Author: David Penn

Carrington Labs Partners with Taktile to Enhance Credit Risk Strategies for Lenders

Carrington Labs Partners with Taktile to Enhance Credit Risk Strategies for Lenders
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Carrington Labs
  • Credit risk analytics company Carrington Labs has teamed up with decision platform Taktile to help lenders optimize their credit risk strategies.
  • Lenders will be able to access Carrington Labs’ custom models directly from Taktile’s platform, enabling them to gain a better, more complete financial picture of loan applicants.
  • Carrington Labs made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall 2024 in New York. The company is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

Credit risk analytics company Carrington Labs announced a partnership with decision platform Taktile to help lenders optimize their credit risk strategies for both consumer and SMB loans. Carrington Labs offers custom models that analyze a wide variety of data types—including transaction data, credit bureau data, and behavioral insights—to give lenders a more comprehensive understanding of a would-be borrower’s financial status. This leads to more accurate credit risk scoring, more approvals, and fewer defaults.

“Every lender is looking to modernize their approach to decisioning, offer management, and monitoring. Taktile’s low-code decision platform enables our clients to deploy Carrington Labs models and tools quickly, while also giving lenders much better visibility and control over their process,” Carrington Labs CEO Jamie Twiss said.

Courtesy of the partnership, lenders will be able to access Carrington Labs’ models directly from Taktile’s platform. Firms will be able to combine the models with their own business rules to boost approval accuracy and quantify the probability of default. The models will also help them improve underwriting accuracy and launch faster without requiring major system overhauls or technical implementations. Via a single interface, lenders will have end-to-end control over the optimization of their credit risk strategy.

“I’ve seen how tough it can be for lenders to not only build strong risk models but also connect them to flexible, automated decision workflows,” Taktile CEO and Co-Founder Maik Taro Wehmeyer said. “That’s why I’m excited about our partnership with Carrington Labs. Lenders can now directly integrate their sophisticated credit risk models into the workflows they build on Taktile, making it easier to develop inclusive, data-driven underwriting strategies and continuously improve them at scale.”

Taktile’s technology helps lenders and other financial services companies better manage risk: from onboarding and underwriting to fraud detection, compliance, and collections. The company empowers risk teams to build, test, and update their risk strategies without requiring engineering talent. Companies working with Taktile have reported a 67% reduction in logic deployment time and a 95% reduction in decision time. Headquartered in New York, with offices in Berlin, Germany, and London, Taktile was founded in 2020.

Sydney, Australia-based Carrington Labs made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2024 in New York. At the conference, the company demonstrated its AI-powered, alternative credit risk scoring and loan limit recommendation technology. Carrington Labs leverages non-traditional data, credit expertise, and commercial acumen to provide lenders with a more complete picture of a loan applicant’s creditworthiness. This enables lenders to be more inclusive while at the same time boosting revenues, lowering default rates, and improving margins.

Carrington Labs’ partnership announcement comes just a month after the company reported that it was working with decisioning platform Oscilar to help shorten integration times for lenders and improve credit risk workflows for banks, credit unions, and other financial services providers.

Photo by Liam Pozz on Unsplash

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Supply Wisdom Locks in $14 Million; Introduces New CEO Jenna Wells

Supply Wisdom Locks in $14 Million; Introduces New CEO Jenna Wells
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Supply Wisdom
  • Risk intelligence platform Supply Wisdom has secured $14 million in Series B funding in a round led by Jurassic Capital.
  • Supply Wisdom also announced that Chief Operating Officer Jenna Wells has been appointed as the company’s new CEO.
  • Supply Wisdom made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. We interviewed Jenna Wells in March of this year on the subject of third-party risk in financial services.

Risk intelligence innovator Supply Wisdom has raised $14 million in new funding. The company, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York, also introduced a new CEO, former Chief Operating Officer Jenna Wells. Finovate readers will recall our interview with Wells from earlier this year, in which she discussed the challenge of managing third-party risk in financial services.

“I’m honored to step into this new role during such a pivotal time for our company and the global business community as there is clearly an increased need for strong risk management,” Wells said in a statement announcing both the investment and her new status as Supply Wisdom CEO.

“As both a risk practitioner and leader at Supply Wisdom, I’ve seen firsthand how our AI-powered platform transforms how organizations manage risk across their entire supply chain ecosystem. I’m excited to support Supply Wisdom in continuing to provide comprehensive, predictive risk intelligence that enables businesses to act proactively and confidently in an increasingly complex risk landscape.”

Supply Wisdom offers a full-stack SaaS platform, powered by AI, that helps companies in financial services, insurance, technology and other industries turn open source data into risk intelligence on key third-party relationships. The company’s technology provides continuous monitoring, comprehensive intelligence reports, and alerts that cover all risk domains—financial, cyber, operational, ESG, compliance, Nth party, location—in real-time. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in New York, Supply Wisdom includes companies in the Fortune 100 and Global 2000 among its clients.

The Series B round was led by Jurassic Capital, which joins existing investors Fulcrum Equity Partners and Conductor Capital. Jurassic Capital General Partner Kevin Mosley praised Supply Wisdom as a “high-growth, capital-efficient and innovative company with a strong history of delivering exceptional value for third party risk management departments at leading global firms.” Mosley also expressed excitement at the appointment of Wells as CEO, noting that her “firsthand experience as a customer will continue to pay dividends across the organization.”

Tom Thimot, who led the company as CEO since 2023, will continue to serve the firm in a new role as Advisor to the CEO. In this capacity, Thimot will provide strategic advice to both Wells and Supply Wisdom’s leadership team.

Supply Wisdom’s funding and C-suite leadership news comes in the wake of the company earning a spot in the Inc. Regionals: Northeast list of the fastest-growing private companies in the US Northeast. An extension of the Inc. 5000 roster, the Inc. Regionals: Northeast listing includes firms in Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.

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17 Alums Raised More Than $1.2 Billion in Q2 2025

17 Alums Raised More Than $1.2 Billion in Q2 2025
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Quarterly Funding

Updated (6/24/25)

We back?

There are still a few days left but, so far, in the second quarter of 2025, 17 Finovate alums have raised more than $1.2 billion in new funding. The sum is several times larger than last year’s Q2 investment haul, as we note below, and also featured twice as many alums securing fresh capital.

Previous quarterly comparisons

  • Q2 2024: More than $292 million raised by eight alums
  • Q2 2023: More than $209 million raised by ten alums
  • Q2 2022: More than $984 million raised by eight alums
  • Q2 2021: More than $2.8 billion raised by 14 alums

In fact, Finovate alums in the second quarter of this year raised more than they have in any Q2 since 2021. This quarter also featured three funding rounds in which the amount of the investment was undisclosed. This means that the true tally for alum funding for Q2 exceeds the $1.2 billion headline number—and perhaps by a significant margin.

Top equity investments

  • Plaid: $575 million
  • Scalable Capital: $176 million
  • Thunes: $150 million
  • Stash: $146 million
  • Zopa: $106 million

The $575 million raised by Plaid is far and away the biggest equity investment for Finovate alums in Q2 of 2025. The funding round was led by Franklin Templeton, a new investor to the company, and featured participation from existing investors NEA and Ribbit Capital. The investment was a venture round, in which Plaid sold new shares to address a variety of issues, including providing liquidity to members of the Plaid team, as explained by company CEO and Co-Founder Zach Perret.

Q2 also featured a handful of other significant investments of more than $100 million. Interestingly, the four companies to receive funding in this range in recent months come from either the world of payments (Thunes) or investing (Scalable Capital, Stash, and Zopa). As fintech funding begins to recover, it will be worthwhile to watch and see if these two subsectors of our industry play a major role in leading fintech funding back toward pre-pandemic levels.

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q2 2025.

April: More than $795 million raised by five alums

May: More than $257 million raised by four alums

June: More than $232 million raised by eight alums

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the second quarter of 2025 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at [email protected]. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

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Icon Solutions Secures Investment from UBS

Icon Solutions Secures Investment from UBS
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Icon Solutions
  • Payments company Icon Solutions has secured a new equity investment in a round led by UBS. Citi and NatWest, existing Icon Solutions investors, also participated.
  • The investment will help Icon Solutions bring its Icon Payments Framework (IPF) to more banks to enable them to develop and deploy new payment processing solutions faster.
  • Headquartered in the UK, Icon Solutions made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017.

UK-based paytech Icon Solutions announced a new equity investment led by Swiss bank UBS. Citi and NatWest, current Icon Solutions investors, also contributed funding. The amount of the total investment was not disclosed.

“This investment round is further endorsement of our founding belief that banks should be empowered to lead their own payments transformation,” Icon Solutions Co-Founder and Director Tom Kelleher said. “With IPF now internationally proven and increasingly adopted by major financial institutions, we look forward to continuing our close partnerships with Citi, NatWest, and UBS to build on this global momentum and deliver truly innovative and ground-breaking payments solutions.”

Both Citi and NatWest have deployed Icon Solutions’ Icon Payments Framework (IPF) to enhance their respective payments programs. IPF offers banks a payments development framework that enables them to build, test, and deploy payment processing solutions faster, allowing them to accelerate the transformation of their own payments infrastructure.

“This investment reinforces our partnership with Icon and confirms our commitment to deliver faster to market, future-ready payment solutions for our clients,” UBS Head of Group Operations and Technology Office for Personal & Corporate Banking and GWM Switzerland & International Pieter Brouwer said. “The collaboration helps us drive innovation at scale and enhances our capabilities for seamless instant payments and advanced transaction processing.”

Founded in 2009, Icon Solutions demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. The company’s core solution—the Icon Payments Framework—is a payment development framework relied upon by tier 1 banks around the world including Citi, NatWest, BNP Paribas, and UBS. Built to integrate seamlessly with multiple payment schemes, IPF helps financial institutions accelerate transformation of their payment infrastructure, while maintaining control of both timeline and costs. Cloud and ISO 20022-native, IPF reduces cost of ownership by up to 50%, accelerates speed to market by up to 4x, and enables real-time payments adoption in six months.

This spring, Icon Solutions introduced new Director of People Hannah McKechnie. Formerly Head of HR for the company, McKechnie, in her new role, will oversee Icon’s ‘People and Purpose’ programs, including support for Icon’s partnerships with the Social Mobility Foundation and with purpose-led technology training and services company Digital Futures.

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Pendo Unveils AI Agent Performance Analytics Solution

Pendo Unveils AI Agent Performance Analytics Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Pendo
  • Software experience management platform Pendo launched its Pendo Agent Analytics solution today.
  • The new offering enables companies to analyze and review the performance of their AI agents as well as measure the adoption rates of the technology.
  • Pendo made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022. The company is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina.

How effective are your AI agents really? A new offering from software experience management platform Pendo is designed to answer that question.

Pendo Agent Analytics, introduced today, enables companies to measure the performance of their AI agents and to measure the adoption of their agentic AI technology as readily as they do for their SaaS applications.

“The shift to intelligent software is happening faster than we could ever imagine, and enterprises are faced with improving their SaaS applications, while accelerating agent and AI innovation,” Pendo CEO and Co-Founder Todd Olson said. “I’m proud that we are supporting customers wherever they are on their transformation journey.”

The new offering is designed to provide companies with systems to help them better understand and optimize the way AI agents have become a part of org charts, workflows, and product roadmaps. From IT teams that have compliance and productivity concerns, to R&D teams focused on business outcomes, achieving greater transparency in AI agent operations is a critical step in the road to broader and more effective adoption of the technology.

To this end, Pendo Agent Analytics provides metrics and reports that track both homegrown and third-party agent operations along with usage of traditional software. The technology also provides insight into how users act before and after they interact with an agent, analyzes conversations with agents to identify prompt trends, and maps agent usage to task completion to help measure ROI.

Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, Pendo made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its platform helps firms analyze, assess, and act to enhance software investments across online, mobile, SaaS, AI, and agentic applications. With more than 14,000 companies in 163 countries around the world using Pendo’s technology, the company has collected a total of 23 trillion events, providing a wealth of insights for training conversational AI and agentic software systems.

Pendo’s new product offering comes as the company announced a raft of platform enhancements designed to meet the needs of the “agentic era” of AI. These included AI agent deployment tools, optimized user acquisition tools, enhanced support analysis and AI-powered bug reporting, and improved data cleanliness and insights integration.

“Nearly every week our teams are showing me new prototypes and ideas for the future of Pendo. Our summer release includes so much of that work, new features and products that will improve your SaaS foundation and set you up with a strong AI foundation,” Olson said.

Photo by Brandon Griggs on Unsplash

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Plaid Partners with Experian; Launches Fraud Prevention Solution Plaid Protect

Plaid Partners with Experian; Launches Fraud Prevention Solution Plaid Protect
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, Experian, Plaid

Financial data network Plaid has been in the fintech headlines of late for its new partnership with data and technology company Experian, and for the launch of its Plaid Protect fraud prevention solution.

“Today we’re launching Plaid Protect: a real-time fraud intelligence system that helps detect and prevent fraud from the moment a user first interacts with your app or service,” Plaid Head of Fraud Alain Meier wrote on the company blog. “By drawing on fraud signals across a billion devices in the Plaid network, Protect goes beyond what any single company can see—surfacing fraud patterns that exist between linked bank accounts, connections to financial apps and services, and more.”

Plaid Protect is built on an adaptive, machine learning-powered risk engine that provides real-time risk scores and attributes that evolve as the user context changes—from initial contact during onboarding through account linking to ongoing user activity. Calling their fraud model Trust Index (Ti), Plaid’s first production model can access 10,000 high-signal attributes including cross-app patterns, device history, bank account risk signals, and more. The Trust Index leverages network intelligence, bank account risk, consortium feedback, and advanced identity intelligence, keying in on fraud signals that are difficult for criminals to manipulate or fake. Plaid reported that one of the solution’s early adopters found in testing that enhancing verification for just 5% of its users would have intercepted nearly 40% of first-party fraud.

Currently available in beta, Plaid Protect provides an intuitive dashboard that uses semantic search powered by natural language. This means that users can ask questions about the data in plain English (i.e., “all users who opened new accounts in the last 30 days”) instead of needing to use SQL or custom queries.

“With this new lens on fraud, companies can reduce fraud losses, dramatically improve conversion, and make smarter decisions from the very first user interaction and every step thereafter,” Meier wrote.

Plaid’s new product announcement comes days after the company reported that it had partnered with fellow Finovate alum, Experian. The two firms have entered into a strategic collaboration designed to help businesses access cashflow solutions and expand financial inclusion.

“This is just the beginning of what we believe will be a very powerful relationship with Plaid,” Group President Financial Services of Experian North America Scott Brown said. “Together, we’re helping to accelerate the adoption of cashflow insights to drive faster decisions, stronger portfolios, and new financial opportunities for consumers. We’re achieving this while delivering an experience that is transparent and provides consumers with control every step of the way.”

Courtesy of the collaboration, financial institutions can access Plaid’s secure connectivity capabilities—used by 50% of all US bank account holders—and Experian’s expertise in advanced credit analytics and decisioning from a single solution. Once a borrower agrees to share cashflow data from their bank account as part of the loan application process, Plaid’s consumer reporting agency generates a Consumer Report on their behalf. The report is delivered securely to Experian which analyzes the applicant’s data, produces a predictive Cashflow Score or set of Cashflow Attributes, and delivers it to the lender in near real time.

The report features up to two years of historical data and cashflow information from 12,000+ financial institutions. Experian reports that its Cashflow Score provides an increase of as much as 25% in predictive performance compared to scores that rely on more conventional credit data. The new offering will empower banks, credit unions, and consumer lenders to accelerate decision-making, make more accurate risk assessments, and improve borrower outcomes.

“Our work with Experian is about removing long-standing barriers, making it easier for lenders to access consumer-permissioned data and make better decisions,” Plaid Chief Operating Officer Eric Sager said. “Together, we’re building a more inclusive, intelligent, and competitive financial system.”

Founded in 2013 by Zach Perret and William Hockey and headquartered in San Francisco, Plaid introduced itself to Finovate audiences at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. In the years since, the company has grown into a major financial data network covering more than 12,000 financial institutions in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe. With partners including Venmo and fellow Finovate alums SoFi and Betterment, Plaid works with fintechs, Fortune 500 companies, and leading banks to enable their customers to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they count on every day.

Photo by Marek Ruczaj on Unsplash

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SmartStreamAir Expansion Takes Company into the Insurance Business

SmartStreamAir Expansion Takes Company into the Insurance Business
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, SmartStream
  • Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM) solutions provider SmartStream is entering the insurance business with the latest expansion of its reconciliation and data management platform, SmartStream Air.
  • SmartStream Air leverages AI and machine learning to automate the process of reconciling and managing large volumes of data.
  • Founded in 2000 and headquartered in London, SmartStream made its FinovateEurope debut in 2022.

London-based financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM) solutions provider SmartStream is bringing its technology to the insurance sector. The company announced an expansion of its AI-powered reconciliation and data management platform, SmartStream Air, that will help insurers deal with rising transaction volumes, data quality challenges, and an increasingly complex regulatory environment.

For companies that have front office systems that need to report to back office systems or are transitioning from legacy infrastructures to new technologies, SmartStream checks and assures data integrity throughout the process. SmartStream Air enables institutions to reconcile and manage large volumes of data, leveraging AI and machine learning to automate this process.

In the insurance business, this means identifying and resolving discrepancies in data such as payments, reimbursements, claims, policyholder transactions, or investment operations. SmartStream Air can serve numerous insurance-specific use cases including premium collection and processing, commission payments, claims management, financial reporting, reinsurance settlements, policyholder refunds, investment account reconciliation, data validation, risk and reserve management, expense tracking, and fraud detection.

SmartStream’s announcement comes as regulations like IFRS 17 and DORA create new challenges for insurance companies when it comes to accounting and operational resilience, respectively. These challenges—and others—have exposed both operational inefficiencies and compliance risks. And while analysts such as Celent’s Karlyn Carnahan expect this to be a “transformative year in insurance,” there is still a sense that “getting arms around AI from a compliance and use case perspective is difficult.” To this, SmartStream’s AI-powered solution serves as opportunity, in Carnahan’s words, to deploy “proven technologies from other industries” that will help insurers grow effectively and efficiently.

SmartStream Global Head of Reconciliations Robin Hasson highlighted this point. “Our heritage and experience in working with the world’s top 100 banks gives us a strong foundation to support the insurance sector as firms identify use cases for increased automation.” Hasson added, “We’re already partnering with leading insurers to implement AI-powered solutions that enable data-driven agility. In today’s environment, insurers must respond swiftly to market shifts and customer expectations, or risk falling behind due to inefficiencies and increased exposure.”

Founded in 2000, SmartStream made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022. At the conference, the company demonstrated how SmartStream Air provides fast AI and machine learning data quality analysis without requiring training or an IT skillset. The company has more than 2,000 customers and analyzes more than one billion SaaS transactions monthly.

This spring, SmartStream launched its RegRegistry Service as part of its Reference Data Services (RDS) business. The company’s RegRegistry Service identifies counterparty and trading venues as required by regulatory authorities such as ESMA, FCA, GLEIF, CFTC, and ISO MIC. Also this year, SmartStream announced a partnership with fellow Finovate alum Finastra to extend collateral management workflows across treasury and capital markets.

Photo by Chris Panas

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Autobooks, Experian, Fintech Rundown, Salt Edge

With Father’s Day behind us and the first official day of summer ahead, we keeping our eye on the fintech headlines as the summer news slump approaches. Be sure to check in with Finovate’s Fintech Rundown all week long for the latest announcements in the industry.

Open banking

Crypto / DeFi

Credit unions

Payments

Fraud prevention

Lending

  • Baker Hill unveils enhancements to its platform to help financial institutions better manage commercial real estate, CECL compliance, AI-driven compliance, agricultural spreading and financial analysis.
  • Vine Financial secures seed funding, forms Board of Directors.
  • African remittance startup LemFi buys UK card issuer.
  • AKUVO automates repossessions and adds RDN.
  • Finastra’s Filogix boosts Gen AI capabilities to empower mortgage brokers.

Digital banking

  • Digital banking solution provider for small businesses, Autobooks, introduces Autobooks Capital, powered by Fundbox, integrating business lending directly within the Autobooks platform.

Regtech

Photo by Josh Willink

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Finovate Global Southeast Asia: Payments, Lending, and the Rise of Islamic Digital Banking

Finovate Global Southeast Asia: Payments, Lending, and the Rise of Islamic Digital Banking
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AMLYZE, Finovate Global, Mambu, MoneyGram, Revolut, VISA

This week’s edition of Finovate Global showcases recent fintech news from three countries in southeast Asia: Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Visa brings Click to Pay to Vietnam

A growing number of Vietnamese banks have become early adopters of Visa’s Click to Pay service. Click to Pay provides a faster, more secure, and convenient checkout experience for online transactions by enabling cardholders to make their purchases with fewer clicks—including relieving them of the need to manually enter card and shipping details. Instead, Click to Pay allows users to identify themselves through their email address or mobile phone number. The service uses advanced security technology—including the Visa Token Service—to keep transaction data secure and is designed to meet EMVCo standards for digital checkout.

“With e-commerce being so prevalent in Vietnam and aligning with the Vietnamese government’s digitization objectives, we are pleased to introduce this solution through our banking partners,” Visa Country Manager for Vietnam and Laos Dung Dang said. “Click to Pay with Visa has the potential to transform online shopping and support the development of a more connected digital economy.”

Cardholders with Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) and Vietnam Prosperity Joint-Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) can enroll in the Click to Pay service through their banking apps or with participating online merchants. Visa has also teamed up with Vietnamese payment platform Payoo, which will integrate Click to Pay across its merchant ecosystem. Visa announced that cardholders using Click to Pay at Payoo-affiliated merchants will be eligible for exclusive promotional offers “in the near future”. Additional merchants are expected to be added in the coming months.

BNPL provider Atome secures $75 million to support Philippines operations

Singapore-based Buy Now, Pay Later fintech Atome has received an asset-back financing facility of $75 million. The financing, from Lending Ark Asia Secured Private Debt Fund, will help support Atome’s expansion in the Philippines.

“The Philippines is a key growth market for Atome,” Atome Chief Commercial Officer Andy Tan said. “This financing reflects the continued confidence in Atome’s ability to deliver inclusive, risk-managed credit at scale.”

Atome is part of Advance Intelligence Group, a fintech and AI platform backed by investors such as SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Warburg Pincus, Northstar, and Singapore-based EDBI. This week’s funding comes as the company has been expanding its BNPL offering throughout Southeast Asia, bringing alternative credit solutions to unbanked and underbanked populations in the region. The financing also arrives one year after Atome secured a three-year term loan facility from EvolutionX Debt Capital.

“The launch of innovative and fit-for-market solutions like the Atome Card (PayLater Anywhere) and lending products demonstrates their ability to expand offerings while leveraging local market expertise,” EvolutionX Partner Rahul Shah said.

Malaysia’s KAF Digital Bank goes live with Temenos

The growth of Islamic digital banking is one of the most underappreciated developments in international fintech. Helping power this trend are companies like Temenos which recently partnered with Malaysia’s KAF Digital Bank as the institution launches its new Islamic digital bank in the country.

“Powered by Temenos SaaS, KAF Digital Bank is redefining Shariah-compliant banking with smarter, simpler financial solutions and a seamless, customer-first digital experience,” KAF Digital Bank CEO Rafiza Ghazali said. “The successful go-live and early access customer launch marks a key milestone in our journey, enabling Malaysians to take control of their financial futures with greater confidence.”

Temenos SaaS will enable KAF Digital Bank to offer a range of Shariah-compliant financial solutions that make financial management easier for customers who require or simply prefer Islamic banking. The offering includes comprehensive core and digital banking services with payments, analytics, and Temenos Data Hub on Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure. In a statement, Temenos APAC Managing Director Will Dale noted the growth and importance of the Islamic banking customer in the country.

“This go-live not only strengthens Temenos’ regional footprint in SaaS, but also shows the unique breadth of functionality and advanced technology we deliver,” Dale said. “With proven capabilities tailored to the Malaysian market and Islamic banking, Temenos SaaS empowers KAF Digital Bank to achieve faster time-to-market, greater efficiency, and drive future growth.”

KAF Digital Bank secured approval to operate as a digital bank at the beginning of the year, and will be the fourth digital bank to operate in the country. The bank was launched by KAF Investment Bank Berhad, in partnership with Carsome, MoneyMatch, Jirnexu, and StoreHub. KAF Investment Bank Berhad was established in 1975.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Saudi Arabian finance app tiqmo partnered with global payments network MoneyGram.
  • Revolut reported that it has entered talks with the Bank of Israel to expand operations in the country.
  • MENA-based financial institution Mashreq launched its NEO PLUS Saver Account.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Brazilian fintech Matera partnered with Circle to integrate stablecoins as a payment method.
  • Cross-border payment platform dLocal teamed up with payment infrastructure solutions provider JusPay.
  • Tether announced an investment in Chiliean crypto exchange Orionx to support financial inclusion and digital payment adoption in Latin America.

Asia-Pacific

  • Visa launched its Click to Pay solution in Vietnam.
  • Buy Now, Pay Later provider Atome secured a $75 million asset-backed financing facility to support its expansion to the Philippines.
  • A new trading platform, moomoo, has gone live in New Zealand.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Africa.com profiled African fintech giant Paystack.
  • Online payment service provider PayU GPO launched account-to-account payments in Nigeria.
  • Critics warn that Kenya’s 1.5% tax on crypto transactions could hamper the development of the country’s fintech industry.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Berlin-based paytech Payrails raised $32 million in Series A funding.
  • Lithuania’s largest credit union, Lietuvos centrinÄ— kredito unija (LCKU), inked a long-term agreement with regtech AMLYZE.
  • German SaaS cloud banking platform Mambu announced that Sweden-based Marginalen Bank has migrated to its core.

Photo by Pixabay

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ID-Pal Unveils Reusable KYC Solution

ID-Pal Unveils Reusable KYC Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, ID-Pal
  • Identity verification innovator ID-Pal has unveiled its reusable KYC solution, ID-Pal Once.
  • The new offering streamlines the verification process, enabling users to complete identity verification as much as 5x faster.
  • Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, ID-Pal most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2025.

AI-powered identity verification specialist ID-Pal has introduced its reusable KYC solution ID-Pal Once. The offering will enable organizations to streamline identity verification processes, control costs, and enable them to focus on growing their businesses. As a reusable identity verification solution, ID-Pal Once enables returning users to complete the verification process up to five times faster. The company estimates that this produces an 80% time savings.

“With ID-Pal Once, we’re not just speeding up KYC, we’re removing unnecessary friction, ID-Pal Once is an incredibly powerful solution that meets and exceeds the needs of organizations and customer expectations, underpinned by our existing full suite of world-class biometric, document, and database checks,” ID-Pal Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer Robert O’Farrell said. “ID-Pal Once ensures that only genuine, verified identities are reused and importantly, doesn’t use humans to access the data. This is about secure identity reuse that respects the time of organizations and customers and respects your data.”

ID-Pal Once works by building profiles from previously-verified identity data, re-validating the data against the organization’s risk rules so as not to require users to repeat the data submission process. An accurate, secure, and real-time liveness check is all that is required in order for the technology to recognize returning users and reduce the verification process to a matter of seconds. The solution scales as organizations grow, allowing companies to continue to rely on consistent, policy-aligned identity verifications across regions, products, and channels. Deployed to power step-up authentication efforts for high-risk or high-value transactions, time-based re-checks for compliance requirements, as well as instant re-verification of returning customers, ID-Pal Once is already being used by the company’s customers in verticals ranging from financial services to telco to gaming.

“ID-Pal Once marks a major leap forward in how organizations can manage identity verification,” ID-Pal Head of Product Rob Sheehan said. “By enabling secure re-verification linked to biometrics, we’re eliminating redundant steps, reducing operational costs, and dramatically improving the user experience. It’s a win for both our partners and their customers.”

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, ID-Pal made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2024 and returned to the Finovate stage a year later for FinovateEurope in London. In its most recent appearance, ID-Pal showed how its platform uses 100% AI-powered technology to provide real-time verification that detects AI-generated documents, deepfakes, injection attacks, and more.

ID-Pal’s product news comes a month after the firm announced a partnership with UK-based financial services consultancy, Albany Beck. The partnership will combine Albany Beck’s AML/KYC Academy with ID-Pal’s identity verification and AML screening technology. The Academy is designed to instruct consultants on best-practices and provide them with practical skills to review AML/KYC processes and ensure regulatory compliance.

“Our partnership with ID-Pal marks a significant step forward in enhancing KYC/AML programs. By combining our training and development expertise with ID-Pal’s advanced technology, we can deliver unparalleled value to our clients, providing experts who will continue to deliver immediate impact, protecting the firms we work with and their end customers,” Albany Beck Partner Head of AML/KYC Emer McPartland said.

Photo by Matheus Câmara da Silva on Unsplash

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Innovations in Insurtech: IPOs, Expats, and Enhancements in Risk Management

Innovations in Insurtech: IPOs, Expats, and Enhancements in Risk Management
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Insurance, List series

Insurtech continues to be one of the most dynamic subsectors in fintech. Just last month, life insurance SaaS company Bestow raised $120 million in Series D funding. Other insurtechs, as noted below, have launched successful IPOs in recent weeks.

This week, we’re sharing three headlines from the industry that shine a light on where innovation and growth in this space are headed—including more insurtech IPO news from a Florida-based speciality firm.

Insurtech Slide eyes $2 billion valuation in upcoming US IPO

Slide Insurance, a Tampa, Florida-based insurtech, has filed for an initial public offering. Founded in 2021 and going live the following year, Slide specializes in property insurance and has become one of the leading coastal insurance firms in the US. Slide provides home, condo, and commercial residential insurance products via a network of more than 5,000 agents in Florida and South Carolina. A self-described “technology-enabled insurance company,” Slide leverages AI and Big Data to hyper-personalize, optimize, and streamline the insurance process.

The company anticipates a valuation of as much as $2.12 billion in its IPO, raising $340 million through an offer of 20 million shares priced between $15 and $17, based on Slide’s SEC filing earlier this week. Slide shares will trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol SLDE. The company reported profits of $92.5 million for the quarter ended March 31. The figure reflected a gain of more than 69% year-over-year.

Slide’s IPO filing comes in the wake of American Integrity Insurance Group’s $126.5 million IPO. Also recently going public was specialty insurer and reinsurer Aspen Insurance, which raised more than $397 million in its May IPO. Specialty insurer Ategrity is seeking to raise in excess of $113 million in its public offering later this week.

Feather introduces business insurance for expat workers in Europe

German insurtech Feather unveiled new, digital business insurance designed for companies with international workers. The company’s expanded service comes in the wake of Feather’s successful efforts to digitize insurance access for international workers in Germany, France, and Spain. Feather’s new offering is aimed directly at human resource departments to equip them with technology that manages employee, health, life, and pension insurance, as well as cybersecurity insurance and professional and general liability coverage.

Feather CEO and Co-Founder Rob Schumacher said in a statement that offering quality insurance benefits for their workers was a challenge for many small and medium-sized businesses in part because “traditional insurance partners aren’t built to support them.” Highlighting pension insurance as an example of a benefit SMEs struggle to provide, Schumacher added, “Feather is a no-brainer for companies where expats make up at least 10% of the workforce. HR leaders can turn international onboarding into a warm welcome instead of a bureaucratic nightmare.”

Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Feather was founded in 2018. To date, the company has served more than 90,000 customers and processed more than 20,000 successful claims.

Markel unveils InsurtechRisk+ for insurtech businesses

Markel Insurance, the insurance operations division of Markel Group, launched its InsurtechRisk+ solution for insurtech companies today. The offering includes four insuring clauses: (1) insurance services and technology liability, (2) directors and officers (D&O) liability, (3) crime and cyber liability, and (4) loss cover. These clauses provide protection for businesses domiciled in the UK, Europe, Australia, and Canada, and offers limits of up to £10 million.

“The cyber risk landscape has evolved since we launched our first Insurtech policy with the emergence of more advanced attacks from threat actors utilizing AI tools/technology to infiltrate company networks, impersonate senior personnel and steal confidential data and funds,” Markel Head of Fintech and Investment Management Insurance Nick Rugg said.

Combined with value-added services including 24/7 business; legal and employment advice; R&D tax advisory; debt recovery support; grant and funding assistance; contract reviews and a cyber risk toolkit, the clauses in Markel’s InsurtechRisk+ product will help insurtechs better manage cyber threats, as well as criminal and financial liabilities. The new offering gives firms a “one-stop-shop” approach that avoids potential coverage gaps that can occur when companies rely on multiple policies from multiple insurance vendors.

“Another key goal in launching InsurtechRisk+ is to offer best-in-class cover alongside risk management solutions that go beyond typical post-loss assistance for policyholders,” Rugg added. “We want to disrupt traditional insurance products as well as how customers view the role of the insurer as only helping clients after an incident has taken place.”

Photo by Mikhail Nilov

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ANNA Money Partners with Episode Six

ANNA Money Partners with Episode Six
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, ANNA
  • Business account provider ANNA Money has teamed up with card infrastructure company Episode Six.
  • Via the partnership, ANNA Money has migrated its business card program to Episode Six’s platform to better serve its small business customers.
  • Headquartered in Cardiff, Wales, ANNA Money made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020.

All-in-one business account provider ANNA Money has partnered with card issuing and ledger infrastructure company Episode Six. ANNA Money has successfully migrated its business card program to Episode Six’s platform to better meet the product, expansion, and integration needs of its customers.

“We needed a partner with proven infrastructure and the ability to match our pace and expansion,” ANNA Money COO Alex Kokovin said. “Episode Six delivered on all fronts, addressing the limitations we previously faced. Their technology allows us to offer business debit cards, deliver a seamless experience to our customers, and scale with confidence. We reviewed a large number of vendors and Episode Six stood out for their experience, agility, and proven ability to migrate live card programs successfully.”

ANNA Money has leveraged Episode Six’s modern card infrastructure to integrate virtual and physical card capabilities into its mobile-first business account solution. The integration enables visibility into real-time transactions, instant card issuance, and the ability to configure both features and workflows. A core component of ANNA Money’s offering, business debit cards enable the fintech’s customers to pay suppliers and make business payments directly from their account conveniently and securely. In their announcement, the companies noted that their partnership comes as demand for modern card solutions is growing among SMEs in the UK. A 2024 study by Juniper Research estimated that the number of cards issued by modern card issuing platforms will soar from 748 million in 2024 to 1.4 billion in 2029.

“ANNA Money is a great example of what’s possible when fintechs pair vision with the right infrastructure,” Episode Six CEO and Co-Founder John Mitchell said. “By leveraging our platform, they’ve migrated to a sophisticated card platform to enhance the overall ANNA Money offering for its business customers, at scale and with speed.”

Episode Six helps banks, fintechs, and brands launch card, deposit, and credit products at speed and scale their offerings without having to rewrite their core. The company’s technology enables firms to build consumer, business, and secured credit cards; prepaid and debit cards; commercial cards and spend controls; multi-currency cards and wallets; virtual accounts and embedded wallets; installments, BNPL, lending features, and more. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Episode Six operates in 50 markets around the world, has more than 70 enterprise customers, and more than 40 million end users.

Headquartered in Cardiff, Wales, and founded in 2017, ANNA Money made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020. At the conference, ANNA Money demoed how its tax and VAT accounting functionality provides self-assessment and VAT returns without the cost of relying on dedicated accountants. The technology automatically categorizes and reconciles expenses, calculates VAT and tax in real time, and submits completed tax and VAT returns to the HMRC.

This week’s announcement comes weeks after ANNA Money reported that it was working with Australian fintech Shaype, which helps businesses embed banking and payment options into their offerings. The partnership enabled Shaype to launch an all-in-one business finance super app that consolidates services including business banking, taxes, expenses, company formation, and corporate cards into a single platform.

Photo by Balazs Bezeczky

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