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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Truist has acquired mobile savings gamification app, Long Game.
Long Game uses strategies from the prize-linked savings and mobile gamification worlds to drive customer engagement and increase brand loyalty for banks.
Long Game won Best of Show in its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall 2021 in New York.
“Truist’s commitment to help people build financial wellness is exactly what we are about at Long Game,” company co-founder and CEO Lindsay Holden said. “We’ve revolutionized bank engagement and are eager to apply ourselves to creating disruptive technologies that help Truist deliver a human touch in new ways.”
Long Game won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in New York last year. The company offers a bank-branded mobile app that leverages the best practices from prize-linked savings and mobile gaming to help banks acquire new customers, boost customer engagement, and promote financial literacy – with a particular focus on Millennial and Gen Z customers.
Courtesy of the acquisition, Long Game’s team of engineers, designers, and business leaders will join Truist’s innovation team. Holden will lead a San Francisco, California-based crew of engineers, product managers, and designers as they develop new client-centric solutions.
“At Truist we are laser-focused on shaping the future of finance with innovative people and products – and democratizing entrepreneurial opportunity while we do it,” Vanessa Indriolo Vreeland of Truist Ventures said. “Long Game is a female-led business with a diverse team of incredibly talented innovators creating unique solutions to help people achieve financial confidence.”
The acquisition is designed to help Truist reach a younger demographic. Truist also sees Long Game’s technology as complementary to its workplace financial wellness program, Truist Momentum, that helps employees better manage their finances based on their goals and values. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Truist was formed in 2019 as a result of the merger between BB&T and SunTrust Banks. Truist is a publicly traded company on the NYSE under the ticker symbol TFC. The firm has a market capitalization of $66 billion.
Learn more about Long Game! Check out our interview with company co-founder and CEO Lindsay Holden on the Finovate Podcast with Greg Palmer.
The convergence between the complexities of property management and property taxation has produced more than its fair share of headaches for commercial and residential property owners alike. Fortunately, fintech innovation in the form of Ownwell exists to help these property owners save money when it comes to paying property taxes.
“Property owners have a lot to consider when deciding to protest (property tax overpayments),” Ownwell CEO Colton Pace explained. Pace cited the costs in time and money, the complexity, and the access to real estate industry expertise as major hurdles for property owners when contesting property value assessments. “Ownwell handles the entire process of appealing on behalf of property owners and charges the lowest fees currently on the market,” Pace said. “We ensure all property owners, regardless of financial status, have access to the tools, resources, and information they need to manage their property taxes with confidence.”
Formerly known as realAppeal, Ownwell combines industry expertise and machine learning to provide property owners with protection against overpaying on their property tax. Ownwell provides owners with a savings estimate based on current sales and valuation data. If the owner decides to challenge their assessment, locally-based property tax experts leverage proprietary software to build the best case possible for the property owner. With a Savings-or-Free guarantee, Ownwell customers only pay if the process saves them money on their property tax assessment. The company said that its customers save an average of $1,457, and that “nearly” nine of 10 of its challenges are successful.
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Ownwell earned a spot in the fintech headlines recently with news of its $5.75 million seed funding round. The investment was led by First Round Capital, and featured participation by Wonder Ventures, Founder Colllective, Long Journey Ventures, and Scott Banister, former board member of PayPal. The company said that it will use the additional capital to hire additional talent – from sales to technology to local tax expertise – across the board. The seed funding comes as the Ownwell reports growing its customer base by 40x over the past nine months, with operations in Texas, California, Washington, and Florida.
“Real estate is often the most valuable asset homeowners and investors own, but it’s difficult to track and manage the rising costs of property taxes, insurance, financing, and more,” First Round Capital partner Bill Trenchard said. “Ownwell is building a platform to help property owners reduce their property taxes and manage the other costs of ownership with confidence.”
American Express and Billtrust announced a partnership that will leverage automation to enhance acceptance of AMEX virtual cards.
The collaboration is designed to meet the accounts receivable (AR) needs of suppliers who are experiencing faster payments and increased cash flow.
A Finovate alum since 2015, American Express recently partnered with i2c to help fintechs and financial institutions develop solutions on its payments network.
The integration, announced late last week, will enable suppliers to automate and accelerate virtual card payments and to benefit from real-time insight into their outstanding invoices and current cash flow. The partnership, according to AMEX President of U.S. Global Merchant Services Colleen Taylor, is designed to help suppliers keep pace with both an increased demand for products and services, as well as a need for faster, more efficient payment processes. This is due, Taylor suggested, in large part to the trend of businesses “moving away from paper-based payments to electronic payments for the greater visibility and speed they provide.”
Unfortunately, this trend of faster payments and larger cash flows also means that many companies have existing AR systems that are often inadequate. The partnership between American Express and Billtrust responds to this challenge by giving suppliers a complete solution that covers all aspects of the AR process, including credit decisioning, ordering, invoicing, payments, cash application, and collections. The partnership also will give suppliers access to Billtrust’s Business Payments Network (BPM), which boosts invoice and digital payment efficiency by connecting them with hundreds of buyers and buyer portals.
“Both Billtrust and American Express recognize the need to support merchants and suppliers in responding to buyer demands for digital payment options,” Billtrust CEO Flint Lane said. “This collaboration brings automation to American Express merchants and suppliers, helping create better outcomes and increased customer satisfaction.”
American Express has been a Finovate alum since 2015, when the company presented The role of B2B payments in the evolving commerce ecosystem at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley. The company’s partnership news with Billtrust comes in the wake of a collaboration with digital payment and banking technology company i2c that will make it easier for fintechs and financial institutions to develop and scale products on AMEX’s global payments network. American Express trades on the NYSE under the ticker AXP, and has a market capitalization of $127 billion.
“What mmob does is solve the pain points on two sides of an ecosystem. On one side for third party product providers and service providers, we integrate all of their products and services onto our network. Then we also make that seamlessly accessible through to larger distribution channels so their products and services can be integrated natively.”
“(Identity verification) is very challenging, especially when you look at it as a global problem. Every region, every geography has a little bit of a twist. People may not have consistent addresses in some countries, or may not have a track record with a financial institution or a utility compared to some other places. So identity verification is very, very difficult and made much more complicated if you operate in a lot of countries or incorporate a lot of data sources.”
“We are an AI company focused on analyzing billions of articles and messages from the web in real -time using a technology called Natural Language Processing (NLP). We basically process text data and we derive insights that are consumed by financial professionals and corporates. We have the ability to screen an enormous, 20 billion articles and messages and to detect things like environmental, social, and governance risks; early warnings; analyzing competitors; measuring sentiment on companies and on concept.”
“Finshape is a new brand in the digital banking market. It has come about with the merger of two companies: BSC (Banking Software Company) and W.UP. With the combined force of these two companies, Finshape now has about 700 people with a hundred banking clients across the globe as clients and partners across four continents. We’re very proud to have built this digital powerhouse and we’re looking to do a lot more in shaping the future of digital banking.”
Stay tuned for more videos from Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast’s Conversations with Best of Show winners.
The funding will help OneVest, which was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, to grow its team, expand sales, and support product development. The company offers digital wealth management services that can be embedded into consumer-facing products via APIs. The technology integrates well with multiple fintechs and financial institutions, empowering them to combine wealth management and investment functionality into their own financial solutions.
“People are increasingly demanding a more seamless and simple experience where financial products are integrated into their everyday lives,” OneVest co-founder and CEO Amar Ahluwalia said. “Our mission is to make investing more accessible to everyone, and available anytime, anywhere and through any channel.”
The first company to take advantage of the new offering is Neo Financial, which leveraged OneVest’s platform to launch its new actively managed wealth platform, Neo Invest.
Square announced this week that it is bringing its financing solution to business borrowers in Canada. Square Loans leverages transaction data to create and bring customized offers to eligible sellers, giving them a straightforward, paperwork-free application process. Funds are available the next business day and businesses are charged a single, upfront loan fee that is paid back automatically as a set percentage of daily card sales with Square. This arrangement enables borrowers to make larger repayments when sales are strong and smaller repayments when sales are weaker.
“From our earliest days, Square has focused on building easy-to-use tools and services to empower entrepreneurs to succeed on their own terms,” Head of Square Alyssa Henry said. Since Square Loans launched in the U.S. and Australia, the company has provided more than $9 billion in financing to more than 460,000 businesses with an average loan size of $6,750.
For all the interest – an even enthusiasm in some quarters – over CBDCs, not everyone is on board. This week we learned that Pierre Poilievre, leadership candidate for Canada’s Conservative Party is not only unimpressed by the opportunities provided by CBDCs, he also wants to enact a ban on the technology.
But don’t mistake Poilievre for a Luddite. The man considers himself a blockchain backer and has, in fact, pledged to make Canada “the blockchain capital of the world.”
“A Poilievre government would welcome this new, decentralized, bottom-up economy and allow people to take control of their money from bankers and politicians,” the Conservative Party politician said in March. He added that an embrace of blockchain would “expand choice” and “lower the costs of financial products” as well as providing a wealth of tech-oriented jobs and opportunities for entrepreneurs in Canada.
As such, Poilievre’s CBDC skepticism seems to be more related to his attitude toward central banks than his opinion on blockchain technology. He has promised that, in addition to a CBDC ban, he would support an audit of the central bank’s balance sheet – a common commitment from conservative politicians in the post-Global Financial Crisis era. This would include a review of the central bank’s bond buying program during the pandemic. Poilievre has blamed the central bank economic response to COVID for the country’s currently high inflation rate.
Both a Canadian CBDC and a Poilievre mandate are some ways away, if that. The Canadian central bank has been working on a CBDC for year, with the project still in development stage. Poilievre, while the front runner to become the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, would nevertheless have to wait until 2025 at the earliest to challenge Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Central and Eastern Europe
How has fintech in Russia been impacted by the country’s invasion of Ukraine? Fintech influencer Chris Skinner reviewed the current state of Russian fintech.
We recently caught up with Vivienne Hsu, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer with Sokin, a U.K.-based, global financial service provider and payments company. Originally slated for our Women’s History Month commemoration, our conversation includes both Hsu’s thoughts on “the State of Women in Fintech” and gender diversity in the industry, as well as her insights on Sokin, its contributions to fintech innovation, and what we can expect from the company in the future.
Joining Sokin in 2021, Hsu was previously co-founder and Partner at Anabasis Partners, an international marketing and communications advisory firm. Before that, Hsu spent more than seven years as an executive with Cognito, a London-based PR, marketing, and communications agency.
Can you tell us a little about Sokin and its place in the fintech industry?
Hsu: Sokin is a global payments fintech that is the first to offer a consumer subscription model for unlimited transfers for a fixed fee. We believe in straightforward, transparent currency exchange and money transfers and allowing as many people and businesses to have access to the global payments ecosystem. We are ethically conscious and focused on the positive impact we can have as a business, putting financial inclusivity and eco-friendly innovation centrally to our purpose while working to democratize and simplify the global payments process.
How long have you worked at Sokin? What do you enjoy most about being a part of its leadership team?
Hsu: I’ve been with Sokin since January 2021 and enjoy being part of a very fast-paced business that is constantly growing, innovating, and evolving. I’m surrounded by hard-working and exceptionally talented people where I continue to learn so much. The leadership team is experienced, grounded, and strategic, but also fun which makes being part of it such a privilege.
What are the biggest responsibilities you have as CCMO? Are there any accomplishments as Sokin’s CCMO that you are most proud of?
Hsu: The biggest responsibilities I have as CCMO is to build the Sokin brand and keep our name front-of-mind within the global payments and innovation industry. We have an incredible story to tell – one that really holds people at its heart – and great products and services to get out to market with.
I’m immensely proud of the team we have built and how quickly we have managed to scale the Sokin brand globally. We’ve nurtured our flourishing sports club partnerships very effectively and continue to enter new markets at pace with an extremely exciting proposition.
How has the pandemic impacted the work you do as CCMO?
Hsu: The global pandemic changed how we work, but not what we need to do to deliver it. If anything, the change in working environment has forced us to innovate and collaborate in new and diverse ways. For example, as a global organization with a workforce across the world, we do not let time zones or geographies hold back progress.
Being able to build a good team culture and the creative spark is the only area which has been harder to achieve as our people are not always together. But overall, it’s not negatively impacted my role or the work we do at Sokin.
How would you characterize the “State of Women in Fintech and Financial Services” in 2022?
Hsu: The industry has improved, but there is still a lot of work to do. When I started out, it was not uncommon for only one or two women to have a seat in the boardroom. This, of course, has changed due to a shift in workplace attitudes and, as a result, we are seeing more women than ever moving up the ladder. However, this must only be seen as the beginning. It’s still not an equal men-to-women ratio, but it’s getting better.
Evidently, more attention and emphasis have been placed on supporting women in the finance industry over the years. I have seen more female leaders and experts working in finance and fintech compared to 10 years ago. It’s wonderful to see the glass ceiling starting to crack and I hope it grows in momentum.
What do you think the industry is doing right in terms of promoting gender diversity? What do we need to do better?
Hsu: I think fintech and financial services are having the conversation and pushing the agenda for gender diversity, which is really the first step. We need to get to a point where equality is part of a natural and organic system, not a forced issue as it is now – much like a box to tick.
I hope in the coming years we will not have to talk about gender diversity in the same way we do now, but instead it becomes something that’s actioned without question.
What can you do in your role as CCMO to help advance gender diversity?
Hsu: I think I can help in my role as a CCMO – and also as a senior female leader – by setting a good example, supporting, and mentoring others and driving a strong DE&I team and agenda at Sokin. Being part of a progressive and innovative company helps immensely, but also we have a culture where everyone’s opinion matters and can be shared which really can drive quick and necessary change.
It’s also about giving women the opportunities they need to succeed. The best way to create a rope ladder for other people to climb is to include them in your own journey. I’ve been exceedingly lucky to work with lots of incredible people over the years who did just that. By doing so, they pulled the best out of me which I did not see in myself. Before I knew it, I was involved in activities which, to me, seemed impossible, but those around me saw things differently. I will always be grateful for this, and I hope I can support the talent of today in the same way.
It may sound simple, but by doing so you naturally open opportunities and further responsibilities for those in your team. Providing an accessible platform to learn is fundamental in supporting others through their professional careers, especially in fast-paced industries such as fintech in which there are an plenty of chances opening every day. It’s about giving people both the confidence and, most importantly, access to pursue them.
Sokin is involved in multiple new initiatives. What excites you most about the direction of the company right now?
Hsu: I’m most excited about how the company is innovating and the way we are building our ecosystem and partnerships. It’s unlike any other organization I have worked! Sokin is at the forefront of several innovations such as taking payments into the metaverse and web 3.0, alongside what we can do with our existing and new partners.
Having only launched our Global Currency Account in August 2021, Sokin has rapidly expanded into 32 territories, and welcomed more than 120,000 Sokin customers with a further 175,000 currently on the global waiting list. At the end of 2021, we had transferred over $100 million around the world, delivered a multilingual app with five accessible languages, doubled the size of Sokin’s global workforce, partnered with five top-class football clubs including our first NFL team, and launched our exclusive sponsorship community, Sokin – Money Goals. To achieve this in a matter of months is astounding.
In short, we are leveling up global payments with the ambition to become the provider of choice for global transfers and currency exchange around the world. And I wholeheartedly believe we can and we will achieve this.
Today, as we near the end of our Financial Literacy Month commemoration, we’re highlighting those Best of Show winning fintech innovators and the work they do in making financial education available to a broadening range of communities.
Provo, Utah-based Banzai made its one-and-only Finovate appearance at FinovateFall 2018 in New York. At the event, the company won Best of Show for its offering that helps banks and credit unions boost customer engagement and ROI while providing financial education for their customers and members.
FamZoo demoed its technology on the Finovate stage twice – in 2011 and again in 2013 – winning Best of Show on both occasions. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California and founded in 2006, the two-time Best of Show winner offers a prepaid card and financial education for kids in a single family finance app.
When it comes to financial literacy, companies like Horizn help the financial services community help itself. Making its Finovate debut in 2017, Horizn earned a pair of Best of Show awards in its two most recent appearances in 2020 and 2021. The company offers a platform that helps financial institutions accelerate digital banking knowledge, fluency, and adoption for both customers and employees. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Horizn was founded in 2011.
Not many companies can boast of winning a Finovate Best of Show award in two different decades, but Kasasa (formerly known as BancVue) has done that and then some. The financial and marketing technology provider, based in Austin, Texas, and founded in 2004, won Best of Show in its Finovate debut in 2009. Nearly ten years later, the company picked up its third Best of Show award at FinovateSpring in 2018 (Kasasa also won Best of Show in 2011 in San Francisco). In addition to offering a variety of innovative fintech products – such as its “take-back loan” – Kasasa also launched an online game called MoneyIsland that helps instruct kids on the importance of sound money management.
One of two Best of Show winning Canadian companies with a commitment to financial literacy, Ottawa, Ontario-based Launchfire won Best of Show at FinovateSpring 2019 in its second Finovate appearance. The company specializes in game-based employee and customer engagement for financial institutions. Most notably, Launchfire offers an employee engagement solution, Lemonade, that blends gamification with micro-learning, AI, and “surgical analytics” to educate financial services employees.
Long Game is one of Finovate’s newest alums and one of our more recent Best of Show winners, as well. The company, founded in 2015 and based in San Francisco, California, won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021 last September. Long Game offers a bank-branded mobile app that combines the best practices of prize-linked savings and mobile gaming to help banks and credit unions acquire new customers, increase customer engagement, and boost financial literacy.
Earning a Best of Show award in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019, Zogo Finance leverages behavioral economic research developed at Duke University to help improve financial literacy for young people. The company’s app transforms tricky financial concepts into smaller, easier-to-understand lessons, and offers rewards and incentives to users who complete them. The company announced 31 new financial institution partnerships in Q1 of 2022 alone, bringing its total partnership tally to more than 180 banks and credit unions.
Fidelity Investments announced the launch of its gamified, metaverse-based financial education experience.
The Fidelity Stack is an eight-story, virtual building that hosts a lobby, a dance floor, a rooftop for hanging out, and an Invest Quest challenge to help users learn about ETF investing.
Fidelity Investments’ new offering comes in the wake of the launch of a metaverse-themed exchange-traded fund (ETF), FMET.
Financial Literacy Month meets the metaverse movement as Fidelity Investments unveils a new gamified financial education experience located in Decentraland, a virtual world launched in 2020. The new offering, The Fidelity Stack, features a lobby, a dance floor, and a roof top hangout, as well as an Invest Quest challenge in which visitors gather “orbs” and learn the basics of investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) while moving through eight-story Fidelity Stack facility.
“We’re part of a dynamic shift as young people take control of their finances in new ways,” Fidelity CMO and Head of Emerging Customers David Dintenfass said. “The next generation seeks out financial education in all the places they spend time, whether physical or virtual. We’re committed to serve customers in these decentralized communities as they transform and grow.”
In a preview video of The Fidelity Stack in Decentraland, Fidelity in the Metaverse, the investment firm noted that while the new experience is “not our first metaverse rodeo” The Fidelity Stack nevertheless represents Fidelity as “the first brokerage firm to have an immersive, educational metaverse experience.” Locating its new offering in Decentraland also could help Fidelity Investments reach younger audiences; Decentraland is dedicated toward users in the 18-35 age range – a cohort that Reuters noted represented 3.8 million of the Fidelity brokerage accounts opened in 2021.
The Fidelity Stack comes hot on the heels of the launch of a new ETF from Fidelity Investments that enables investors to add exposure to companies that are building the metaverse to their portfolios. FMET, as the ETF is called, includes shares of companies such as Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Adobe, and NVIDIA. Unveiled along with another new ETF – the Fidelity Crypto Industry and Digital Payments ETF, FDIG – FMET is designed to give investors the opportunity to participate in the growth of new technologies without requiring investors to have a great deal of experience in or familiarity with the complexity that accompanies these new innovations.
“Leveraging Fidelity’s decades of investment experience, we are focused on growing our broad product lineup with innovative strategies that offer choice, value, and new opportunities to investors,” Fidelity Head of ETF Management and Strategy Greg Friedman said. “We continue to see demand particularly from young investors, for access to the rapidly growing industries in the digital ecosystem and these two thematic ETFs offer investors exposure in a familiar investment vehicle.”
Personetics launched its Sustainability Insights solution this week, giving consumers visibility into the carbon emissions of their spending and investments.
The new offering is made possible thanks to a partnership with sustainability-as-a-service company ecolytiq.
The launch of Sustainability Insights comes less than a month after the company introduced new proactive cash flow management functionality on its platform.
Financial data-driven personalization innovator Personetics announced the launch of a new offering, Sustainability Insights, to help financial institutions respond to consumer demand – and increasing expectations from regulators — for sustainable, environmentally-responsible, climate-aware finance. The new solution has been made possible courtesy of Personetics’ partnership with sustainability-as-a-service company ecolytiq, and will enable customers to see their own carbon footprint, as well as suggest ways they can reduce the impact of their transactions on the climate by pursuing greener spending options and financial objectives that are support climate sustainability.
“Personetics Sustainability Insights are the next evolution in sustainable finance,” Personetics CEO David Sosna said. “Beyond just showing back customers their carbon footprint, we offer them specific actions that they can take today to reduce their carbon impact, choose climate-friendly savings goals, and push the industry in a greener direction.”
Sustainability Insights offers consumers a personalized, holistic “financial map” that graphically shows the carbon emissions of customer spending and/or investments. The solution also offers personalized insights and advice, tailored to the customer’s financial profile, to help them reduce those carbon emissions. The recommendations range from the more modest, for example, transacting with a different, more eco-conscious merchant, to the more comprehensive, such as setting up a savings plan to pay for the installation of solar panels on a home. Sustainability Insights also leverages quizzes and feedback insights to enhance the accuracy of its recommendations. In a statement, Personetics noted that the solution is based on the company’s “four pillars of sustainable finance” strategy; namely, that the technology be integrated, relatable, interactive, and actionable.
Sustainability Insights is also designed to have benefits for banks and financial institutions, as well as for their customers. For one, Sosna highlighted the ability of the solution to improve customer engagement, and open up new opportunities for cross-selling. “This will create deeper relationships with banking customers and ultimately support banks’ ESG reporting,” Sosna explained. “Every financial institution can be a leader in green banking with Sustainability Insights.”
A Finovate alum since 2016, Personetics serves more than 80 financial institutions in 30 global markets, and reaches 120 million customers. An innovator in the field of financial data-driven personalization, customer engagement, and advanced money management capabilities for financial services, Personetics is dedicated to what it calls “the future of self-driving finance” in which banks are able to serve their customers’ financial wellness needs proactively.
Speaking of which, earlier this month Personetics introduced new “proactive cash flow management” capabilities on its platform. The offering is geared toward helping mitigate liquidity issues that customers face that often lead to overdrafts. Proactive cash flow management predicts 70% of overdraft situations, reduces the frequency of low balance incidents, provides personalized recommendations to help fix overdrafts, and helps enhance customer relationships with their financial institution, leading to higher customer lifetime value (CLV).
“Progressive banks all over the world are seeking new ways to help customers with their money management,” Jody Bhagat, President of Americas at Personetics, said when the cash flow management capabilities were launched. “By adopting a data-driven, personalized approach, banks can unleash their creativity in delivering tailored solutions and treatments that put customers’ financial wellness at the center of the experience.”
Last week for Earth Day we talked about the different ways that the fintech industry is responding to the climate challenge. Since then, there’s been even more news on that front – in this case from a pair of banks that are giving their customers the ability to contribute personally to climate sustainability.
BMO Harris Bank’s policy will enable cardholders in the U.S. to donate up to 500 of their accumulated points to Conservation International. Donating points is easy; cardholders can sign up for the program via BMO Digital Banking on their mobile app or online, then select the credit card account from which the points will be donated.
“Being part of Mastercard’s Priceless Planet Coalition is just one of many actions BMO is taking to support a sustainable future,” BMO Financial Group Head of North American Personal and Business Banking Ernie Johannson said. “What we do today will determine how our world looks tomorrow. In addition to BMO’s own bold actions to grow the good, we are proud to invite customers to join us and to make action as easy as redeeming their card points. Together, our efforts can make a big impact toward sustaining a healthy environment.”
Carbon tracking, as we mentioned last week, is among the more popular ways that fintechs and financial services companies have empowered consumers to better understand the impact of their spending habits on the environment. Rabobank, a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company, just announced that it will enable 1,000 of its Rabo payments accountholders to see the impact of their consumption on the climate – courtesy of a Carbon Insights feature on their Rabo app.
“With Carbon Insights, we make consumers part of the solution, just like we do with sustainable farmers who can earn carbon credits through carbon storage in their farmland,” Rabo Carbon Bank CEO Barbara Baarsma said. “Together our eight million private customers can make a difference and combat climate change by changing their spending patterns towards a smaller carbon footprint. For example, by buying different, less carbon intensive food they also stimulate supermarkets to offer more sustainable products.”
Rabobank developed its Carbon Insights capability in partnership with green fintech Ecolytiq, which has partnered with a number of financial services companies to help them develop climate sustainability-based solutions. Ecolytiq, leveraging the European Union’s Open Payment Standard, provides Rabobank with Dutch CO2 values per euro and spending category (food, transportation, clothing, etc.). Rabobank manages the secure environment in which accountholder payment data is processed, ensuring that customer data remains with Rabobank and that data is not used for any other purpose.
Underscoring the emphasis on privacy, Rabo Carbon Bank Product Manager for Carbon Bank Retail Fadoua Ajjaji explained, “Of course we don’t know the exact products somebody buys in the supermarket, so the CO2 emissions remain an estimation. For the calculation we look at the payment itself, not the actual receipt. Customers can provide additional information, if they eat meat or own a car, which allows us to make the calculations more accurate.” Ajjaji called carbon tracking “a missed opportunity” when it comes to meeting the climate challenge “as gaining insights is the first step in making more sustainable choices.”
The new offering, MemberPass Express, will be made available via MemberPass, the first KYC-compliant, member-controlled digital identity issued by credit union cooperatives. MemberPass Express will enable credit union members to authenticate their identity during e-commerce, online, or mobile banking transactions, as well as while visiting a branch or contacting a call center. The new seamless authentication process, which provides multi-channel authentication in less than 10 seconds, is currently being piloted with a pair of credit unions.
“The joint new solution leverages artificial intelligence to protect members from fraud by analyzing the context (such as identity, behavior, location, device, and channel) of each user journey in real-time,” Entersekt CEO Schalk Nolte said. “This informs the most appropriate member authentication method that will be used, and means that members will now benefit from industry-leading authentication, while enjoying a fast and smooth user experience.”
South Africa-based Entersekt ended 2021 with a major investment from technology-based private equity firm Accel-KKR. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Joe Porten, Principal at Accel-KKR, praised the company for its “deep vertical expertise” and its record of success in the financial services industry. “As a partner, Accel-KKR is committed to helping the Entersekt team accelerate growth and continually deliver innovation in their category.”
This week on Finovate Global we’re highlighting some of the fintech news from Germany.
Scalable Capital, a digital investment platform based in Germany, announced the launch of its neo-broker and new cryptocurrency offering Scalable Crypto in the Italian market. The new solution, introduced in December, will enable Italian investors to buy stock, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), popular cryptocurrencies, as well as set up savings plans for free. The company’s Scalable Broker offering will give investors access to more than 6,000 international stocks, with all trades routed through regulated European exchanges to avoid FX fees. Scalable Broker also provides access to more than 1,500 ETFs and more than 1,700 mutual funds. Additionally, Scalable Broker is available in different price configurations: a free version with commission-free savings plans and trading for stocks and ETFs that charges a fee of EUR 0.99 for transactions in other instruments, and a “Prime” version with an additional trading flat rate enabling unlimited trades for a monthly fee of EUR 2.99.
Scalable Crypto enables investors to buy and sell common cryptocurrencies, which are held as securities in the client’s brokerage account. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and XRP are among the cryptocurrencies available for trading, each of which is based on exchange-traded crypto products (ETPs) for easy and secure transactions on regulated exchanges.
“The online broker with savings plans and crypto is just the beginning,” Scalable Capital founder and co-CEO Erik Podzuweit said. “Our goal is to introduce our complete investment platform to the Italian market. We will make even more services available to our Italian clients, such as our leading robo-advisor.”
Scalable Capital made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.
Moojo, a new startup that helps freelancers, creators, and gig economy workers improve their invoicing process and get paid faster, announced $2 million in seed funding this week. The round included participation from APX, Helvetia Venture Fund, MS&AD, neoteq Ventures, and Red Swan Ventures
In addition to its instant payments and invoicing solutions, Moojo plans to introduce insurance and lending products in the future. The company has partnered with Hiscox to facilitate the development of insurance products.
“The team and their approach to embed insurance into their offering has convinced us,” Markus Niederreiner, CEO of Hiscox Germany, said. “We are delighted to be Moojo’s insurance partner and co-create the next-gen of solutions for the creator and the freelancer economy. We strongly believe in the way Moojo tailors and builds solutions for the community: integrated into their customers’ lives.”
Moojo was founded in 2021 by Amir Djouadi, Christian Engnath, and Utena Treves. The company is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
Germany’s second largest listed bank Commerzbank announced late this week that it is looking to enter the cryptocurrency space. The company is the country’s first major financial institution to seek a license that would enable it to offer cryptocurrency safekeeping services, as well as create its own cryptocurrency custody solution.
Germany’s new licensing policy for cryptocurrency services went into effect in 2020 and is designed to encourage more regulated financial firms to enter the cryptocurrency market. Commerzbank’s license application appears a year after the institution formed a partnership with Deutsche Börse and Fintech 360X to develop a digital asset trading platform.
Acknowledging the role of the partnership, Commerzbank spokesperson Bernd Reh added that the bank is “pursuing our own digital asset strategy and are also planning our own offerings for our customers in the coming years.” Reh noted that the planned offering is geared initially toward institutional customers.
BaFin, the Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, has so far approved four of the 25 applications it has received from institutions seeking crypto custodian status.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
