Salt Edge and ebankIT Team Up to Help Financial Institutions Maximize the Opportunity of Open Banking

By David Penn Posted on December 13, 2022
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, ebankIT, Salt Edge

A pair of Finovate alums — Salt Edge and ebankIT – have teamed up to help financial institutions leverage open banking to provide more services to customers.
The partnership will enable ebankIT’s bank and credit union clients to access accounts from more than 5,000 financial institutions.
Salt Edge is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ebankIT is based in Porto, Portugal.

A newly announced partnership between Finovate alums ebankIT and Salt Edge will help financial services companies in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere to maximize the opportunity of open banking. The partnership will enable ebankIT to empower banks and credit unions to access accounts from more than 5,000 banks. At the same time, working with Salt Edge – an ISO 27001 certified company licensed as an AISP under PSD2 – will ensure that open banking compliance requirements across regions will be fulfilled.

“At ebankIT, we understand that Open Banking is the way forward when it comes to humanizing the digital banking experience for millions of end-users worldwide,” ebankIT Head of Sales HQ and Partnerships Pedro Leite said. “That’s why we believe that this partnership with Salt Edge will bring great benefits to our ecosystem of financial institutions.”

With its Omnichannel Digital Banking Platform, ebankIT helps financial institutions to make digital transformations, regardless of their size. Currently licensed to FIs in 11 countries, ebankIT’s platform enables banks and credit unions to offer customer experiences across all modern digital channels, from online and mobile to wearables and the metaverse. A Best of Show winner at FinovateFall in 2019, the Portugal-based company most recently demonstrated its technology this spring at FinovateEurope.

In addition to its partnership with Salt Edge, ebankIT has teamed up with other Finovate alums in 2022. In October, the company announced that it was working with multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner MX to integrate MX’s Insights and Personal Financial Management (PFM) tools into its digital banking platform. Earlier this year, ebankIT announced a collaboration with another multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Horizn. This pact is designed to help financial institutions smoothly launch new ebankIT platform deployments for both front-line employees and customers.

Salt Edge, which demoed its technology at a part of FinovateEurope in 2018 and 2019, was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company offers both an open banking gateway – to help companies access account information, conduct payment initiation, and leverage data enrichment to turn raw data into actionable insights – as well as a PSD2 compliance hub. Salt Edge’s compliance hub provides a full-stack compliance solution for banks and electronic money institutions, strong, mobile customer authentication, and TPP verification.

“As two cutting-edge tech players pursuing to revolutionize the financial world, we strive to create innovative solutions that will improve financial services for both institutions and consumers,” Salt Edge Chief Growth Officer Alina Beleuta said. “By teaming up, we can double our forces to bring innovations to the financial landscape through seamless open banking solutions.”

Photo by Lisa Fotios

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Finovate Global Australia: CBA Launches Tech Hub, ANZ Plus Reaches 100K Customer Milestone, Aussie Regulators Target AMEX

By David Penn Posted on December 9, 2022
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global

Commonwealth Bank of Australia Launches Tech Hub in Brisbane

Over the summer, Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) unveiled its latest technology hub in Melbourne. This week, we learned that the financial institution’s hub-building game is still strong, with word that that CBA has established another technology hub, this time in the city of Brisbane.

The goal of the new hub, located in Brisbane’s central business district, is to help build the technology community in Queensland writ large. The bank is collaborating with The University of Queensland (UQ), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and TAFE Queensland to enable students and graduates to participate in CBA’s Tech Associates and Graduate programs. The new hub will also create job opportunities for technology professionals including engineers, cyber specialists, and data scientists.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia Chief Information Officer Brendan Hopper pointed to COVID era trends as one reason why CBA has become especially interested in Queensland. “The COVID pandemic saw many of our technology professionals choose to relocate to Queensland to pursue a change of lifestyle,” Hopper explained. “By having the tech hub in Brisbane, our people based there will still have access to major technology employers like DBA and can make an impact in their work without having to relocate interstate.”

The technology hub in Brisbane is the third such opportunity CBA has launched this year. In February, the bank opened a technology hub in Adelaide.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a multi-national institution with operations in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., and the U.K. The financial institution, one of the four biggest banks in Australia (along with National Australia Bank (NAB), ANZ, and Westpac) was founded in 1911 by the Australian government and privatized in 1996. CBA had more than one trillion in total assets as of 2020.

ANZ’s Digital Bank Reaches 100,000 Customer Milestone

Speaking of Australia’s big banks, ANZ announced this week that its digital bank, ANZ Plus, has reached 100,000 customers, and more than two billion in deposits.

“New features, better security, along with a suite of tools and coaches to help people save more, combined with competitive rates are driving more people to ANZ Plus than ever before,” ANZ Managing Director of Design and Delivery Peter Dalton said. “(It) is the fastest growing new digital bank in Australia.”

Launched in March, ANZ Plus offers accountholders an everyday account that tracks spending, and a savings account with features to help users reach their financial goals. ANZ Plus offers 3.5% interest on savings for ANZ Save balances under $250,000; and charges neither monthly account fees nor withdrawal fees at major Australian bank ATMs. Additionally, ANZ Plus customers can schedule one-on-one sessions with a financial coach to help them uncover ways that they can enhance their financial wellness, including tips on spending less and saving more.

“We are continually adding new features to improve customer experience,” Dalton said, “and have begun piloting our digital home loan product with staff.”

Other features available on ANZ Plus include biometric logins for iOS users, as well as dynamic CVV, BPAY, pay to PayID, and the ability to join with an international passport.

ANZ – which stands for the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd – is the second biggest bank in Australia by assets. Headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, ANZ was founded in 1970 as part of the largest bank merger in Australian history at the time. In the decades since then, ANZ has grown into a multinational banking and financial services entity with more than 51,000 workers, nine million customers worldwide, and more than one trillion in assets.

Australian Regulators Take AMEX to Court

While Australian banks are expanding opportunities for technology professionals and creating new resources for financial technology users, Australian regulators are cracking down on what they believe represents bad behavior on the part of one of financial services’ biggest players.

We learned this week that the Australia Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is alleging that a pair of credit cards issued by the local unit of American Express and co-branded with retailer David Jones did not provide adequate explanations about how the cards actually work.

Specifically, regulators have filed a lawsuit claiming that customers were confused about whether they had applied for a loyalty card or a credit card. Further, the lawsuit charges that American Express did not limit distribution to customers that were exclusively interested in cards that enabled them to earn points and receive other benefits. Regulators assert that AMEX was aware of the issue as early as February, but failed to act until July.

“Product providers must monitor and review whether consumers are receiving products consistent with their needs and cannot bring a ‘set and forget mindset’ to product governance,” ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said in a statement. “It is critical that providers respond to poor outcomes they identify by making changes.”

As of this time, neither AMEX nor the company that owns the David Jones department store chain have commented on the lawsuit.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Tencent’s financial division, Tencent Financial Technology unveiled a new cross-border payments business, Tenpay Global.
Tonga Development Bank partnered with Europe-based payments platform BPC.
Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia launched a new digital offering, Rize.

Sub-Saharan Africa

South African fintech Ukheshe secured new funding from DPI and Fireball Capital.
In a bid to boost digital payments, the Central Bank of Nigeria put a limit of $45 on daily ATM withdrawals.
Finclusion, a credit-based neobank based in the Republic of Mauritius, raised $2 million in equity financing and rebranded officially to “Fin.”

Central and Eastern Europe

Ukraine will be the first country to benefit from the new cross-border payments partnership forged between Mastercard and Paysend.
Deutsche Bank announced a partnership with NVIDIA to encourage the use of AI and machine learning in financial services.
German corporate financing platform FinCompare partnered with ING Germany.

Middle East and Northern Africa

A pair of Egypt-based fintechs – consumer financing platform One Finance and BNPL provider ADVA One – announced a partnership this week.
Saudi Araban fintech Tweeq secured an e-money license from the kingdom’s central bank, SAMA.
bondIT, a fixed income investment technology company based in Israel and New York, raised $14 million in funding.

Central and Southern Asia

U.K.-based financial services platform Tide went live in India with its app and business account.
The State Bank of Pakistan announced that it is drafting legislation ahead of a planned CBDC launch in 2025.
SBM Bank India reported that it is pursuing funding to support the development of its BaaS platform.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin American cryptocurrency platform Bitso announced a partnership with remittance company Félix Pago to enable WhatsApp-based crypto-powered payments.
Brazil-based digital bank C6 partnered with Thought Machine for its core banking technology.
Argentine fintch Ualá to offer personal loans to customers in Mexico courtesy of a partnership with ABC Capital.

Photo by Steve Weir

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The Future of Instant Payments: Our Conversation with Bernadette Ksepka of FedNow

By David Penn Posted on December 8, 2022
Categories: FinovateEurope 2023, Speaker series

What innovations are making their way to the payments space in the U.S.? How will the new FedNow Service impact the current payments infrastructure when it goes online in 2023? What can fintechs do to prepare themselves and get involved with a post-FedNow payments landscape?

This year at FinovateFall, we talked with Bernadette Ksepka, Assistant Vice President and Deputy Head of Product Development with the FedNow Service at the Federal Reserve System. With the launch of the FedNow Service drawing nearer, Ksepka helped put the challenges and opportunities in perspective.

On the promise of the FedNow Service

The Federal Reserve banks are developing an instant payment service for financial institutions of all sizes, across every community in the United States, to be able to offer safe and efficient instant payments to their customers, 24×7, 365 … Recipients of those funds are going to be able to have full access to that funding to be able to better manage their cash flow, to be able to make time-sensitive payments … In the back end, banks are going to be able to settle those transactions instantly instead of (in) hours or days. It will eliminate a lot of the liquidity and credit risk that exists today.

On the impact of FedNow on the payments landscape

The FedNow Service is going to modernize the U.S. payments infrastructure. It is really going to pave the way for a big change in the future of payments. It has been over 40 years since the Federal Reserve introduced a new payments rail, so we are super-excited that the FedNow Service is going to go live in the middle of next year.

On the innovation that FedNow may help unleash

The FedNow platform is use-case agnostic, so the possibilities are really endless. And as we’ve seen demand for instant payments grow, we’ve seen use cases expand and I think there are use cases out there that we are not even thinking about. For example, there’s a lot of energy around early wage access. Imagine an employer that can pay their employees at the end of the shift or at the end of the day instead of every two weeks. That makes that employer that much more competitive, especially in a really tight job market like we have today.

Check out the full interview with the Federal Reserve Systems’ Bernadette Ksepka on FinovateTV.

Photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia

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BondIT Secures $14 Million in Funding in Round Led by BNY Mellon

By David Penn Posted on December 8, 2022
Categories: Alumni News, BondIT, Daily news, Funding

Fixed income technology innovator bondIT has raised $14 million in new funding.
The investment round was led by BNY Mellon and brings bondIT’s total equity capital to more than $32 million.
bondIT made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2016.

Credit analytics and fixed income technology company bondIT has raised $14 million in new funding. The strategic investment was led by BNY Mellon and featured the participation of existing investors, as well. BNY Mellon will join bondIT’s Board of Directors as part of the investment. Valuation information was not provided when the funding was announced but, according to Crunchbase, the funding brings bondIT’s total equity capital to more than $32 million.

“This investment will help us accelerate innovation and offer clients a unique holistic solution for fixed income investing,” bondIT founder and CEO Etai Ravid said. “As bond investors are keen to lock in higher yields, our versatile technology and data-driven approach can help them increase automation to improve efficiency and performance, and better mitigate risk.”

Headquartered in New York and Herzliya, Israel, bondIT provides front office investment technology. The company leverages data science, explainable AI, and other advanced technologies to enable its customers to build, analyze, and manage investment portfolios. bondIT’s technology helps its clients accomplish in minutes what previously took hours or even days. Predictive credit analytics enable bondIT customers to anticipate potential changes in corporate credit risk and take advantage of potential investment opportunities before they manifest themselves in the market

“Collaborating with bondIT will allow us to deliver innovative digital solutions for fixed income investors by enabling investment professionals to explore new investment options more easily through the use of AI, further expanding their portfolio optimization capabilities for clients,” BNY Mellon MD John Goodheart said.

bondIT’s relationship with BNY Mellon extends back to 2021, when bondIT participated in BNY Mellon’s startup accelerator program. In the months since then, bondIT added David Curtis as Partner and Head of Global Client Business, and teamed up with MEAG, the asset manager of Munich Re and ERGO. The MEAG partnership, announced almost exactly one year ago, will digitize MEAG’s credit risk workflows. The Munich, Germany-based company will also use bondIT’s Scorable Credit Analytics to enhance its own credit research processes. A component of bondIT’s fixed income technology solutions suite, Scorable Credit Analytics analyzes more than 250 data points a day and translates raw data from a wide variety of financial and market data sources to provide actionable insights for investors.

“Working with bondIT is another important step in driving technological progress across our organization,” MEAG CIO of Public Markets Prashant Sharma said. “We aim to continuously increase the quality and efficiency of our investment process, and technology plays a crucial part in this.”

Photo by Pixabay

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FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley: Fintech in the City of Bridges, Fraud Fighting Goes Dutch, and Making Stock Trading Social

By David Penn Posted on December 7, 2022
Categories: Finantix, FinovateEurope 2023, Stocktwits

If your company has ever demoed its technology at FinovateEurope, then we’ve got an opportunity for you!

Alumni Alley is our special showcase exclusively for companies that have demoed on stage at FinovateEurope. Held in London at FinovateEurope, March 14-15, Alumni Alley highlights those FinovateEurope alums who are continuing to innovate in areas ranging from payments and lending to regtech and digital banking.

Visit our FinovateEurope Alumni Alley Showcase hub to learn more about this special conference feature for FinovateEurope alums.

Finantix: From Best of Show Winner to Private Banking Solution

Fintech might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Venice, Italy. But the so-called “City of Bridges” was the original home for Finantix, a fintech that emerged on the scene as a developer of software solutions to support client-facing employees in retail banking, wealth management, and financial advisory.

Demoing its Wealth Apps at FinovateEurope 2011, Finantix showed how its technology helped financial advisors move away from paper as their primary “support tool.” Instead Finantix’s technology leveraged tablets, including the iPad, to combine the simplicity of paper with the rich communication and graphic capabilities of new handheld technologies. The company’s offering enhanced all areas of customer engagement for financial advisors, from prospect coordination and client onboarding to client and portfolio management. FinovateEurope audiences were impressed, awarding the software company with a Best of Show award.

_{Alessandro Tonchia demonstrating Finantix Wealth Apps at FinovateEurope 2011.}

Founded in 1994 and acquired by Motive Partners in 2018, Finantix today is the Private Banking Division of InvestCloud (Motive Partners purchased a majority stake in InvestCloud in 2021). InvestCloud offers a no-code software platform for digital transformation and commerce enablement within the financial industry.

In 2020, Finantix introduced new CEO Christine Ciriani. “I am delighted to take up this leadership position at Finantix,” Ciriani said when the appointment was announced. “With an award-winning product offering, our innovative client-first culture and very strong R&D, sales, and delivery teams, we are well positioned to capitalize on the investments made since Motive Partners acquired an interest in the company.”

BusinessForensics: Acquisition Bolsters Fight Against Financial Crime

Netherlands-based BusinessForensics was founded in 2008 and went live in 2010, just one year before the company demoed its technology at the inaugural FinovateEurope in London. A specialist in financial crime fighting, BusinessForensics offers businesses an integrated enterprise suite to help them manage risk, fraud, and compliance. Working with banks and insurance companies, as well as public organizations and government agencies, BusinessForensics helps companies spot fraudulent transactions with real-time monitoring of mission-critical operations. Fully integrated and customizable forensic case management and reporting give firms the ability to easily handle both exceptions and incidents.

More than a decade later, BusinessForensics’ offering, Client Risk Intelligence, consists of four modules – AML and sanctions surveillance, Know Your Customer/Customer Due Diligence (KYC/CDD), Fraud and Risk Surveillance, and Special Investigations – which combine to provide a 360 degree client risk profile.

_{BusinessForensics Rob van Eerden demonstrating the company’s technology at the first FinovateEurope in 2011.}

BusinessForensics was acquired by Munich, Germany-based regtech cleversoft group in the fall of 2020. “To be able to fulfill the increasing regulatory demands (our customers) are confronted with, we wanted to initiate a cooperation with a larger regulatory compliance software provider and also to ignite further growth outside of the Netherlands,” BusinessForensics CEO Tames Rietdijk said. “With cleversoft we found a complimentary match that will help us reach these goals by leveraging their organizational maturity, their customer base, and provide our solutions in the DACH market.”

From 50k to Six Million: The Story of StockTwits

When StockTwits made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2011, the “community powered idea and information service” for investors and traders had just over 50,000 registered users. Today, the 14-year old company has more than six million registered users on what has become one of the largest social networks for investors and traders.

StockTwits was founded by Howard Lindzon and Soren Macbeth as a way to leverage the fast growing social media app known as Twitter to organize conversations between traders and investors about individual stocks. The company used “cashtags” with the ticker symbols of stocks (as in “$AAPL”) as a way to help index online analysis, opinions, and commentary about individual stocks, making it easier for investors and traders on apps like Twitter to source the information.

_{Ben Weiss, StockTwits VP of Business Development in 2011, demonstrating the company’s platform at FinovateEurope.}

Last year, StockTwits secured $30 million in funding, giving the company a valuation of $210 million. This year, StockTwits launched its crypto trading platform and introduced functionality to enable individual investors and traders to buy and sell equities directly from the StockTwits platform.

“With the addition of equities trading to our existing crypto trading product, the StockTwits platform continues toward bringing a full suite of execution capabilities,” StockTwits CEO Rishi Khanna said when the equities trading functionality was unveiled earlier this year.

Photo by Recal Media

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Wells Fargo Launches New Digital Banking Platform Vantage for Commercial and Corporate Clients

By David Penn Posted on December 6, 2022
Categories: Daily news, Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo launched a new digital banking platform, Vantage, for commercial, corporate, and investment banking.
Vantage leverages AI and machine learning to deliver more personalized recommendations and actionable insights based on clients’ unique needs.
The new offering comes as part of Wells Fargo’s digital transformation efforts, which include the launch of a new consumer mobile banking app earlier this year.

The new digital banking platform from Wells Fargo, called Vantage, is an upgrade of the bank’s Commercial Electronic Office, or CEO Portal. The new offering is designed to give Wells Fargo’s commercial, corporate, and investment banking clients a more personalized experience by leveraging AI and machine learning. Vantage uses both enabling technologies to provide recommendations and actionable insights based on the specific needs of clients, and refines and improves its capacity for personalization as clients use the technology.

“Our Commercial and Corporate clients’ banking needs evolve over time, which is why we’re delighted to launch Vantage, a digital banking platform that simplifies and personalizes their experience so that they can stay focused on what’s most important – growing and improving their businesses,” Wells Fargo’s Reetika Grewal said. Grewal is the head of Digital for Commercial Banking and Corporate & Investment Banking clients.

Wells Fargo’s launch of Vantage is being billed as part of the institution’s overall digital transformation efforts. These efforts include the introduction of a revamped consumer mobile app — featuring a virtual assistant called Fargo — announced in October and launched earlier this year. The new Fargo-enabled app is able to handle a variety of basic banking tasks, including billpay and sending money, as well as provide transaction details and budgeting advice. This week’s Vantage announcement also arrives in the wake of Wells Fargo’s launch of its automated, same-day loan solution, Flex Loan.

Wells Fargo has approximately 27 million active mobile banking users, trailing rivals Bank of America, with more than 32 million active mobile banking users, and JP Morgan Chase, with more than 44 million such customers, as of Q3 of last year. Further, Wells Fargo is growing its mobile banking customers at a slower pace compared to Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, according to company statements published by CNBC.com.

That said, customers appear to be happy with their Wells Fargo mobile banking experience. The bank’s app came in third place in the Touchpoint Group Engaged Customer Score (ECS) banking app performance rankings for banks in the U.S. – trailing Bank of America and top-rated Citi Bank, but ranking ahead of Chase. Touchpoint Group highlighted Wells Fargo’s app upgrade as a potential source of the app’s strong rating.

Photo by Adrien Olichon

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Finovate Global Canada: Clik2pay Partners with Inovatec; BMO Offers Installments; RBC Buys HSBC’s Canadian Business

By David Penn Posted on December 2, 2022
Categories: Compass Plus, Finastra, Finovate Global, MasterCard, nCino, Nordigen, Nubank, ThetaRay

There are many countries whose fintech innovations are often overlooked. And Canada, America’s legendarily kinder, gentler neighbor to the north, is among them.

This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at recent fintech headlines emanating from the Great White North this week. The news ranges from big new fundings to new product launches to deal-making in Canada’s banking industry.

Clik2pay, a payment service provider based in Toronto, Ontario, has teamed up with lending process automation expert Inovatec. The partnership will enables Inovatec’s clients to use Clik2pay’s direct-from-account payment platform to request payments from customers. The functionality leverages Interac’s e-Transfer money transfer solution to ensure safe and secure fund movement.

“Clik2pay is always looking for ways to make the payments process simpler,” Clik2pay Chief Commercial Officer David Robinson said. “Allowing borrowers to make payment directly from their bank account in real-time through an email or text makes paying incredibly easy for the customer and allows for more efficient collections and payment reconciliation by lenders.”

The collaboration will give lenders the ability to use email to collect payments directly from customer bank accounts – and have those payments reconciled automatically on Inovatec’s platform. The process supports agent-assisted collections, as well, enabling lenders to textc customers payment links and secure real-time notification of successful payments “before the borrower hangs up the phone” the company noted in a statement.

Clik2pay is the first Canadian company to provide real-time, direct-from-account payments for businesses at almost all FIs in the country. Founded in 2019, Clik2pay relaunched its Clik2pay mobile app for small businesses last month. The new app features an enhanced user experience, including improved, simplified onboarding. Mike Bradley is founder and CEO.

Canadian banks have made fintech headlines this week, as well. Bank of Montreal (BMO), for example, announced the launch of its new credit card installment offering. Currently available to BMO’s Canadian retail credit card customers via their online banking platform, the new plan – called PaySmart – enables customers to convert eligible credit card purchases of more than $100 into smaller monthly payments.

Customers will be able to choose between three, six, or 12 equal monthly payments. No interest is charged and BMO will access a monthly fee of up to 0.9%. Because purchases are within the customer’s existing credit limits, no additional credit check or approval is required.

BMO’s latest offering is part of a suite of solutions designed to help its customers better manage cash flow and finances. These solutions include the bank’s Pre-Authorized Payments Manager, Same Day Grace feature, and BMO CashTrack.

In other Canadian banking news, Royal Bank of Canada announced that it has purchased U.K.-based HSBC’s Canadian business for $10 billion (£8.4 billion; C$13.5 billion). The move comes as HSBC seeks to bolster its business in Asia – especially China. The company has more than 130 branches and 780,000 customers as part of HSBC Canada. And while HSBC has also expressed plans to abandon its retail banking operations in the U.S. and France, it is the company’s Canadian division that has turned a profit -whereas both its businesses in the U.S. and France have not.

The acquisition is the biggest by RBC under the tenure of CEO Dave McKay, who has also tried to calm concerns about potential layoffs by noting that RBC is considered one of the best workplaces in the country. McKay also pointed to the fact that RBC has nearly 6,000 open positions and referred to the acquisition as a “talent acquisition opportunity” for RBC. HSBC Canada has $134 billion in assets and 4,200 full-time employees.

“HSBC Canada offers the opportunity to add a complementary business and client base in the market we know best and where we can deliver strong returns and client value given our financial strength and award-winning service,” McKay said in a statement.

Earlier this week we shared news that Toronto-based FinovateFall 2019 alum Buckzy Payments had secured $14.5 million in Series A funding. The company offers real-time, cross border payments services, as well as banking-as-a-service capabilities, via its embedded finance platform. The company has more than 140 bank, neobank, and fintech customers since going live with its platform in 2020. This week’s funding takes Buckzy’s total equity capital to more than $23 million. The round was led by Mistral Venture Partners and Uncorrelated Ventures.

“This round of financing is a validation of Buckzy’s vision to create an intelligent and automated international payment system,” Buckzy CEO Abdul Naushad said. “We’re on a mission to build the plumbing for real-time money movement globally, the same way high-speed internet fundamentally shifted the communications industry.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Brazil’s Nubank announced that it will offer savings accounts and debit cards in Mexico via its digital banking arm, Nu México.
Chilean based alternative credit scoring fintech Destácame raised $10 million in funding.
Brazilian fund Latitud released its The LatAmTech Report 2022 this week highlighting trends for B2C fintech in Latin America.

Asia-Pacific

Finastra launched a new Center of Excellence (COE) at MRANTI Technology Park in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Cambodia’s ABA Bank leveraged technology from Compass Plus Technologies to introduce instant card issuance kiosks.
Financial crime compliance company Napier announced its entry to the Japanese market via its financial crime risk management platform, Napier Continuum.

Sub-Saharan Africa

ThetaRay and Ghanian mobile financial services company Zeepay partnered to help fight financial crime in remittance transactions.
TechCrunch profiled South African payments company Revio.
Kenyan payment service provider Cellulant launched its expansion to South Africa..

Central and Eastern Europe

Hamburg Commercial Bank announced that it has implemented and is now live on the nCino Bank Operating System.
ING Germany partnered with Viafintech to launch new cash service offering.
Estonia-based payment tracking company Transferlink announced a partnership with open banking platform Nordigen.

Middle East and Northern Africa

UAE-based expense management platform Qashio secured $10 million in seed funding.
Jingle Pay, a financial super app based in the UAE, announced a strategic agreement with Mastercard.
Israel-based workplace intelligence platform Shield raised $20 million in Series B funding.

Central and Southern Asia

KreditBee, a fintech platform based in India, raised $80 million in Series D funding.
Mumbai-based youth banking startup Galgal Money secured $1 million in funding.
M bank in Mongolia is the latest customer – and first Mongolian client – of Singapore-based B2B SaaS fintech finbots.ai

Photo by Andre Furtado

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FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley: Backbase Rebrands, Boku Booms, and SecureKey Finds Opportunity in Acquisition

By David Penn Posted on December 1, 2022
Categories: Backbase, Boku, FinovateEurope 2023, SecureKey

This week we began our celebration of FinovateEurope’s earliest alums. In honor of FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley Showcase – a new feature designed to highlight the innovations of FinovateEurope alums – we’re highlighting the companies that introduced their innovations to Finovate’s European audience more than a decade ago – and are still among the top innovators in fintech today.

Visit our FinovateEurope Alumni Alley Showcase hub to learn more about this special opportunity for FinovateEurope alums.

Don’t Call It A Comeback: Backbase’s Big Rebrand

Founded in 2003, Backbase has been demonstrating its fintech innovations on the Finovate stage for more than a decade. Making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2011, the company made its most recent on-stage appearance at FinovateFall in 2021, demoing the Backbase Engagement Banking Platform. In that ten years, the Amsterdam-based company was awarded Best of Show on four occasions, including three from the company’s demos at our conferences in London.

From its origins as a Bank 2.0 innovator, helping banks take advantage of the growing consumer interest in online and mobile banking, to its current incarnation as an Engagement Banking specialist, Backbase has demonstrated a consistent mission of enabling FIs to turn emerging technologies into opportunities for better customer service and engagement. The company’s official rebrand this fall only underscores much of what Backbase has been about all along.

Backbase founder and CEO introducing Backbase’s technology at FinovateEurope 2011.

“Our proven growth model has brought us to where we are today and it’s time to evolve our branding to reflect that growth,” Backbase founder and CEO Jouk Pleiter said. “Backbase is the innovation partner enabling traditional banks and credit unions to take the leap into the platform era, and we’re just getting started.”

Most recently, Backbase announced an expanded relationship with Boston, Massachusetts-based Eastern Bank ($22 billion in assets). The institution deployed Backbase-as-a-Service (BaaS) and Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform to enable it to offer new digital banking solutions.

Boku Blossoms as Mobile Payments Boom

When Finovate audiences first met Boku at FinovateEurope 2011, the San Francisco-based company had 60 employees and $40 million in equity funding. Today, the direct mobile payments company is a publicly traded entity with more than 300 employees and a market capitalization of more than $390 million. Boku processes more than nine billion in payments every year, and includes some of the largest digital brands – from Google and Spotify to Netflix and Microsoft – as customers of what it bills as the largest mobile payments network in the world.

Boku founder Mark Britto demonstrating the company’s mobile payment technology at FinovateEurope 2011.

Boku was among the fintechs to recognize early on the potential mobile payments had to bring financial services to un- and underbanked consumers that owned mobile phones, but did not own credit cards or traditional bank accounts that would enable them to participate in online commerce. The company launched mobile wallet payments in the Philippines in 2012, brought mobile payments to Sony’s PlayStation Store in 2014 and, in 2020, acquired the Estonia-based carrier billing company Fortumo for $41 million.

This fall, Boku announced that it will supply Amazon.com with its digital wallet and other local payment methods as part of a new, multi-year agreement. Boku CEO Jon Prideaux said that the partnership helped reinforce the company’s “strategic move” into digital wallet payments.

SecureKey: Acquisition As An Enabler of Further, Faster Innovation

More than ten years after SecureKey won Best of Show at FinovateEurope 2011 for its authentication technology that leveraged contactless cards to streamline the online checkout process, the Toronto, Ontario-based company announced that it had agreed to be acquired by NortonLifeLock’s digital security and privacy firm, Avast.

SecureKey CEO Greg Wolfond demoing the company’s technology at FinovateEurope in 2011.

“SecureKey’s vision has been to revolutionize the way consumers and organizations approach identity and the sharing of personal information in the digital age,” SecureKey CEO Greg Wolfond said when the acquisition was announced this spring. “By working closely with governments, financial institutions, and businesses, we have an established track record of trusted and mature identity networks that provide consumers with the secure digital capabilities they deserve.”

SecureKey’s digital identity technology enables more than 200 million secure transactions a year internationally. Prior to the acquisition, SecureKey also had made major inroads in helping organizations and institutions, including governments, embrace modern authentication technologies. The company’s Verified.Me distributed digital identity verification network and Government Sign-In by Verified.Me provide secure and convenient login options to hundreds of government services and applications online. Both authentication services are provided by Interac under an exclusive Canadian licensing agreement.

Photo by Chris Panas

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Canadian Cross Border Payments Innovator Buckzy Raises Series A Funding

By David Penn Posted on December 1, 2022
Categories: Alumni News, Buckzy Payments, Daily news, Funding

Canadian real-time cross border payments company Buckzy has raised $14.5 million in Series A funding.
The investment was led by Mistral Venture Partners and Uncorrelated Ventures, and featured participation from new investors Luge Capital and Blue 9 Capital, as well as existing investor Revel Partners.
Buckzy made its Finovate debut in 2019 at FinovateFall.

In a round led by Mistral Venture Partners and Uncorrelated Ventures, Canada-based real-time, cross border payments company Buckzy has secured $14.5 million in Series A funding. Valuation information was not immediately available. This week’s investment takes the company’s total equity funding to more than $23 million, according to Crunchbase.

New investors Luge Capital and Blue 9 Capital, and existing investor Revel Partners, also participated in the round. Luge Capital General Partner Karim Gillani will join Buckzy’s board as an advisor.

Buckzy offers real-time, cross border payments and Banking-as-a-Service capabilities via an embedded finance platform. The platform offers multi-currency bank accounts, local settlement accounts, and real-time FX quoting and booking. A licensed money transfer company, Buckzy has signed up more than 140 bank, neobank, and fintech customers since going live with its platform in 2020.

Calling the cross-border payments market a $150 trillion market globally – and one that is still underserved – Mistral Ventures Partners Managing Director Code Cubitt praised Buckzy for its ability to deliver “a much better customer experience, more automation, and lightning-fast payments.” Cubitt said the company had “the right blend of experience, expertise, and insight to build the next generation of cross border payments.”

Buckzy’s funding news comes at the same time that the company announced the appointment of Seema Rai Nair as VP of Customer Success and Network Expansion. Nair will be responsible for growing the company’s partnership network of banks, fintechs, ecommerce platforms, and other financial service providers.

“Demand for real-time and near real-time international payment services is rising around the world, and companies are increasingly turning to alternative providers such as Buckzy to address their need for fast, secure international payments,” Nair said in a statement.

Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Buckzy was founded in 2018. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in New York the following year.

Photo by Andre Furtado

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5 Tales From the Crypto: Fidelity’s New Offering, Ledger’s Card, Kriptomat’s Exchange, and More!

By David Penn Posted on November 30, 2022
Categories: Alumni News, Cryptocurrency, Daily news, Ledger

Fidelity Brings the Bitcoin

If you’ve been crying over your crypto wallet due to all the negative headlines about digital currencies, then now is the time to dry your eyes and thank Fidelity for giving crypto enthusiasts the greatest sign of approval since BTC and ETH peaked last year.

Fidelity announced this week that it has enabled cryptocurrency trading in retail accounts. Fidelity Crypto, as the offering is called, enables retail accountholders to buy and sell both Bitcoin and ethereum with as little as $1. The new functionality will be available in 35 U.S. states initially – California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Texas are among them. Fidelity plans to bring the technology to other states; the company is offering an early-access sign-up to let interested customers know when Fidelity Crypto is approved in their state. Similarly, the company is examining other cryptocurrencies with the potential to “expand trading opportunities over time.”

The fallout from FTX and the collapse of even the most widely traded cryptocurrencies have been only a few of the headwinds that might have convinced Fidelity to wait longer to launch its crypto trading capability. As recently as this month, a group of senators including Elizabeth Warren asked the company to reconsider its plan to enable its customers to invest up to 20% of their retirement savings in Bitcoin. Clearly those eager for signs of spring amid this crypto winter need look no further than Fidelity.

Ledger’s Crypto Card

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, French fintech Ledger has launched its crypto debit card in the U.K. and Europe. The new Crypto Life card enables users to transfer crypto between Ledger’s hardware wallets and card accounts via Ledger’s Ledger Live app. Crypto Life offers 1% crypto rewards in both Bitcoin and USDT, as well as offering 2$ in BXX, the native token of Baanx. Baanx is the U.K.-based fintech that developed the technology for Crypto Life.

Ledger users can use Crypto Life at approximately 90 million merchants and online stores across the U.K. and Europe that accept Mastercard. Ledger VP of International Development JF Rochet called the new offering an “easy and secure solution to pay with crypto that also allows you to self-custody until you want to top up.”

Headquartered in Paris, France, and founded in 2015, Ledger demoed its technology one year later at FinovateEurope 2016. The company specializes in trusted hardware solutions for Bitcoin and blockchain applications, which it distributes both directly via online sales as well as through an international network of retail merchants.

Kriptomat Adds Real Time A2A Payments via Volt Partnership

Sticking with the crypto-across-the-pond theme, we read news that Kriptomat, a cryptocurrency platform based in Estonia, has teamed up with U.K.-based payment gateway provider Volt. The goal of the partnership is to give customers the ability to make account-to-account payments, in real-time, to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies.

More than 500,000 cryptocurrency traders and investors on the Kriptomat platform are expected to benefit from the partnership. Previously, Kriptomat customers were required to use methods such as bank transfers, credit cards, and even e-wallets to make their transactions. Integrating with Volt payments will enable customers to be seamlessly directed to their banking app when paying with Volt, where they can authorize payments using their preferred authentication method. The result is a faster, more streamlined, and less costly way for Kriptomat customers to fund their crypto purchases.

“Today’s new crypto users are more like car owners, who expect to turn the key and have it work immediately – without learning the ins and outs of the processes that happen in the background,” Kriptomat CEO Srdjan Mahmutovic said. “Volt’s technology has helped us provide that level of usability to our customer base.”

BlockFi’s “We’re Not FTX”-Based Bankruptcy

The news that many feared was coming to BlockFi arrived this week as the cryptocurrency company, which carved out a niche in the space as a lender for small cryptocurrency investors, filed for bankruptcy. The company’s Chapter 11 filing follows the bankruptcy filings of other cryptocurrency lenders such as Celsius Network and Voyager Digital, both of which tapped out in July. But the far more looming shadow over BlockFi’s misfortunes is clearly the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, with which BlockFi was financially entangled.

That said, both BlockFi’s bankruptcy declaration and the opening statement from BlockFi attorney Joshua Sussberg in court yesterday were attempts to do as much untangling as possible. Sussberg referred to BlockFi, which FTX both financially supported and – at one point – moved to acquire, as the “antithesis of FTX.” He credited BlockFi for its “focus on creating an opportunity for people that otherwise don’t have access to the financial system.”

Dimon’s Crypto Curious Bank: JP Morgan Gets Crypto Wallet Trademark

If Fidelity can be credited for the “giant leap” in crypto this week, should we salute JP Morgan’s “small step” of securing a crypto wallet trademark?

There’s a certain sport in highlighting any pro-crypto moves by JP Morgan – given the the outspoken crypto-skepticism of the bank’s legendary CEO Jamie Dimon. As a refresher, Dimon has referred to cryptocurrencies as “decentralized Ponzi schemes,” and said that the “notion that (crypto) is good for anybody is unbelievable.”

But that’s not stopping the bank he runs from expressing some crypto curiosity including, this week, news that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved of the J.P. Morgan Wallet. According to the registered trademark, the J.P. Morgan Wallet supports “virtual currency transfer + exchange, crypto payment processing, virtual checking accounts, and financial services.”

JP Morgan has been open about its interest in launching a digital wallet since October. Despite the disinterest of the bank’s CEO in most things crypto, JP Morgan has worked with Fidelity and New York Bank Mellon to offer various cryptocurrency related services and, earlier this month, completed the first cross-border transaction using decentralized finance (DeFi) on a public blockchain.

Photo by Anna-Louise

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Greenwood Raises $45 Million to Bring Digital Banking to Black and Latino Communities

By David Penn Posted on November 30, 2022
Categories: Daily news, Diversity in Fintech, Funding

Greenwood, a digital banking platform catering to black and Latino communities, raised $45 million in new funding this week.
The funding round was led by Pendulum, an investing and advisory platform for founders of color.
Atlanta, Georgia-based Greenwood was named after the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was known as “Black Wall Street” in the early 20th century due to its high concentration of black-owned businesses.

In a round led by Pendulum, a strategic growth investing and advisory platform for founders of color, digital banking platform Greenwood has secured $45 million in new funding. A digital banking platform designed to meet the needs of members of the African-American and Latino/Hispanic communities, Greenwood will use the funding to advance its goal of closing the wealth gap between ethnic minority and majority populations and enable African-Americans and Latinos to more readily build generational wealth.

“Our vision is to make Greenwood the premier destination for black and Latino wealth creation and regeneration while keeping community connection and collective professional advancement at the center,” Greenwood chairman and co-founder Ryan Glover said.

Joining Pendulum in this week’s funding were a host of new investors including Cercano Management, Cohen Circle, The George Kaiser Family Foundation, and NextEra Energy. Existing investors Bank of America, Citi Ventures, PNC, Popular, Truist Ventures, TTV Capital, and Wells Fargo also contributed.

Greenwood also announced the launch of a new offering that takes advantage of its recent acquisitions of The Gathering Spot and Valence, a pair of African-American owned private membership networks for black professionals, entrepreneurs, and corporations. The offering, called Elevate, gives its members access to The Gathering Spot’s private membership network – including the organization’s physical clubhouses in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. – as well as Valence’s professional networking platform and recruiting database. The launch of Elevate is geared toward helping Greenwood fulfill both the community building and career advancement components of its mission.

“Greenwood is poised to create new outcomes and equip our communities with the resources they have been systematically excluded from in the pursuit of economic opportunity,” Pendulum CEO and co-founder Robbie Robinson said.

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Greenwood has more than 100,000 customers on its platform, and more than one million individuals in its combined community including The Gathering Spot and Valence. The fintech offers a digital bank account with no hidden or overdraft fees, a Mastercard debit card, support for P2P transfers, two-day early wage access, and a global ATM network. Greenwood also provides opportunities for its customers to help communities in need via programs like Feed a Family (in partnership with Goodr), donations to non-profits such as the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and NAACP from customer spare change round-ups, and monthly small business grants of $10,000 to African-American or Latino/Hispanic owned businesses. The platform also offers financial education and information designed for black and Latino audiences via its Greenwood Studios operation. Greenwood’s banking services are provided courtesy of a partnership with Coastal Community Bank.

The name of the digital banking platform was inspired by the Greenwood District, a historic African-American community in Tulsa, Oklahoma that, in the early 20th century, featured one of the greatest concentrations of black businesses in the U.S. Known as “Black Wall Street”, the community was the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 in which a mob of white Tulsans destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the Greenwood District. The attack was described as the “single worst incident of racial violence in American history.” Hundreds were hospitalized and estimates of the number of Oklahomans killed ranged from 75 to 300.

Photo by Dazzle Jam

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FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley: Pioneering PFM, French Fintech, and an Investor Social Network

By David Penn Posted on November 29, 2022
Categories: eToro, FinovateEurope 2023, linxo, Meniga

FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley is a great way for our pioneering alums to show that, more than a decade later, they are still driving fintech innovation. Check out our Finovate Alumni Alley hub for more information on how to get involved.

To celebrate the launch of this new opportunity, we’re going to highlight alums that demoed their technologies at some of the earliest FinovateEurope events. From Best of Show winners to late blooming breakouts, FinovateEurope has spent the past dozen years showcasing the companies that have become many of fintech’s favorites. Over the next few weeks heading into the winter holidays, we will share their stories here.

A Best of Show Winner – Meniga

One of four companies to win Best of Show in our inaugural FinovateEurope in 2011, Meniga introduced itself as a mobile PFM solution provider for retail banks in Europe. Hailing from Reykjavik, Iceland, and founded in 2009, the company partnered with Íslandsbanki to help its technology reach 5% of households within the first year of launch.

Today the company has grown into a digital innovation partner for more than 165 banks around the world and grown its workforce ten-fold. From its start as a white-label PFM innovator, Meniga has added to its finance management offering with Cashflow Assistant and Smart Money Rules solutions, and added a suite of data management solutions for consolidation, enrichment, and discovery to its product mix. The company also now offers Beyond Banking solutions for banks, as well. These products include customer engagement/empowerment solutions like Carbon Insight and solutions for SME customers such as Cashback Rewards and Market Intelligence.

_{Meniga co-founder Georg Ludviksson introducing Meniga to the FinovateEurope audience in 2011.}

Long-time Meniga CEO and co-founder Georg Ludviksson stepped down in August. The company’s new CEO, Simon Shorthose, said in a statement that the company was in a “prime position for growth” due to the “rapid modernization of banking technology and the move to real-time cloud infrastructures.” He added “Meniga’s solutions are at the forefront of helping banks take their digital banking experience to the next level of hyper-personalization.”

A Late Blooming Breakout – Linxo

One of the benefits of FinovateEurope is not just the ability to showcase for companies in Europe in general, but also for the opportunity of countries not always associated with fintech innovation to show what entrepreneurs in their nations are up to.

France is one example of such a country and Linxo – which made its Finovate debut in 2011 and, nine years later, was acquired by Credit Agricole for an undisclosed sum – is one example of just such a company. Co-founded in 2010 by CEO Bruno Van Haetsdaaele and headquartered in France, Linxo demoed its platform that represented the first bank account aggregation service for French financial institutions.

_{Linxo co-founder and CEO Bruno Van Haetsdaele on stage at FinovateEurope 2011.}

“This transaction enables us to accelerate and strengthen our services for the Crédit Agricole Group, while giving us the opportunity to develop our offering in France and internationally for our clients and prospects with Oxlin, our ACPR-authorized payment institution, and to continue the development of Linxo, one of France’s most popular personal financial management apps,” Van Haetsdaele said when the acquisition was announced.

More than three million users in France leverage Linxo’s mobile app to manage their budgets and simplify their finances. Linxo had raised more than $26 million in funding prior to its acquisition.

From Good to Great and Still Going – eToro

Helping investors navigate the financial markets was the goal of many fintechs that demoed their technologies on the Finovate stage in the early years. But one of the innovators in this space to make a big first impression that only has grown bigger over time is eToro.

Another company to win Best of Show in the first FinovateEurope, eToro was an established investing network with more than 1.5 million registered users from 120+ countries in 2011. The company is among the pioneers in social investing, with innovative solutions that helped novice traders and investors learn from successful, veteran traders and investors, and improve their own outcomes in the market.

_{eToro CEO Yoni Assia demonstrating the eToro network at FinovateEurope in 2011.}

Among the more popular companies to demo at FinovateEurope, with six Best of Show trophies won from 2011 through 2017, eToro today is still one of the biggest social investing communities in the world with more than 30 million registered users currently sharing their investment strategies on the platform. The company launched its mobile app in 2012, offered trading in cryptocurrencies in 2017 and, this year, unveiled both fractional share investing with zero commissions and eToro Options for options traders in the U.S.

This month, eToro teamed up with Broadridge Financial Solutions to enable proxy voting for investors on its platform. The ability to cast proxy votes will extend to investors holding fractional shares, as well. The partnership is a victory for advocates of corporate accountability by enabling eToro investors to weigh in on issues ranging from mergers and executive pay to ESG initiatives and goals.

Photo by Peter Spencer

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