Author: David Penn

FinovateEurope 2014: Live in London!

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2014

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It’s rehearsal day here at Old Billingsgate Market Hall in London, and the whole Finovate team is here busily getting everything ready for another sold-out FinovateEurope.

FinovateEurope is the first big fintech event of 2014. And if you’re looking for insights into the kind of innovations people will be talking and writing about all year, then you’ve come to the right place.

From biometric authentication technologies for the security-conscious to mobile payments and PFM, this year’s event will help set the tone for another year of triumphs and surprises from a growing, international community of fintech entrepreneurs.

FinovateEurope Mobile and web app
And speaking of community, this year we’re using Bizzabo’s social networking app to help attendees make the kind of connections that make Finovate so unique. Within Bizzabo’s mobile app environment, attendees will be able to learn more about our presenting companies and our sponsors, review the show’s agenda and, most important, reach out and connect with each other.
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You can download the Bizzabo app for both Android and iOS from their respective app stores (here for Android, here for iOS). You can also use the app on your desktop via this link. Once you’ve got the app downloaded and installed, just search for “Finovate” and you’ll be connected to the event.

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Twitter
So whether you will be here in London, following us on our Twitter feed @Finovate, or reading along with our Live Blog at Finovate.com, we couldn’t be happier to have you join us. The show starts Tuesday morning at 9:00am London time, continues all day long, and starts again bright and early Wednesday morning – same fintech time, same fintech place.
For more information about FinovateEurope 2014, check out our preview page here. Get information on the event schedule, the venue, a list of presenters and more.

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B2B Currency Exchange Specialist Kantox Raises $9 Million in Series A Round

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Kantox

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This time a year ago, Kantox was on stage at FinovateEurope, showing the world its peer-to-peer currency exchange for SMEs.

Today, the company is announcing its largest funding round to date: a Series A investment of €6.5 million (approximately $9 million). The round was led by Partech Ventures and IDinvest Partners, which joined previous investor, Cabiedes & Partners.

The new investment brings the company’s funding total to more than $12 million. Kantox plans to use the capital to help develop its peer-to-peer trading technology, as well as to expand the company’s presence in Europe. Philippe Gelis, Kantox CEO, said, “We are extremely excited to have secured this latest round of funding, and can’t wait to continue building out our sales teams in Germany, France, Spain, the UK and Italy.”

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Kantox specializes in helping small and medium sized businesses access optimal foreign currency exchange rates. Kantox leverages its peer-to-peer technology to provide SMEs with a way to avoid costly (and often undisclosed) FX fees typically demanded by brokerage firms and banks.
“Large corporates enjoy access to really competitive rates while SMEs and mid-caps – who usually don’t have access to live rates or an in-house FX expert – are overcharged by a banking oligopoly which promotes opacity,” Gelis said.
A few Kantox metrics:
  • Serves more than 500 corporate clients
  • Anticipates processing more than 1 billion euros in transactions in 2014.
  • Provides ability to trade more than 25 international currencies
  • Saved more than 70% of its customers more than 80% compared to banks and brokerages
Kantox is one of a number of innovators in this P2P currency exchange space, competing alongside fellow Europeans (and Finovate alums) like CurrencyTransfer and TransferWise. The company is headquartered in the UK, and has offices in Barcelona, Spain.

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Finovate Alumni News– February 7, 2014

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: EyeVerify, IntelliResponse, Klarna, Realty Mogul
  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgKansas City, Kansas mayor declares February 6th “EyeVerify Day.”
  • Klarna announces broader expansion in Europe, interest in Japan and the US.
  • LA Times real estate column on innovations in lending features Realty Mogul.
  • Opus Research report names IntelliResponse as a leader in the Enterprise Virtual Assistant industry.
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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PayNearMe Leverages Family Dollar Partnership; Raises $20 Million

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: PayNearMe

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Helping separate itself from the growing pack of consumer payments platforms, PayNearMe‘s partnership with the Family Dollar retail chain will bring the company’s cash payment solution to more than 8,000 locations in 40 states.

“Footprint” has been the company’s biggest limitation, according to PayNearMe CEO Danny Shader. With the technology already in use at 7-Elevens and ACE Cash Express, the addition of Family Dollar will expand PayNearMe’s reach to 17,000 payment locations.

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PayNearMe also announced a major new funding: $20 million in a round led by GSV Capital, with existing investors August Capital, Khosla Ventures, Maveron, and True Ventures also participating. The company’s total funding now stands at more than $56 million.
A cash transaction network, PayNearMe provides an easy way for cash-based consumers to pay bills, rent, auto loans, and other obligations at designated payment locations. The solution benefits consumers who prefer to pay with cash, retailers who gain additional foot traffic to their brick and mortar locations – as well as earning commissions from their PayNearMe payments, and merchants looking to expand their customer base by accepting cash. 
According to PayNearMe, the cash economy remains important, especially for the underbanked. They note:
  • More than 28% of U.S. households are un- or underbanked
  • 68 million adults living in the U.S. are un- or underbanked
  • 54% of U.S. adults cite cash as their preferred form of payment
For its part, PayNearMe has experienced major growth, including a tripling of payment volume from 2012 to 2013. 
PayNearMe demoed its technology as part of the FinovateFall 2011 show in New York. See the company in action here.

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Finovate Alumni News– February 6, 2014

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Billeo, FIS, Mambu, PayNearMe
  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgFIS announces multi-year business process outsourcing agreement with wealth manager Diversified Trust.
  • Mexican micro-lender Kueski chooses Mambu’s cloud banking platform.
  • Billeo launches social e-commerce solution for Facebook fan pages and Twitter.
  • PayNearMeleverages Family Dollar partnership; raises $20 million.
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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FinovateEurope 2014: Guess Who’s Coming to London?

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2014

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Make no mistake – one of the biggest selling points of Finovate is the high-quality networking. With dedicated networking sessions setup throughout both presentation days, we do everything we can to make sure that you get the opportunity to meet some of the most interesting people in financial technology today.

Just take a look at the titles of the more than 1,000 industry professionals who will be attending this year’s FinovateEurope.

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CEOs and CTOs. Presidents and Partners. Founders, Directors and more. Whether they were there building the company from the beginning or brought onboard afterward to help make the climb to the next level, the attendees of FinovateEurope 2014 will be another stimulating mix of movers, shakers, and IT decision-makers.
And while our events always attract C-level talent, be on the lookout for the Creative Consultants, the Heads of Innovation, the Business Architects … all of whom can be equally valuable in helping enterprises and entrepreneurs make the most of the Finovate experience.
There’s still plenty of time for you to get your ticket and save your spot at our biggest FinovateEurope yet. For more information, visit our FinovateEurope page today.

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Red Zebra Analytics Announces Seven-Figure Investment from SBT Venture Capital

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Red Zebra

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Sometimes innovation in loyalty program development is its own reward.

London-based Red Zebra Analytics announced that it has picked up a “seven-figure” investment from SBT Venture Capital. The specific amount of the venture round was not disclosed. But the figure is believed to be under five million pounds (approximately $8M USD). The capital also represents the first significant funding for the loyalty program specialist.

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A self-described “offers generation and delivery company” Red Zebra Analytics provides technology that analyzes bank transaction data in order to provide highly-targeted offers. Consumers review and select personalized offers from a “rewards hub” inside their bank’s online banking environment via the channel of their choice. And once accepted, taking advantage of offers is as simple as paying with that bank’s credit or debit card – no vouchers and no codes necessary.
According to Red Zebra CEO, Attul Sehgal, the new capital will help the company grow its sales and marketing initiatives. The technology already has been deployed in Germany, as well as in Southeast Asia.
Founded in August 2011, Red Zebra Analytics demoed its technology as part of FinovateAsia 2013, and will be on stage as part of the show at FinovateEurope 2014 next week. For info on how to see Red Zebra live in London, click here.

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Finovate Alumni News–February 3, 2014

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinanceIt, HelloWallet, Holvi, Monitise, Taulia, TSYS
  • Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgMonitise acquires Pozitron in all share deal worth $100 million.
  • TSYS announces two new board members: William M. Isaac and Connie D. McDaniel.
  • Washington Post features HelloWallet’s principal scientist.
  • Spend Matters interviews Taulia’s Chief Product Officer.
  • Arctic Startup: Holvi lets startups compare their finances to Apple’s first year.
  • FinanceIt’s Casper Wong nominated for Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30.
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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Data Scientists Return to Check for Clues on Consumer Behavior

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Check

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Did American consumers spend more this past holiday season than the previous one? Do iPhone users, whose incomes are typically more than 50% higher than those of Android users, spend 50% more as consumers, as well? What part of the country contains the biggest spenders?

Now, if you are a data scientist looking for innovative ways to answer questions like these, you can check with Check.

We reported last November how data from Check’s mobile bill pay and account management app was helping academic researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor learn about the impact of the October 2013 government shutdown on consumer behavior.

Now researchers from the same institutions, along with others from Arizona State University, have returned to Check’s real-time aggregated data to learn about differences in holiday spending between 2012 and 2013.
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Steven Tadelis, associate professor at University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, “From a research perspective, it’s amazing to work with the data provided by Check. With it, we are able to make interesting conclusions about trends and how they relate to mobile users.”
About those trends … the data Check provided to researchers – anonymous user data from more than 150,000 Android users and more than 200,000 iPhone users – revealed that while iPhone user spending outpaced that of Android users, both groups saw year-over-year holiday spending increases of more than 30%. At the same time, however, the average purchase amount for both groups was lower on a year-over-year basis.
Unsurprisingly, the top shopping destinations for both groups remain retailers Amazon.com, Walmart, and Target. In fact, the only non-retailer to make the top five in either year was fast food chain, McDonalds.
Other interesting observations:
  • The biggest spenders by average dollar amount live west of the Rockies (West and Mountain regions)
  • The biggest percent change in average dollar amount spent was the increase of more than 50% in the Plains region, which also had the second lowest average dollar amount spent.
  • The smallest percentage change in average dollar amount spend was on the east coast, led by New England and the Southeast.
Check is an alumni of FinovateFall 2010, where they demoed as Pageonce.

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Zopa Secures £15 Million from London-based Arrowgrass Capital

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Zopa

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Announced today, the latest round of funding for one of Europe’s leading peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders, Zopa, increases the company’s funding total by nearly 50%. 

And now with nearly $49 million in total funding, Zopa is well positioned to do the sort of expansion in the U.K. the company believes will help more people get to know, appreciate, and use peer-to-peer lending solutions.

Giles Andrews, chief executive and Zopa co-founder said, “This is our opportunity to become a significant source of disruption in the personal loans and savings market.” And Arrowgrass Capital Partners, the London-based hedge fund that provided the company’s latest investment agrees. “Traditional banking is becoming increasingly disintermediated by the internet,” said Henry Kenner, Arrowgrass chief executive.
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The funding comes at an interesting time for Zopa, as well as other peer-to-peer lenders. In April, the P2P lending sector in the U.K. will be put under the jurisdiction of the U.K.’s financial regulator. Observers believe this could be the first step toward the development of a regulated, alternative finance sector of crowdfunders and P2P lenders. 
The British government has supported these efforts as a strategy to encourage economic growth saying, via a Treasury spokesperson, “the government is keen to promote innovation in financial services and wants to support new entrants to the market.”
A few metrics about Zopa:
  • Lent more than £450 million to U.K. consumers
  • More than 45,000 active lenders
  • More than 71,000 borrowers
  • Average loan amount: £5,000
  • Average return to savers: 5.0%
  • Historical bad debt (default rate): (0.21%) since 2010
Zopa was founded in 2005 in the United Kingdom, and demoed their technology at FinovateStartup in 2008.

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DigitalMailer’s Cloud Storage Solution Gains Momentum

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: DigitalMailer

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What does it mean that DigitalMailer‘s My Virtual StrongBox is now available from 11 different institutions as 2014 begins?

  • My Virtual StrongBox is being offered to more than one million consumers in the U.S.
  • Total assets of the financial institutions offering My Virtual StrongBox is more than $16 billion
  • Institutions providing My Virtual StrongBox range from $27 million Element FCU to $5 billion Digital FCU

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Additionally, almost 40,000 members of Redstone FCU, one of the first financial institutions to deploy My Virtual StrongBox, have activated the service, which Redstone has enhanced with 125 MB of free storage.
Among the leading solutions from DigitalMailer, My Virtual StrongBox makes it easy for users to store encrypted copies of documents from birth certificates to wills in the cloud. The technology integrates readily with online banking platforms and PFM products via APIs. My Virtual StrongBoxes have been deployed as rewards for loyalty programs, and used in both estate planning and wealth management.
Click here to see the video on YouTube.
Ron Daly, President of DigitalMailer, said: ‘It’s been a busy two years, fine-tuning the product and adding clients. We’ve designed My Virtual StrongBox to be simple to use and to make life easier when it comes to a consumer’s financial life.”
DigitalMailer was last on the Finovate stage as part of the FinovateFall show in 2012. See the company’s demo here.

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Finovate Alumni News– January 29, 2014

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Feedzai, Fiserv, Kensho, Prosper, TSYS
  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgKensho raises $10 million in seed funding ahead of Finovate debut.
  • ACI Worldwide partners with Integrated Research to launch Prognosis 10 for Payments.
  • TSYS CEO assures his company has no exposure from Target data breach.
  • Fiserv announces availability of its Vantage Risk and Budgeting Manager application as a hosted SaaS option.
  • Prosper selects First Associates to provide backup loan servicing for its P2P lending platform.
  • Feedzai brings its fraud prevention solutions to United States. Come see Feedzai’s live demo at FinovateEurope February 11-12.
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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