Ventures and new investor Co-Fund NI. Later that year, loyalBe launched in Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland.

“We are delighted to introduce loyalBe in Dublin,” Quinn said when the launch was announced. “This gives local businesses the chance to compete with the larger brands and attract footfall with powerful, data-driven insights and tailored promotions for their top customers.”

Serving small businesses was always a major part of what loyalBe is all about. LoyalBe provides a digital loyalty solution that gives businesses and consumers an alternative to traditional paper loyalty cards. Via a smartphone app and a direct link to the consumer’s bank card, loyalBe’s technology makes the rewards process seamless. LoyalBe also enables merchants to leverage payment data to boost customer engagement and provide more personalized rewards and offers.

What does this mean for the company as a fully B2B enterprise? “We have always been driven by our mission to provide every merchant with a powerful tool to help them attract and retain the best customers,” Quinn said. If nothing else, that effort will benefit from a new focus courtesy of the company’s latest move.

Cheddar CEO Tariq Zaid co-founded the U.K.-based company in 2020. The bank account-powered rewards app enables users to earn up to 35% cashback at major brands.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

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HSBC, Truist, MUFG Explore Role of Quantum Computing in Financial Services

HSBC, Truist, MUFG Explore Role of Quantum Computing in Financial Services
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Fintech

Back off blockchain! And move over metaverse! The future tech on the minds of many innovators in fintech and financial services is quantum computing.

Quantum computing leverages the concepts of quantum mechanics to make complex computations that would be very difficult – if not impossible – for traditional, non-quantum computers. Quantum computing provides exponential increases in processing speed, boosting computational power and benefiting fields from risk modeling to natural language processing. Businesses can deploy quantum computers to provide enhanced cybersecurity with complex, hard-to-hack algorithms. And it is easy to see how quantum computing would fit comfortably in a world of increasingly sophisticated machine learning and AI. In fact, based on a forecast by Boston Consulting Group, the quantum computing industry is expected to be worth $850 billion by 2035. This is the year when the consultancy believes the technology will have “matured.”

But, as we’ve learned from our forays into cryptocurrencies and the metaverse, the devil is in the deployments. We need to see use cases in order to understand and invest in whatever role a new technology might play in our lives. Quantum computing has not done as well on this front as Generative AI has, of late. But there are signs that financial services in particular remain interested in quantum computing. And the fruits of those investigations may arrive sooner than we think. Last month, HSBC and Quantinuum announced a “series of exploratory projects that exploit the potential near- and long-term benefits of quantum computing for banking.” The joint statement highlighted cybersecurity, fraud detection, and natural language processing” as areas of emphasis.

And just this week, Truist Financial, one of the top ten commercial banks in the U.S. announced that it has joined IBM’s Quantum Accelerator program. The program will enable participants in financial services to build skills in quantum computing. For its part, Truist is focused on exploring potential use cases for the technology in consumer banking.

“Quantum computing has the potential to transform how we do banking and solve complex problems,” Truist Chief Information Officer Scott Case said. “IBM is a leader in quantum computing and their collaboration and expertise will be invaluable to ensure we are able to leverage these new technologies to the fullest potential.”

IBM Iaunched its Quantum Accelerator program in September 2021. The program is designed for organizations that are both “quantum curious” as well as those already looking to develop real competency in quantum technology. The accelerator gives participants access to the company’s quantum computing systems, as well as IBM’s quantum computing experts.

In turn, IBM joined Truist’s Innovators in Residence initiative. This initiative is designed support collaborations between IBM and startups in fintech and financial services.

Meanwhile, Japanese megabank MUFG is putting its money to work to bring quantum computing to the banking and financial services industries. The bank has purchased an 18% stake in a quantum computing startup called Groovenauts, a stake that reportedly cost the financial institutions “billions of yen.”

Based in Japan, Groovenauts specializes in a computing process known as “quantum annealing.” This technology involves finding an optimal answer based on a massive number of combinations. To this end, Groovenauts connects companies with quantum computers owned by various research institutions, blending data processing technology with AI to enable businesses to more readily take advantage of quantum computing.

MUFG’s investment is the first direct investment in quantum computing by any of Japan’s three large megabanks. MUFG is specifically looking to use quantum technology to mitigate risk in financial derivative trading and asset risk management. The bank also believes that quantum computing will help it achieve significant operational efficiency gains.

Photo by Pixabay

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MSU FCU’s Ben Maxim on Making Financial Services Accessible for Underserved Communities

MSU FCU’s Ben Maxim on Making Financial Services Accessible for Underserved Communities
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2023, Speaker series

Membership-based financial institutions such as credit unions play a critical role in helping promote financial engagement among those living and working in the communities they serve. This puts them in an ideal place to help promote the cause of financial inclusion, and the challenge of bringing financial services – and technological innovation – to underserved communities.

I spoke with Ben Maxim, Chief Digital Strategy & Innovation Officer at MSU Federal Credit Union at FinovateSpring earlier this year. Among the topics we discussed were:

  • Key business and tech trends to pay attention to
  • How to reach and connect with underserved communities
  • The role of decentralized finance in making financial services more accessible

Maxim provided insights into what underserved communities are looking for in financial services. He also discussed why financial inclusion is about more than breaking down socioeconomic barriers. Check out the full interview below.

Photo by Daniel

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Car IQ Turns to Visa to Power In-Vehicle Merchant Payments

Car IQ Turns to Visa to Power In-Vehicle Merchant Payments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, VISA
  • Vehicle payment platform Car IQ partnered with Visa to power its in-vehicle merchant payments solution, Car IQ Pay Vehicle Wallet.
  • The partnership will enable wallet users to pay for fuel, tools, parking, insurance, service, and repairs without requiring a physical card.
  • Analysts expect the connected vehicle market to reach $600 billion by 2030.

Payment platform for vehicles, Car IQ, has partnered with Visa. The San Francisco-based company is working with the payments and credit card giant to power its in-vehicle merchant payments solution, Car IQ Pay Vehicle Wallet. The partnership will enable vehicles to transact directly with Visa’s global merchant and bank network. The Car IQ Pay Vehicle Wallet can then be used to pay for fuel, tools, parking, insurance, service, EV charging, and repairs.

“Our collaboration with Visa allows us to accelerate the adoption of vehicle payments and make them a seamless part of the fleet experience today, and the consumer experience of the future,” Car IQ CEO Sterling Pratz said. “Our vehicle wallet allows banks and merchants to trust payments from vehicles as well as any other IoT device, over the Visa network.”

The addition of vehicle data is a key component of the partnership. This data supports new contextual payment experiences including real-time offers and personalized rewards for drivers, merchants, or even entire fleets. Car IQ’s Know Your Machine technology authenticates a machine’s identity in order to enable vehicles of all types to transact directly with merchants.

A recent study from Ptolemus Consulting Group noted that the connected vehicle payment market could reach $600 billion by 2030. In a statement, Veronica Fernandez, North American Head of Visa Business Solutions, added that the total spend for commercial fleet payments is more than $80 billion. This sum includes cash, checks, ACH, as well as traditional fleet car payments. Fernandez said that the collaboration with Car IQ will help “drive growth of vehicle-based payments that allow users to take control of their fleet business through enhanced and timely data capabilities that allow for real-time business decisions.”

Car IQ is also partnering with automobile OEMs to embed payments within consumer vehicles. The company’s Car IQ Pay in-dash vehicle wallet, for example, connects to merchants on Visa’s network, enabling payments directly from the car’s infotainment system. Pratz noted that while its efforts are focused on vehicles, there’s more to the Car IQ platform than making payments from cars. “Our platform is designed to easily support any IoT device payment, and we are already seeing interest for connected ‘smart’ city applications and believe the connected home will be next,” Pratz said.

More than 25,000 fuel stations in the U.S accept the company’s Car IQ Pay solution. In June, Car IQ announced a partnership with PDI Technologies to process commercial fleet transactions. In March, the company worked with the United States Auto Club (USAC) to sponsor the “The Fab Four” racing competition for female drivers.

Founded in 2017, Car IQ has raised $42 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. In February, the company secured $15 million in an oversubscribed Series B round. Car IQ began the year teaming up with BlackBerry IVY to launch its in-dash vehicle wallet.

Photo by Pixabay

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Big Data Innovator SESAMm Integrates Generative AI to Boost ESG Risk Mitigation

Big Data Innovator SESAMm Integrates Generative AI to Boost ESG Risk Mitigation
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SESAMm
  • Big data and AI company SESAMm announced the integration of Generative AI into its platform.
  • The integration will enable SESAMm to offer enhanced ESG risk mitigation.
  • Founded in 2014, and headquartered in Paris, France, SESAMm won Best of Show in its Finovate debut in 2022.

SESAMm, an AI company that provides investment firms with critical insights on ESG, risk controversies, and other significant events, has integrated Generative AI into its platform. The addition is designed to help financial institutions apply enhanced ESG risk mitigation. The integration also will enable the company to streamline the process with automated tools and other enabling technologies.

“With Generative AI, we are not only enhancing our internal processes but also focusing on the development of new features that redefine industry standards,” SESAMm co-founder and CEO Sylvain Forté explained. “These include intuitive dashboards, automated ESG/SDG event analysis tools, and a client interaction chatbot – all created to streamline data interaction and boost efficiency in risk management.”

SESAMm’s technology enables users to derive insights from web data on millions of companies in less than a minute. The company’s platform enables users to generate transparent, real-time ESG and SDG insights on portfolio companies, suppliers, as well as their own organization. Risk alerts and monitoring keep users abreast of potential controversies, and users can leverage the technology to build thematic strategies for ETFs and other index-related initiatives. SESAMm offers data from 20 billion articles and four million public and premium sources on five million public and private companies. More than 100+ languages are covered, as well.

This week’s announcement means quicker and more intuitive interaction with data on SESAMm’s platform. New functionality includes ESG/SDG event summarization and automatic competitor searches for both public and private companies. SESAMm announced that is will launch a suite of Generative AI-powered features in the second half of 2023. SESAMm’s Forté will host an online fireside chat on Generative AI and the Future of Finance later this month.

Founded in 2014, SESAMm won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2022. At the conference, the Paris, France-based company demoed its TextReveal solution. TextReveal is an alternative data platform that leverages NLP (Natural Language Processing) to provide daily sentiment and ESG data on public and private companies.

In May, SESAMm announced a partnership with Compass Financial Technologies. The two companies are collaborating to leverage web sentiment data to build a new cryptocurrency-based thematic index. In March, SESAMm closed a Series B2 round in March, securing $37 million. The investment took the firm’s total equity capital raised to more than $65 million (€50.5 million), according to Crunchbase. SESAMm counts Elaia, Opera Tech Ventures, and NewAlpha Asset Management among its investors.

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk

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Best of Show Winner Stratyfy Brings Next Gen Risk Decisioning to the Fight for Fair Credit

Best of Show Winner Stratyfy Brings Next Gen Risk Decisioning to the Fight for Fair Credit
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Stratyfy

A partnership between credit and risk decisions company Stratyfy and Beneficial State Foundation is designed to combat ethnic and racial disparities in lending. The partnership was formed under the auspices of the Foundation’s Underwriting for Racial Justice (URJ) program. URJ consists of a team of financial institutions and “equity champions” tasked with identifying ways to improve access to credit for underserved communities and individuals.

The partnership has kicked off a two-year pilot program that will resource capital for people of color with the goal of stimulating wealth-building in their communities. To this end, 20 lenders will use Stratyfy’s technology, including its credit risk and decision optimization solutions, to remove bias from the credit decisioning process and encourage the fairest possible outcomes. Beneficial State Foundation Executive Director and Chief Impact Officer Erin Kilmer Neel called Stratyfy a “key partner” in the effort. Stratyfy co-founder and CEO Laura Kornhauser praised the institutions who are supporting the initiative.

“The innovative lenders selected for the URJ program are redefining how people of color in their communities are able to access credit,” Kornhauser said. “And Stratyfy is the technology chosen to deliver the collective insights and recommended actions to make it happen.”

The selected lenders are:

  • Beneficial State Bank
  • Berkshire Bank
  • BetterFi
  • Chehalis Tribal Loan Fund
  • Community Vision
  • Eastern Bank
  • Enterprise Community Loan Fund (ECLF)
  • Leech Lake Financial Services
  • LISC
  • Montecito Bank & Trust
  • NBT Bank, N.A.
  • New Orleans Fireman’s Federal Credit Union
  • REDF Impact Investing Fund
  • Rivermark Community Credit Union
  • Texas National Bank
  • Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity Lending, Inc.
  • Urban Redevelopment Authority
  • Vermont Community Loan Fund
  • Working Solutions CDFI
  • Washington State Employees Credit Union

Leaders from both the Vermont Community Loan Fund and NBT Bank underscored the opportunity to work together on behalf of greater financial inclusion. “Our team looks forward to collaborating with the 20-lender cohort to enhance our individual and collective impact on racial equity in lending,” NBT EVP and Consumer Lending Executive Shauna M. Hyle said. Forbes named NBT Bank to its World’s Best Banks roster this year, making NBT Bank the highest rated bank in the state.

Founded in 2017, Stratyfy made its Finovate debut in 2018. The company won Best of Show in its return to the Finovate stage last September at FinovateFall. At the conference, the company demoed its UnBias solution. Unbias enables financial institutions and fintechs to uncover and undo bias in complex financial decisions. The API-delivered technology is one of many transparent, machine learning tools Stratyfy offers to help companies minimize bias and improve risk-adjusted returns.

New York-based Stratyfy raised more than $10 million in funding this spring. Truist Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners co-led the round.

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Women’s Mentorship Platform Penny Finance Partners With Plaid to Offer Automated Money Insights

Women’s Mentorship Platform Penny Finance Partners With Plaid to Offer Automated Money Insights
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Plaid
  • Financial mentorship platform for women, Penny Finance, has launched a new automated account integration.
  • The new offering comes courtesy of a partnership with financial data connectivity innovator Plaid.
  • Wall Street veteran Crissi Cole founded Penny Finance in 2020.

Penny Finance has added a new feature courtesy of the company’s partnership with Plaid. The financial mentorship platform for women announced the launch of a new automated account integration that will power enhanced money insights for its members. After linking their bank accounts to the Penny Finance platform, members will receive personalized, financial wellness reminders via email. Members will also get a customized version of Penny Finance’s education and mentorship guidance. This includes everything from helping members understand the differences between their various accounts, to strategies to maximize their financial opportunities. An example of the latter could be a suggestion to transition from a standard savings account to a high yield savings account.

“Managing your finances should be easy. You shouldn’t have to dig through statements, read a finance book, or ask your dad how to manage your money,” Penny Finance CEO and founder Crissi Cole said. “We are so excited to take the guesswork out of managing your money for the most high-potential group of investors out there: women.”

Cole founded Penny Finance in 2020. The company is the first personalized, tech-powered financial mentorship platform to offer real-world advice to women who lack access to a financial advisor. Earlier this year, the company earned a spot in the 2023 Techstars Future of Longevity startup accelerator in partnership with Pivotal Ventures. Penny Finance is among ten startups participating in the program.

Penny Finance began the year with the launch of an all-in-one community feature. The offering provides a welcoming space for women to come together and share advice on a variety of financial wellness topics. The Penny Finance team moderates the new feature, which hosts questions on everything from debt management to investing.

“Women are whip-smart,” Cole said when the community feature was introduced in January. “We are more educated, live longer, and yet, we typically retire with one-third of the wealth of a man. Why? The system wasn’t built for us. The world of finance is a ‘boys club’ with its own rules. But, the good news is, it’s not as complicated as they made it out to be.”

Plaid has been a Finovate alum for nearly a decade. The company introduced itself to Finovate audiences as part of our developers conference, FinDEVr SiliconValley, in 2014. In the years since, the financial data connectivity innovator has grown into a leading fintech that powers more than 7,000 apps and services with its API-first network. The company also facilitates connections to more than 12,000 financial institutions. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Plaid was founded in 2013. Zach Perret is CEO.

Photo by Christina Morillo

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Moneyhub Partners with MX, Brings Open Data to Wealth Management Solutions Provider Voyant

Moneyhub Partners with MX, Brings Open Data to Wealth Management Solutions Provider Voyant
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Moneyhub, MX
  • Open data company Moneyhub announced a pair of partnerships at the beginning of the month.
  • The Bristol-based firm forged a referral partnership with fellow Finovate alum MX.
  • Moneyhub is also working with wealth management solutions provider Voyant, leveraging open data to accelerate the fact-finding process for financial advisors.

U.K.-based open data company Moneyhub announced a number of partnerships in recent days and weeks. At the beginning of the month, the fintech forged a strategic partnership with Utah-based open finance innovator MX. Via the partnership, Moneyhub will be able to refer customers to MX for support in North America, while MX will be able to refer customers who are looking for open finance solutions in European markets to Moneyhub.

Moneyhub provides consumers with data to enhance their financial health. The firm’s technology also helps businesses gain the kind of insights that enable them to deliver personalized solutions to their customers. In addition to Moneyhub’s Personal Finance Management platform and Open Banking APIs, the company offers decisioning tools that provide data-powered affordability checks that provide a real-time view of applicant financial information.

MX’s connectivity solutions and open finance APIs enable both consumers and businesses to leverage financial data to improve outcomes. MX provides reliable connections and data verification to help firms make insightful, actionable decisions, provide superior money experiences for customers, and grow their businesses.

“MX and Moneyhub share the belief that consumer-permissioned data sharing is critical to the future of our industry and we have an inherent responsibility to improve the money experience for consumers,” Raymond den Hond, Chief Commercial Officer, Partners at MX, said in a statement. “It will allow our clients to use consent-driven data to improve their customers’ financial lives, on a global scale,” Moneyhub CEO Samantha Seaton said.

A seven-time Best of Show winner, MX most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage in 2021 for FinovateFall. The fintech has more than 13,000 connections with financial institutions and fintechs, giving the firm a combined reach of more than 200 million consumers. Founded in 2010 by Ryan Caldwell and Brandon Dewitt, MX is headquartered in Lehi, Utah. Jim Magats is CEO.

In addition to its strategic partnership with MX, Moneyhub also announced last week that it has teamed up with financial planning and wealth management solutions provider Voyant. The Austin, Texas-based company will put Moneyhub’s Open Banking and Open Finance APIs to work giving advisors instant access to their clients’ financial information, including assets and analysis of income and expenditures in real-time. The data-sharing technology is secure, GDPR-compliant, and accelerates the fact-finding process for financial advisors.

Voyant’s technology analyzes real-time client data from a wide variety of sources. These include bank accounts, credit cards, investments and pensions, as well as loans and mortgages. The analysis of this broad range of data ensures more accurate, automatic modeling. It also supports advisors Consumer Duty requirements that mandate that financial products be focused on client goals by providing more personalized, tailored financial solutions.

Voyant was founded in 2008. Today the company serves more than 20,000 financial professionals and more than 40,000 of their clients. The digital wealth solution provider includes Lloyds Bank, CIBC, and BMO Bank of Montreal among its wealth management partners.

“Consent-driven, comprehensive and real-time access to financial data is critical for advisors to support their clients in achieving their long-term aspirations,” Kim Jenkins, Managing Director of Moneyhub, API explained. “Only with this information can they advise on the right products and solutions, at the right time, to deliver on those goals.”

A Finovate alum since 2015, Moneyhub offers solutions for a range of companies in financial services – from banks and building societies to wealth managers, insurers, and lenders. The Bristol-based fintech offers seamless, single source connectivity to thousands of financial institutions in 37 countries to help businesses better understand and serve their customers.

In June, Moneyhub partnered with pension management firm Standard Life to power the company’s MoneyMindset solution. MoneyMindset gives Standard Life’s 1.5 million workplace pension scheme members real-time access to their spending and savings data across financial products. The previous month, Moneyhub announced that it had become the first third-party provider (TPP) to connect to Chase Bank in the U.K.

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Finovate Global Brazil: Visa Acquires Pismo, Open Co Merges with BizCapital

Finovate Global Brazil: Visa Acquires Pismo, Open Co Merges with BizCapital
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

In some of the biggest news in international fintech of late, credit card leader Visa announced that it is acquiring Pismo, a Brazilian payments infrastructure company. Visa is paying $1 billion in cash for the firm, making the transaction one of the largest of its kind in the fintech industry this year.

“At Pismo, we aim to enable our clients to launch cutting-edge payments and banking products within a single cloud-native platform, regardless of rails, geography or currency,” Pismo CEO and co-founder Ricardo Josua said. “Visa provides us unrivaled support to expand our footprint globally and help shape a new era of banking and payments.”

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and standard closing conditions. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Pismo will retain its current management team, post-acquisition. The company also insists that it will remain both rail and network agnostic, and that it will continue to offer all of its current products including banking, cards, and loans.

The deal will enable Visa to offer core banking and issuer processing capabilities across debit, prepaid, credit, and commercial cards for clients through cloud native APIs. Access to Pismo’s platform will also give Visa the ability to offer both support and connectivity for a variety of emerging payment rails – such as Brazil’s instant payments platform, Pix – for its financial institution clients.

Founded in 2016, the São Paulo–based fintech processes nearly 50 billion API calls a year and $40 billion in transaction volumes. The company powers more than 40 million issued cards and nearly 80 million accounts. In addition to serving customers throughout Latin America, Pismo is active in the U.S., Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia. The fintech’s customers include banks and financial services firms like Brazil’s Itaú and Citi, as well as fintechs such as Revolut, N26, and Nubank.

The merger between Brazilian alternative lender Open Co and SME working capital provider BizCapital may not have produced as much fanfare as Visa’s acquisition of Pismo. But the combination is a boon for small businesses in Brazil, which will benefit from a new player in the B2B space with $104 million (R$ 5 billion) in unsecured credit operations for both individuals and small firms.

Interestingly, the merger was accomplished without the participation of financial capital and instead involved an exchange of stakes. Open Co CEO Sandro Reiss noted that the fact that the two companies have never been in direct competition, their “courtship had been going on for some time now.”

Open Co was launched in 2021, the product of a merger between online lender Geru and Rebel, a company that leveraged AI and bank account data to asses customer risk and financial health. BizCapital was founded in 2016 as a lender to SMEs that struggled to access funding via the country’s larger banks. Open Co serves approximately 10 million individuals; BizCapital serves more than one million small businesses.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian invoice financing company Zuvy raised $4.5 million in combined debt and equity funding.
  • South Africa will require cryptocurrency exchanges in the country to secure licenses by year end.
  • African superapp Ayoba teamed up with Adanian Labs to launch accelerator program in Nigeria.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Papara, a neobank based in Turkey, acquired Spanish neobank Rebellion.
  • Belgian fintech Curvo secured €500,000 in seed funding.
  • Germany’s Mambu expanded its partnership with the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • FinMont, a global payment orchestration platform, partnered with Israel-based chargeback mitigation specialist Justt.
  • Monaco-based payment solution provider YowPay unveiled its SEPA instant credit transfer payment solution for Eurozone merchants.
  • Bahrain-based fintech Infinios announced a partnership with U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Secureworks.

Central and Southern Asia

  • MyShubhLife, an embedded finance platform based in India, forged a partnership PayWorld.
  • Profit by Pakistan Today profiled Electronic Money Institution (EMI) SadaPay.
  • HSBC launched its Global Private Banking offering in India.

Photo by Florencia Potter

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