David Penn, Author at Finovate

PayNearMe Leverages Family Dollar Partnership; Raises $20 Million

By David Penn Posted on February 6, 2014
Categories: PayNearMe

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.

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 February 6, 2014
Categories: Billeo, FIS, Mambu, PayNearMe

FIS 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 February 3, 2014
Categories: FinovateEurope 2014

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.

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 February 3, 2014
Categories: Red Zebra

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.

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 February 3, 2014
Categories: FinanceIt, HelloWallet, Holvi, Monitise, Taulia, TSYS

Monitise 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 January 30, 2014
Categories: Check

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.

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 January 29, 2014
Categories: Zopa

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.

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 January 29, 2014
Categories: DigitalMailer

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

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 January 29, 2014
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Feedzai, Fiserv, Kensho, Prosper, TSYS

Kensho 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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Kensho Raises $10 Million in Seed Funding Ahead of Finovate Debut

By David Penn Posted on January 28, 2014
Categories: Kensho

If you were a promising young start-up making a list of things to pack ahead of your first trip to FinovateEurope, how high up on the list would $10 million in seed funding be?

That’s the kind of high quality problem intelligent systems specialist Kensho gets to grapple with over the next few weeks. The company’s innovations in real-time, split-second investment analysis have attracted the likes of Accel Partners, Devonshire Investors, General Catalyst, Google Ventures, and NEA – all of whom participated in the seed round. But the kicker may be the delivery system Kensho has developed for all this split-second analysis: an intelligent virtual research assistant able to understand natural language commands and respond to complex queries.

“Kensho is dedicated to the idea that communicating in natural language with intelligent computer systems which serve as virtual personal assistants will form the leading edge of global innovation over the next half-decade,” Kensho CEO Daniel Nadler said. He added that the funding would help Kensho bring on “the best and most experienced” engineering talent.

Kensho was founded in 2013, and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To learn more about how to see Kensho at FinovateEurope in February, click here.

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FinovateEurope 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 6

By David Penn Posted on January 27, 2014
Categories: FinovateEurope 2014

Is there a better way to start your week than by getting to know another six companies that are helping redefine financial technology for a new generation of increasingly mobile consumers?

Today we’ve got another handful of companies who will be presenting their innovations at Old Billingsgate Market Hall in London for FinovateEurope 2014. From mobile imaging and investment advisory to cloud-based banking and PFM, the presenters at this year’s event are guaranteed to show us more than a few clues as to what we will see from fintech’s best and brightest in 2014.

And if you’ve missed previous installments of our Sneak Peek series, be sure to check out Peeks #1-5 below.

Atsora provides one-stop shopping for SME finance analytics and business management, bringing together companies, banks, and financial service providers on one platform to interact better.

Features:

SaaS financial hub for engaging SMEs and banks
SMEs can build business models (canvas) and track them based on real flows
Momentum bases on out of the box and 3rd party widgets. Developers are welcome.

Why it’s great:

The SME banking sector is highly underserved. We help to move it into the world of banking 3.0, and allow banks to deliver tailor-made support just in time.

Krzysztof Pulkiewicz, CEO

Is an architect with banking and insurance business experience. He translates business ideas into technology in order to make things happen.

Anna Ciesielska, COO

Spent years as a banking sector consultant. She is also an experienced entrepreneur and drives innovative ideas in order to solve practical business problems.

Avoka is an innovative SaaS company offering a multi-channel digital business platform that helps organizations successfully transform business transactions into powerful cross-channel experiences.

Features:

Omni-channel customer interactions, with ease (no programming)
Move between mobile, tablet, branch, call centre without starting over
Agile development delivers fast time-to-market

Why it’s great:

Using Avoka Transact you can build true omni-channel customer experiences faster and more cost-effectively than using traditional Web development.

Derek Corcoran, Head of Business Solutions

Works closely with Avoka’s global customer base to help them transact with their customers through online and mobile channels.

Excess Return develops new generation investment tools for the financial community.

Features:

Find the very best trading ideas
Enhance your performance
Minimize your risk

Why it’s great:

The stock market becomes child’s play.

Frédéric Liefferinckx, Managing Partner & Co-Founder

Top Image Systems provides a mobile imaging platform driving innovation imaging and document processing solutions for FIs such as check deposit, bill payment, and more.

Features:

IQA on the handset
Automatic image capture
Optimal user experience

Why it’s great:

As per BBC TV, FIs are looking seriously at mobile imaging.

Isaac Rome, VP Mobile Solutions

Leads the business development, marketing, sales, product development and all related activities for the Company’s mobile and banking solutions.

Truphone Mobile Recording helps you stay globally compliant and productive while enabling mobilization and fuller utilization of existing IT infrastructure.

Features:

Effortless global compliance to FCA regulations for mobile recording
Global productivity: record calls in 110 countries, without compromising call quality
Enable mobilization

Why it’s great:

Truphone mobile recording is the only solution that allows for global compliance and enterprise mobility, without compromising call quality.

(not pictured) Paul Liesching is the SVP of Truphone Mobile Recording, and pioneered the first commercial mobile recording solution of 2005.

Momentum (fka YourWealth) uses accessible innovation technology to place the consumer at the heart of the financial world, whether they have £5 or £50 million.

Features:

Money Hub users can budget, aggregate accounts, and plan multiple scenarios
Link Money Hub to your financial advisor
Accessible via mobile, tablet and desktop devices

Why it’s great:

Money Hub will revolutionize the way you manage your money, interact with your financial advisor, and plan your financial future.

Toby Hughes, CEO and Founder

Is an entrepreneur with over 10 years of digital marketing and technological innovation experience in financial services.

Dave Tonge, CTO and Full Stack Developer

Specializes in interactive user interfaces and efficient software architecture.

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Credit Card Vault in the Cloud Spreedly Raises $500K

By David Penn Posted on January 27, 2014
Categories: Spreedly

Lost in the wave of funding news over the holidays was word that fintech’s “credit card vault in the cloud” is now half a million dollars richer.

The $500,000 in new funding goes to Spreedly, the Durham, North Carolina-based payments specialist that made its Finovate debut last fall. The investment comes courtesy of E-Merge.be, a group of angel investors from Belgium that has previously put capital to work on behalf of companies like the recently-acquired payments gateway, Ogone, and Cabify.

The investment represents a stamp of approval for the direction Spreedly has taken since it was founded in 2007. Once just another startup in the crowded field of online payments, Spreedly has evolved to play a different, more unique role when it comes to helping businesses make better, more secure, fully PCI-compliant, payment routing decisions.

At its most basic, Spreedly’s credit card vault allows businesses to securely store credit card information in the cloud, where it can be readily accessed for repeat customers. Perhaps even more importantly, Spreedly provides businesses with data on the relative performance of more than 50 different payment gateways. This helps businesses not just save money, but also cut down on efficiency-killers like time outs and false declines.

Spreedly includes among its customers Fusebill, BoxTV, and fellow Finovate alum, Wallaby. The company’s CEO is Justin Benson.

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Finovate Blog

Author: David Penn

PayNearMe Leverages Family Dollar Partnership; Raises $20 Million

Finovate Alumni News– February 6, 2014

FinovateEurope 2014: Guess Who’s Coming to London?

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

Finovate Alumni News–February 3, 2014

Data Scientists Return to Check for Clues on Consumer Behavior

Zopa Secures £15 Million from London-based Arrowgrass Capital

DigitalMailer’s Cloud Storage Solution Gains Momentum

Finovate Alumni News– January 29, 2014

Kensho Raises $10 Million in Seed Funding Ahead of Finovate Debut

FinovateEurope 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 6

Credit Card Vault in the Cloud Spreedly Raises $500K