This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
“We are thrilled to have been selected for this prestigious opportunity to collaborate with the FCA on driving innovation in financial services,” NayaOne CEO Karan Jain said. “We believe that our digital transformation platform and synthetic data technology will be a valuable asset in helping fintech companies to develop and test their products more efficiently and effectively.”
The FCA’s decision comes in the wake of a pair of pilot projects, in 2020 and again in 2022. The initiatives gave startups access to synthetic and publicly available data in order to test and develop their solutions. The FCA announced that it would make the digital sandbox permanent in the summer of 2023. NayaOne has built a business of creating digital sandboxes for financial institutions, such as Lloyds Banking Group and FinTech North. And it is this experience – according to FCA Chief Data, Information, and Intelligence Officer Jessica Rusu – that makes the company well-positioned to help the FCA fulfill its goal of “promoting solutions to complex regulatory challenges like APP fraud, greenwashing, and scam detection.”
NayaOne demoed its Digital Sandbox in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope. The company’s platform helps make innovation, integration, and partnership an easier – and faster – process for banks. NayaOne offers single key access to more than 200 technology vendors; a secure, digital sandbox environment; and 2.5 billion data points to support tech evaluation. The company reports that it has enabled banks to accelerate their proof-of-concept timeline from 12 months to only two months. This saves banks up to 80% in costs and significantly increases productivity.
NayaOne’s Digital Sandbox announcement comes as the company reports that Bambuis now available via the NayaOne Marketplace. Bambu is a Singapore-based B2B roboadvisor and fellow Finovate alum. A three-time Best of Show winner, the company most recently demoed at FinovateFall in 2021. “We recognize NayaOne’s commitment to enable banks and financial institutions to take advantage of revolutionary innovations in financial technology by bringing banks and fintechs together for innovation,” Bambu founder and CEO Ned Phillips said. “As a wealth technology provider, we at Bambu want to bring our award-winning financial solutions to the forefront, and we look forward to doing so on the NayaOne Digital Transformation Platform.”
RightCapital launched its new data visualization tool, Cash Flow Maps, this week.
The new offering provides intuitive data visuals to illustrate cash inflows and outflows in financial plans.
Headquartered in Connecticut, RightCapital most recently demoed its technology at FinovateSpring in 2019.
Seeing is believing. And RightCapital is betting that its new Cash Flow Maps will make it easier for financial advisors to collaborate with their clients. The latest addition to RightCapital’s data visualization tools, Cash Flow Maps offers intuitive data visuals to illustrate cash inflows and outflows in financial plans.
“RightCapital has built its reputation on listening to advisor feedback and adding new product features at a fast clip,” co-founder and CEO of RightCapital Shuang Chen said. “The Cash Flow Maps are a good example of that.”
Cash Flow Maps present data in two different formats. The “Waterfall” format is a horizontal Sankey chart in which cash inflows and outflows move from left to right. The “Breakdown” format is a vertical flow chart that allows users to click on each item for greater detail. The new offering is available now to all RightCapital subscribers at all subscription levels. Cash Flow Maps leverage Sankey charting, which emphasizes transfers or flows within a system. Famous examples of early Sankey charts include a visualization of Napolean’s 1812 Russian Campaign created in 1869. Another famous example was the illustration of the efficiency of a steam engine back in 1898.
“My first experience seeing Sankey cash flow charts used in financial planning was in what I called the ‘Beautiful Financial Plan’ that Mike Zung, CFP, created,” Michael Kitces said. Kitces is publisher of The Kitces Report and the financial advisory industry blog, Nerd’s Eye View. “Now that RightCapital has released this new feature that automatically creates cash flow maps, the entire community of advisors can use them in their financial plans with ease,” he added.
Founded in 2015, RightCapital made its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateFall. The Shelton, Connecticut-based fintech last demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateSpring 2019. RightCapital also offers Snapshot, which summarizes financial planning charts and notes into a single personalized document. The company’s Blueprint solution helps organize household financial data and goals using interactive, intuitive visuals.
Omnichannel card and payment platform Qolo has partnered with KeyBank.
Via the partnership, Qolo will power KeyBank’s payment solutions and virtual accounts.
Based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in September 2022.
KeyBank has selected omnichannel card and payment platform Qolo to power its API-based payment solutions and virtual accounts. The partnership will enable KeyBank customers to create advanced virtual accounts instantly. Customers also will be able to connect seamlessly to other payment modalities such as real-time payments, ACH, and wire transfers.
“Qolo’s partnership with KeyBank will bring our leading card issuing, omnichannel payments, and flexible virtual accounts to more fintechs and businesses looking to quickly launch and scale revenue-generating digital banking services,” Qolo co-founder and CEO Patricia Montesi said. “We are excited to power this intrinsic component of KeyBank’s next-generation digital offering.”
Qolo enables banks to leverage advanced digital payments functionality without having to replace their core systems. Via a single API, Qolo offers direct access to all payment rails and account types. The company’s technology also provides program management, processing, platform licensing and more. Qolo made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall last September, where it demoed its Companion Core solution.
Head of Commercial Product and Innovation at KeyBank Jon Briggs praised Qolo for its “shared commitment” to helping businesses access innovative new solutions to better serve their customers. “The integration of Qolo into KeyBank’s API is another proof point in our embedded banking strategy, allowing clients to streamline and scale their strategies by utilizing our digital payment tools to power innovation in their platforms.”
Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo was founded in 2018. The company’s partnership announcement with KeyBank follows recent news that Qolo was working with global payouts firm PayQuicker. The collaboration will enable Qolo to provide unified disbursement services to PayQuicker and its customers. Qolo began the year celebrating a major milestone: processing more than $1 billion in total payouts in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Qolo has raised $19 million in equity funding. The company’s most recent fundraising was in August of 2021 when it secured $15 million in a Series A round led by The Raptor Group.
In this week’s edition of Finovate Global, we feature Uri Rivner, co-founder and CEO of Refine Intelligence. The Tel Aviv, Israel-based company, founded in 2022, made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope. At the conference, Refine Intelligence demoed its technology, Life Story Analytics, that leverages AI to help banks better defend themselves against money laundering.
We discussed the challenge of fighting financial crime, the innovations that Refine Intelligence brings to the market, and the relationship between upstarts and incumbents in Israel’s dynamic, fintech and financial services ecosystem.
What problem does Refine Intelligence solve and who does it solve it for?
Uri Rivner: If you’re a bank, your AML Operations team is massive, and needs to grow every year to cope with growing alert volume. But the team can have a pretty frustrating daily routine, as almost all the alerts they’re investigating end up being totally legit activities done by the customer.
Take an account that did a large wire transfer to Mexico for the first time. The AML Transaction Monitoring is screaming like a banshee – maybe there’s money laundering here? But after investigating, the team finds out the customer just has a daughter studying in Mexico, and this was to pay her tuition.
Years ago banks knew these life stories, because everything was done at the branch. But now with digital transformation, banks have lost that superpower.
At Refine intelligence, our mission is to help banks regain that superpower of really knowing their customers’ life stories, so their financial crime teams can quickly clear AML or scam alerts triggered by legitimate customer activity. We work with Risk, Financial Crime, BSA and AML teams. Fraud teams look at our technology to help with scam operations.
How does Refine Intelligence solve this problem better than other companies?
Rivner: Refine Intelligence takes a unique approach for fighting Financial Crime – we call it ‘Catching the Good Guys.’
Think of someone who got married and now deposits a large amount of cash from wedding gifts. Or a couple withdrawing cash in order to pay for a big renovation project. Think of people starting a new cash-intensive job, or depositing money from a fundraiser. These are all legitimate activities that look abnormal, triggering transaction monitoring alerts.
Refine discovers these sort of “life stories,” i.e. legit customer activities behind a flagged anomaly. There are two ways to do that:
The first is to ask the customer and Refine provides that capability through our Digital User Outreach which allows a bank to reach out to customers automatically and collect their explanation within minutes.
The second way is to train AI to recognize the life story behind an anomaly, without reaching out to the customer. Our Life Story Analytics does that, and the training uses our unique, proprietary data set of genuine explanations.
The outcome: clear, fast evidence that helps AML teams clear away falsely flagged anomalies by identifying the legitimate customer activity behind them.
Who are Refine Intelligence’s primary customers? How do you reach them?
Rivner: We work with large to mid-sized banks who operate a big team of investigators to look into AML alerts. Refine helps those banks reduce their operational effort significantly without making any change in the Transaction Monitoring system.
Our founders and senior management team have been working with financial crime units for decades, and we expand our reach via participating in events such as Finovate, as well as our own virtual events.
Can you tell us about a favorite implementation or deployment of your technology?
Rivner: A Top 50 bank in the U.S. deployed Refine Intelligence to handle customer outreach for AML. Before using Refine, the AML team approached the branch when they couldn’t find a good explanation to a flagged anomaly. The branch tried calling customers, leaving messages and chasing them for answers. A district manager described the situation as “we are the punching bag of the AML team.”
After the bank started working with Refine, it became clear why the existing RFI (Request for Information) process was driving everyone crazy. The average time to complete a customer outreach was 16 days with 3.6 back-and-forth emails between the AML team and the branch, as initial responses were often insufficient. The process consumed resources that were better used elsewhere.
Refine Digital User Outreach automated the process by messaging customers through digital channels. Response time was cut from two weeks to two minutes, completely changing the game for the Operations team who could work on alerts without interruption, receiving quality responses. With an 85% answer rate, the digital process outperformed manual outreach. Data collected was structured and allowed analysis and benchmarking, and soon most RFIs (Requests for Information) turned digital using the Refine system. The AML team loves the new approach.
What in your background gave you the confidence to respond to this challenge?
Rivner: I’ve been fighting online fraud for 20 years in Cyota, RSA and BioCatch – which I co-founded. This helped me take an outside look at the way AML was operating and realize that the current paradigm isn’t sustainable.
Online fraud detection benefits from context-rich signals that go well beyond transaction monitoring, device analysis, geo-location or behavioral biometrics. These signals feed into AI that is trained using a huge pool of fraud cases, as victims report fraud in their bank account. But no one reports money laundering in their own account, and when a bank files a Suspicious Activity Report, they never get feedback from authorities. You can’t train AI to recognize bad guys without feedback, so the industry had to revert to anomaly detection.
You can get more and more efficient in anomaly detection, but at the end of the day most of what you find is irregular activity in good people’s accounts. Any improvement in detecting bad guys is doomed to be marginal. And that’s not good – the industry needs a game changer…
This brought the insight of reversing the focus, to “Catching the good guys,” that is, detecting the legit activities that were falsely flagged as anomalies.
What is the fintech industry like in Israel? What is the relationship between fintech startups and the country’s established financial services sector?
Rivner: Israel, widely known as the ‘start up nation,’ is a powerhouse of cyber, fintech and financial crime fighting. Many market-shaping startups grew up in Israel: Cyota, now RSA Outseer, was first to introduce risk-based authentication using device and geo-location analysis. IBM Trusteer was first to launch an anti-Trojan tech. BioCatch was first to leverage behavioral biometrics for online fraud and scam detection. Forter and Riskified pioneered the chargeback guarantee market in eCommerce, Simplex did the same in crypto, and DoubleVerify prevents fraud in the digital advertising market. The largest global player in AML is Nice Actimize, and companies like EverC and ThetaRay help acquiring banks and payment providers manage financial crime risks. This might explain why there’s a vibrant community of fraud fighters in Tel Aviv.
Interestingly enough, the local Israeli market has never been a big target for those innovators. Most Israeli Fintech startups work directly with global design partners, who recognize the disruptive, out-of-the-box thinking behind their technology.
You recently demoed your technology at FinovateEurope. What was that experience like?
Rivner: Demoing at FinovateEurope was fantastic! We were thrilled to have the opportunity to demo together with so many other innovative fintech companies, and to meet with banks that are looking to incorporate innovative technologies into their operations. The experience was very TED-like, professional, and the vibe was exciting.
What are your goals for Refine Intelligence? What can we expect from the company over the balance of 2023?
Rivner: Everyone we talk to is very excited about what Refine is doing. When showing our Digital Outreach capabilities, AML teams come up with so many ways to use it effectively – from automating requests of information for resolving transaction monitoring alerts to helping the line of business with Enhanced Due Diligence and Cash Structuring education. Fraud teams are particularly interested in digital outreach to potential scam victims, and it is a great way to conduct rapid investigations of incoming wire and check deposits.
But the biggest amount of interest is in our other bit of magic – Life Story Analytics. That’s where we train AI to recognize the legit customer activity behind a flagged anomaly, without reaching out to the user. Financial Crime teams are excited about the notion of keeping their AML transaction monitoring or scam detection models as is, despite the high degree of false positives, and letting AI sweep aside the legit customer activities so what’s left are the real unexplained anomalies that might be money laundering or scam victims. That’s going to be a major area of expansion for Refine.
FinovateEurope in London was a veritable bonfire of fireside chats! And now, courtesy of Finovate TV, you can check out many of the conversations we had with leading fintech entrepreneurs and technologists.
Here’s our Fireside Chat conversation with Bianca Zwart, Chief of Staff to the CEO of Dutch neobank bunq. We talked about the innovative fintech’s origins in the wake of the financial crisis, the challenge and opportunity of “borderlessness” in Europe, and bunq’s goal of being the “global neobank for digital nomads and international people and businesses.”
On the origins of bunq
Zwart: We were founded just after the financial crisis of 2008. Our founder and CEO Ali Niknam looked around and he saw a lot of people hurt by what was happening. A lot of his friends couldn’t get a mortgage. They were forced to sell their houses – or they couldn’t get a loan as an entrepreneur. He looked around and he saw that people were just pointing fingers, blaming each other and nobody was actually fixing the problem.
On the uniqueness of bunq’s business model
Zwart: We were completely self-funded by our founder for nearly a decade, which gave us the independence to focus on what we wanted to focus on: building a product that people love to use, to bring a service model back to the banking industry. We were the first to introduce a subscription-based model because we were convinced that if you build a product that people love to use, they are willing to pay a fair price for it. By doing so, your commercial reality is directly linked to user happiness.
On the challenge of Europe’s borderless Millennial and Gen Z consumers
Zwart: We all look at Europe as a continent, but it’s just a mixture of so many different countries. Banking is super personal, super cultural. Consider the difference, for example, between the Netherlands and Germany in terms of how we look at money, how we deal with money payment infrastructure. It’s a completely different ballgame and we want our users to have access to financial services wherever they go without having to worry about that.
Socure partnered with payments company Alacriti to bring identity fraud prevention to instant payments.
The partnership comes as the transition toward instant payments gains steam in the U.S.
Socure most recently demoed its digital identity verification technology at FinovateFall 2017.
Socure and Alacriti have teamed up to bring third-party and synthetic identity fraud prevention to instant payments.
The partnership will enable financial institutions to use end-to-end, turnkey, instant payment solutions with the benefit of integrated fraud prevention. This will benefit FIs using Alacriti’s Cosmos Payments Hub, which enables institutions to offer their customers modern money movement. The partnership also supports Alacriti’s Orbipay AIQ, a cloud-based machine learning-based fraud prevention solution powered by Socure’s Sigma Fraud suite. Orbipay AIQ helps FIs manage the specific fraud and risk challenges that are associated with instant payments. The technology can be used to augment existing fraud detection systems or as a standalone solution. Orbipay AIQ works for both payment rails such as The Clearing House’s RTP network, the FedNow Service, and Visa Direct. The technology is also compatible with more conventional rails like ACH and Wires.
“Our partnership with Alacriti protects financial institutions and their account holders from predatory fraudsters, improving their trust and confidence when making faster payments transactions,” Socure VP of Business Development Evan Rabinowitz said. “The joining of a comprehensive identity verification and fraud prevention platform with the Cosmos Payments Hub helps financial institutions safely deliver payments innovation quickly and with less risk to market.”
Socure made its Finovate debut in 2013 and most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall in 2017. This year, the company teamed up with Okta to bring identity verification products to government IT solutions provider Carahsoft. Also, in March, Socure won “Best Identity Verification Solution” at the FinTech Breakthrough Awards for a second year in a row.
The company has raised more than $741 million in funding. Socure’s investors include T. Rowe Price, Accel, and Capital One Ventures. Last month, Socure announced a $95 million credit facility. J.P. Morgan, Silicon Valley Bank, and KeyBanc Capital Markets provided the financing.
“Socure is in an exceptional position to solve what organizations and government agencies need most today – accurate and inclusive real-time identity verification without costly fraud and friction within the customer experience,” Socure founder and CEO Johnny Ayers said when the credit facility was announced in March. “With this facility further strengthening our balance sheet, Socure is in a tremendous position to leave the recession much stronger than when we went into it while continuing to distance ourselves from the competition through investments in new solutions, verticals, and strategic acquisitions.”
“Throughout our longstanding partnership, exagens has worked with Desjardins to address challenges like improving the financial wellness of their members, up-selling, cross-selling, reducing call center volume, and increasing digital engagement,” exagens President and CEO Michael Stojda said. “This most recent renewal again confirms our steadfast focus on community-based financial institutions, the strong relationship we’ve built with Desjardins and the ongoing value together we’ve provided to both Desjardins and their members over the past 8 years. We look forward to this exciting new chapter in our partnership.”
Desjardins is the largest credit union group in North America, with assets of more than $407 billion. Courtesy of its partnership with exagens, Desjardins has provided its members with contextual, personalized insights into their financial lives. The credit union’s Assistant AccèsD solution leverages exagens’ behavioral banking technology to proactively engage members across the entire digital banking experience. This level of engagement helps members save, spend, borrow, and invest in accordance with their goals. Since embarking on its partnership with exagens, Desjardins has seen 3.4x more savings per year per member, increased digital engagement, and reduced operational costs.
More recently, Desjardins has leveraged its relationship with exagens to address issues ranging from rapid deposit growth to the challenges of the COVID pandemic. Proactive engagement with members, according to Desjardins, also has helped significantly reduce call center volumes.
Founded in 2013, exagens is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The company made its Finovate debut in 2018 at FinovateSpring. Exagens and its solutions have earned recognition and received industry awards from EFMA, Celero, and OCTAS. Exagens was named a Cool Vendor in Banking by Gartner in 2019.
Very Good Security (VGS) has got a brand new boss. The data security and compliance platform has appointed Chuck Yu as its Chief Executive Officer.
Vertex Ventures U.S. General Partner Jonathan Heiliger, whose firm is a major investor in VGS, praised Yu’s experience in financial services. “His deep ties in the fintech and payments space will help advance VGS’ industry leadership position as the company looks to help its clients secure critical data and streamline compliance in more powerful and progressive ways,” Heiliger said. He called Yu “a transformational force.”
Yu’s background includes executive leadership roles at Visa, Point Digital Finance, and TrialPay, where he was Chief Revenue Officer. TrialPay was acquired by Visa in 2015. While at Visa, Yu led teams in business development, sales, finance, and operations. He also helped build strategic partnerships as the head of business development for Visa’s Global Fintech team.
In a statement, Yu underscored VGS’s goal of being a powerful steward “of the world’s sensitive data.” He added, “I am eager to work closely with our talented team to forge new strategic partnerships with industry leaders, and deeper relationships with the top brands that have chosen to trust us with their critical financial data.”
In its Finovate debut last spring, VGS demonstrated its VGS Zero Data Platform. The technology collects sensitive data from end users and conducts operations on the data – including exchanging it with third parties. The platform accomplishes this without allowing the original data to come in contact with your network. This allows companies to extract business value from sensitive data without touching it. As such, by enabling businesses to “offload” their data security burdens, Very Good Security allows these companies to focus on delivering innovative solutions to their customers.
Very Good Security has raised more than $104 million in funding. The firm’s investors include Vertex Ventures, Visa Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, VGS was founded in 2015.
Digital banking provider Bankjoy announced an integration with Fiserv Portico, a full-service account processing system.
The integration will enable credit unions working with Fiserv Portico to offer their members an online and mobile banking experience with a modern, intuitive UX.
Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022.
Michigan-based digital banking provider Bankjoy has integrated with Fiserv Portico, a full-service account processing system. The integration will enable credit unions using Fiserv Portico to offer an online and mobile banking experience that will attract new members and deepen current member engagement.
“Investing in a truly cutting-edge digital banking solution can seem out-of-reach for institutions without extensive engineering resources and IT budgets,” Bankjoy CEO Michael Duncan said. “Our integration with Fiserv Portico aims to solve this by giving credit unions more flexibility to roll out the digital banking features that today’s members expect in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.”
Founded in 2015 and built by credit union executives, Bankjoy gives credit unions the ability to offer a wide range of contemporary banking services. These services include both mobile and online banking, e-statements, online account opening, online loan origination, conversational AI, and more.
“Ongoing digital transformation over the last decade has accelerated the need for financial institutions of all sizes to deliver a state-of-the-art digital banking experience,” Duncan said. “Their success as an institution depends on this.” He added that, according to research from McKinsey & Company, the top performing financial institutions receive an average of 24-28 digital banking log-ins per account holder every month. These digital banking customers are driving revenue growth by an average of 10% to 15% each year.
Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. At the conference, the company showed how its Business Banking Platform provides SMEs with a single portal for multiple business accounts, and enables them to manage multiple users, control permissions, send transfers to multiple recipients, and more.
In addition to the company’s integration with Fiserv Portico, Bankjoy has also secured out-of-the-box integrations with third-party partners ranging from Allied Payments and Savvy Money to Vertifi and UrbanFT. This week’s integration news comes a month after Bankjoy announced securing new funding in a round led by Curql Collective. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Duncan said that the capital will help the company “help more community financial institutions thrive in an increasingly competitive environment.”
Canadian Crypto Combo: A trio of Canada-based cryptocurrency exchanges announced plans to merge into a single entity. Vancouver-based WonderFi, along with Toronto-based Coinsquare and Coin Smart Financial, are the firms involved. Together, they represent more than $600 million CAD in assets under custody and more than 1.65 million users. The merger will create what the companies are calling “Canada’s largest regulated crypto asset trading platform.”
The road to the three-way union had its complications. At one point, Coinsquare had been poised to acquire CoinSmart. At another point, a merger with WonderFi was allegedly on the table. CoinSmart had been both cold and hot to an acquisition by Coinsquare and reportedly was prepared to seek monetary damages in court when the acquisition deal did not work out. But those days are gone, and the three companies have decided they are better off serving cryptocurrency customers together than they are on their own.
UAE and ANZ Get Busy with CBDCs: There have been a few CBDC-oriented stories in fintech and crypto headlines in recent days. First up is news that the UAE has selected technology and legal partners ahead of the launch of its CBDC strategy. The country’s central bank has picked Clifford Chance to provide legal oversight. R3 and G42 Cloud will serve as technology and infrastructure providers. This will enable the central bank to begin Phase 1 of its CBDC project. This initial phase has three components: initiating real-value cross-border CBDC transactions for international trade settlement, proof-of-concept work for bilateral CBDC bridges with India, and proof-of-concept work for domestic CBDC issuance covering wholesale and retail use. Phase 1 is expected to take place over the next 12 to 15 months.
Meanwhile in Australia, ANZ bank reported that it had concluded one of its projects in the country’s CBDC trials. The project involved using the ANZ stablecoin to settle tokenized carbon credit transactions. ANZ Bank is involved in four of the 15 use cases and projects in the country’s CBDC pilot. With regard to this specific use case – applying tokenization to the carbon markets – ANZ Banking Services Lead Nigel Dobson expressed optimism. He highlighted the potential to improve both efficiency and transparency, as well as “preserve the unique characteristics of underlying projects to incentivize investment in climate solutions.”
Speaking of the relationship between crypto and the climate, SEB and Crédit Agricole announced this week that they are jointly launching so|bond, a sustainable and open platform for digital bonds built on blockchain technology. The platform enables issuers in capital markets to issue digital bonds onto a blockchain network in an effort to enhance efficiency and support real-time data synchronization between participants. Additionally, the network is using a validation protocol, Proof of Climate awaReness, that encourages participants to minimize their carbon footprint.
“Crédit Agricole CIB is proud to contribute to the emerging market of digital assets,” Crédit Agricole CIB Head of Innovation and Digital Transformation Romaric Rollet said. “The platform’s innovative approach, both to the blockchain infrastructure and to the securities market, is coupled with the strong commitment to green and sustainable finance that is at the center of our Societal Project.”
And while on the topic of the blockchain use cases, we report that Acre, a blockchain-based mortgage platform, has raised $8.1 million (£6.5 million). The fundraising is the second major capital infusion for the London-based company and brings the firm’s total equity funding to $14.3 million (£14.3 million). The round was led by McPike, an investor in Starling Bank, as well as Aviva and Founders Factory.
Acre helps traditional brokers compete with their digital counterparts by using blockchain technology to enhance the mortgage and insurance application process for advisers. The company’s technology brings together all aspects of the process into a single “record of the transaction.” This, according to Acre founder and CEO Justus Brown, helps brokers deliver “speedy, efficient advice that meets the individual requirements of each case in a dynamic market.”
Acre was founded in 2017. Brown reports that the company grew by 10x in 2022, and processes £10 billion in annual mortgage volume. In the wake of the latest investment, Acre will focus on forging new partnerships with lenders and insurers to enable brokers to recommend the most competitive financial products and services for their clients.
Coinbase Announces Derivatives Exchange Upgrade: Last up for this edition of 5 Tales from the Crypto is news from one of the industry’s banner companies, Coinbase. The firm announced this week that it had partnered with Transaction Network Services (TNS). The partnership is designed to enable faster, more efficient transactions on its derivatives exchange (CDE).
“Crypto has witnessed both volatile and liquid markets, and with institutional adoption remaining strong, we believe the time is right for the offering that TNS brings to the table,” Coinbase Derivatives Exchange CEO Boris Ilyevsky said. “Dedicated cloud infrastructure connectivity coupled with our derivatives exchange represents a mission-critical step toward supporting and maintaining a vibrant and reliable crypto derivatives market.”
Coinbase launched its Derivatives Exchange in June of last year with the goal of attracting more retail traders to its platform. This week’s news shows that the company recognizes the potential attraction its exchange could have for institutional investors, as well. Regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the CDE will leverage its new TNS-provided financial trading infrastructure to enable institutional investors to grow their storage capabilities and process large data sets with less delay.
The U.S. Federal Reserve has selected AutoRek to feature its technology in its FedNow Service Provider Showcase.
The showcase will give the Scotland-based company the ability to offer its payments technology, including automated reconciliation software, to financial services providers in the U.S.
AutoRek made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope 2023.
AutoRek, an end-to-end financial data control platform, has been selected by the U.S. Federal Reserve to feature in its FedNow Service Provider Showcase. The Showcase connects financial institutions with providers that offer real-time payment solutions. As a featured provider, AutoRek will have the opportunity to “offer a number of its instant payment services to U.S. financial services organizations preparing for the new real-time payments system.”
The FedNow Service is an instant payments infrastructure developed by the Federal Reserve. Going live in July, the technology will enable consumers and businesses alike to send and receive payments in real-time. The Federal Reserve launched its FedNow Service Provider Showcase just over a year ago in March. The Showcase is an online resource that facilitates connections between financial institutions and businesses looking to adopt the FedNow service with service providers in the instant payments space. AutoRek offers banks and payments companies the ability to implement and improve on instant payments with solutions for data management, automated real-time reconciliation and machine learning, reporting, and automating workflows.
“As part of the FedNow community, we know we’ll be able to add huge value to all organizations embarking on the journey of instant payments,” AutoRek Global Payments Sales Manager Nick Botha said. “With our solutions, banks and payments companies will be able to save time, increase efficiency and scale at speed while ensuring complete financial control across their business.”
AutoRek made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope in London. At the conference, the company demoed its global automated reconciliation software. The technology leverages machine learning and other technologies to help financial institutions better manage high-volume reconciliation challenges, improve auditability, and reduce operating costs.
Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, AutoRek rebranded in February of this year to better position itself to enter new growth sectors, such as payments. The company, which has tripled in size since 2020, has more than 100+ leading financial services clients and has processed more than 2.4 billion transactions since inception.
“At a time when technological developments are happening at a faster rate than ever before, anticipating where the market is going next is the only way to stay at the cutting edge,” AutoRek founder and CEO Gordon McHarg said when the rebrand was announced earlier this year. “And this rebrand represents AutoRek’s commitment to and belief in the need for continuous innovation.”
“Kroll’s exceptional reputation for thought leadership in the risk and advisory space is well-known over the world,” EverC CEO Ariel Tiger said. “Working so closely together offers a significant competitive advantage.” Tiger added that having Kroll as both an investor and as a partner would help EverC build its “global brand with innovative technology to help make ecommerce more safe, secure, and profitable for payment providers, platforms, and marketplaces.”
The amount of the investment was not disclosed, but ahead of the funding EverC has raised more than $61 million in equity capital, according to Crunchbase. Kroll is an independent provider of risk and financial advisory solutions, founded in 1972 and headquartered in New York. Kroll was acquired by Duff and Phelps in 2018. Duff & Phelps rebranded as Kroll in 2021.
The partnership between Kroll and EverC comes as demand grows for fraud detection and prevention tools that can keep up with the increased pace of cyberattacks and illicit ecommerce activity in the payments industry. Calling “transaction laundering” the modern-day equivalent of money laundering, EverC provides innovative solutions such as its MerchantView technology. MerchantView helps companies reduce and avoid fines, protect their brands, and remain compliant by helping them identify illicit transaction behavior. EverC also offers MarketView, a solution for marketplaces that automatically detects and removes false, illegal, and/or dangerous products.
Earlier this year, EverC announced that it had forged a strategic partnership with KPMG. The partnership will combine the financial advisory expertise of KPMG with EverC’s innovations in the ecommerce risk space to help companies grow while successfully managing risk. “As payments providers and marketplaces face an increasingly challenging threat landscape, they will seek ecosystem partners to provide innovative solutions and expert guidance to support their growth,” Tiger said.
