Author: David Penn

Fintech is a People Business: Making Connections and Networking Done Right at FinovateEurope

Fintech is a People Business: Making Connections and Networking Done Right at FinovateEurope
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2023

FinovateEurope 2023 begins next week, March 14 through March 15, at the Intercontinental O2 in London, U.K. Tickets are on sale now. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today and secure your spot!

This year’s annual European fintech conference is on track to be even bigger than last year’s event. What’s more, we have all of the top 20 EU banks confirmed to attend. This is a big step for FinovateEurope. But it’s an even bigger opportunity for attendees seeking meaningful, quality connections with representatives of some of the most important financial institutions on the continent and in the world.

Making meaningful connections

At FinovateEurope, you will be a part of a global audience of more than 1,000 senior attendees from across the fintech industry. More than 50% of FinovateEurope’s attendees are from financial institutions. These include both senior innovators from fintechs, as well as senior decision-makers from trailblazing financial institutions. Here’s a word cloud of who they are and what matters to them.

If these sound like the kinds of people and trends that can help make a difference in how you do business, then join us next week at the Intercontinental O2, March 14 and March 15.

Making it happen with networking done right

Knowing that all the right people are in the room is one thing. Getting a quality conversation with them is another. At FinovateEurope, we’re here to help.

To start, we’ll open up our networking app days before you travel to the event. This will give you the opportunity to not just create your profile, but also to start learning more about your fellow attendees, and pre-arranging your highest priority meetings. Leverage our ConnectMe app to build your contact list and send messages via the app’s live chat feature. And when the conference ends, you will be able to download your contact list to keep in touch with new friends and continue those valuable conversations.

Here’s a look at how to make the best use out of the ConnectMe app for FinovateEurope.

With four hours of dedicated networking time on Tuesday and another two and a half hours on Wednesday, FinovateEurope treats fintech like the people business it is. We’ll help you get connected and stay connected to the people who matter most to you and your organization.

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Digital Banking Solutions Provider Bankjoy Secures New Funding

Digital Banking Solutions Provider Bankjoy Secures New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Bankjoy, Daily news, Funding
  • Bankjoy, a Michigan-based digital banking solutions provider, has secured new funding. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.
  • The round was led by credit union service organization (CUSO) Curql Collective and featured participation by current and prospective credit union clients of Bankjoy.
  • Bankjoy made its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall last September.

Digital banking solutions provider Bankjoy announced a new investment round led by credit union service organization, Curql Collective. The amount of the funding was not immediately disclosed. In addition to Curql, a number of Bankjoy’s current and prospective credit union clients also participated in the round. Among these investors were AEA Credit Union, Community Wide Federal Credit Union, and Statewide Federal Credit Union.

“We are thrilled to bring Curql on as an investor as Bankjoy continues to grow, as this latest round of funding will allow us to pursue new opportunities to redefine the digital banking experience and help more community financial institutions thrive in an increasingly competitive environment,” BankJoy CEO Michael Duncan said.

A Finovate alum since 2016, Bankjoy most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall last September. At the conference, the Detroit, Michigan-based company showcased its business banking platform that makes it easier and more cost-effective for FIs to deliver digital banking technology to their banking customers. The platform provides a single portal for multiple business accounts, as well as the ability to manage multiple users, control permissions, send transfers to multiple recipients, and more. The Bankjoy Business Banking Platform features more than 60 integrations with core banking platforms and other third-party vendors.

“We build all of our products in-house,” Duncan said at the beginning of his FinovateFall demo in 2022, “because we believe that’s the best way for us to deliver the most seamless, and the most beautiful, and the most visually consistent digital experience across all these channels.”

Bankjoy’s funding news comes a little over a month after the company launched its Online Account Opening 2.0 solution. The new offering enables financial institutions to quickly and seamlessly onboard new customers. The process takes 90 seconds, including ID upload and a selfie match, to ensure a secure and efficient experience for members and clients. The company ended last year having inked deals with a trio of credit unions – Mobility CU of Irving, Texas ($350 million in assets); Lafayette FCU of Rockville, Maryland ($1.6 billion in assets); and SIU CU of Carbondale, Illinois ($465 million in assets).

“Over the last 12 months, 43 percent of small businesses have increased their use of online banking services via computers or tablets, and 40 percent used more mobile banking services, according to Ernst & Young data,” Duncan said. “Clearly, a majority of businesses now expect to be able to engage with their financial institutions through digital channels and this is what Bankjoy’s business banking platform was designed to solve.”

We featured Michael Duncan in our look at black and African American Finovate alums as part of our Black Heritage Month commemoration in February.

Photo by Andre Furtado

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Finovate Global Ireland: Hiring Tech Talent, Banning ChatGPT, and Shining a Spotlight on Fintech in Northern Ireland

Finovate Global Ireland: Hiring Tech Talent, Banning ChatGPT, and Shining a Spotlight on Fintech in Northern Ireland
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Salt Edge

Ireland’s Central Bank to Staff: No ChatGPT for You!

While organizations, institutions, and businesses of all kinds are scrambling to figure out how to best make use of generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, the Central Bank of Ireland already has staked out a position – at least for its employees.

Ireland’s The Business Post reported that the Central Bank of Ireland has banned its staff from using ChatGPT as part of its cybersecurity policy. The move was described to the newspaper as the implementation of “appropriate and relevant technical and organizational measures to ensure the on-going protection of the organization.”

The Irish Central Bank isn’t the only financial institution in the region giving ChatGPT the side eye. The Business Post reported that three of Ireland’s high street banks – AIB, Permanent TSB, and Bank of Ireland – are considering similar restrictions. The Central Bank’s decision comes just a month after JP Morgan and a number of Wall Street institutions including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America banned their employees from using ChatGPT for internal communications.

Bank of Ireland to Boost Tech Staffing

In roles ranging from engineering and cloud technology to cybersecurity and data, the Bank of Ireland announced that it will be hiring 100 new technology workers. The goal will be to have the new workers develop new customer features on digital channels, help the bank execute its cloud strategy, and protect consumers from cybercrime.

“We have some exciting digital projects underway across the Group, and we’re looking for talented specialists who want to drive improvements in the banking experience for millions of customers,” HR director for Group Technology & Customer Solutions, Eimear Harty said. “Banking is changing fast, it’s exciting, and these new positions will be at the forefront of advances in the sector.”

The staffing decision comes in the wake of the bank’s recruitment of 230 technology specialists since 2021. The Bank of Ireland was fined $26 million (€24.5 million) by the country’s central bank over IT deficiencies that took the Bank of Ireland more than 10 years to fix.

Taxback International Teams up with WTS Global on VAT Compliance

Irish VAT compliance specialist Taxback International (TBI) has forged a strategic partnership with global tax practice WTS Global. The company will leverage TBI’s Comply platform to power its VAT compliance services around the world. Comply will give WTS Global a supported and configurable compliance platform that uses complex, country-specific rules to keep businesses compliant when operating in different – and changing – markets and regulatory regimes. In addition to using Comply to power its VAT compliance service around the world, WTS Global will also promote the technology in its global partner network.

Taxback International CEO Karl Nolan called the partnership “a great endorsement for Irish fintech” and a testament to both the “talent and vision” in Ireland’s fintech industry. Founded in 1996, Taxback International is headquartered in Kilkenny. The company enables the real-time processing of more than 10 billion transactions across 180 countries. With “almost all” of the Fortune 500 among its clientele, Taxback International supports more than 12,000 customers in 129 countries.

A Look at the Rise of Northern Ireland’s Fintech Industry

Our sister publication, Fintech Futures, published a special feature on fintech in Ireland earlier this week. Sponsored by Invest Northern Ireland, the article discusses the way the region became a global hub for technology and financial services innovation in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The article also notes that the capital of Northern Ireland, Belfast, was “named a top three fintech location for the future” by the Financial Times in its 2019 Foreign Direct Investment Markets report.

“Today, there are roughly 46,000 people employed in the financial and related professional sectors in Northern Ireland,” the article noted. “In fact, Northern Ireland has the highest concentration of fintech employment in all of the United Kingdom.”

Read the rest.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Bank of Israel issued a framework to enable international payments firms to use its payment network.
  • Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) announced a partnership with anti-financial crime compliance company Napier.
  • Codebase Technologies teamed up with enterprise information technology company Saudi Business Machines.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian fintech CRED introduced both a Buy Now, Pay Later service and a Tap to Pay feature.
  • Yubi became the first fintech to offer an indigenous open source language model for Indian fintechs.
  • India-based BaaS platform Mintoak secured $20 million in Series A funding.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Thanks to an approval from Brazil’s central bank, Brazilians can now use WhatsApp to pay SMEs in the country.
  • Latin American open finance platform Belvo went live with its payment initiation solution, Bipa, this week.
  • Brazilian fintech Blipay raised $6.7 million.

Asia-Pacific

  • Singapore-based cross-border payments company Tazapay announced a partnership with payments gateway Volt.
  • Vietnamese fintech Gimo that helps workers get on-demand access to earned wages secured $5.1 million in Series A funding..
  • Shanghai Commercial Bank selected Salt Edge to build a bespoke banking experience based on open banking.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • MFS Africa announced a partnership with Western Union.
  • Cryptocurrency infrastructure provider Binance added support for African currencies including the Liberian Dollar, Gambian Dalasi, and Cape Verdean Escudo.
  • ImaliPay inked a deal with Renda to support order fulfillment for SMEs in Africa.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • German regtech Flagright announced a collaboration with Lithuania-based fintech kevin.
  • Tietoevry completed a major systems upgrade for Serbia’s Chip Card.
  • U.K.-based fintech myPOS partnered with Raiffeisen Bank to bring new payment technologies to businesses in Hungary.

Photo by Lukas Kloeppel

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Women Who Demo: Celebrating the Leading Ladies of FinovateEurope 2023

Women Who Demo: Celebrating the Leading Ladies of FinovateEurope 2023
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2023, Speaker series, Women in Fintech

This week starts the official commemoration of Women’s History Month. And with FinovateEurope less than two weeks away, we thought the two occasions provided a great opportunity to showcase some of the women who will take center stage on March 14 at the Intercontinental O2 in London to demo their company’s latest fintech innovation.

  • Ulyana Shtybel, Co-Founder and CEO, Quoroom
  • Mariam Malwand, Manager, New Business, Fyndoo
  • Katalin Kauzli, Co-Founder and Business Development Director, Partner HUB
  • Zehra Cataltepe, CEO and Co-Founder, TAZI AI
  • Nicole Sanders, Product Marketing Manager, 10x Banking
  • Joana Lucas, Sales Development Representative, ebankIT

FinovateEurope starts on March 14 and continues through March 15. Tickets are still available – and early-bird savings end this week. So visit our FinovateEurope hub today and save your spot!

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk

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Natural Language Analytics Innovator SESAMm Locks in $37 Million in New Funding

Natural Language Analytics Innovator SESAMm Locks in $37 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, SESAMm
  • Paris-based natural language analytics data provider SESAMm raised $37 million (€35 million) in Series B2 funding this week.
  • The company will use the investment to grow its workforce and fuel global expansion.
  • A Best of Show winner at FinovateEurope 2022, SESAMm culls billions of web articles and other content to provide organizations and businesses with sentiment and ESG data on public and private companies.

Natural language analytics data provider SESAMm has raised $37 million (€35 million) in Series B2 funding. The investment will help accelerate the Paris, France-based company’s growth and plans for global expansion. SESAMm also will use the capital to add to its workforce in sustainability, technology, sales, and marketing.

“We are happy and grateful to close this €35 million Series B2 round to continue our growth journey and expand to new international markets such as Singapore,” SESAMm CEO and co-founder Sylvain Forté said. “Raising a significant amount during challenging market conditions highlights the relevancy of SESAMm’s focus on two key trends: AI and sustainability. In turn, these tools enable organizations to make better decisions and fill the data gaps, particularly in ESG, on both public and private companies.”

SESAMm’s funding comes almost a year after it won Best of Show at FinovateEurope in London for the live demo its TextReveal solution. Powered by SESAMm’s natural language processing engine, the platform analyzes over 20 billion web articles and messages to deliver daily sentiment and ESG data. The company serves top private equity firms, hedge funds, and other asset management companies, as well as both small and large corporations, with services ranging from controversy detection and private equity due diligence to ESG and SDG sentiment scores and suppliers monitoring.

This week’s round was co-led by deep tech VC firm Elaia and BNP Paribas’ venture capital arm, Opera Tech Ventures. The funding takes SESAMm’s total equity funding to $53 million (€50 million). Also participating were asset manager Unigestion, Raiffeisen Bank International’s venture capital arm Elevator Ventures, AFG Partners, and CEGEE Capital. Investors in SESAMm’s previous Series B1 round, including Carlyle and New Alpha Asset Management, also participated.

Founded in 2014, SESAMm finished last year as the recipient of the Real Deals ESG Tech Award, which recognizes both demonstrated customer and revenue growth, as well as the impact of the recipient’s work on businesses and clients. In November, SESAMm announced a partnership with EthiFinance to help the European risk analysis and ESG rating specialist launch its EthiMonitor solution. The technology provides ESG controversy analysis “for any SME universe.” Also late last year, SESAMm teamed up with South Korea-based Kyobo AXA Investment Managers to develop machine learning models based on SESAMm’s NLP alternative data.

Photo by Pixabay

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BankProv Partners with Intelligent Cash Management Platform MaxMyInterest

BankProv Partners with Intelligent Cash Management Platform MaxMyInterest
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, MaxMyInterest
  • Massachusetts-based BankProv has inked a partnership with cash management platform MaxMyInterest to offer BankProv Max Savings, a new high-interest savings account.
  • No minimum balance is required to open the account, which is available exclusively on the MaxMyInterest platform.
  • MaxMyInterest users can earn up to 4.55% APY on their cash deposits compared to the national savings average of 0.35%.

Future-ready commercial bank BankProv has teamed up with intelligent cash management platform MaxMyInterest. The partnership will give customers and clients of both companies access to a new, high-interest savings account, BankProv Max Savings. The new account will be offered exclusively on the MaxMyInterest platform. No minimum balance will be required to open the account.

“From quickly opening an account to maximizing returns on deposit balances, the BankProv Max Savings account on the MaxMyInterest platform will further enhance the banking experience for our clients,” BankProv co-CEO Joe Reilly said. “We believe our partnership with Max will provide benefits as more consumers continue to seek digital banking options and keep a closer eye on interest rates.”

Additionally, courtesy of the BankProv partnership, the deposits to the new account will be 100% insured. The FDIC covers the first $250,000, and remaining funds will be covered under a special private, industry-sponsored insurance fund called DIF.

Headquartered in New York and founded in 2013, the company has nearly 1,500 wealth management firms registered to use the MaxMyInterest platform with their clients. Max’s platform enables clients to allocate their cash holdings to the highest yielding accounts without having to change their existing bank relationship. The technology determines the optimal allocation of the client’s cash balances on a monthly basis, enabling customers to earn up to 4.55% APY on FDIC-insured deposits versus the national savings average of 0.35%. Max also offers embedded finance solutions that empower financial services companies to offer Max’s intelligent cash management technology from their own websites.

“We are proud to partner with BankProv, an innovative bank that has a long history of serving clients in Massachusetts and across the country,” MaxMyInterest founder and CEO Gary Zimmerman said. “Together with BankProv, we can help clients ensure that all of their funds remain fully-insured, while earning market-leading rates.”

Massachusetts-based BankProv is a commercial bank that provides Banking-as-a-Service and technology-based solutions for corporate clients. The 10th oldest bank in the U.S., BankProv is a subsidiary of Provident Bancorp, which trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker PVBC. In December, BankProv announced that Carol Houle, who had been serving as CFO, and Reilly, who had been serving as Board Chair, had been named co-CEOs and co-Presidents.

MaxMyInterest made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. More recently, the company has announced integrations with modern CRM platforms Wealthbox and Redtail Technology, as well as with Morningstar and fellow Finovate alum Envestnet. Last fall, the company appointed Ateet Adhikari as Chief Operating Officer. Adhikari was previously the COO of ShopRunner, which was acquired by FedEx in 2020. In a statement Adhikari praised MaxMyInterest as having created “the most innovative solution in the market in a way that helps depositors, wealth managers, and banks.”

Photo by RODNAE Productions

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CoreLogic Acquires Digital Mortgage Platform Roostify

CoreLogic Acquires Digital Mortgage Platform Roostify
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Roostify

Almost a decade after the company made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring, digital mortgage platform Roostify has agreed to be acquired by property information, analytics, and data-enabled solutions provider CoreLogic. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We believe that this is an important transaction for the industry,” Roostify co-founder and CEO Rajesh Bhat said. “From inception, Roostify’s mission has been to accelerate and streamline the home lending journey. Bringing together the power of CoreLogic’s data and analytics suite with the Roostify digital lending platform allows us to accelerate the journey towards a truly data driven digital origination experience in one single platform.”

The integration of the two technologies will help clients secure key data about both borrowers and properties at the beginning of the lending process. This not only saves time and money, but the transparency also helps ensure that lenders receive the information they need as early as possible – before processing and underwriting – in order to minimize errors and make loan conditions clear to all parties. The result is an improved customer experience with less processing and lower underwriting expenses.

Founded in 2012, Roostify currently helps home lenders process more than $50 billion in loans every month. With clients ranging from TD Bank and Santander to CIS Home Loans and First American Mortgage Solutions, Roostify helps lenders close more loans, improve margins, increase the ability to scale their operations, and maximize customer satisfaction. The San Francisco, California-based company offers a 45% decrease in time to close for a customer within 90 days of go-live, an application submission rate of 85%, and only 14 days on average between submission and delivery to underwriting.

“We sit on an incredible amount of data, analytics, and essential workflow solutions that when properly integrated to the loan lifecycle, can deliver a better mortgage experience for borrowers as well as lenders,” CoreLogic President of Mortgage Solutions Jay Kingsley said. “The Roostify acquisition will unlock our ability to quickly execute on this mission.”

Roostify has raised $65 million in total equity funding, securing investments from Mouro Capital, Cota Capital, and USAA among others. Ten Coves Capital led Roostify’s most recent fundraising, a $32 million Series C round in January 2021. Dan Kittredge, Managing Partner at Ten Coves Capital praised Roostify as “well-positioned to accelerate the digitalization of home lending infrastructure,” especially given the fact that “the mortgage lending industry has been relatively slow to embrace digital technologies.” Kittredge added, “the opportunity to re-design the future of home lending through technology cannot be overstated.”

Photo by Pixabay

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Payment Intelligence Company Pagos Locks in $34 Million in New Funding

Payment Intelligence Company Pagos Locks in $34 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Payment intelligence company Pagos has raised $34 million in Series A funding.
  • The capital, which takes the company’s total equity funding to $44 million, will be used to expand the company’s engineering team and advance Pagos’ enterprise product suite.
  • Pagos was founded in 2021 by veterans of Braintree, Venmo, PayPal, Stripe, eBanx, Klarna, and Apple.

In a round led by Arbor Ventures, payment intelligence company Pagos has secured $34 million in Series A funding. The oversubscribed round also featured participation from Point 72 Ventures, Infinity Ventures, and Underscore VC. The investment will enable the company to grow its engineering team and advance Pago’s enterprise product suite.

“Our platform helps companies understand and act on the data that already exists within their payments environment, allowing them to better support changing consumer behavior and demands, reduce their operating costs, increase their revenue, and mitigate unnecessary customer friction — all without having to change their current payments infrastructure,” Pagos co-founder and CEO Klas Bäck explained in a statement.

Pagos’ total funding now stands at $44 million, according to Crunchbase. The Wilmington, Delaware-based company raised $10 million in seed funding in October 2021.

Many of the largest online brands in the world – including Adobe, GoFundMe, and Eventbrite – rely on Pagos’ platform. The company’s technology analyzes more than one billion transactions a year, providing real-time payment transaction monitoring to help companies detect potential issues, trends, and opportunities – all without having to change their existing payment stack. Via solutions like Peacock, Pagos provides businesses with a dashboard that provides full visibility into payments data across vendors, channels, and markets. This enables them to build a flywheel of payments optimization which leads to improved customer conversions and identification of optimal payment methods, as well as the ability to conduct A/B testing and more.

“Payment processing is fundamental to customer relationships, revenue, and a business’s bottom line, but most companies don’t have the data, knowledge, or tools to develop and execute on a best-in-class payments performance strategy,” Bäck said. “Even the small number of companies that do have those resources are leaving money on the table.”

Founded in 2021 by former Braintree, Venmo, PayPal, Stripe, eBanx, Klarna, and Apple veterans, Pagos began 2023 with news that the company had crossed the one billion transaction events threshold for the first time.

Photo by NAUSHIL | SKYHAWK. ASIA

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eToro Teams Up with Sentifi to Launch Social Sentiment Portfolio

eToro Teams Up with Sentifi to Launch Social Sentiment Portfolio
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, eToro, Sentifi
  • eToro launched its SocialSentiment portfolio of stocks with high ESG and social sentiment criteria this week.
  • The new offering was made possible courtesy of a partnership with alternative data provider – and fellow Finovate alum – Sentifi.
  • Sentifi’s technology analyzes more than 500 million tweet – and two million news articles, forums, and blog – in order to create its social sentiment rating (sentScore) for positive social chatter.

eToro has unveiled a new solution for investors looking for exposure to U.S. companies with strong ESG performance. The social investing network has teamed up with alternative data provider Sentifi to launch SocialSentiment, a new portfolio offering that features the top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 that meet ESG and social sentiment criteria. Rebalanced monthly, the initial roster of stocks in the SocialSentiment portfolio are: Verisign, Teradyne, Northern Trust, Mid-America Apartment Communities, Intuitive Surgical, Fifth Third Bancorp, F5 Networks, Equity Residential, Dollar Tree, and Allstate.

‘With this portfolio, we aim to offer retail investors exposure to stocks that are being discussed in a positive light on social and digital channels, adding an extra layer of insights,” eToro Head of Investment Portfolios Dani Brinker said. “We look forward to partnering with the Sentifi team, and working together to harness the power of social networks.”

Sentifi made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia in Hong Kong in 2016, and returned to the Finovate stage a year later for FinovateEurope in London. The company’s AI-enabled technology analyzes more than 5,000 stocks, currencies, commodities, and indices – as well as passive and active mutual funds. Sentifi combines market metrics with social sentiment (sentScore) and an ESG score to create a roster of stocks that have both high ESG credentials and positive social chatter and awareness. Sentifi builds its sentScores by analyzing more than 500 million tweets, as well as two million news articles, forums, and blogs.

“The events over the past several years relating to the meme stock rallies are evidence of how the herd can change direction, and where these changes happen, which is largely in social networks and forums,” Sentifi CEO Marina Goche said. “Social networks, news, blogs, and forums are also a valuable source of changing risk for asset classes and offer dynamic views on ESG performance appreciation and degradation for companies globally — essential for constructing portfolios that outperform a benchmark.”

Investors can buy into the SocialSentiment portfolio with as little as $500. Investors can access tools and charts to track the portfolio’s performance, as well as monitor eToro’s social feed to stay up-to-date on developments in the sector. At this time, the portfolio is not available to investors in the U.S.

eToro’s SocialSentiment portfolio is the latest addition to the company’s suite of Smart Portfolios that give investors exposure to a variety of market themes. The portfolios are for long-term investments, feature unique investment strategies, are curated by eToro analysts, and give investors a way to gain exposure to a diverse range of major market trends without having to pay portfolio management fees.

Founded in 2007, eToro has more than 30 million registered users on its social investing network. Among Finovate’s earliest alums, the company won Best of Show in its debut at FinovateEurope in 2011.

Photo by Leeloo Thefirst

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Finovate Global Canada: Paytech M&A, Mobile Top-Ups, and New Rules for Crypto Exchanges

Finovate Global Canada: Paytech M&A, Mobile Top-Ups, and New Rules for Crypto Exchanges
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, ThetaRay, Western Union

Canada Inks New Guidelines for Crypto Exchanges

In the wake of the FTX scandal and the so-called “crypto winter,” the Canadian Securities Administration (CSA) has issued a set of new regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges. The new guidelines involve both commitments to investor protection as well as a registration mandate. The mandate requires “crypto asset trading platforms” (CTPs) operating in Canada to provide a pre-registration commitment to Canada’s security regulators within 30 days – and begin a full registration process. Announced this week, CTPs in Canada will have until late March to comply. Those institutions that do not comply will not be allowed to legally serve Canadian clients. The regulations also institute a significant crackdown on the trading of stablecoins. Defined as “securities and/or derivatives” by the CSA in 2022, these digital assets can no longer be purchased or stored on cryptocurrency exchanges without written permission from the CSA.

“Recent insolvencies involving several crypto asset trading platforms highlight the tremendous risks associated with trading crypto assets, particularly when conducted on unregistered platforms based outside of Canada,” CSA Chair and Chair and CEO of the Alberta Securities Commission Stan Magidson said.

The new rules will undoubtedly make life tougher for cryptocurrency exchanges in the near-term. Nevertheless, the new regulations may provide more room for these businesses to operate than it may seem at first glance. From the multi-part registration process to the ability to secure permission to offer stablecoins, it seems clear that Canadian regulators are taking a relatively cautious approach to correcting the course of cryptocurrencies in the Great White North.

Ding and Western Union Bring Mobile Top-Up to Canadian Customers

The international mobile top-up platform Ding has teamed up with one of the leaders in the money transfer business. Ding has reached an agreement with Western Union that will enable customers in Canada to send international top-up payments to the mobile phones of more than five billion prepaid customers worldwide.

“We are thrilled to be teaming with one of the largest money transfer operations in the world,” Ding Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Rockett said. “The launch of Ding Checkout with Western Union will give consumers access to a complimentary service which they can use to support their friends and families around the globe. We are excited to unveil our capabilities as a digital value transfer platform and drive growth in both new and existing customers for Western Union.”

The partnership between Ding and Western Union will launch in Canada first. The partnership will give Western Union customers access to Ding’s network of more than 600 mobile operators across 140+ countries, covering 95% of the world’s population. The collaboration also gives Western Union customers a new way to add minutes and data quickly to their mobile plans.

Nuvei Completes $1.3 Billion Acquisition of Paya

At the beginning of the year, Canadian paytech Nuvei announced that it had agreed to acquire U.S. integrated payments and commerce solutions provider Paya for $1.3 billion. This week, Nuvei reported that the transaction has been completed.

“This is an important milestone for Nuvei as we continue to build a preeminent payment technology provider with strong positions in global eCommerce, Integrated Payments, and B2B,” Nuvei Chair and CEO Philip Fayer said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to officially welcome our new colleagues form Paya to the Nuvei family. We have been working diligently on our integration planning, and we are ready to begin the next step on this exciting journey as a single, unified team.”

Paya processed $50 billion in annual payment volume in 2022, with much of that amount coming from companies in verticals such as healthcare, non-profit, government, utilities, and other B2B end markets. Nuvei paid $9.75 per share for the NASDAQ-listed company, which went public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) FinTech Acquisition Corp III in 2020.

Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Nuvei was founded in 2003. The company also made headlines this year in forging new partnerships with enterprise digital commerce platform VTEX, Colombian payment processor Redeban, and online business marketplace platform Le Panier Bleu.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Swiss software firm Netcetera acquired Slovenian mobile app and digital identity development company Kamino.
  • Saldo Bank launched in Lithuania.
  • Germany-based business financial management (BFM) company finway secured $10 million (€9.2 million) in Series A funding.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Remittance processor Remitly went live with its outbound remittance solution in the UAE.
  • Morocco-based fintech Gwala raised pre-seed funding to support its on-demand payment solution for employees and employers. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.
  • Saudi Arabia-based fintech Hala acquired UAE payments company Paymennt.com – previously known as PointCheckout.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India-based banking-as-a-service platform Decentro launched in Singapore this week.
  • Pakistani digital lending platform AdalFi announced a $7.5 million investment led by UAE-based COTU Ventures, Chimera Ventures, Pakistan-based Fatima Gobi Ventures, and Zayn Capital.
  • Indian payments solution provider PayU launched its 3D Secure 2.0 SDK.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Mexican mobile banking app Tudi selected ThetaRay as its AML/transaction monitoring partner.
  • Brazil-based fintech Celcoin announced its $16.3 million acquisition of open finance company Finansystech.
  • Refresh Miami interviewed Juan Pablo Jiménez, Chief Sales Officer of Ecuador’s first unicorn, Kushki.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South African mobility fintech company, Planet42, raised $100 million in combined equity, debt, and a credit facility.
  • WorldStage profiled Nigeria-based Islamic fintech startup HalalVest.
  • Kenya-based micro-lender Power Financial Wellness secured $3 million in seed funding.

Photo by Andre Furtado

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BMO Teams Up with Agent IQ to Enhance Digital Customer Engagement

BMO Teams Up with Agent IQ to Enhance Digital Customer Engagement
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Agent IQ, Alumni News, Daily news
  • BMO has partnered with digital customer engagement solutions company Agent IQ.
  • The bank will deploy Agent IQ’s Lynq secure chat platform to enable customers to easily access both AI chatbots and human bankers.
  • Agent IQ most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall in New York last September.

BMO announced a partnership with digital customer engagement solutions provider Agent IQ this week. Courtesy of the collaboration, BMO will deploy Agent IQ’s secure chat platform Lynq, which enables customers to engage bankers in real-time, blending human-centered customer service with the efficiency of computer intelligence. The technology gives customers the ability to query a chatbot to answer basic account and banking-related questions, while maintaining the option to readily access a banker for a one-on-one conversation.

“With Agent IQ’s Lynq, BMO customers can engage a banker for all their financial needs across any digital channel, making digital banking easier and quicker than ever before,” Agent IQ co-founder and CEO Slaven Bilac said.

Lynq offers 24/7 chatbot support as well as direct video communication with a banker, including screen sharing. Answers to frequently asked questions are available instantly, and customers can connect to human bankers both during and outside of office hours. BMO Head of U.S. Digital Channels Brianna Elsass said that the partnership was an “example of BMO’s Digital First strategy” to provide future-ready solutions that deliver “loyalty, growth, and efficiency” for customers.

Left to right: Agent IQ COO Soren Bested and CMO Matt Phipps demoing Lynq at FinovateFall 2022.

With total assets of $1.14 trillion as of October 2022, BMO is the eighth largest bank by assets in North America. Operating via three primary groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, BMO Wealth Management, and BMO Capital markets, the financial services provider offers a range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management, and investment products and solutions to its 12 million customers.

Agent IQ made its Finovate debut in 2019 at FinovateSpring and most recently demoed its technology live at FinovateFall in New York last fall. At the conference, the San Francisco, California-based company demoed its Lynq platform, which leverages augmented intelligence to help bankers better connect with, engage, and support banking customers. “Put simply, Aqent IQ makes personal digital engagement simple,” company CMO Matt Phipps explained from the Finovate stage back in September. “We make it easy for you, and easy for your customers.”

Agent IQ has raised $18.5 million in funding from investors including Acronym Venture Capital and Mendon Venture Partners. The company was founded in 2015.

Photo by Anete Lusina

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Six “Can’t Miss” Features of FinovateEurope Next Month

Six “Can’t Miss” Features of FinovateEurope Next Month
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2023, List series

There are plenty of reasons why FinovateEurope 2023 next month will be one of the year’s biggest fintech events. With just over a week left to take advantage of early-bird savings on your FinovateEurope ticket, we thought we’d share a handful of our favorite reasons why we hope to see you in London, March 14 and 15.

New Keynote Speakers!

FinovateEurope 2023 will feature the return of many of our favorite keynote speakers. But this year’s event will also showcase a number of newcomers. At the top of the list is Leda Glyptis, veteran banking professional and author of the book Bankers Like Us. With a mainstage keynote on Day One of FinovateEurope titled “The Problem with Digital Transformation Is You,” Glyptis will examine the key role that financial services professionals play in helping – or hindering – the process of digital transformation in their own businesses and institutions.

Also making their Finovate debuts as keynote speakers at FinovateEurope are John C. Hulsman, President and Managing Partner, John C. Hulsman Enterprises, who will speak on the global economy; and Adam Lowe, Chief Product & Innovation Officer, Arculus by CompoSecure, who will discuss securing digital platforms and optimizing the customer experience.

FinovateEurope will also present a series of Quick Fire Keynotes. Leading these 10-minute presentations are Matt Bullivant, Director of ESG Strategy, OakNorth, who will speak about climate change, ESG, and financial services; Martin Hyde, EMEA Payment Partnerships Lead, J.P. Morgan Payments, who will talk about the power of embedded payments in financial services; and Dhaksha Vivekanandan, founder of Daylight Robbery, who will discuss bitcoin and the relationship between traditional and decentralized finance.

New Demoing Companies!

Of the 30 fintech innovators demoing their latest solutions live on stage next month, nearly half will be making their Finovate debuts. Representing countries as diverse as Scotland, Austria, Estonia, India, Switzerland, Israel, Sweden, and Bulgaria – as well as the U.S. and U.K. – these newcomers include:

Pre-Funk for FIs

The official name of the session is “Pre-Event Briefing for Financial Institutions.” But we know a pre-funk when we see one! On March 13 – “FinovateEurope Eve” if you will – we are hosting a special, invite-only occasion featuring expert insights into top fintech trends, a special address, and a fireside chat with keynote speaker, Steven Van Belleghem. We’ll top off the evening with drinks and networking to allow attendees to spend quality time with fellow professionals from banks and other financial institutions.

Alumni Alley: How the Best Have Won

Alumni Alley is our opportunity to showcase some of the biggest brands in fintech that have demoed their innovations live on the Finovate stage. For our upcoming conference next month, the focus will be on FinovateEurope alums. Check out our coverage of some of FinovateEurope’s most storied alums.

If you’re working with a bank, an established fintech innovator, or a bold, new startup, Alumni Alley is a unique chance to gain insights and ideas that can help you grow your organization, improve partner relationships, and take your business to the next level.

“If You Start Me Up”: Finovate’s Startup Booster Program

Our Startup Booster program is designed to enable early-stage startups to take advantage of the full Finovate experience – at a price point appropriate for their early-stage status. Held on March 15, participants in our Startup Booster Program will hear from successful founders about partnership strategies, insights into the investment process, tips on how to land your first bank customer, and more.

Following the presentations, startups will have two hours of networking time with investors from across the U.K. and Europe.

What’s Hot? What’s Not? The GameShow!

Think you know what’s hot and what’s not among fintech’s competing trends and passions? Join us for our special event – What’s Hot? What’s Not? The Gameshow! – where we’ll pit veteran fintech analysts and insiders against the wisdom of the crowd to find out who really knows where fintech is headed!

Our unique gameshow format – in which you the audience get to play judge and jury – will bring a little lighthearted fun to the discussion of fintech trends, and add a little healthy competition to the endless debate: HOT? Or NOT!

Early-bird savings for FinovateEurope end on March 3rd. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today and save your spot!

Photo by John-Mark Smith

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