This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Of all the takes I’ve heard about open banking over the past week, here is a great one I did not hear courtesy of The Finanser’s Chris Skinner: open banking is bad branding.
The core issue is that banking and finance is being ripped open by technologies to ensure better service, data enrichment, machine learning, more knowledge … but to achieve this, the service is no longer delivered by one company: a bank. It is delivered by multiple service providers through apps, APIs and analytics. That’s what Open Banking is all about. It just has the wrong name. We don’t want Open Banking. We want Closed Banking.
A typically heterodox take from Skinner and a prompt I would have loved to put to our open banking panelists at FinovateFall last week.
As it turned out, our conversation revolved around other issues – from the role of regulation to the differences in the evolution of open banking between countries and regions. But the same issues raised by Skinner this week were not far away. See for yourself in our brief summary of the top takeaways from our FinovateFall discussion.
User Experience Matters
One area of major agreement on the panel was that user experience was an undervalued aspect of the appeal (or lack thereof) of open banking. Imran Haider, Director of Product, Intuit Data Exchange, noted that the user experience for a customer connecting to their bank via an open banking flow can vary significantly. He cited the occurrence of everything from cumbersome flows to basic performance issues as obstacles to wider acceptance of open banking. “If we really want to unlock the power of customer permissioned data sharing,” Haider said, “then we need better standards and approaches on the UX side.”
Location Shapes the Market
Appreciating the way open banking is evolving differently across geographies was another key takeaway from our conversation on open banking. Florencia Ardissone, Head of Product, Customer Insights & ChaseNet Analytics, JP Morgan Chase, led with this insight. In places like the U.K., Europe, and Australia, open banking has evolved courtesy of a highly-engaged regulatory authority. By contrast, in countries like India, market forces have tended to lead, with the drive for greater financial inclusion often fueling innovation. As such, we should expect the evolution of open banking in the U.S. – however slow and sluggish – to develop based on the unique features of the U.S. banking system – including the massive number of players.
Open Banking Demands Identity Management
Skinner’s skepticism about consumer appetites for “open” banking is also a great way to understand another key takeaway from our Open Banking conversation: the idea that open banking is integrally linked to identity management. Sasha Dobrolioubov, Head of Partnerships at Persona, made the point that it critical that those financial institutions involved in open banking – the banks, the fintechs – need to have a “strong identity presence” to foster trust between would-be open banking consumers and providers.
Regulation Defines the Opportunity
The funny thing about the evolution of Open Banking in the U.S. is that has taken both the route of market-driven innovation as well as the path laid by regulators, particularly the CFPB. Kevin Jacques, Partner at Cota Capital, noted that the access to account data component of open banking evolved ahead of regulations. Jacques cited innovators – and Finovate alums – like Plaid, MX, and Finicity as examples.
That said, with pending CFPB regulations potentially limiting and restricting collection of account data based on a narrower view on consumer consent, innovation in this aspect of open banking is likely to be impacted.
iProov and Ping Identity announced a partnership that will bring liveness detection to Ping Identity’s DaVinci digital identity verification platform.
Liveness detection is a key component of facial biometric authentication to ensure that the person seeking access is both the right person and a real person.
Both iProov and Ping Identity are Finovate alums. iProov has won Finovate Best of Show awards on three separate occasions.
Per the partnership, iProov will deliver a DaVinci connector that integrates with its iProov Biometric Solution Suite. This will enable businesses and organizations to deploy technologies like liveness detection as part of their identity access and customer identity access management processes. Liveness detection is a key feature of facial biometric verification and authentication. It ensures that the individual seeking access is both the right person and a real person – not the product of spoofing techniques used by fraudsters and cybercriminals, techniques that range from simple photographs to deepfakes created by Generative AI.
iProov’s biometric verification solutions have been deployed by organizations from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to UBS Group AG.
“Many organizations across the globe are already using iProov facial biometric technology to verify the online identity of citizens, workforces, and customers more securely and effortlessly than ever before,” iProov Chief Product and Innovation Officer Joe Palmer said. “Partnering with Ping Identity will help us to expand our reach even further and we’re delighted to be bringing this integration to PingOne DaVinci.”
A Finovate alum since 2017, iProov has earned Finovate Best of Show awards on three separate occasions. The company most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope in 2021. At the conference, iProov showed how its Flexible Authentication solution combined two of the company’s innovations – Genuine Presence Assurance and Liveness Assurance – to ensure that organizations apply the appropriate level of verification for a given situation.
Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Ping Identity made its Finovate debut in 2012. The company’s PingOne DaVinci solution is a vendor-agnostic, no-code, identity orchestration service. DaVinci streamlines the process of integrating and deploying identity verification solutions from a variety of vendors. The solution currently has more than 100 out-of-the-box connectors to services ranging from identity to automation.
Earlier this week, Ping Identity launched its PingOne for Customers Passwordless solution. The new offering helps companies migrate toward a secure, seamless, password-free digital experience for their customers.
How can greater transparency in financial services help improve underwriting, lower risks, and create more opportunities for banks and small businesses alike?
We caught up with Matthew Parker, founder and CEO of ModernTax, to discuss how bringing more transparency to areas of finance like taxation can help credit providers make better decisions.
Founded in 2021 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, ModernTax made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring. At the conference, the company demoed its Business Verification Platform and Verifier API, a secure solution that enables fintechs and banks to verify tax records, business standing and KYC data.
Last month, ModernTax launched its Live Contributory Network for on-demand tax verification. The solution connects licensed tax professionals with ModernTax customers to provide on-demand, secure, and reliable tax verification services.
To start off, what is it about taxes that interests you? Of all the areas of finance, what’s special about taxes?
Matthew Parker: My first job out of college was in social services, specifically working in child support. My responsibilities included calculating the combined income of two people with misaligned incentives. This experience opened my eyes to how broken the world of tax, income, and finance can be at the ground level.
A few years later, I worked in consulting, helping banks understand what went wrong with the mortgage crisis. I then stumbled into my first entrepreneurial endeavor: a franchise tax preparation company. Over three years, I grew from one office to five and learned the ins and outs of the tax preparation business.
In 2017, I caught the technology bug and bought a one-way flight to San Francisco with the goal of starting a tax startup that utilized all of the tax data I had been accessing through my tax preparation business as alternative data to underwrite loans.
Six years later, I am building ModernTax to make use of this data to help underwrite, decrease risk, and create a more transparent financial ecosystem for U.S.-based small businesses.
Can you elaborate on that?
Parker: One thing that has consistently bothered me is the black box of tax information that lives outside of our bank feeds and accounting feeds. There is an entire business that helps accountants export accounting data into tax software (they are a customer), but that is a niche market.
The real problem we are solving is financial transparency. Many businesses that provide financial services are locked out of access to critical financial records, and 99% of U.S. businesses are not required to report any financials. This results in a massive transparency gap. Tax records are one way to fill this gap, with 15 million unique entities and 160 million individual tax returns filed annually in the U.S. alone.
How does ModernTax solve this problem better than other companies, or other solutions?
Parker: ModernTax aims to solve the problem of financial transparency by providing tax information on all U.S. small businesses, which can level the playing field and create a more transparent financial ecosystem. The commercial credit market in the U.S. alone is worth $8.8 trillion annually, and the average company in this industry generates approximately $7 billion in yearly revenue.
By utilizing tax records, which are filed by 15 million unique entities and 160 million individuals annually in the U.S. alone, ModernTax’s strategy revolves around transparency and eliminates the need for countless hours of back-and-forth communication and manual data entry to collect this information, saving commercial providers time and money, and making it easier to evaluate businesses.
What is your primary market? What has the response to your technology been like?
Parker: We primarily sell to commercial credit providers such as banks, online lenders, and other data providers that assist companies in underwriting, fraud prevention, and verifying financial documents for their customers.
We have received positive responses from data providers such as D&B, Experian, and Transunion, as well as from our first paying partner, Enigma Technologies. Moreover, ModernTax has been well-received by direct carrier insurance companies for both underwriting and claims processing on income-related products.
Are there any deployments or features of your technology that are especially noteworthy?
Parker: In the past month, we have added 14 new features. One notable observation is the need for a robust platform that allows our contributors to efficiently provide us with data. Unfortunately, the IRS does not provide adequate tools to help companies maintain transparency in their reporting. We are constantly learning from our contributors on how we can build tools to address this issue.
ModernTax is headquartered in San Francisco and was founded in 2021. What is it like to be a young startup in San Francisco today?
Parker: Personally, it feels surreal to me. I moved to San Francisco in 2017, lived through the pandemic, and experienced the boom of 2021 and the correction of 2022. Nevertheless, San Francisco is resilient. Although there are political and socioeconomic problems that come with being a high-stakes, high- reward city, founders can arrive here with nothing and become paper billionaires and liquid millionaires faster than anywhere else in the world.
This creates a tale of two cities. To be a young startup, you have a ton of resources right in your backyard, but you also realize how competitive it is. There was a new billion-dollar company born every day for a certain amount of time and now, with AI, we are seeing history repeat itself. It’s important to keep your momentum but also not get too distracted.
We also wanted to talk with you as a Black founder and entrepreneur. What advice would you give to other potential founders-of-color?
Parker: Starting a company is hard, full stop. I even joke with my wife that I don’t mind telling my 18-month-old son “no” a lot because it’s just the nature of life in general. As a black founder, I have experienced both ups and downs. George Floyd’s murder created a domino effect of predominantly white people at large institutions feeling guilty, which led to a lot of initiatives that were half-baked and more PR moves than anything. That sentiment wore off pretty quickly, especially as markets turned for the worst in 2022.
If you built your brand “how hard it is to be a black founder”, you are likely bitter right now because we learned that the market didn’t care about you being black or about what happened with George Floyd. We are now seeing pushback with the rollback of affirmative action, the lawsuit impacting Fearless Fund, and I think more challenges will come. So, I would say focus on your business, focus on your customers, and build products. If you play the victim in a game that is already hard, you decrease your chances of winning.
You demoed your technology at FinovateSpring earlier this year. What was that experience like for you and your team?
Parker: This demo helped us think about how our product helps financial institutions and we were able to demonstrate the capabilities that companies can experience by getting access to this information in real-time.
What are your goals for ModernTax? What can we expect from the company over the balance of 2023 and into next year?
Parker: ModernTax aims to provide near-instant access to verified tax and financial information through a network of licensed tax agents to create a more transparent verification process for their customers. Over the balance of 2023 and into next year, the company plans to add eight new customers, launch new features for its contributor portal and business user features, and attend various business development events and in-person client meetings.
How will AI help drive fintech innovation? How can digital transformation power greater financial inclusion? Where is the smart money investing in fintech? What will be the Next Big Thing in financial services?
FinovateFall wrapped up just days ago – and much of the three days of fintech demoes, keynote addresses, and panel discussions was dedicated to providing answers to these questions.
Here we’ll reflect of those responses and highlight some of the key takeaways from our mainstage fintech experts, our innovative demoing companies, and Finovate attendees themselves.
What we learned from the experts
Our invitation-only, Leaders+ session held the evening before the conference began featured a number of insights on the present and future of fintech. The lead-off address on major fintech themes set a tone for our invitees that foreshadowed much of what the rest of our attendees would see and hear once FinovateFall got underway the following morning.
Analyst and expert Alex Johnson of Fintech Takes provided one of the more surprising insights of the night in his keynote on top trends in banking and fintech. Johnson suggested that the relatively unglamorous areas of the industry may turn out to be the “Coming Attractions” in terms of fintech innovation over the near term. Much of the fintech revolution to date, Johnson explained, involved solving consumer problems – many of them bearing an uncanny resemblance to the problems of the company founder’s themselves.
As innovation in this space runs its course, opportunities in other, neglected areas can emerge. Johnson encouraged invitees to keep an eye on “the boring stuff” like payments infrastructure and the B2B world when gauging the overall level of innovation and opportunity in the fintech and financial services industry.
Johnson also observed that we should continue to see fintech deployed to solve problems that are not necessarily considered to be financial problems. Our own Finovate research team has noted the increased news flow from companies looking to help small businesses survive supply chain financing challenges. It was heartening to hear Johnson use the example of fintechs providing financing to SMEs caught in supply chain snafus in that part of his presentation.
The other major topic of conversation in our Leaders+ session was AI and the metaverse. This was another discussion that extended over the balance of FinovateFall. The jury may still be out on the impact of the metaverse in banking. But the potential of AI in fintech and financial services seems clear.
From greater personalization of services to more efficient, more secure, and more innovative financial products, banking and financial services are ready to find roles for AI.
Start with Generative AI. One commonality between keynote speakers on AI was to compare the adoption rate of a Generative AI solution like ChatGPT to the adoption rate of previous popular technologies from the past. Think everything from Napster to LinkedIn to TikTok. GenerativeAI was clearly in a class of its own. This sentiment – that AI is here to stay – was echoed in virtually every discussion of the technology – from Leaders+ and keynote speaker Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic to Analyst All-Star Tiffani Montez of Insider Intelligence. At one point, even David Letterman’s classic skewering of the Internet in an interview with Bill Gates back in 1995 (“Does radio ring a bell?”) was deployed to remind our FinovateFall audience that we’ve underestimated innovation before.
What we learned from the innovators
There is no better way to feel the pulse of fintech innovation than by attending the Demo Days at a Finovate event. And there is no better distillation of what direction fintech innovation is going than the companies that take home Finovate Best of Show awards.
FinovateFall was no exception. Of the six companies that won Best of Show last week, we saw three companies demo solutions in areas that observers long have said are ripe for innovation. Chimney demoed a solution for homeowners that gave them actionable advice on their home’s value and equity, their borrowing power, and the availability of relevant pre-qualified offers. Trust & Will demonstrated technology that streamlines and simplifies estate planning and settlement with attorney approved, legally valid documents. Wysh, an innovator in the insurance space, demoed a deposit solution that provides micro-life insurance coverage of up to 10% of the account holders balance.
Best of Show winning companies like eSelf.ai showed fintech to be at the cutting edge of enabling technologies like AI, as well. The Israel-based company, whose founder helped launch three-time Finovate Best of Show winner Voca.ai, demoed eSelf.ai’s AI-powered client interaction solution that provides human-like conversation and engagement. Mahalo Banking, headquartered in Michigan and also winning Best of Show in its Finovate debut last week, demonstrated fintech’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity. The company leverages innovative technology to deliver online and mobile banking solutions for credit unions that help them serve neurodiverse customers with visual, cognitive, and other challenges.
And the return of Debbie to the Best of Show winner’s circle is a reminder that solutions that respond to the basics of financial wellness – saving and reducing debt – remain critical components of the fintech ecosystem. Having won Best of Show in its Finovate debut last fall, Debbie was back with new tools to help users manage debt, including a credit card refinancing marketplace for credit unions.
Where we go from here
There were a few dogs that did not bark – at least not as loudly as they once did. Cryptocurrency and digital assets, for example, did not draw as much attention this year as they have in previous years. We’ve seen more from mortgagetech, as well. It is hard not to wonder what the impact of higher interest rates will have on this industry and other consumer-facing, interest-rate sensitive sectors and services from lending to Buy Now Pay Later.
Therein lies the opportunity. The problems may seem more intractable and the solutions not as sexy as they used to be. But the eagerness of founders and financial institutions to embrace both new technologies like digitization, automation, and AI – as well as new causes like financial inclusion and sustainability – is a strong sign for the future of our industry.
They are cheering in Times Square tonight as the winners of Best of Show at FinovateFall 2023 are crowned. After two days of live fintech demos from more than 60+ innovative fintechs, our delegates have decided. Here are the winners of Best of Show for FinovateFall 2023.
Chimney for its Chimney Home solution that gives homeowners actionable advice about their home value, equity, borrowing power, and pre-qualified offers. Video.
Debbie for its rewards app for debt payout and its new credit card refinance marketplace for credit unions. Video.
eSelf.ai for its technology that delivers the next generation of client-financial institution interaction, enabling human-like conversations and efficient personalization. Video.
Mahalo Banking for its intuitive and neurodiverse-inclusive online and mobile banking solutions for credit unions with tight core integrations. Video.
Trust & Will for its technology that simplifies estate planning and settlement with attorney-approved, legally valid documents. Video.
Wysh for its innovative deposit solution called Life Benefit that provides micro-life insurance coverage up to 10% of an accountholders’s balance onto an existing deposit account. Video.
We want to thank our demoing companies, our partners, our sponsors, and – last but not least – our valued attendees whose engagement continues to make Finovate a must-attend event on the fintech conference calendar. We look forward to seeing you again next year in The City That Never Sleeps for FinovateFall 2024!
Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their six favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The six companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 through 2023 conferences are below:
Temenos unveiled a new solution, based on Generative AI, that automatically classifies customers’ banking transactions.
The new offering will help banks offer more personalized insights and recommendations to their customers.
Temenos’ Generative AI solution is part of the company’s strategic AI roadmap. Other use cases for the technology include chatbots and guiding customer journeys.
How will financial services companies take advantage of Generative AI? One way, courtesy of a new solution from Temenos, will be to leverage the technology to automatically classify customers’ banking transactions. This functionality will make it easier for banks to offer personalized insights and recommendations to their customers.
While traditional AI and machine learning technologies have been deployed by financial services firms in a variety of contexts, generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) offer these companies the ability to enhance both operations and customer experiences even further. This is due to the fact that Generative AI and LLMs outperform traditional AI and machine learning approaches when it comes to understanding language, images, sound, video, and code – and then leveraging these inputs into a variety of solutions for customers.
Temenos’s new Generative AI-based offering enables banks to automatically classify and label customer transactions. The technology has a high degree of accuracy and operates in multiple languages. The automatic customer transaction capability has a number of use cases including cashflow prediction, customer attrition analysis, next best product, and more.
“We have continually invested in embedding Explainable AI and ML capabilities into our banking platform and making available all products through an easy-to-use interface or APIs,” Temenos President of Product and COO Prema Varadhan said. Varadhan referred to the new offering as part of the company’s strategic AI roadmap and underscored the value of transparency and explainability when it comes to deploying AI.
Temenos has deployed explainable AI in a wide variety of use cases ranging from wealth management, AML, credit scoring, smart money management, collection optimization, and more. However, transaction classification is the first instance of leveraging Generative AI in a Temenos product. The company said in a statement that it plans to extend the technology to chatbots and customer interfaces, as well as in guiding customer journeys and responding to customer queries.
A Finovate alum since 2013, Temenos was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The company serves 3,000 customers and its open platform enables more than 1.2 billion individuals to conduct their daily banking activities. Two-thirds of the top 1,000 banks in the world and more than 70 challenger banks in 150+ countries use Temenos’ technology. Max Chuard is CEO.
Loan origination, risk management, and analytics company Baker Hill forged a new partnership with Oakworth Capital Bank.
The bank will leverage Baker Hill NextGen to enhance its loan origination and portfolio monitoring for commercial and private client lending.
Baker Hill most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall in 2021.
Carmel, Indiana-based Baker Hillannounced a new partnership with Oakworth Capital Bank this week. The partnership is the first new alliance from the mortgagetech since private equity firm Flexpoint Ford acquired the company in June. Oakworth Capital Bank will deploy Baker Hill NextGen, a unified solution for loan origination and portfolio monitoring for both commercial and private client lending.
“Our bank’s mission is focused on delivering a personalized experience for our clients, which often means challenging the status quo and reimagining how financial services are delivered,” Oakworth Capital Bank chairman and CEO Scott B. Reed said. “The team is always looking for new, better ways to help our clients achieve their financial aspirations and Baker Hill NextGen will help us continue to do that.”
The new technology will enable Oakworth Capital Bank to enhance its commercial relationships, as well as automate the entire consumer loan origination process. The bank will also leverage Baker Hill NextGen Client Portal. This solution enables clients to submit loan documents online. Applicants also can track the status of their loan all the way to closing, bringing more transparency to the origination process. Additionally, the bank will integrate TruStage (formerly Compliance Solutions) with Baker Hill NextGen in order to automate loan document preparation and ensure compliance.
“With Baker Hill NextGen, Oakworth Capital Bank can optimize their entire loan origination process and continue surpassing their clients’ expectations with a world-class borrowing experience,” Baker Hill chairman and CEO John Deignan said.
Founded in 1983, Baker Hill most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall in 2021. In the time since, the company has forged partnerships with a sizable number of banks and fintechs. These alliances include partnerships with financial institutions like Arvest Bank, Salem Five Bank, and TowneBank. Also among the company’s recent partners are tax workflow automation software company FlashSpread, and regional financial services company BOK Financial.
Digital ID verification company IDVerse will help embedded finance platform FutureBank enhance its onboarding processes with fast and secure digital identity verification (IDV). The new partnership will let FutureBank customers to use IDVerse software and also allow IDVerse customers looking for a middleware platform to connect their API credentials take advantage of FutureBank’s technology.
An integration platform for core banking providers that features embedded financial services, FutureBank operates as a middle layer between banks and third-party providers. As such, the company helps banks and fintechs launch new solutions faster, more efficiently, and more securely. IDVerse brings not only its Identity Service Provider status to FutureBank – status that comes with 20 certifications from the U.K.’s Digital Identity & Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF). The identity verification specialist also offers technology to help businesses combat the problem of deepfake accounts, a problem made all the more challenging by the way fraudsters are exploiting tools like generativeAI.
“Generative AI is breeding many different fraud types,” FutureBank CEO Sergio Barbosa said. “With ChatGPT, fraudsters can create very authentic documents and profiles for people at a low cost.” Barbosa called cybercrime “the third biggest economy in the world.”
Adding to Barbosa’s sentiments, IDVerse General Manager EMEA Russ Cohn underscored the challenge of deepfakes. Cohn agreed that “synthetic media is becoming the new tool of choice for fraudsters looking to make money” and added: “Our fully automated identity verification system can offer FutureBank customers a reliable solution to spot deepfake accounts that fraudsters are increasingly trying to create.” Cohn explained that IDVerse’s technology can detect subtle shifts and patterns in a person’s face that the unaided human eye cannot see, such as the way a person’s heartbeat slightly changes the color of their skin. These “natural yet invisible patterns,” Cohn said, enable IDVerse’s technology to distinguish real human images from deepfakes.
IDVerse’s platform also features Zero Bias AI-tested technology that leverages generative AI to train deep neutral networks to resist race, age, and gender-based discrimination.
Introducing itself to Finovate audiences in 2016 as OCR Labs Global, the company rebranded as IDVerse earlier this year. Founded in Australia in 2018, IDVerse is headquartered in London, and maintains offices in North America, Asia, and Europe. The company provides identity verification services in more than 220 countries and territories.
IDVerse has raised $45 million in funding from investors including Equable Capital and OYAK. This year, the company has forged partnerships with fellow Finovate alum Experian, bank verified digital identity service provider OneID, and cryptocurrency platform Coinmetro. John Myers is CEO.
FinovateFall is right around the corner (September 11 through September 13). If you still haven’t registered for our annual autumn fintech conference in New York this month, there’s no better time than the present. Visit our FinovateFall 2023 hub today and save your spot.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global highlights companies headquartered outside of the U.S. that will be demoing their latest innovations on the Finovate stage in just a few days. Get to know them here, then join them in New York live and in person for FinovateFall!
Connect Earth
Founded in 2021 and headquartered in the United Kingdom, Connect Earth enables financial institutions to offer their retail and SME customers insights into the environmental impact of their spending. LinkedIn.
Engage People
Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Engage People is a loyalty network that enables program members to pay with points directly at checkout. The company was founded in 2015. LinkedIn. X (Twitter).
eSelf
eSelf is building the next generation of client-financial institution interaction, enabling human-like conversations and efficient personalization. Founded in 2022, eSelf is headquartered in Israel.
FinTech Insights
Fintech Insights offers a comprehensive digital banking research platform. The company’s technology helps FIs build strategies and launch new features faster. Headquartered in London, the company was founded in 2010. LinkedIn. X (Twitter).
Flybits
Founded in 2013, Flybits enables FIs to deliver personalized digital banking experiences across mobile, web, and the Metaverse. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. LinkedIn. X (Twitter).
Fundica
Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Fundica is a government funding platform used by some of the largest FIs in North America to acquire and retain clients at scale. Fundica was founded in 2017. LinkedIn. X (Twitter).
Jaid
Jaid is an AI-powered platform build to enable the intelligent automation of business communications. Founded in 2018, Jaid is based in London, U.K. LinkedIn. X (Twitter).
LemonadeLXP
Headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, LemonadeLXP is a digital growth platform that helps FIs and fintechs create effective training and support tools to maximize their investment in their technology. The company was founded in 2019. LinkedIn. X (Twitter).
MacroMicro
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, MacroMicro empowers over three million investors worldwide to make personalized investment decisions through dynamic and insightful charts. X (Twitter).
NayaOne
NayaOne gives banks a single point of access to hundreds of fintechs, digital sandboxes, fintech-as-a-service offerings, and datasets. Headquartered in London, U.K., NayaOne was founded in 2019. LinkedIn.
SESAMm
Headquartered in Metz, France, and founded in 2014, SESAMm is an AI insight and ESG risk detection specialist serving the financial services industry. LinkedIn. X (Twitter).
Zero Bank Design Factory
Zero Bank Design Factory is developing and operating a banking system for Japan’s first digital bank, Minna Bank. Founded in 2019, the company is headquartered in Fukuoka, Japan. X (Twitter).
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Central and Southern Asia
India-based PhonePe Wealth Broking, a subsidiary of mobile payments app PhonePe, launched a stock broking app, Share.Market.
A new report from Elevation Capital and McKinsey India indicated that India’s fintech ecosystem could reach $70 billion in annual revenue by fiscal year 2030.
Credit assessment platform Uplinq Financial Technologies announced a collaboration with Visa.
Visa has agreed to introduce Uplinq to key financial institutions to help them mitigate risk and expand access to credit for SMEs.
Uplinq made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall in New York.
Credit assessment platform for SME lenders, Uplinq Financial Technologies, has announced a collaboration with Visa. Via the partnership, Visa will introduce Uplinq’s API-based technology to key financial institutions to help them mitigate risk and expand access to credit to small businesses in the U.S. and Canada.
“This engagement is a testament to the promise of our technology in bridging the vast and persistent gaps that small businesses still grapple with when trying to access fair credit, especially as related to minority and all protected class segments,” Uplinq founder and CEO Ron Benegbi said. Visa Commercial Solutions Head of Small Business Matt Baker added that “fast access to working capital” was “especially vital to small businesses” which he referred to as the “backbone” of the world economy.
Uplinq leverages billions of alternative data sets from more than 150 countries, examining a wide range of factors to provide credit assessment and loan adjudication. The company’s platform features more than 10,000 direct connections into SME data sources. Designed to complement a lender’s existing credit assessment process, Uplinq’s technology has supported more than $1.4 trillion in underwritten loans globally.
Founded in 2020, Uplinq is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall, demoing its Credit-Assessment-as-a-Service solution. At the conference, Benegbi used the example of his immigrant father’s struggle to secure a bank loan to add color to the challenges small businesses face when it comes to financing.
“At Uplinq we don’t lend money to small businesses,” he said. “We work with small business lenders to help them say ‘yes’ a lot more often. In fact, five to fifteen times more often, while significantly increasing net income.”
In the year since its appearance on the Finovate stage, Uplinq has raised $1.25 million in funding in October in a round led by ATX Venture Partners. The company secured another $600,000 in February in the form of a strategic investment from Cambrian Ventures.
This spring, Uplinq announced a partnership with SME Finance Forum to make it easier for SMEs around the world access financing. In June, the company was awarded “Fintech Startup of the Year” in the “Lending” category of the Banking Tech Awards. Uplinq also has bolstered its advisory board ranks over the past year, adding former Scotiabank Chief Risk Officer Daniel Moore and former M&T Bank Chief Data Officer Allison Sagraves.
Is the tide turning in favor of crypto? Today’s unanimous, three-judge ruling in favor of Grayscale over the SEC is yet another sign that crypto winter could be transitioning into crypto spring.
What happened? As we’ve been reporting in Tales from the Crypto, there has been a growing movement in favor of an exchange-traded fund based on the price of Bitcoin. A number of major financial institutions – including crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments – have applied to the SEC in order to make this happen. To date, firms pursuing ETFs based on Bitcoin futures have fared better than those companies opting to offer ETFs based on the spot price of the cryptocurrency.
One of the ways that the SEC has pushed back against these latter efforts has been to say that, essentially, spot Bitcoin ETFs are not safe. Specifically, the SEC told Grayscale – which was looking to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a listed Bitcoin ETF – that the planned product was not “designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices.”
In June, Grayscale sued the SEC. And this week, a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals overturned the ruling. The court directed the SEC to grant Grayscale’s petition for review and to vacate its order to deny the company’s listing application. The succinct, two-sentence judgment does not determine the ultimate fate of Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin ETF. But the successful appeal is a major boon for the effort to make spot Bitcoin ETFs available to traders and investors.
Crypto continues to have an easier path outside the United States than within it. Today’s news about Grayscale and the SEC comes at the same time that Coinbaseannounced a new PayPal integration for its users in the U.K. and Germany. The integration will enable Coinbase users in those countries to easily buy and withdraw cryptocurrencies via debit cards and bank accounts linked to PayPal.
“Coinbase’s mission of increasing economic freedom in the world means making it easier and faster for customers to interact and engage with the cryptoeconomy, reducing the frictions of the legacy banking system,” Coinbase VP and Regional MD, EMEA, Daniel Seifert said.
The process is simple for U.K. and Germany-based customers who already have a PayPal account. They can begin making crypto transactions on Coinbase immediately, the company said in a blog post. Customers also do not have to input their bank account or card number directly to Coinbase; users can continue using PayPal to securely manage their financial data. The company said that it plans to extend the functionality to other EU countries in the months to come.
Speaking of Coinbase, the company recently announced an investment in stablecoin company Circle. Circle is the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. The investment announcement was accompanied by a statement that the two companies will shut down the Centre Consortium, a private governance organization for USDC established by Circle in 2018.
“We believe that stablecoins can advance the real-world utility of crypto and help make the global financial system more open and inclusive,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a joint statement. “Together, we look forward to unlocking additional value by growing the USDC ecosystem, circulation and global adoption.”
Founded in 2018 to help financial consumers in the U.K. access digital assets, cryptocurrency firm Coinpass has agreed to be acquired by OANDA Global Corporation. OANDA acquired a majority interest in Coinpass last week.
OANDA CEO Gavin Bambury said the acquisition would add to the company’s multi-asset offering and its appeal to a broader range of retail investors. He added: “A crypto native, Coinpass will provide OANDA with the technology backbone and trusted experience in the regulated crypto markets we need in order to offer clients globally a fast and secure route to the digital economy.”
Coinpass offers fast, secure, and compliant trading in more than 50 fiat currencies, stablecoins, and cryptocurrencies. The firm won Best Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform at CityAM’s 2020 CryptoAM Awards. Coinpass launched its crypto trading platform in 2021 – the same year it secured approval from the Financial Conduct Authority – and initiated stablecoin trading in USDC and USDT in 2022.
“We are delighted at Fluency to be part of this exciting and forward-thinking partnership with Mastercard helping CBDC networks seamlessly bridge transactions between different types of CBDC: account and token-based, retail and wholesale, multi-CBDC with tokenized assets and regulated stablecoins,” Fluency CEO Inga Mullins said.
Fluency offers a technology to enable organizations and institutions to deploy, configure, and manage custom CBDC networks. The company has joined CBDC boards around the world in order to assist central banks and governments on CBDC design, implementation strategy, and policy.
“We believe in payment choice and that interoperability across the different ways of making payments is an essential component of a flourishing economy,” Mastercard Head of Digital Assets and Blockchain Raj Dhamodharan said. “As we look ahead toward a digitally driven future, it will be essential that the value held as a CBDC is as easy to use as other forms of money.”
Crypto exchange Bybitintroduced a revamped launchpad this week. The enhanced offering, Bybit Launchpad 3.0, gives early investors the opportunity to invest in new and pre-listed tokens directly from the Bybit platform. The technology connects project developers with potential investors, and provides a token launch process that is more streamlined and features greater transparency.
“Bybit Launchpad 3.0 is bringing innovative blockchain projects to the forefront,” Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Shou said. “We are providing direct access to pre-listing rounds and facilitating the acquisition of new tokens. These tokens then seamlessly transition to trading on Bybit’s trading platform.”
Headquartered in the UAE, Bybit was founded in 2018. With more than 270 assets available via its platform, the company has more than 15 million users around the world.
“InvoiceCloud’s market-leading solution and seamless integration capabilities made it an easy decision to work together to provide tax organizations with best-in-class, robust payment solutions,” Aumentum Technologies EVP Andrew Wright said. “Together, we remain dedicated to helping our customers save both time and money with our streamlined, joint offering.”
The new joint solution leverages SaaS technology to offer county tax offices the latest functionality in electronic bill presentment and payment processing. The new offering promotes digital payment adoption, discourages taxpayer delinquencies, and lowers customer service calls by an average of 39%. The solution offers a variety modern payment options – including PayPal, Venmo, and Pay by Text – as well as traditional payment methods, and features an intuitive design based on actual customer usage.
“The expansion of InvoiceCloud’s relationship with Aumentum Technologies is a testament to the value our integrated solution is driving, not just to county treasurers and tax collectors, but to taxpayers, as well,” InvoiceCloud VP, Alliances and Business Development, Paul Applegate said.
Founded in 2009, InvoiceCloud specializes in cloud-based electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP). The company’s technology has delivered a 59% average increase in e-payment adoption, a 104% average increase in paperless enrollment, and a 39% average decrease in billing and payment-related customer service calls. The firm was acquired by EngageSmart in 2018.
Earlier this month, InvoiceCloud announced the launch of a new digital payment experience, in partnership with Finovate alum D3. In May, the company unveiled new enhancements to its Online Bank Direct solution. InvoiceCloud began the year with a collaboration with tax core software provider DEVNET. The company is headquartered in Braintree, Massachusetts.
Aumentum Technologies has been providing property tax valuation and recording solutions software since 1972. Headquartered in Niagara Falls, New York, the company is an independent business unit within Harris Computer Corporation’s Public Sector Group. A subsidiary of Constellation Software, Harris Computer Systems serves more than 125,000 customers in more than 100 countries.
