Author: David Penn

Samsung Launches Kiosk-Based Open Banking Payments Courtesy of Moneyhub Partnership

Samsung Launches Kiosk-Based Open Banking Payments Courtesy of Moneyhub Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Moneyhub, Samsung
  • Samsung partnered with Moneyhub to bring open banking functionality to its self-service, point-of-sale retail kiosks.
  • Courtesy of Moneyhub, users of Samsung’s kiosks will be able to make payments directly from their bank accounts to merchant accounts.
  • The first of its kind partnership will help save retailers money by providing an alternative to the card networks.

Electronics manufacturer Samsung has chosen open data and payments platform Moneyhub to bring open banking payments to retail, self-service point-of-sale kiosks.

The partnership is the first of its kind, according to both Samsung and Moneyhub, and is designed to provide new payment options for merchants such as quick-service restaurants, retail stores, stadium events, as well as other hospitality-related venues. Customers using the technology will be able to send funds directly from their bank account to the merchant’s account via bank transfer, leveraging a fast and secure payment method that does not require the customer to share credit or debit card information. Using the kiosks is similarly straightforward. Customers simply use their mobile device to scan the QR code on the kiosk’s screen to make their order and manage their payment.

“We are delighted to achieve a world-first with Samsung by bringing the speed, security and cost effectiveness of Open Banking payments to our increasingly fast-paced world,” Moneyhub CEO Samantha Seaton said. “Payments is the new frontier for Open Banking and it is thrilling to see another necessary and impactful business case that brings together the quality of the Samsung kiosk, with the benefits of this new and exciting way to pay.”

The new payment option also will save merchants money by enabling them to avoid the costs associated with credit and debit cards, fees that can consume as much as 5% of their revenue. Open banking payment fees, by contrast, are typically less than 1% of the transaction value. The combination of open banking payments and self-service POS kiosks also helps support businesses’ digital transformation efforts.

Samsung Head of Display Damon Crowhurst highlighted this benefit of the new offering. “Though our partnership with Moneyhub, we are continuing to bring innovative solutions that help our customers navigate the complex landscape of a fast changing business environment,” Crowhurst said. “Implementing the open banking solution on our kiosk platform helps customers drive increased profitability, through efficient, scalable, and cost-effective solutions that are applicable for retail businesses of all sizes.”

A Finovate alum since 2015, U.K.-based Moneyhub began 2022 with the launch of its open banking and open finance front line support service. The new integrated support service, available on both a standalone basis as well as integrated into the clients’ own customer service platforms, provides expert support directly to end-users to help them manage all aspects of open banking and open finance. The company also announced early this year that it was broadening its platform beyond open banking and open finance to embrace open data. The move, which Seaton called “a natural next step in Moneyhub’s journey,” will give clients consensual access to a wide range of cross-industry data including employment, tax, and flexible benefit data, as well as property valuations, identity documents, carbon footprint information, and more.

“We want to put trust, through control of their data, back into the hands of the consumers,” Seaton said, “and in doing so support them in making better financial decisions.”

Samsung made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateFall. At the event, the company demonstrated its Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone; its biometric authentication solution, Samsung SDS Nexsign; and Samsung DeX which enables users to connect their Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone to a monitor and keyboard for a desktop experience that supports contextual menus, drag-and-drop functionality, and resizable windows.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels

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FinovateEurope Digital Day Kick Off Goes Live

FinovateEurope Digital Day Kick Off Goes Live
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2022

The FinovateEurope Digital Day Kick Off begins on Tuesday, 1:30pm in London, 9:30am in New York, and 6:30am on the West Coast.

Both an appetizer for the in-person, two-day FinovateEurope conference in London, March 22 and 23, as well as a satisfying main course in its own right, our FinovateEurope Digital Day Kick Off will feature a little bit of everything that makes our Finovate events special.

Here’s the agenda for the day. All times GMT.

1:30pm – 1:35pm | Digital Kick Off for FinovateEurope 2022 featuring Greg Palmer

1:35pm – 1:50pm | Mastermind Keynote with Zennon Kapron on The Trends & Opportunities Shaping Fintech in Asia

1:50pm – 2:05pm | Fireside Chat with Malin Lignell of Handelsbanken

2:05pm – 2:13pm | Digital Demo: Identity Consortium

2:14pm – 2:21pm | Digital Demo: CoCoNet

2:22pm – 2:29pm | Digital Demo: Berbix

2:30pm – 2:37pm | Digital Demo: Secfense

2:38pm – 2:45pm | Digital Demo: ForwardAI

2:45pm – 3:25pm | Power Panel: The Future of Fintech – Top Trends for 2022 & Beyond

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Stilt Secures $14 Million to Bring Financial Services to Immigrant Communities

Stilt Secures $14 Million to Bring Financial Services to Immigrant Communities
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • A specialist in delivering financial services to immigrant communities, Stilt, has closed a $14 million Series A round.
  • The company also secured a $100 million debt facility and launched a new credit-as-a-service offering, Onbo.
  • Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Stilt was founded in 2015.

Stilt, a fintech that specializes in providing financial services to immigrant communities, has raised $14 million in new funding. The Series A round was led by Link Ventures, and featured participation from Petrushka Investments, Hillsven Capital, and investor Gokul Rajaram. A number of C-level technology executives were also involved in the funding, including Stripe COO Claire Hughes Johnson, Checkout.com CTO Ott Kaukver, and Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra.

Along with the funding announcement, the San Francisco, California-based company reported that it also has closed a new $100 million debt facility and launched its new credit-as-a-service offering, Onbo. The new solution enables any business to create and market its own credit product without requiring a bank sponsor. Onbo relies on Stilt’s state lending licenses and compliance framework, managing origination, payments, and credit reporting to free up companies to focus on developing their credit solution. Among the kinds of credit products that Onbo enables are credit building tools, revolving lines of credit, and personal loans. Onbo is powered by a single API to facilitate integration, and also offers companies up to $1 million in debt capital to help them get started.

Additionally, Onbo funds user accounts, deducts payments, and updates reimbursements in real time. The solution features a loan management system that can use both its own built-in accounting tools or accounting tools from third-party solution providers.

“Onbo represents a new path forward for neobanks looking to launch a credit product,”Stilt co-founder and CEO Rohit Mittal said. “We’ve spent five years at Stilt getting state lending licenses, building our credit stack, and refining our risk models. Now we’re opening the entire stack for others to build innovative credit products in just a few weeks. This is the quickest way we can think of to democratize loans and credit building across the board.”

Founded in 2015, Stilt has provided financing to people from more than 150 countries around the world. Specializing in lending to immigrants and other underserved individuals, Stilt does not require cosigners and does not charge prepayment fees. Instead, the company focuses on a “holistic profile” that references a range of indications of financial responsibility such as employment or employability, education, and financial behavior. Loans from $1,000 to $35,000 are available, with repayment terms ranging from 12 months to 36 months.

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Elevating the Customer Experience: A Look at the New Credit Monitoring Solution from CuneXus

Elevating the Customer Experience: A Look at the New Credit Monitoring Solution from CuneXus
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CUneXus, David's column, Interview

A Finovate alum since 2014, CuneXus specializes in enabling lenders to deliver personalized, mobile customer experiences while helping financial institutions grow loan volume and revenue. The company has reached more than $60 million in loans funded daily, $500 billion in client combined assets, and represented 28 million consumers in the U.S.

Last fall, the company announced the launch of its new credit and identity protection monitoring solution. The technology enables credit union members to both optimize their financial picture as well as monitor their accounts for any fraudulent activity from within the credit union’s dashboard.

We caught up with Barry Kirby, CuneXus SVP to talk about the company’s new offering and the CuneXus’ broader commitment to financial wellness.

Can you tell us a little about the decision to launch this new credit monitoring solution. Why this and why now? 

The reality is that the entire banking system is backwards. Meaning this is the only industry where consumers do the heavy lifting, like applying for credit, only to be told 70% of the time that they can’t buy the product. This results in a dissatisfied customer who will most likely look elsewhere.

Moving forward, it is crucial that financial institutions strategize a new method of engaging with their customers and members through personalized offers that match their needs, especially as spending continues to return to normal. To remain a central role in their communities and the main line of financial support for their customers, financial institutions must implement a business model that promotes the importance of financial awareness and delivers customers next level services and products best suited for their lifestyle.

At CuneXus, we are dedicated to helping banks and credit unions achieve this through our first-to-market digital storefront for account holders, addressing the need for a personalized, on-demand banking experience. This storefront is empowering banks and credit unions to provide a new level of support to their customers and members, by eliminating the loan application process and offering the convenience and immediacy that they expect.

Our new real time credit monitoring solution, which is embedded within the CuneXus storefront, allows us to enter the financial wellness market and elevate the customer experience. We have traditionally provided unparalleled transparency into consumers’ borrowing power through a perpetual pre-approval process. This new product, which provides a transparent view into credit health, is a natural addition to the CuneXus storefront.

What are some of the unique aspects of CuneXus’ new tool? 

Our credit monitoring solution has the ability to pull credit information from all the three credit bureaus. Our tool gives financial institutions the option to display information from any of the three bureaus (their bureau of choice), or they can opt to provide their account holders with scores from all three bureaus. This gives the consumer the ability to monitor and compare, and gives the financial institution the flexibility to provide consumers with the best loan options and highest approval odds.

Unlike other credit monitoring solutions on the market that encourage more debt, this new solution helps consumers make informed financial decisions for their futures. The CuneXus storefront is not on a mission to solicit more debt, but rather to offer an array of viable options that the consumer can choose from in their moment of need. Now, with the help of simulators, this new tool can offer account holders suggestions and advice based on their real time credit scores, empowering them to better understand their financial standings. This education component is crucial. Our well-rounded tool balances between education and offering account holders access to credit, to ensure they make the best next move for their future.

How does the new tool give users more control over and visibility into their financial health? 

Imagine logging onto online banking and a loan offer with a personalized note pops up explaining how to improve your credit; or it offers details on how boosting your score by 50 points may lead to an even better rate. Financial institutions have a timely and unique opportunity here to step in and help their communities by providing alternative credit options or displaying suggestions for future financial decisions based on each individual’s real time, credit rating. This is exactly what our new tool does – displaying tailored advice and personalized suggestions based on internal data paired with real time credit scores. Account holders can view these relevant offers and advice as soon as they log onto their account and decide their next step on their own. This allows lenders to give end-users more control and visibility over their financial health and elevate consumer confidence, transparency, and awareness to new levels.

What is the advantage of providing multi-bureau information and credit scores as this solution does? 

Financial institutions have the ability to either display credit scores from all or one credit bureau. However, those who choose to display more than one, give consumers the ability to monitor and compare their credit ratings and enables financial institutions to offer them the best loan options and highest approval odds. The ability to view all of this information right inside the digital storefront provides financial institutions’ account holders with a more consistent and seamless digital experience, eliminates the need to monitor them elsewhere, and empowers them to track their financial wellbeing over a period of time with ongoing transparency – all which ultimately helps them optimize their financial picture.

It’s been reported that the new solution serves as an identity theft alert system, as well. How is this so? 

This credit monitoring tool has the ability to automatically identify any adjustments or changes that have been made to an account holder’s credit score, alerts the user, and automatically suggests steps to correct issues. This capability can also act as a fraud examiner by monitoring any fraudulent activity and alerting both the financial institution and customer.

The credit monitoring tool was introduced last fall. What has the response been since the launch? 

We announced that we were building this tool last fall. However, it just hit the market this spring. We have financial institutions on the waitlist to launch and would be happy to offer a follow up story with any measurable benefits/results after they have gone live.

Will we see more from CuneXus on the financial wellness front going forward? 

Absolutely. CuneXus makes banking simple, enabling consumers to more easily interact and transact with their institutions through digital channels. As part of our ongoing commitment to helping banks and credit unions navigate an increasingly complex and changing landscape, we recently made a few additional strategic investments in partnerships that will help these financial institutions also understand where and how financial wellness can and should fit into their digital strategy.

Recently we teamed up with Equifax to offer CuneXus credit union customers a better view of their members’ financial wellness and help ensure they are receiving the most relevant offers in a timely and effective manner. The CuneXus platform will leverage insights and predictive analytics that ‘Only Equifax’ can provide in the pre-screen and segmentation phases of the loan process, empowering credit unions to understand more intimately their account holders’ financial standing and create a new level of consumer transparency and awareness.

Another example of this is our new partnership we just announced with Zest AI, the leader in software for more inclusive underwriting. By leveraging Zest AI’s fair credit scoring model within the CuneXus platform, credit unions and banks will be able to extend firm offers of credit to more members than ever before, especially those who are often overlooked by legacy credit scoring. This enables a more inclusive underwriting process, improves consumer access to affordable lines of credit, and helps consumers on the lower credit spectrum build healthier credit scores, improving their long-term financial wellness.

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Sales Engagement Platform Vymo Raises $22 Million in Series C Funding

Sales Engagement Platform Vymo Raises $22 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Vymo
  • Sales engagement platform Vymo has raised $22 million in Series C funding.
  • The investment round was led by Bertelsmann India Investments, and featured participation from existing investors Emergence Capital and Sequoia Capital.
  • The funding comes after a year in which the San Francisco, California-based company recorded quarterly growth of more than 20% and 142% net revenue retention.

In a round led by Bertelsmann India Investments, and featuring participation from existing investors Emergence Capital and Sequoia Capital, intelligent sales engagement platform Vymo has secured $22 million in Series C funding. The investment takes the company’s total capital to $45 million, according to Crunchbase.

Calling 2021 “a momentous year,” Vymo CEO and co-founder Yamini Bhat pointed to quarterly growth of more than 20% and 142% net revenue retention, as well as new partnerships with Berkshire Hathaway and Max Life Insurance, as examples of the company’s recent success. Bhat added that the Series C funding will help Vymo accelerate its growth plans in markets like the U.S. and Japan. “Sales tech is a $10B+ opportunity in just these two countries,” she said.

A Finovate alum since 2018, Vymo enables frontline sales representatives to report data and learn how to best engage their customers. The company’s app serves as a personal assistant, predicting what the representative should do at key stages of the customer engagement process, detecting whether the recommended action has taken place, and recording outcomes in order to drive better predictions in the future. With more than 200,000 users around the world, Vymo’s activity capture, intelligent nudges, and ability to construct industry playbooks help improve sales outcomes and provide business leaders with insights that help them plan and execute sales and business strategies.

Vymo finished 2021 with the appointment of Deepak Keni as Chief Customer Officer for Asia. The company said that the addition of Keni was “a commitment to deliver real business outcomes from digital transformation projects” in the region. The company also was recognized by Gartner in December as a Representative Vendor in its 2021 market guide for Sales Engagement Applications.

“We started Vymo with a mission to unleash the full potential of each salesperson – to help them become a trusted advisor to their customers and partners,” Bhat said when the company’s inclusion in Gartner’s guide was announced. “After 60+ deployments around the globe, we have demonstrated how bottom-up behavioral changes are integral to driving business outcomes.”

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Vymo was founded in 2013. The company most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage last year at FinovateFall.

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Women First: Finovate Celebrates Fintech’s Female Leadership

Women First: Finovate Celebrates Fintech’s Female Leadership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Amplify Life Insurance, Coconut Software, Diversity in Fintech, Horizn, Icon Savings Plan, InfoCorp, List series, Long Game, UNest, Vymo, Women in Fintech

As part of Finovate’s continued celebration of Women’s History Month and female-led fintech, we are taking a moment to showcase the women whose companies demoed their latest innovations at our Finovate conferences last year.

Hanna Wu

CEO and Co-Founder, Amplify Life Insurance, FinovateFall. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 2019, Amplify helps people build wealth through permanent life insurance.

Katherine Regnier

CEO and Founder, Coconut Software, FinovateSpring. Headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and founded in 2007, Coconut Software provides a platform for financial institutions to help them improve customer digital and in-person engagement.

Janice Diner

CEO and Founder, Horizn, FinovateFall (Best of Show winner). Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and founded in 2011, Horizn helps banks accelerate digital banking knowledge, fluency, and adoption for both customers and employees.

Laurie Rowley

CEO, Icon Savings Plan, FinovateFall. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 2019, Icon Savings Plan provides portable retirement savings plans, the next generation in workplace savings.

Ana Inés Echavarren

CEO, Infocorp, FinovateFall (Best of Show winner). Headquartered in Montevideo, Uruguay, and founded in 1994, Infocorp offers a smart digital platform that provides banks with fast and flexible solutions to deliver superior customer experiences.

Lindsay Holden

CEO, Long Game, FinovateFall (Best of Show winner). Headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 2015, Long Game is a gamified finance app that helps banks acquire new customers and increase engagement with their current Millennial and Generation Z customers.

Ksenia Yudina

CEO, UNest, FinovateFall. Headquartered in Hollywood, California, and founded in 2020, UNest is the leading provider of financial planning, savings, and investment tools for parents to help their children reach their dreams.

Yamini Bhat

CEO and Co-Founder, Vymo, FinovateSpring, FinovateFall. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 2013, Vymo offers a sales acceleration platform for financial services firms like Berkshire Hathaway, AXA, and BNP Paribas.

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Acorns Scores $300 Million in Funding, Chooses Private Investment Over SPAC Merger

Acorns Scores $300 Million in Funding, Chooses Private Investment Over SPAC Merger
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Acorns has raised $300 million in Series F funding.
  • The investment, led by private equity firm TPG, gives the company a valuation of $1.9 billion.
  • The fundraising comes after the company abandoned its plan to go public via a SPAC merger.

Savings and investing app Acorns has raised $300 million in Series F funding in a round led by TPG. The investment gives the company a valuation of $1.9 billion and comes in the wake of the company’s decision to abandon a plan to go public via a SPAC merger that could have delivered Acorns a valuation in the neighborhood of $2.2 billion.

Also participating in the round were BlackRock, Bain Capital Ventures, and Galaxy Digital among others. Acorns said that it plans to use the additional funding to expand its offerings (including cryptocurrrency exposure), to enhance the ability of users to personalize their portfolios, and to fuel acquisitions. The company has raised a total of $507 million in capital, according to Crunchbase.

The investment comes amid increasing concerns over the fate of high growth fintechs in the public markets of late. In an interview with CNBC, Acorns CEO Noah Kerner pointed to “very volatile” markets as one of the reasons his company retreated from the SPAC market, saying he feared Acorns would be treated the same as other high growth technology companies whose valuations were coming under critical scrutiny. Kerner took solace in the successful Series F round which he said reflected the determination of Acorns’ private investors to support growing companies, “but not grow-at-all costs companies.”

Founded in 2012 by father and son Walter and Jeffrey Cruttenden, Acorns offers a platform that leverages micro- and robo-investing to help individuals and families save and invest. With as little as $3 a month, users can choose from among a number of diversified, exchange-traded fund (ETF) based portfolios with different asset allocation strategies. Automatic portfolio rebalancing is provided, and users can set up automatic recurring investments starting at $5 a day, week, or month, to take advantage of the efficiencies of fractional investing and dollar cost averaging. Acorns also offers a Round-Ups feature that enables users to automatically invest the spare change from their everyday purchases when they link their credit or debit card to their Acorns account.

With more than 4.6 million paid subscribers on its platform, Acorns has $4.7 billion in assets under management as of May of last year according to its Form ADV. The company is headquartered in Irvine, California.

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Onfido Brings its Identity Verification and Authentication Technology to Tesco Bank

Onfido Brings its Identity Verification and Authentication Technology to Tesco Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Onfido
  • Identity verification specialist Onfido has teamed up with U.K.-based retail bank Tesco Bank to enhance security of Tesco’s Clubcard Pay+ new account opening process.
  • Tesco made its Clubcard Pay+ offering available to all of its 20 million Clubcard members, following a phased launch that began in March of last year.
  • Onfido made its Finovate debut in 2018.

A new partnership between global identity verification and authentication provider Onfido and Tesco Bank will help secure the application process for Tesco’s Clubcard Pay+ customers. The security upgrade comes as the bank makes the new offering available to all 20 million Clubcard members, following a successful phased launch of Clubcard Pay+ that began a year ago with a limited number of customers and Tesco colleagues.

With Clubcard Pay+, Clubcard members will be able to pay with their Clubcard and earn extra Tesco Clubcard points wherever they shop. Using the Tesco Bank mobile app, users can add funds to their Clubcard Pay+ account from any U.K. bank account as well as ringfence their grocery spend. Additional features of Clubcard Pay+ include the ability to round up purchases to the nearest pound and transfer the difference to their Round Up savings account.

Courtesy of its partnership with Onfido, Tesco will enable customers to apply for the new offering directly from the Tesco Bank mobile app. All that is required is that applicants take a photo of their government-issued ID and a selfie. Onfido’s technology ensures first that the identity document is genuine, and then matches the image on the document with the image on the selfie. This establishes both that the person presenting the ID is the actual owner of the document and that the individual is physically present. The technology helps customers establish their identity anywhere and at any time, easing and accelerating the account opening process.

“By combining decades of banking experience with advanced biometrics and AI technology, Tesco Bank is now able to accelerate the account opening process for new Clubcard Pay+ customers,” Onfido CEO Mike Tuchen explained. “The innovative technology provided by Onfido underpins a seamless and secure application experience that protects customers and provides them with a streamlined access to Clubcard Pay+.”

Founded in 1997, Tesco Bank is the product of a joint venture between the Royal Bank of Scotland and U.K.-based supermarket giant Tesco. With more than five million customer accounts and £5.7 billion in customer deposits, Tesco Bank offers a wide range of banking and insurance solutions for the retail market. In addition to its new Clubcard Pay+ offering, the institution began 2022 with major changes to its C-suite, appointing new interim Chief Risk Officer Debbie Walker and new interim Chief Insurance Officer, Tesco Bank and interim CEO, Tesco Underwriting Gary Duggan.

London-based Onfido entered 2022 in the wake of what the company referred to as a “breakthrough” 2021. The company grew revenues by 90% year-over-year to more than $100 million and reached year-over-year growth of 134% in the U.S. Further, the company expanded its workforce by 50% to 600 employees to better accommodate increased demand for its services, this includes reaching 150 million in digital identity checks.

“Our strong year reflects the continued shift towards the critical adoption of digital environments where businesses are adapting to meet their users online,” Tuchen said earlier this year. He pointed to the $56 billion in identity theft losses consumers endured in 2020, adding “a fast, simple, and secure online journey is imperative when it comes to building customer trust, which is why we are continuing to invest in our workforce, technology, research, and development.”

Onfido has raised more than $188 million in funding from investors including TPG Growth, Augmentum Fintech, and Salesforce Ventures.

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Celebrating International Women’s Day: Time to #BreakTheBias in Fintech

Celebrating International Women’s Day: Time to #BreakTheBias in Fintech
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Guest Post, Women in Fintech

The following is a guest post from Annette Evans, VP of People and Culture, Global Processing Services

This month we at GPS are joining the #BreakTheBias campaign for International Women’s Day 2022 and adding our voice to encourage the fintech community to actively speak up about gender bias in the workplace and outside of it.

Assessing the current status of the fintech industry – given that progressive mind-sets and innovation are the lifeblood of our sector – you may assume fintechs would be pioneers of gender diversity.

Whilst progress is certainly being made, the reality is our sector still has a long way to go.

As the GPS-sponsored Diversity for Growth Report in partnership with Findexable uncovered recently, the representation of women in fintech is not as diverse as one might expect.

Two data points stood out to me in our survey. Firstly, there is a consensus that a lack of gender balance means men’s ideas dominate across every stage of the fintech value chain. Secondly, rapidly scaling companies are struggling to balance diversity commitments with the challenges of building teams in new regions at scale and speed.

On the positive side, fintech firms appear to unanimously agree that a commitment to being fully inclusive makes business sense. They understand that well-managed diverse groups outperform homogenous ones as diversity leads to a higher collective intelligence, better decision-making, and accelerated innovation.

Many also understand that it makes commercial sense as having more women in technical positions leads to more customers because it means creating products which are tailored with women in mind. Women understand how women think and what they need.

It seems strange, therefore, that there is still a gender diversity issue in fintech.

When I speak to leaders across our fast-growing global GPS ecosystem of fintechs, schemes, and banks, I nearly always hear the same thing. The bench of candidates being presented for senior or critical technical roles is rarely diverse, limiting hiring choices.

But recognizing this issue does not solve it. It simply pushes the challenge back to recruiters to try and resolve.

The challenge recruiters face is that the pool of fintech talent we are all recruiting from, whilst growing, is still small compared to other sectors.

We all continue to recruit from the same talent pool, which is problematic, not just from a gender diversity perspective but also for diversity as a whole in all its guises.

This is where I say we all need to apply the #BreakTheBias lens. For recruiters to be successful in providing a more diverse range of talent, leaders need to be more open-minded about where the talent may come from.

Change is happening, but real change takes time. Whilst diverse talent is entering the talent pool at the entry level, it will take time for them to gain their experience and work their way up to bring diversity to more senior levels.

In the immediate term, companies need to review their business culture and ask potentially tough questions around why so few women choose to work for their company. Do you create an environment where talent in all guises can shine? Or does it unconsciously favor those who already fit the mold? If someone thinks or acts differently, how are they treated? Businesses who fail to ask these questions risk losing out.

It is only by shining a mirror on ourselves that we can discover the knowledge we need to take action to try and address diversity challenges. We have to listen to be given the opportunity to change. Change can take a long time, but it will take even longer if it is delayed, ignored, or hidden.

As the organizers of this year’s International Women’s Day state, knowing that bias exists is not enough. Action is needed to level the playing field. Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day.

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Card Processor Zeta Secures $30 Million in New Funding

Card Processor Zeta Secures $30 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Zeta
  • Finovate Best of Show winner Zeta announced a new partnership with Mastercard.
  • The five-year collaboration included an investment of $30 million from Mastercard and other investors.
  • The funding gives Zeta a valuation of $1.5 billion.

Zeta, which won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateWest Digital 2020, has announced a five-year global partnership with Mastercard. The collaboration, which also featured an investment of $30 million from Mastercard and other investors, will enable the two companies to jointly launch credit cards via Zeta’s full stack, cloud-based, API-ready card processing platform. The two firms plan to issue between 30 and 40 million debit and credit cards over the course of the partnership and process $60 billion in total payment value.

“With Zeta’s next-gen credit card processing platform, we are fundamentally rewiring how issuers launch credit card programs by offering new paradigms over legacy mainframe systems,” Zeta co-founder and CEO Bhavin Turakhia said. He noted that Zeta enables issuers to increase their lending books, reduce costs with pay-as-you-go SaaS billing, improve customer engagement and satisfaction, and leverage the platform to launch new solutions and iterate faster.

The funding gives the San Francisco, California-based fintech a valuation of $1.5 billion, further solidifying the company’s unicorn status it achieved last May when Zeta scored $240 million in a round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Zeta’s flagship solution, Tachyon, is a modern credit processing stack that provides integrated credit and loan processing. The platform spans the entire credit card lifecycle from issuance, core, and payments to BNPL loans, fraud and risk monitoring, rewards, and more. Zeta’s APIs enable issuers to create new revenue lines as BIN/balance sheet sponsors by providing co-brands, fintechs, and affinity partners with a complete banking-as-a-service and embeddable banking platform. The company also provides a suite of managed services including servicing, collections, and more.

Mastercard EVO for Products and Innovation Sandeep Malhotra underscored the capabilities of Zeta’s platform. “By deploying Zeta’s credit processing stack, issuers will have an opportunity to grow their user base, drive higher usage, and enter new geographical markets while accelerating the cashless revolution around the world.”

The relationship between Zeta and Mastercard extends back to 2018, when Zeta entered Mastercard’s Start Path engagement program. More recently, Zeta joined the Mastercard Developers Partner Network, Engage, which will give the fintech access to the Mastercard network. This will enable Zeta to pre-integrate or bundle solutions such as Mastercard’s Digital First and Fintech Express progams that support customer KYC and verification operations, as well as instant digital card issuance and provisioning.

Founded in 2015, Zeta began this year with the announcement that its card processing business grew to more than 10 million cards with more than 300 million transactions a year globally.

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Have Cryptocurrency Firms Reached a Moral Crossroads Over Ukraine?

Have Cryptocurrency Firms Reached a Moral Crossroads Over Ukraine?
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, MasterCard, VISA

While much of the financial world is united in its efforts to distance itself from Russia as the country’s leader, Vladimir Putin, orders his forces continue their invasion of neighboring Ukraine, many of those in the cryptocurrency world are decidedly more ambivalent.

Is this a function of the underlying libertarian spirit that powers much of the enthusiasm for digital assets? Or is this just a reflection of a relatively young industry that is not yet ready to take on the responsibilities that its growing role in the financial world will eventually demand?

First, the ask. At the beginning of the week, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov took to social media to ask cryptocurrency exchanges to block transactions from Russia. Federov’s request was not just directed at the Russian government, or the country’s notorious oligarchs, but for everyday Russian users of cryptocurrencies, as well.

“It’s crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians,” Federov wrote on Twitter, “but also to sabotage ordinary users.”

In the same way that some people have criticized the international sanctions regime against Russia for allowing a loophole when it comes to energy – specifically banning oil and gas exports from Russia – Federov and others have warned that not restricting, if not outright eliminating, Russian access to cryptocurrencies is a critical flaw in the effort to financially squeeze the Russian economy.

In response to this request, many nations have taken action. France’s Finance Minister, Bruno le Maire, said that the EU would include cryptocurrencies in its sanctions. The Financial Conduct Authority in the U.K. has reminded its U.K.-based and regulated cryptocurrency companies of their obligations to respect the sanctions policy against Russia. Even those cryptocurrency firms that are not regulated have been encouraged to support the sanctions regime. “We would urge unregulated member(s) to take action to ensure your platforms do not become a loophole for sanctioned Russians,” U.K. cryptocurrency organization Crypto UK said in a statement.

In the U.S., while some lawmakers have encouraged the government to help ensure that Russians are not using cryptocurrencies to skirt sanctions, the Biden Administration appears less concerned about that threat – at least on the large scale. Carol House, director of cybersecurity for the National Security Council said this week that “the scale that the Russian state would need to successfully circumvent all U.S. and partners’ financial sanctions would almost certainly render cryptocurrency as an ineffective primary tool for the state.” If anything, it seems that U.S. authorities are somewhat more concerned about potential theft and cybersecurity issues surrounding cryptocurrency companies than they are of Russians using these firms and exchanges for what would otherwise be legitimate purposes.

The response from cryptocurrency companies – including some of the largest firms like Binance and Kraken – have suggested that while they are comfortable blocking the accounts of sanctioned Russians, banning all Russians from their platforms is, for these companies, a bridge too far. At least for now.

“We are not political, we are against war, but we are here to help the people,” Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao said, explaining his company’s position. “There are a few hundred individuals that are on the international sanctions list in Russia, mostly politicians, and we follow that very, very strictly.” But Zhao added that Binance draws a line “between the Russian politicians who start wars and the normal people, many normal Russians do not agree with war.”

Similarly, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell tweeted, “I understand the rationale for this request (to block Russians from Kraken’s platform) but, despite my deep respect for the Ukrainian people, Kraken cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so.”

That said, Powell noted, “Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent.”

Additionally, it should be added many cryptocurrency companies are not agnostic to the conflict in the Ukraine and have lent their support to the Ukrainian cause. Federov expressed his, and his country’s, appreciation for the efforts of firms like Polkadot, which donated $5 million, as well as Solana and Everstake, which have created a joint effort called Aid for Ukraine in partnership with the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.

“This will certainly contribute to the Ukrainian victory as well as support civil people,” Federov said on Twitter earlier this week. “We will win – the best people (are) with us.”

FinovateEurope 2022 is only a few weeks away. Register today to save your spot at our annual European fintech conference: March 15 digitally and live in London on March 22 and 23.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

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Social Investing App Shares Announces $40 Million Series A Investment

Social Investing App Shares Announces $40 Million Series A Investment
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Shares, a new social investment app based in Paris, has raised $40 million in Series A funding.
  • The app combines fractional share investing with features that enable users to observe the investing behavior of others, as well as collaborate on investment strategies.
  • The app is available to investors in the U.K. The company plans to bring the solution to investors in other European countries “in the future.”

In a round led by Valar Ventures, social investment app Shares has raised $40 million in Series A funding. The investment comes as the Paris-based fintech goes live with its app on both the Apple App Store and Google Play, and lifts the company’s total capital to $50 million.

Shares’ technology enables investors to buy and sell shares in public companies, and adds the ability for friends and colleagues to collaborate when it comes to investing and building investment strategies. The app allows for fractional share investing, users can open accounts with as little as £1.00, and there are no fees for buying and selling shares. What helps distinguish Shares from other mobile-first investment platforms is the ability to create discussion groups to facilitate information-sharing with other investors and traders on the app. Shares also features an investment activity feed that enables users to see when their friends are buying and selling shares.

The app is currently available only to investors in the U.K.; the company has provided a waitlist for interested individuals in the E.U. Shares is partnered with Alpaca Securities LLC, which is serving as the company’s execution broker.

Headquartered in Paris, France, Shares was co-founded by Benjamin Chemia (CEO), François Ruty (CTO) and Harjas Singh (CPO) and maintains offices in London and Krakow, as well. The goal of the company was to reduce barriers to investing, especially for first-time investors. With fractional share investing and a social component that makes it easy to learn, share, and collaborate, Shares seeks to counter the notion that investing is “boring and lonely” and, instead, show that investing is “something everyone can enjoy.”

“Despite having worked in finance, I know from my own experience as a retail investor how inaccessible the world of investing can be even with today’s lower barrier, commission-free apps,” Singh said last fall. “There is a real consumer demand for a social-first app like Shares designed to level the playing field so anyone can join the conversation and become an investor.”

Joining Valar Ventures in the funding round were existing investors Singular, Global Founders Capital, and Red Sea Ventures.

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