Author: David Penn

Cion Digital and upSWOT Team Up to Bring Embedded Finance Solutions to Commercial Loan Brokers

Cion Digital and upSWOT Team Up to Bring Embedded Finance Solutions to Commercial Loan Brokers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cion Digital, Daily news, UpSwot
  • Cion Digital and upSWOT have teamed up to bring embedded finance and embedded business management solutions to commercial loan brokers.
  • Courtesy of the partnership, the two companies will enable wealth managers and commercial loan officers the ability to identify ideal financing solutions, as well as broaden their offering with new embedded financial and business management tools.
  • Cion Digital made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring. Making its Finovate debut in 2000, upSWOT returned to the Finovate stage in September for FinovateFall.

Cion Digital, which offers technology to help businesses find the right loan products that suit their needs, has partnered with fintech platform upSWOT. Together, the two Finovate alums will provide wealth managers and commercial loan brokers with embedded finance and embedded business management solutions. These tools will empower these businesses to offer their customers access to a wide variety of tools – including accounting, ERP, payroll, e-commerce, CRM, marketing, and POS business applications – via more than 200 API-enabled apps.

“Cion Digital is focused on using data and machine learning to help financial advisors and commercial loan brokers secure financing for their clients that meets their clients’ unique financial objectives and curate high-value relationships for lenders and financial institutions,” Cion Digital Chief Product Officer Taylor Adkins said. Adkins noted that the partnership with upSOT will make available a wealth of data sources and insights that can be used to further help business owners identify the financing solutions they need – as well as add to their offering with embedded finance and business management resources.

“Fintech has incredible power to dramatically reshape the success of SMBs,” upSWOT CEO Dmitry Norenko added. “The institutions that enable SMBs to take advantage of these dramatic shifts in technologies are institutions that care about their customers and ensuring that they will still be here in a decade.”

A Finovate alum since 2000, upSWOT most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage in September as part of FinovateFall. At the conference, upSWOT showed its white-label, digital-banking-embedded solution that connects to more than 200 integrated SaaS applications, delivering actionable insights, cash flow forecasts, and more. Earlier this month, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based fintech announced a partnership with Standard Chartered to launch a pilot project in Singapore that would give Standard Chartered’s SME customers intelligent forecasting capabilities. Founded in 2019, upSWOT has raised more than $5 million in funding.

Cion Digital demoed its Crypto Dealership Platform at FinovateSpring 2022. In October, the company launched its wealth advisor lending platform, which gives wealth management firms and registered investment advisors (RIAs) curated loan offers and a streamlined application approval process. The platform connects firms and advisors directly to banks and other lenders; the new offering supports not only traditional assets and securities but also crypto assets, as well.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, and founded in 2021, Cion Digital has raised $12 million in funding. The company’s investors include 645 Ventures and Green Visor Capital.

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U.S.-based Neobank Novo Secures $125 Million in Series B Funding

U.S.-based Neobank Novo Secures $125 Million in Series B Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Miami, Florida-based neobank Novo raised $35 million in funding, taking its Series B funding round to $125 million.
  • The Series B raises Novo’s total equity funding to more than $170 million.
  • The latest capital infusion comes from GGV Capital, which manages more than $9 billion in investments across North America, China, Southeast Asia, India, Latin America, and Israel.

An additional $35 million investment brings the total raised by Miami, Florida-based fintech Novo to $125 million. The latest infusion comes courtesy of strategic investor GGV Capital, and brings Novo’s total equity funding to more than $170 million.

In a statement, Novo CEO and co-founder Michael Rangel highlighted the new functionality of the Novo Platform and the “tens of thousand” of small business customers the company has onboarded. Rangel also praised GGV as “instrumental” in helping other technology companies (“from Airbnb to Square”) scale their businesses, and said he believed the support of the firm would help Novo reach “millions more small businesses in the coming years.” Note that GGV Capital Principal Robin Li will join Novo’s board of directors as an observer.

With more than 175,000 small business customers, Novo offers a free business checking account with free ACHs and incoming wires; a Novo Virtual card; no hidden fees; and an application process that can be completed in less than 10 minutes. Novo also provides online small business banking services including the ability to send and track invoices; as set aside funds for taxes, payroll, and more via its Novo Reserves feature. Novo is partnered with Middlesex Federal Savings, which provides FDIC coverage of Novo deposits up to $250,000.

Additionally, as of 2021, the company has offered Novo Apps, a comprehensive apps marketplace to enable SMEs to customize their banking experience; Novo Boost, which gives small businesses same day access to payments received through Stripe; as well as Express ACH that enables same day processing of ACH payments.

GGV Capital Managing Partner Hans Tung underscored Novo’s “ecosystem approach” to providing banking services to small businesses, freelancers, and gig economy workers. “They’ve built a robust, intuitive platform that allows SMBs to connect all of their business and financial applications to their Novo account,” Tung said.

Novo’s latest investment comes as the company announces surpassing $12 billion in lifetime small business transactions. Founded in 2016, Novo was named one of the “Next Billion-Dollar Startups” of 2022 by Forbes earlier this year.

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Featurespace Secures Funding to Develop AI-Powered AML Prototype

Featurespace Secures Funding to Develop AI-Powered AML Prototype
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Featurespace
  • U.K.-based fraud and financial crime prevention company Featurespace secured funding to help build an AI-powered prototype to fight money laundering and other financial crimes.
  • The funding comes from both the U.S. and U.K. governments, and is part of an initiative supported by Innovate UK, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and messaging network SWIFT.
  • Featurespace made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2016.

Fraud and financial crime prevention specialist Featurespace has secured funding from both the U.S. and U.K. governments to build an AI-powered technology to help financial services institutions – including banks and payment service providers (PSPs) – to detect and stop financial crime. The goal specifically is to enhance the ability of financial institutions to combat cross-border money laundering, application fraud, and APP fraud, in particular. The U.K.-based company, headquartered in Cambridge, will build a prototype, leveraging AI, that will be trained on “sensitive private payments data.” Featurespace will apply federated deep learning to the data, using privacy-enhancing techniques such as k-anonymity and local differential privacy. Organizations will not have to reveal, share, or combine their raw data in the process.

“U.K. and U.S. governments want banks to work together to stop fraud and money laundering,” Featurespace Director of Innovation David Sutton said. “This type of privacy-preserving collaboration AI is a hard problem that no one has yet solved. We are confident we can meet this challenge. We’re the only company in this project that has deployed innovative tech to fight worldwide financial crime – and we have the banking customers to prove it.”

The funding comes courtesy of the privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) Challenge Prize, an effort begun in July by Innovate UK and the U.S. National Science Foundation. The initiative also is supported by bank-owned messaging network SWIFT. Featurespace has been given a deadline of January 24 to build the prototype. Upon completion, if the project is successful, it will be showcased at the second Summit for Democracy to be convened in the U.S. in the first half of 2023.

“A successful outcome of this project is to make money laundering across borders and between banks much more difficult,” Sutton said. “If you make it harder to launder money, you make criminal activities less profitable. This will benefit businesses, society, and consumers.”

Founded in 2008, Featurespace made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2016. More than 70 direct customers and more than 200,000 institutions ranging from HSBC and Worldpay to fellow Finovate alums like TSYS and Marqeta, rely on Featurespace’s technology to protect themselves against fraud and financial crime. An innovator in the field of fraud prevention, Featurespace has developed technologies like Adaptive Behavioral Analytics and Automated Deep Behavioral Networks to profile both authentic and fraudulent behavior to combat financial crime in real-time. Both technologies are components of Featurespace’s ARIC Risk Hub.

Last week, Featurespace announced a partnership with Railsr to help customers of the embedded finance platform better defend themselves from fraud and financial crime. Per the agreement, Railsr’s fraud teams will be able to leverage card and payment fraud prevention and AML solutions via Featurespace’s ARIC Risk Hub.

“As embedded finance increasingly becomes expected by consumers, making sure they are protected from fraud and financial crime must be expected in equal measure,” Featurespace Chief Commercial Officer Matt Mills said. “Railsr (has) recognized this early and added a critical layer of self-learning technology to ensure their customers get only the best experience.”

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Core Banking Software Company Finxact Forges Strategic Partnership with KPMG

Core Banking Software Company Finxact Forges Strategic Partnership with KPMG
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Finxact forged a strategic partnership with KPMG this week.
  • The alliance will combine KPMG’s design and systems integration capabilities with Finxact’s core bnking platform.
  • Finxact was acquired by Finovate alum Fiserv this spring.

Finxact, the core banking software company acquired by Fiserv earlier this year, announced a strategic partnership this week. The firm is teaming up with KPMG who will advise and help digitally transform clients on the Finxact platform. David Ortiz, Head of Partnerships at Finxact, explained the role that KPMG will play in helping Finxact clients embrace modernization.

“KPMG understands the way this manifests uniquely for different banking business models,” Ortiz said. “Together we’re combining technology and expert guidance to help our clients adapt and thrive.”

The alliance between Finxact and KPMG will blend the latter’s innovation, digital design, and systems integration capabilities with the former’s next generation core banking platform. The partnership will enable financial institutions to offer more personalized, differentiated customer journeys, accelerate time-to-market for new products, and boost cost efficiencies. FIs will benefit further from the ability to re-invent and expand their business models to better compete, engage new markets, and grow revenues.

“Universal banks, transaction-focused banks, ambient banks and fintechs are each facing unique challenges today that must be addressed with modern infrastructure,” KPMG Financial Services Advisory Principal Scott Huie said. “Whether that challenge is to reach new markets, improve unit economics, or embed finance, we are confident that with KPMG’s guidance and the Finxact platform we can help to enable new and winning digital experiences.”

Finxact was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The company’s strategic partnership news with KPMG comes a month after it announced that it had agreed to power the new Zenus Global Digital Bank, in collaboration with Microsoft and implementation partner HSO. Also last month, Finxact and Finovate alum PwC announced a partnership that will enable FIs to offer new solutions built and delivered by PwC Banking and Capital Markets (BCM) and enabled on Finxact’s open banking platform.

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The Conversation Continues: Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast with Debbie, Stratyfy, Lemonade, and Deciens Capital

The Conversation Continues: Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast with Debbie, Stratyfy, Lemonade, and Deciens Capital
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Debbie, LemonadeLXP, Podcasting, Stratyfy

Interviews with Best of Show winners and an update from the venture capital world were the conversations Finovate VP Greg Palmer shared with listeners of the Finovate podcast during the month of October. Palmer interviewed CEOs from three FinovateFall’s Best of Show winners – Debbie, Stratyfy, and Lemonade LXP last month – and checked in with Decien Capital’s Dan Kimerling on the state of fintech funding.

Find the Finovate podcast at Soundcloud and follow Greg Palmer on Twitter for the latest in programming news and updates.

Frida Liebowitz, CEO and Co-Founder, Debbie

Finovate VP Greg Palmer talks with Debbie CEO Frida Liebowitz on the importance of offering a more effective, human-centric debt recovery solution. Episode 151.

Our mission with Debbie is to help people break the behavioral cycle of debt for good. We are building the first rewards platform for debt payoff that is entirely behavioral driven. We reward people for building up better habits, paying off debt, and eventually making their way to long term debt freedom.

Laura Kornhauser, CEO and Co-Founder, Stratyfy

Stratyfy CEO and co-founder Laura Kornhauser discusses the issue of bias-mitigation in lending with podcast host Greg Palmer. Episode 150.

What we do at Stratyfy is help credit and risk teams better assess risk through what we say is real transparency. We also have a real focus on driving greater financial inclusion, and doing that by helping financial institutions provide greater access to fairly priced financial products to a wider group of individuals than historically have had that access in the past.

John Findlay, CEO, Lemonade LXP

Greg Palmer catches up with Lemonade LXP CEO John Findlay to discuss boosting digital adoption through intelligent, front-line training. Episode 149.

Lemonade is a digital growth platform that helps financial institutions and fintechs maximize the ROI on their technology investments. There are two sides to our platform. One side is a learning experience platform that is designed to turn frontline staff into digital experts so they can promote and support your technology. And then the other side is a digital enablement or digital adoption platform.

Dan Kimerling, Founder and Managing Partner, Deciens Capital

Deciens Capital founder and managing partner Dan Kimerling provides a VC perspective on inclusion-based opportunity in conversation with podcast host Greg Palmer. Episode 148.

What I would say is we haven’t seen a slow down in the level of entrepreneurial behavior and activity. It seems, broadly speaking, like people are excited to start new businesses and, if you go back to at least the 1970s, there seems to be relatively little relationship between macroeconomic behavior and entrepreneurial dynamism.

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Quadient Teams Up with Esker to Help French Businesses Manage New Tax Landscape

Quadient Teams Up with Esker to Help French Businesses Manage New Tax Landscape
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Quadient
  • Business software company Quadient and process automation solutions company Esker have partnered with the French government via a joint subsidiary NCS.
  • The partnership is designed to help businesses comply with new regulations governing the issuance and receipt of invoices between VAT taxpayers.
  • Quadient most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2018 in London.

Business software company Quadient and process automation solutions company Esker have announced a new partnership with the French government. Via their joint subsidiary NCS, Quadient and Esker will help ensure that businesses are able to comply with upcoming French tax regulations, specifically with regard to electronic invoice receipt and transmission.

The new legislation applies to invoices exchanged between VAT taxpayers, mandating that these invoices must be transmitted in either a structured data format (UBL, UNCEFACT CII) or hybrid format (Factur-X). Rollout of the new regulations begins in the summer of 2024 and continues through January 1, 2026. At that point all micro, small, and medium-sized businesses will be expected to comply.

“The widespread implementation of electronic invoicing over the next three years is a major challenge for the four million companies in France,” Quadient Chief Strategy and Product Officer for Intelligent Document Automation Nicolas de Beco said. “As a major player in the electronic document management market for small and medium-sized businesses, we look forward to our continued partnership with Esker, in which we join forces and expertise to offer businesses straightforward and efficient invoicing process automation.”

Beyond ensuring compliance with impending regulatory changes, the partnership between Quadient and Esker will bring a variety of benefits to French businesses. The list of complimentary services ranges from centralized workflow management and business process automation to invoice archiving, payment reconciliation, and reporting. The interoperability of these services with other business platforms and solutions will give French companies greater capacity to improve operations, pursue digital transformation, and enhance their cash management.

“As long-standing partners, our two companies have demonstrated their ability to work together to deliver innovative solutions that benefit thousands of businesses in France today,” Esker COO Emmanuel Olivier said.

Headquartered in France and founded in 1992, Quadient most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope 2018. The company’s partnership news with Esker and the French government comes just weeks after Quadient launched its Parcel Pending smart parcel lockers in Ireland to help modernize the residential property market in the country.

Photo by Martijn Adegeest

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The State of Play in the Fraudtech Industry

The State of Play in the Fraudtech Industry
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: David's column

According to LexisNexis’ recent True Cost of Fraud Study, which looks at fraud trends in the financial services and lending sectors of the U.S. and Canada, the cost of fraud has grown significantly as the global pandemic has ebbed. The report noted that every dollar of fraud currently costs financial services companies in the U.S. $4.00, up from $3.25 in 2019 and $3.64 in 2020. The picture for lenders is even worse. In fact, the report notes that fraudsters have been especially aggressive in the mortgage lending business, sending mortgage lending fraud costs up by more than 23% since 2020.

The report also highlights the problem of identity: the challenge financial institutions have when it comes to identity verification and the rise of identity fraud as “a significant percent of fraud losses at the point of funds distribution.” Both banks and mortgage lenders surveyed also noted the difficult tasks of enhancing fraud detection while simultaneously keeping the customer experience as friction-free as possible.

Lastly, LexisNexis Risk Solutions Director of Fraud and Identity Christopher Schnieper pointed to the elephant in the room when it comes to fraud-fighting in general: the opposition is tough.

“It is difficult for even the best trained professional to detect the increasingly sophisticated crime occurring in the remote digital channels without the aid of solutions that detect digital behaviors, anomalies, device risk, and synthetic identities,” Schnieper said.

What can we learn from the findings of the LexisNexis team, as well as from other analysts and researchers who have pointed to the growing challenges we face when it comes to fraud and cybercrime in financial services?

Three Key Takeaways from the Current State of Fraudtech

Evolving threats demand continuous innovation

Innovation in fraud fighting is driven significantly by antagonistic competition, a “disloyal opposition” to borrow from the language of political science. The competition in fraudtech is not just between businesses and individuals all working to build better mousetraps. This competitive arena also includes actors whose goal, to extend the metaphor, is to help mice avoid being entrapped in the first place. This makes fraudtech an especially “rubber meets the road” part of fintech in which innovation is more than a way to gain market share, it is an existential requirement.

In a recent Experian webinar sponsored by Finovate, Experian’s Kathleen Peters and Prism Data’s Brian Duke underscored the importance of thinking of fraud “as a business.” And as a business, fraudsters will aggressively seek out new markets of opportunity, focusing particularly on areas where there are new, sizable streams of capital flowing. Think about the amount of fraud that accompanied both the housing boom in the late aughts. Think about the fraud uncovered as part of the unprecedented financial response to an unprecedented global health crisis. Think of what is currently taking place with the various meltdowns in the crypto space. Understanding fraud as a business not only helps fraud fighters better combat criminal activity, it also helps fraud fighters get a sense of where fraudsters might strike next.

Tech-enabled human talent to the forefront

In fraud-fighting, there is no debate on the importance of using technology to enhance and support human talent and insight. While there are some instances in which actual human activity is replaced by technology, much of this replacement is of manual, mundane, or routine tasks that are undesirable as work, and often error-prone compared to automated interventions. On the other side, AI and machine learning give human agents fast, rich data they can leverage alongside their own intellect and experience in the field to make superior judgements compared to technological or human actors alone.

Jody Bhagat, President of Americas at Personetics, used the term “Digital Plus Human” in a Mastermind Keynote at FinovateFall earlier this year. “Digital Plus Human” describes what Bhagat called a “sweet spot” between an all-tech versus all-human approach for midsized banks. This is a worthwhile concept that fraud fighters have embraced. The blending of human intelligence with AI, for example, to suss out bias inadvertently created by allegedly color- or gender-blind algorithms, is one instance of the digital plus human concept at work. Relying on human instinct to ferret out more complex identity challenges highlighted by technical tools is another key component of contemporary fraud fighting strategies.

Innovation in identity is key to better security

Lastly, it is increasingly clear that identity is the key to better security. In some ways, the more we can solve the identity issue, the easier it will be for us to solve and resolve security issues. Part of this lies in understanding identity as an access or action-specific factor, rather than a static representation of an individual in the physical, non-digital world. In other words, the interaction between a user and the user’s mobile device may tell more about the authenticity of the individual than a street address or even a social security number. This helps us understand the specific – and more precise – data requirements needed when it comes to establishing identity in digital contexts.

Here, companies like Trulioo are doing important work in helping financial institutions leverage digital identity to make the onboarding process a better and safer experience for the customer and business alike. Other firms, such as Instnt, are introducing innovations such as continuous identity assurance and portable KYC.

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Finovate Global VC Edition: Quona Capital Backs Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets with New Fund

Finovate Global VC Edition: Quona Capital Backs Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets with New Fund
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entrust Datacard, Finastra, Finovate Global, Mambu, MasterCard, Temenos, VISA

Good news for fintech startups in developing markets! Quona Capital recently announced that it has closed its latest fintech fund, its third, at $332 million. The venture capital firm, which specializes in emerging markets, noted that the amount raised topped its target of $250 million. The new fund, Fund III, will be focused on companies that are developing technologies that expand access to financial services for consumers and businesses in regions ranging from Latin America and India to Southeast Asia, MENA, and Africa.

“Since our earliest days, Quona has been dedicated to expanding the frontiers of financial inclusion – investing with conviction in markets and technology-enabled models improving access and quality of financial services for the masses,” Quona co-founding managing partner Monica Brand Engel said in a statement. “Our prior fund performance, robust pipeline of inclusive fintechs, and growing LP interest in our offerings are ringing endorsements of our view on the prospects of impact-oriented venture investing in emerging markets.”

With aggregate capital of more than $745 million, Fund II is the firm’s third fund since Quona Capital was launched in 2015. Those contributing to the fund as investors include global asset managers, insurance companies, both investment and commercial banks, endowments, foundations, family offices, and more. And while many of the investors in Fund III have invested in Quona Capital funds previously, the new fund did receive capital from 20 new investors, as well.

According to Quona Capital, the startups in its portfolio have served nearly nine million small and medium-sized businesses and over 30 million retail customers. Quona Capital startups have raised nearly $4 billion in capital and generated more than $800 million in revenues. Among these firms are India-based consumer lending company ZestMoney, Southeast Asia-based fintech marketplace ula, and long-time international remittance firm and long-time Finovate alum Azimo – which was acquired by Papaya Global earlier this year.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian neobank ZikZuk acquired tax e-filing platform TaxSpanner.
  • National Bank of Pakistan turned to Finastra to enhance its trade finance operations.
  • Lentra, a fintech based in India, secured $60 million in Series B funding for its loans-as-a-service business for banks.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • AstroPay introduced its Mastercard prepaid card in Brazil.
  • Mexico-based B2B payments company Mendel raised $60 million in new funding.
  • Brazil’s Agrolend, which provides credit to the country’s farmers, secured $27 million in Series B funding.

Asia-Pacific

  • Ant Group introduced its Buy Now, Pay later offering in Hong Kong.
  • Vietnam-based Sacombank partnered with Temenos to enhance digital banking.
  • Philippines-based neobank Tonik unveiled its all-digital lending products, Flex Loan and Big Loan.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian fintech Paga unveiled its Visa-branded card this week.
  • Pan-African paytech Cellulant secured a Payment Systems Operator license from the National Bank of Uganda
  • Samsung South Africa launched its digital wallet, Samsung Wallet.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Polish fintech Ramp locked in $70 million in Series B funding to build payment rails for cryptocurrency investors.
  • Co-investment platform for European startups SeedBlink secured licensing from the Romanian Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF).
  • Genome, an Electronic Money Institution based in Lithuania, partnered with Entrust to simplify digital payments.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • UAE-based Wio Bank went live with Mambu’s cloud-native banking platform.
  • Pyppl, a financial services platform based in the UAE, raised $20 million in Series B funding.
  • Saudi Arabia’s central bank presented its open banking framework.

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Varo Bank Adds Zelle, Bringing Safe and Secure Money Transfers to its Mobile Banking App

Varo Bank Adds Zelle, Bringing Safe and Secure Money Transfers to its Mobile Banking App
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • San Francisco, California-based digital bank Varo has added popular money transfer solution Zelle to its mobile banking app.
  • The integration will bring safe and secure money transfer capabilities to Varo’s more than six million accountholders.
  • Founded in 2015, Varo Bank is the first neobank to offer Zelle to its customers.

All-digital Varo Bank announced this week that it will offer money transfer solution Zelle in its mobile banking app. Varo is the first financial institution of its kind to offer Zelle in its app without having to partner with a bank. A safe way to send and receive money from friends, family, and trusted small businesses, Zelle has more than 150 million current users who access the technology via their banking apps.

“Adding Zelle to our product lineup is our bank charter in action,” Varo Bank founder and CEO Colin Walsh said. “We are excited to welcome millions of Americans to access Varo’s full range of benefits on our modern, secure, digital banking platform that now includes the ability to quickly send and receive money.”

Customers who have made a qualifying direct deposit in the last 31 days are eligible to enroll in Zelle at Varo. Additionally, those customers that have made any Zelle transaction in their Varo Bank account before November 3, 2022 are grandfathered into the program and will also be eligible to enroll in Zelle at Varo.

“Varo Bank customers will now have a way to send money to friends, family, and others they trust, whether they need to pay back a friend for dinner, split the cost of rent with a roommate, or pitch in for a group gift,” Early Warning Services Chief Product Officer Kash Baghaei said. Early Warning Services is the network operator of Zelle.

The addition of Zelle is part of Varo Bank’s effort to reimagine banking by giving customers the tools they need to become financially resilient and enhance their financial well-being. Other examples of these solutions include the company’s Varo Believe, a secured card to help consumers build credit, and Varo Advance, which enables users to borrow up to $100 with no interest and a simple fee based on the amount of the advance that tops out at $5.

“Varo Advance was created to meet the short term credit needs of millions of Americans, and it continues our commitment to provide customers the strongest possible foundation for their financial success, with instant availability and low, transparent pricing,” Walsh said.

Launched in 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California ,Varo Bank offers an all-digital alternative for financial services consumers. The institution provides a bank account with no credit check, no minimum balance required, no monthly fees, and no overdraft fees. Accountholders have access to more than 55,000 fee-free, Allpoint ATMs in locations like Target, CVS, and Safeway. Varo Bank cardholders can get up to 6% cashback when they use their Varo Bank debit or Varo Believe card at select brands.

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Elevating the Banking Experience for All: Our Conversation with Sarah Murray of Compliance Systems

Elevating the Banking Experience for All: Our Conversation with Sarah Murray of Compliance Systems
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Interview, Speaker series, Women in Fintech

One of the areas of fintech that has benefitted significantly from the rise of enabling technologies like AI and machine learning is compliance. From reducing the role of manual labor via automation to streamlining complex processes to make rules easier for companies to follow, both regtech firms and compliance teams alike play a major role in ensuring the fintech innovations we enjoy are safe, do what they say they’ll do, and are as available to as many eligible consumers as possible.

We caught up with Sarah Murray, who leads the Deposit Product Team at Compliance Systems. She talked about the impact technology is having on the field of compliance, and discussed the key challenges that Compliance Systems is helping its 1,800 financial institution clients overcome.

How did you get started in fintech? What has led you to where you are today in your career?

Sarah Murray: Before fintech, I was practicing law in private practice, and I just knew I was ready to be out of the courtroom and do something different with my legal career. I started at Compliance Systems eight years ago as a product specialist and counsel; now I am happy to have led the product team for the last five years. I love my job because no two days are the same. I never thought I would spend some days researching legal topics and reviewing regulations, and other days reviewing code and testing software, but I love the challenge each day brings.

Tell us about the work you do for Compliance Systems.

Murray: I lead our deposit product team at Compliance Systems, which consists of attorneys, business analysts, software developers, and quality control specialists who all work toward the common goal of delivering compliant and innovative products to our 1,800 financial institution clients. I love the mixture of technology with the law and getting to keep my legal hat that I went to school for by delivering compliance solutions through technology to our clients.

What are your thoughts on the way technology is helping companies keep up with the changing regulatory environment?

Murray: Overall, I think it’s the job of technology to streamline and simplify, regardless of which industry we’re talking about. In the case of fintech and regulatory compliance, that means automating repetitive and high-risk compliance processes. It also means demystifying regulations where we can for the benefit of the consumers that those regulations are intended to protect.

Our proprietary research engine tool enables us to provide proactive and update-to-date compliance, and our team is constantly monitoring and tracking what is happening in the legal and regulatory spaces in real-time to ensure we can deliver timely compliance solutions to our clients. Our software provides updates through our cloud-hosted solutions, and our compliance safety net tool also provides interactive features that help our clients complete compliant transactions and provide a better level of customer service.

How has this evolved and how do you see it continuing to evolve leading into 2023?

Murray: The market has evolved through financial institutions rethinking compliance and needing to deliver a solution that meets their customers [and] members where they are: on their phones. We deliver compliance in a way that makes sense in a mobile-first environment and develop content with that in mind. This model isn’t necessarily what financial institutions are used to, but it is what customers [and] members strongly prefer: easily navigable, mobile-friendly content.

Financial institutions are telling us they want a single, streamlined approach for a customer, regardless of the channel (e.g. whether it be in branch or online). So, we’ve created a solution that satisfies the requests of both parties. You can open accounts through the same process as you would in a branch location, but on a mobile device with ease.

What challenges are you hearing in conversations with clients? What technologies are resonating most? 

Murray: Our Simplicity Mobile, a mobile-first account opening solution, has been highly successful because it has helped address some of the main pain points for our clients. They communicated that they are looking to have a more streamlined, efficient, and consumer-friendly workflow to open accounts and to reduce friction in that process to avoid abandonment. This solution completed that challenge by offering native HTML content that a financial institution can include within their account opening workflow, and by supporting “click to sign” functionality.

Another challenge we are hearing from clients involves their treasury management solutions. Treasury management operations are a vital component of a bank or credit union’s commercial services, but the content needed to properly document this business can require costly outside counsel or consume internal resources that put a strain on operations. Also, financial institutions are looking for a better, more streamlined way to sign up their customers for their treasury services. They don’t want to have to create and maintain separate contracts for each treasury service and are looking to avoid inundating customers with multiple contracts and documents.

Our delivery model ensures that our clients will always be in compliance and our technology delivers the configurability needed for a treasury management solution, as many aren’t looking for a “one size fits all” fix. Our solution helps minimize operational and compliance risks for our clients while also providing a central hub for all compliance-related updates and content within our solution. Furthermore, our solution offers one master services agreement for treasury services to help improve a customer’s enrollment experience.

Are there any tips you would like to share on providing strong leadership in a male-dominated industry?

Murray: A few tips I have are to be passionate about what you do and work with integrity; work hard to deliver what you say you will do when you say you will do it; don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo and be an advocate for yourself and others. A big thing at Compliance Systems is that we believe in reinvesting in our products based on what we have learned from our clients and the industry. I would say it is important to have that mentality yourself as you grow. Learn from mistakes. Learn from what works. Learn from your colleagues and clients. Together as an industry, we can elevate the banking experience for all.

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Wells Fargo Launches Small Dollar Digital Financing Solution, Flex Loan

Wells Fargo Launches Small Dollar Digital Financing Solution, Flex Loan
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Wells Fargo
  • Wells Fargo launched a new small dollar digital financial solution called Flex Loan this week.
  • The new offering provides loans of $250 and $500, with a flat fee of $12 and $20, respectively.
  • Available in selected markets now, Flex Loan will be available nationwide by the end of the year.

Certainty, simplicity, and clarity are among the virtues of Wells Fargo’s new small dollar digital financing solution, Flex Loan. The new product is a digital, small dollar loan of either $250 or $500 with a flat fee of $12 or $20, respectively. Available only in select markets now, Flex Loans will be introduced across the U.S. by year’s end. Wells Fargo indicated that Flex Loan is part of the financial services company’s efforts to help customers meet short-term cash needs and avoid potential overdrafts.

“What makes Flex Loan different from other payment options is its certainty of approval for eligible customers, the simplicity of obtaining funds in minutes, and clarity around how much it will cost to pay for things like holiday gifts, travel, or an unexpected home or car repair expense,” Head of Personal Lending and Retail Services for Wells Fargo Abeer Bhatia said.

Eligible customers will see the Flex Loan offer in their Wells Fargo mobile banking apps. Once customers take out a Flex Loan and establish their repayment plan (four equal monthly installments), the funds are available in customers’ Wells Fargo account within seconds. Customers can then use the funds via their Wells Fargo debit cards for payments or purchases. There are no applications, late charges, or interest fees.

Flex Loan joins a trio of options announced by Wells Fargo in January that are designed to help customers better manage short-term cash needs. These options are: Early Pay Day, Extra Day Grace Period, and Clear Access Banking. Early Pay Day gives Wells Fargo customers access to eligible direct deposits up to two days in advance. Extra Day Grace Period adds an extra business day to make deposits to avoid overdraft fees. Clear Access Banking offers customers a checkless banking account with no overdraft fees.

With $1.9 trillion in assets, Wells Fargo & Company provides financial services to one in three U.S. households and more than 10% of U.S. small businesses. Wells Fargo is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker WFC, and has a market capitalization of $176 billion. Charles W. Scharf has been CEO of the bank since 2019.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto

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5 Tales from the Crypto: FTX Fallout and Making the Case for Keeping the Faith

5 Tales from the Crypto: FTX Fallout and Making the Case for Keeping the Faith
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, List series

FTX Files for Chapter 11

The fallout over the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX continues. On Friday, the embattled company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, noting that it had in excess of 100,000 creditors – before amending its filing days later to report that the number of creditors might be more than one million.

While 2022 has been a dark year for a number of cryptocurrency companies, none have suffered as FTX has. With a valuation of $32 billion and more than one million users, FTX was the third largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume last year. But all of this came crashing down earlier this month. When rival Binance learned that FTX partner Alameda Research had much of its assets in FTX’s token FTT, Binance began selling its holdings of FTT. This resulted in more selling, in what some observers have called the equivalent of a bank run, which demolished the value of FTT and created a serious liquidity crisis for FTX. An aborted plan by Binance to buy FTX gave the company few alternatives to the bankruptcy declaration it made late last week.

What’s next? The FTX crisis has reached the recrimination stage, with even the company’s performance coach weighing in. (You can read Dr. Lerner’s response to rather lurid allegations about the behavior of the company’s senior executives. Spoiler: he refers to the company’s Bahamas headquarters as a “pretty tame place”). A sizeable swathe of celebrities – from NFL star quarterback Tom Brady to supermodel Gisele Bundchen- who served as brand ambassadors for FTX are also finding themselves under scrutiny – and worse.

And speaking of scrutiny, it appears as if the FBI is in discussions with the Bahamian authorities on extraditing FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to the United States for questioning.

Et tu, BlockFi?

Is cryptocurrency lender BlockFi now endangered due to the crisis at FTX? Media reports from The Wall Street Journal indicate that the company, launched in 2017 and headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, may be considering bankruptcy.

Why? According to reports, BlockFi admitted that while it did not keep the majority of its assets at FTX, the firm did have deposits on the company’s platform, as well as an undrawn line of credit from FTX “and obligations that FTX owed it.” BlockFi has suspended customer withdrawals in the wake of the FTX collapse, is limiting platform activity, and also is reportedly planning to layoff an unspecified number of workers.

BlockFi has not responded to the reporting from The Wall Street Journal at this time. A message at the company’s website reads: “BlockFi is not able to operate business as usual. We have limited platform activity, including pausing client withdrawals as allowed under our Terms. We request that clients not deposit to BlockFi Wallet or Interest Accounts at this time.”

Anthony Pompliano Makes Crypto’s Case

Entrepreneur and investor Anthony Pompliano was interviewed on CNBC’s Overtime program Tuesday afternoon. Asked about the FTX situation, Pompliano made an impassioned case for the future of cryptocurrencies. Pompliano also argued that the American market-based system is the only place where this kind of innovation – and accountability – is possible.

Pompliano runs investment firm Pomp Investments. He was formerly co-founder and partner with Morgan Creek Digital Assets, and Managing Partner with Full Tilt Capital. Pompliano also was a Product Manager at Facebook where he led the growth team for Facebook Pages, and helped launch solutions including AMBER Alerts and Voter Registration. He is the author of a daily email newsletter of business, finance, and Bitcoin called “Pomp Letter.”

Plug and Play Launches Crypto Program

At a time when so many are down on cryptocurrencies, it may be reassuring to hear news that innovation platform Plug and Play is keeping the faith.

In collaboration with founding partners Visa, AllianceBlock, The INX Digital Company, IGT, and Franklin Templeton, Plug and Play has launched its new Crypto and Digital Assets program in Silicon Valley. The goal of the program is to help startups around the world that are innovating in the crypto and digital asset spaces to connect with the program’s aforementioned founding partners to help them pilot their solutions. The program has four main focus areas: stablecoin adoption, decentralized finance, crypto economics, and enterprise blockchain.

“Not only will this unique partnership offer deeper connections on the West Coast and Silicon Valley, but it will also allow us to put our leadership and expertise to work as we advise companies on the benefits of participating in the rapidly growing ecosystem of blockchain, tokenization, and cryptocurrency,” INX Chief Business Officer Douglas Borthwick said.

Companies interested in participating in the Plug and Play Crypto and Digital Assets program are being encouraged to apply.

Binance Battles On

With its decision to acquire FTX now a thing of the past, blockchain company Binance is back to focusing on its own organic growth.

The company announced at midweek that it has secured a license from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM). This license — a Financial Services Permission (FSP) — will enable Binance to offer digital and virtual asset custody services to professional clients that meet the FSRA’s conditions for FSP.

“Obtaining this license is a pivotal step in the growth of Binance in Abu Dhabi, and a reflection of the city’s progressive stance on virtual assets,” Binance (AD) Senior Executive Officer Dominic Longman said. “We are excited to continue to strengthen our symbiotic relationship with ADGM and the city of Abu Dhabi and look forward to providing institutional investors with a secure and reliable platform for their virtual asset activities.”

ADGM’s FSRA issued its virtual asset regulatory framework in 2018. ADGM Chairman Ahmed Jasim Al Zaabi said that the framework is a core part of ADGM’s goal of supporting fintech innovation in the financial sector and “reinforcing the UAE’s status as a rapidly accelerating global crypto marketplace, with Abu Dhabi and the ADGM as the engine room powering this growth.”

Finovate has held two fintech conferences in the UAE in recent years: an inaugural event in 2018 and a second conference the following year in 2019. Read more about fintech in developing economies in our weekly Finovate Global column, published on Fridays.

Photo by Pixabay

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