Author: David Penn

Ask Finovate: Who’s Who in Voice-banking Technology?

Ask Finovate: Who’s Who in Voice-banking Technology?
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ebankIT, ETRONIKA, FinanceIt, Fiserv, IntelliResponse, Interactions, NICE Systems, Q2ebanking, SayPay

Telephone with piggy bank – call for help

A few days ago, we received a query from a Finovate follower:

“Can you please provide a list of companies that have demoed their voice-banking technology over the last few years?”

Interesting question! We trolled through our archives and here’s what we found.

When it comes to voice banking, ebankIT (FinovateEurope 2015); Interactions (FinovateEurope 2014); and ETRONIKA (FinovateEurope 2014) have all demonstrated innovative voice-banking technologies on the Finovate stage in recent years. It may not be a coincidence that all three companies won Best of Show awards for those demonstrations, as well.

ebankIT_FEU2015_stage

ebankIT Director Joao Lima Pinto and Omnichannel Specialist Paulo Oliviera demonstrated omnichannel social banking at FinovateEurope 2015 in London.

Another company worth mentioning is Finantix. The three-time Finovate veteran demoed its Smart Banking Assistant which responds to commands and queries posed in natural language, and is a part of the company’s Finantix Sharp multichannel platform.

Larger alums also have made inroads into voice banking. This cohort includes Fiserv, whose Voice Response for DNA solution is providing voice-banking services to a growing number of FIs, including credit unions, and ACI Worldwide, specializing in providing voice banking technology to community FIs via its Voice Banking suite within the ACI Self-service Banking platform.

Interactions_FS2014_stage

Interactions Marketing Manager Dan Fox demoed conversational solutions for banks and FIs at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

A number of Finovate alums have built and deployed voice-banking technologies, while emphasizing on stage only a small component of that technology, such as real-time authentication. These companies include NICE Systems (most recently at FinovateEurope 2015 and a Best of Show winner at FinovateFall 2014) and Q2ebanking (FinovateSpring 2011).

Also, many alums have focused on voice biometrics as an authentication solution without being a full voice-banking-platform provider. These companies include Canada’s VoiceTrust (FinovateEurope 2013); Great Britain’s ValidSoft (FinovateSpring 2013); Best of Show winners AnchorID (FinovateFall 2014) and BehavioSec (most recently at FinDEVr 2014) from New York and Sweden, respectively.

ETRONIKA_FEU15_stage

ETRONIKA CEO Kęstutis Gardžiulis and Head of Marketing Asta Sabaite demonstrated BANKTRON at FinovateEurope 2014.

Additionally, a handful of alums have developed technologies that complement voice banking. SayPay Technologies made its Finovate debut in London this year with a voice-driven bill-pay solution. IntelliResponse, which was recently acquired by [24]7 for its customer service chat resources, last deployed its virtual agent technology at Bank of Internet USA, adding the oldest internet bank in America to its roster of more than 450 deployments across more than 150 brands and institutions.

There is an even broader field of companies that leverage voice technologies to help consumers make payments and transfer money, manage their finances, and even direct investments. Some of these companies, e.g., Credit Sesame, are using Siri-like functionality to improve the customer experience, while others such as mBank are combining voice and video to bring customers real-time assistance from live agents as opposed to virtual ones.

Is there a Finovate alum we left out? If you’re an alum with interesting innovations in the field of voice banking, send us an email at [email protected], and tell us all about it.

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Oink Launches New App with Peer to Peer Functionality

Oink Launches New App with Peer to Peer Functionality
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Oink

Oink_homepage_June2015

For fans of “virtual piggy bank” Oink, your award-winning app just got a little bit better.

Virtual Piggy, makers of Oink, have just launched version 2.0, which features a P2P capability that allows family and friends to deposit funds in an Oink account. The Oink account can then be used to automatically or manually load the Oink card, providing a parent or guardian-supervised mobile-payment and/or mobile-gift system for Virtual Piggy’s 11- to 21-year-old consumers.

Dr. Jo Webber, CEO and founder of Oink, cited “real-time access and control” as key to the kind of banking solutions that appeal to teens. Oink is wagering that it will also appeal to parents, as the technology makes it easier for teenagers to see and understand their own spending and savings patterns before they become potentially bad habits.

Oink_version_3

Writing in PaymentsSource last month, Webber made the case for relying on mobile technologies when it came to helping young people learn about personal finance. “For the most mobile generation to date,” she wrote, “it makes much more sense to use payment technologies reliant on mobile devices to spend and manage funds. Considering Generation Z has more spending power than any previous generation, their spending priorities are bound to guide the industry.”

The new Oink app is currently available on iOS. More than 1.3 million consumers are using the technology, which can be used to make online and in-store payments anywhere Discover card is accepted.

A four-time Finovate alum, Virtual Piggy won Best of Show honors at FinovateEurope 2013. The company, founded in February 2008, is headquartered in Hermosa Beach, California.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BBVA Compass, Cloud Lending, Interactions, Lending Club, Lighter Capital, Moven, Oink, On Deck Capital, Vouch

On Finovate.com

  • “Oink Launches New App with Peer to Peer Functionality”

Around the web

  • Peter Day’s World of Business talks about machine learning technology with Jay Wilpon and Michael Johnston of Interactions.
  • Forbes.com column on innovations in lending features On Deck, Lending Club, Cloud Lending Solutions, and Vouch.
  • As Lighter Capital ramps up to closing six deals per month and nears its 100th investment, Jeff Seely is named chairman.
  • Lending Club leads investment in Propel(x), an online investment platform.
  • BBVA Compass launches online financial advice portals, MoneyFit and Great Ideas for Small Business.
  • As Lighter Capital ramps up to closing six deals per month and nears its 100th investment, it names Jeff Seely Chairman.
  • Lending Club leads investment in Propel(x), an online investment platform.
  • American Banker: “Temenos Is Ready to Make Waves in U.S. Core Processing”
  • CNBC discusses the future of fintech with Bill Harris, Personal Capital CEO.
  • Braintree partners with Pinterest to launch Buyable Pins.
  • Bluefin releases Version 2.0 of its proprietary P2PE manager.
  • Inc.: “Lending Club Jumps as Online Lending Continues to Grow”
  • Let’s Talk Payments names many alums in list of 50 fintech startups to watch out for.
  • British Bank Association undertakes a campaign to recommend that U.K. businesses deploy solutions such as TIS’ eFLOW INVOICE.

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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Finovate Debuts: LoanNow Helps Borrowers “Outperform their FICO Score”

Finovate Debuts: LoanNow Helps Borrowers “Outperform their FICO Score”
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Debuts, LoanNow

LoanNow_homepage_May2015

Years after the financial crisis, lenders remain reluctant to fund borrowers with less than perfect credit. LoanNow combines more than a decade of experience in lending; top engineering talent (“most of our team is ex-Amazon” the LoanNow team tells me); and a fresh approach to managing risk to provide better loan programs to the subprime borrowing population.

Company facts:

  • Founded June 2013
  • Headquartered in Santa Ana, California
  • More than $5 million in funding raised
  • More than $3 million in loans issued
  • 25 employees

“Everybody has friends with bad credit,” says LoanNow CEO Harry Langenberg in a conversation during Finovate week. “But you’d still loan them your car. We’re trying to help people outperform their FICO scores. [In doing so] we are producing a lower-cost loan during the lifetime of the loan.”

LoanNow_FS2015_stage_800

From left: LoanNow co-founders Harry Langenberg, CEO, and Miron Lulic, COO, demonstrated LoanNow Group Signing at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

The story

What makes LoanNow possible is a combination of technological and regulatory opportunities and a group of individuals eager to take advantage of them. Company founder and CEO Harry Langenberg and COO Miron Lulic have more than 12 years of experience building a variety of companies that addressed different consumer needs. After the financial crisis, with banks shunning borrowers with less than sterling credit, Langenberg and Lulic saw an opportunity to work with subprime lenders.

“We saw ourselves as a team of A players in a C-level industry,” they explained. “We could succeed where others were afraid to go.”

What Langenberg and Lulic brought to subprime lending was a belief that a closer focus on individual borrower behavior can bring default rates down. They use algorithms and a variety of technical tools to look at far more factors than the FICO score. “FICO is a bad way to judge people in subprime categories,” Langenberg says. “We don’t just look at past data. We also look at the real-time performance while the borrower is in the loan, as (the borrower) pays it down.”

LoanNow_Borrower_Request_Landing_Page_1b

LoanNow’s Group Signing feature, demonstrated at FinovateSpring 2015, is another example of leveraging technology with an understanding of the borrower to make better loans to those unable to rely on traditional lenders. Group Signing lets borrowers leverage their social networks, encouraging friends and family members to pledge to help retire some fraction of the loan if the borrower defaults. Based on the number of group signers and the amounts vouched for, borrowers earn credits to lower the loan rate.

Since lending is risk-based, the core problem of subprime must be solved: reduce the risk of defaults. Langenburg says the goal becomes how to manage and drive down risk when interest rates are high and pricing is up because of defaults.

There’s more to the LoanNow platform than the Group Signing feature. But the feature, demoed at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose, is both new and a great example of LoanNow’s concept of “social credit” in action.

How it works

Group Signing takes the traditional concept of co-signing and brings in into the 21st century. Borrowers taking advantage of the Group Signing option use the LoanNow platform to send a note to friends and family members who might be willing to vouch for the LoanNow loan. By vouching, Group Signees agree to pay a fraction of the borrower’s loan in the event of default.

LoanNow_Borrower_Request_Compose_Message_1

Having a large number of Group Signees (and/or having a significant amount of the loan “group-signed”) gives the borrower credits used to lower the interest rate on the loan. By making debt less expensive and easier to retire, borrowers are better able to improve their credit score. LoanNow’s ultimate goal is to help subprime borrowers move out of the category altogether.

LoanNow_GroupSigning_RequestView3

After accepting a Group Signing invitation, the platform thanks the Group Signee for participating and asks for a pledge amount ($25 minimum). Pledges are made with credit/debit cards from Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Maestro, or Visa Electron. Cards are not charged unless the borrower defaults.

LoanNow_Group_Signing_Amount3

The LoanNow platform provides the borrower with a dashboard to track loan obligations. Friends and family members who have agreed to group-sign or “vouch” loans not only can be tracked, but also any loans the borrower has vouched for. The dashboard also gives a “Score Feed.” The Score Feed reminds the borrower of those who have group-signed for the loan, and also shows the vouch amount and how that vouching contributes to the borrower’s overall group-signing credit total.

LoanNow_Borrower_Dashboard-Group-Sign2

LoanNow currently operates in its home state of California as well as in Utah and Missouri. Loan amounts range from $2,500 to $5,000 in California, and $1,000 to $5,000 in Utah and Missouri. Terms range from 9 months to 24 months. Application is a quick, five-minute process and, as a direct lender, LoanNow can guarantee a rapid response. Loans are deposited directly into the borrower’s account.

The future

Going forward, LoanNow’s biggest focus is to expand operations. Currently in three states, and with 20 employees, the company is looking to double or triple its headcount by the end of the year. While currently lending half-a-million a month, LoanNow would like to triple or quadruple that number in the same time frame. The company is finalizing talks with a financial partner, with a potential announcement coming by the end of June 2015.

“We came to Finovate to meet banks and credit unions and are looking to partner with them,” said Langenberg. “Our platform for subprime borrowers is also a place to monetize leads and [pick up] a mismatch in their loan programs that we can help them fix and monetize.”

LoanNow_Group_Sign_Dashboard_5

“We are investing heavily in the platform, more so than before,” said Langenberg. And that represents a commitment of not only financial capital, but also human capital. “Our platform is an entire banking infrastructure built from scratch,” he said. “We are always looking for great engineers.” LoanNow also boasts of a strong legal team to make sure they remain compliant; the company is also looking for legal talent, with plans to double the size of their legal team by January 2016.

“We are specialists on the behavioral data in this space,” said Langenberg. “We are looking to extend beyond consumer loans to work with less than perfect credit in other categories such as auto loans. We want to be the white-hat leader in this space.”

LoanNow demoed its LoanNow Group Signing technology at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: eMoney Advisor, eWise, Finaeos, FinanceIt, HedgeCoVest, Kensho, Klarna, LoanNow, Meniga, NAMU Systems, OneID, Patch of Land, Pendo Systems, Q2, Quantopian, Spreedly, Temenos, Trustly

On Finovate.com

  • “Finovate Debuts: LoanNow Helps Borrowers ‘Outperform their FICO Score'”

Around the web

  • HedgeCoVest launches its real-time, hedge fund replication platform.
  • First Republic Bank to deploy virtual banking solutions from Q2 Holdings.
  • The Independent takes a look at Klarna and the power of micropayment.
  • oneID featured in MacWorld as a two-factor authentication app for the Apple Watch.
  • Allied Wallet now a supported online payment provider of Spreedly.
  • emX Select from eMoney Advisor now integrated with Dropbox.
  • Süddeutsche Zeitung features Trustly and Klarna (in German).
  • Bank Innovation profile on alternative fintech capitals looks at Iceland and highlights Meniga.
  • Ripple Labs adds former Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) CEO Donald Donahue as advisor.
  • A review of local fintech startups in the Boston Globe features Kensho and Quantopian.
  • Temenos wins “Best Core Banking System” honors from Banker Africa East Africa Awards 2015.
  • American Banker considers how Namu covers the emotional side of banking.
  • Entrepreneur lists Patch of Land as 1 of 100 brilliant companies to watch in 2015.
  • Pendo Systems wins awards from international financial technology publications, the New Jersey Technology Council, and SWIFT.
  • Asian Wealth Times: “Singapore’s MoneySmart to Launch PFM tools with Ewise”
  • Finaeos teams up with TATA Consulting Services to help SMBs take advantage of Regulation A+ of the JOBS Act.

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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Actiance Picks Up $28 Million from New and Existing Investors

Actiance Picks Up $28 Million from New and Existing Investors
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Actiance

Actiance_homepage_May2015

Cloud-based enterprise platform Actiance has raised $28 million in funding from new and existing investors. The additional capital takes the company’s total to more than $43 million.

Participating in the funding round were new investor, Golub Capital, alongside existing investors Credit Suisse NEXT Investors; JK&B Capital; Scale Venture Partners; and Sutter Hill Ventures. The new capital will be used to scale globally by opening new data centers in Frankfort and Amsterdam, and to accelerate product innovation, especially with its Alcatraz solution. Alcatraz is Actiance’s cloud-based archive for email and social media communications, and will be unveiled with new features at the company’s user conference in June 2015.

Golub Capital Managing Director Peter Fair pointed to Actiance’s “strong growth trajectory” in explaining his firm’s investment. “As companies struggle to manage new communication and collaboration channels, they need a solution like Actiance that enables them to fully utilize the channels needed to keep in touch and stay ahead,” Fair said.

Actiance has been busy in recent weeks. The company announced an integration with CellTrust, bringing its secure archiving technology to mobile voice and text. And earlier this month, Actiance announced support for Skype for Business and Yammer.

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Redwood City, California, Actiance demoed its Socialite technology at FinovateFall 2012 in New York. Kailash Ambani is president and CEO.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Actiance, Avoka, Betterment, Braintree, Global Debt Registry, Google, LendKey, NAMU Systems, Nomis Solutions, Placecast, SimplyTapp, Top Image Systems

On Finovate.com

  • Actiance Picks Up $28 Million from New and Existing Investors
  • LendKey Adds $8 Million in Venture Debt; Reaches $800 Million in Loans

Around the Web

  • SimplyTapp and Top Image Systems team up to bring HCE mobile payment technology to FIs in the Asia Pacific region.
  • Braintree integrates Android Pay into its v.zero SDK to ease merchant adoption.
  • Global Debt Registry unveils new API service to speed access to consumer-debt data and documents.
  • Avoka and NAMU earn “most innovative customer engagement” and “best customer experience” honors respectively at Citi Mobile Challenge.
  • Bible Money Matters reviews the new Betterment RetireGuide.
  • Placecast introduces its mobile data-management platform (DMP) as a stand-alone solution.
  • Nomis Solutions joins Center for Pricing and Revenue Management at Columbia University.

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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MoneyHub: From Award-winning Startup to Enterprise-based Solution

MoneyHub: From Award-winning Startup to Enterprise-based Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Moneyhub

MoneyHub_homepage_May2015

During a break in the action at FinovateEurope in February, I had the opportunity to sit down with MoneyHub CEO Toby Hughes and his team. MoneyHub was demoing later in the week, and we managed to catch up with him for a quick update.

According to Hughes, the PFM technology MoneyHub would demonstrate at FinovateEurope 2015 in London had been live for 18 months. The platform helps users with both short- and long-term budgeting and financial planning, and was tracking £ 3 billion in assets.

“The project started four years ago,” Hughes said. “It took two-and-a-half years to get the first prototype up and running.” The result was a Best of Show win for a financial management platform that impressed Finovate audiences by its ability to help users find and best deploy future savings toward goals both short- and long-term.

MoneyHub_FEU2015_stage_Hughes

MoneyHub CEO Toby Hughes and CTO Dave Tonge demonstrated the MoneyHub ecosystem at FinovateEurope 2015.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom, MoneyHub provides a free version of its service (via its YourWealth solution), as well as advanced versions for professional advisory firms, accountants, mortgage professionals, financial advisers, and larger financial organizations that want to use the technology with their own clients. As Hughes describes it, the goal is to put the customer “in the middle of their financial world and let it revolve around them.” He sees strength in not only in centralizing access to all financial data but also in providing financial professionals and their customers with tools to better see and understand the data itself. “Bring all the data into one place. Visualize it, manipulate it, and make choices,” Hughes says.

A year later, the company was back, this time introducing two new features—Choices and Insights—which help customers manage their finances around “non-financial” themes. Hughes also showed how product providers can use the technology to position their products in such a way as to be featured in part of the customer’s life plan.
MoneyHub-goalplanner

The goal-planning module above is part of MoneyHub’s Choices feature. The module is a simplification of a feature called Scenarios which, with its complex financial modeling, was admittedly best reserved for advanced users and financial planners. With Choices, users are able to see graphically and in advance how spending decisions impact preset goals ranging from saving for a holiday to planning for an early retirement. The drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for users to view multiple financial scenarios quickly.

Insights (below) is another new feature on the platform. Insights is also accessible via the Dashboard and provides for interactive sharing between the customer and the financial professional he or she is working with. Insights also features an Interactive News Feed that is driven by the client’s finances and investments. Changes to stocks owned, the arrival of an expected mid-year bonus at work, additional income from rental property ownership, and so on, are all displayed on the client’s dashboard.

MoneyHub-home

MoneyHub’s platform is designed to promote engagement: an interface that relies on simplification, visualization, and “non-financial” themes and goals that clients are comfortable with, and a seamless engagement mechanism through the Insights feature that ensures financial professionals are in tune with their clients’ dynamic financial world. “Our goal is to enable customers and organizations to work together more efficiently and effectively,” Hughes said. “And to enable individuals to answer the question, ‘Will I have enough?'”

Winning Best of Show (as YourWealth) in its first Finovate was big, but the news got even bigger when the company announced shortly afterward that it had been acquired while in the middle of its Series A round of funding. The acquirer, Momentum UK, was a division of MMI Holdings, a major financial services group based in South Africa.

The immediate result was “much more infrastructure and much more funding,” Hughes said. MoneyHub opened up a 120+ person facility in Bristol in February to help the company accommodate the changes. “We’ve gone from a startup-grade organization to an enterprise-based solution,” he explained, and said that the company was planning to “scale aggressively over the summer” in the U.K. market. This plus what Hughes called a “huge” new upgrade of the platform before the end of the year.

Currently the platform is available as a free service, a MoneyHub Premium service that pulls data from your linked accounts automatically for £9.99 a year, and MoneyHub Connect, the service for financial professionals to use with their clients.

Writing in Money Marketing, Ian McKenna included MoneyHub among those innovations that were “directly relevant to the way that consumers are likely to manage their money in the future.” And as far as MoneyHub is concerned, that future is already here.

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LendKey Adds $8 Million in Venture Debt; Reaches $800 Million in Loans

LendKey Adds $8 Million in Venture Debt; Reaches $800 Million in Loans
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: LendKey

LendKey_homepage_May2015

You know you’re having a pretty nice year when the $8 million in debt financing you just raised is the third or fourth item in your list of announcements.

LendKey announced a number of major milestones this week. In addition to securing an $8 million venture debt line from Silicon Valley Bank, the lending-as-a-service innovator reached $800 million in loans deployed to more than 35,000 borrowers, and won a commitment of $125 million from its own lending network of more than 300 credit unions and banks.

Vince Passione, founder and CEO of LendKey, pointed to the way his company serves as the bridge between traditional lenders and the opportunities in online ending. “With our technology, community financial institutions can succeed in the $3.2 trillion consumer-lending market, offering increased choice, transparency, lower rates, and a seamless digital experience,” Passione said.

LendKey_FS2015_stage_Passione

LendKey CEO and Founder Vince Passione and Chief Product Officer Strati Papageorge demoed LendKey Marketplace at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

In addition to more capital, LendKey announced new talent additions, as well. Bringing experience from companies ranging from Capital One to Priceline.com are:

  • Strati Papageorge, Chief Product Officer
  • Mike Stallmeyer, SVP Finance
  • Anil Nair, SVP Engineering
  • Jason Hills, SVP Sales
  • Aswin Rajappa, SVP Marketing
  • Jeff Silverman, SVP Institutional Business Development
  • Anne Sharkey, SVP Loan Operations

LendKey’s technology helps connect community banks and credit unions to millions of online borrowers. Loan-types include student, auto, and home improvement loans; consumers can use LendKey to search for, compare, and apply for loans on the platform. Board member and DFJ partner, Josh Stein said LendKey gave banks, financial institutions, and credit unions “new capabilities” when it comes to better serving their customers.

Founded in October 2007 and based in New York City, LendKey made its Finovate debut last month at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Fiserv, FundAmerica, Insuritas, Klarna, Lending Club, Malauzai Software, Moneyhub, PayItSimple, QuantConnect, Realty Mogul, Silanis Technology, Tradier, Zooz

On Finovate.com

  • MoneyHub: From Award-winning Startup to Enterprise-based Solution

Around the Web

  • Lending Club highlighted in FT Journal feature on “trickle-down innovation” in fintech.
  • Columbus Business First talks about Klarna CEO Brian Billingsley’s appearance on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money TV program.
  • Inman features Silanis Technology in a column on the growing use of e-signatures in mortgage lending.
  • Fort Community CU upgrades its Malauzai Software mobile SmartApp to support local rewards program.
  • Cinfed Federal CU hires Insuritas to launch its turnkey insurance agency solution.
  • FundAmerica launches its Invest Now button to provide compliant, friction-free capital-raising for crowdfunding platforms.
  • QuantConnect to offer its algorithmic trading platform via Tradier’s API.
  • Zooz and PayItSimple participate in Visa Europe Collab’s “100-Day Innovation Sprint.”
  • RealEstateTechNews takes a look at Realty Mogul and the launch of its new commercial real estate lending division.
  • Bank of the West redesigns, launches online banking service but on the Corillian Online platform from Fiserv.

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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Kantox Picks Up $11 Million in Series B, Doubling Total Capital

Kantox Picks Up $11 Million in Series B, Doubling Total Capital
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Kantox

Kantox_homepage_May2015

 

International currency-transfer specialist Kantox has doubled its total capital, courtesy of an $11 million investment from a set of long-time financial supporters.

Leading the round were Partech Venture and IDinvest Partners, with Cabiedes & Partners and business angel investors also participating. The Series B round takes Kantox’s total capital to more than $21 million. The additional funding will be used to help the company expand outside of Europe.

Kantox CEO Philippe Gelis shared his thoughts on the investment at the company blog, reminding us of one thing we’ve always appreciated about the man: a love of metrics. In a post titled, “How Kantox Raised 11 Million Dollars By Focusing on Real Numbers,” Gelis shared “the numbers that matter” including:

  • 35 currencies available to clients
  • 75 countries in which clients have made payments
  • 1,500 corporate clients served
  • $2 million in total platform trade volume projected by end of 2015
  • $33 million as the largest single trade on the platform
  • $1.5 billion as the total dollar value of the transactions processed on the platform since launch

“Relentless focus on our clients’ needs,” he added. “No fear. No superficial hokum.”

That said, the most interesting number may be 250: the number of bankers and brokers Gelis suggests are on the platform in order to learn how Kantox works from the inside out. “Yes, we know who you are,” Gelis teased, “and we enjoy your snooping around.”

Kantox_FEU2013_stage_Gelis

Kantox founder and CEO Philippe Gelis demonstrated Kantox Peer FX at FinovateEurope 2013.

Gelis also wrote about the potential for growing the company. While admitting “we may never be able to extend in a significant way in markets beyond Europe,” he believes his company’s technology will make the difference.

“If we are able to build the alternative FX market—thanks to sophisticated matching technology—the company valuation will be in the billions in the long run,” Gelis said.

Founded in June 2011 and headquartered in London, Kantox demonstrated its Peer FX technology at FinovateEurope 2013. The company surpassed a billion dollars in foreign exchange volume in February, shortly after raising $9 million in new funding.

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Guide Financial Acquired by John Hancock Financial

Guide Financial Acquired by John Hancock Financial
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Guide Financial

GuideFinancial_homepage_May2015

The convergence between incumbent financial institutions and innovative startups continues as John Hancock Financial announces its acquisition of financial technology startup, Guide Financial. Terms of the deal were not immediately available.

The acquisition combines John Hancock Financial’s long history of working with financial advisory professionals with technology from Guide Financial designed to make it easier to analyze personal finances. Guide Financial’s platform reviews customer accounts with an eye toward both spotting potential savings and providing customers with a guide to realizing those savings. The company notes that customers using the platform saved an average of $7,000 in the first year with the technology.

Introduced as a B2C solution during its FinovateFall 2013 demonstration, Guide Financial’s platform has since taken on a more B2B2C patina, and that is how the technology will be deployed by John Hancock. Tim Ramza, SVP of wealth business development and strategy for John Hancock, talked about how the technology would fuel the “ongoing innovation for advisers” his company is committed to. Guide Financial CEO Uri Pomerantz added, “We look forward to enhancing our support of independent advisers across the country who have responded so favorably to our product.”

Guide Financial will remain intact and will continue to operate out of its San Francisco headquarters.

The acquisition of Guide Financial by John Hancock in some ways echoes the $250 million acquisition of LearnVest by Northwestern Mutual in March. Some were surprised at the “odd couple” of an exciting, female-founded and -led tech startup joining forces with a financial services company founded in 1857 that is known more for quotidian insurance products than financial innovation. But as news of the Guide Financial/John Hancock acquisition suggests, more synergies may emerge between old finance and new finance than meet the eye.

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