Author: David Penn

Ukraine Legalizes Crypto; Nordigen and Efigence Announce New Partnerships

Ukraine Legalizes Crypto; Nordigen and Efigence Announce New Partnerships
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Efigence, Finovate Global, Nordigen, Revolut, Scalable Capital

As more and more fintechs add their support to the people of Ukraine and create new pathways for individuals and organizations to contribute financially, the Ukrainian government has had to adapt in order to make some of these contributions not just possible, but legal.

This week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, signed month-old legislation to provide a legal framework for the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies in the country. Per the new legislation, cryptocurrency exchanges and other companies dealing in digital assets will be able to register with the Ukrainian government in order to operate in the country. Additionally, the new law will allow banks to open accounts for cryptocurrency companies.

Going forward, Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission will set the country’s policies on cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, issue licenses, and serve as a regulatory watchdog over the fledgling industry. The law is the second bite of the apple for Ukraine’s cryptocurrency advocates; the Ukrainian parliament voted to legalize cryptocurrencies last fall, but the legislation was vetoed by Zelenskyy, who cited the cost of creating a new regulatory entity to govern cryptocurrencies.

Ukrainian interest in cryptocurrencies certainly predates the Russian invasion of the country; a New York Times feature in November 2021 ran the headline “The Crypto Capital of the World” with the subhead “It has to be somewhere. Why not Ukraine?” But that interest has spiked since then as the country reportedly has received “tens of millions of dollars” in cryptocurrency donations to help Ukrainians cope with the devastation of their country at the hands of the Russian military.

Nordigen partners with French fintech Saveengs, U.K. lender Mallard Finance

Latvian open banking platform Nordigen has announced a pair of new partnerships this week. Saveengs, a French startup that specializes in helping people with little or no savings build a strong financial foundation, will work with Nordigen to help users find ways to save better. Nordigen’s technology will enable the Saveengs app to analyze the user’s finances to find opportunities to save in small amount, typically in increments of 20 euros.

“While the amount of money saved seems small at first, it definitely adds up,” Saveengs CEO Mourad Ketir said. “Open banking enables the app to perform financial analysis on our users’ existing funds and transactions quickly and easily, allowing the process of saving to start as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile across the channel, U.K.-based independent lender Mallard Finance has chosen Nordigen as its Account Information Service Provider (AISP). A specialist in providing financing for automobile purchases, Mallard Finance will leverage its new partnership with Nordigen to access financial data directly from borrower bank accounts during the application process. This will give the lender, which serves both individuals and businesses across the credit risk spectrum, a more exacting and accurate view of the applicant’s financial status.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Mallard Finance,” Nordigen CEO and co-founder Rolands Mesters said. He praised both the company’s professional team and its success in serving its customers since 1995. “We are happy to see companies continuing to choose open banking to further enhance their already existing services and internal assessment procedures,” Mesters added.

Nordigen most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope 2019 in London. At the conference, the company demoed its Nordigen Report, which enables banks and lenders to access loan applicant account histories and verify income and other important insights.

Efigence teams up with Polish bank Getin Noble

Getin Noble, a Warsaw, Poland-based banking and financial services company, has partnered with Polish digital banking solutions provider Efigence to help it launch new online banking services. The enhancements, to be introduced modularly, include new functionalities as well as modernization of its online presence.

“Today’s online banking is much more than a financial tool,” Director of Getin Noble Bank’s Electronic Banking Department Marta Dałkiewicz said. “Customers often have contact with it many times a day, so the solutions we propose must be affordable and easy to use.”

Efigence President and CTO Marek Lesiak said that increasing the accessibility of online banking was a major goal for the collaboration. This included design elements for both the web and mobile apps to make banking more convenient for the customer regardless of which channel they used. “Today, finance is connected with almost every sphere of our life,” Lesiak said, “and the use of online banking should be as easy, intuitive and pleasant as if it were part of our DNA.”

A two-time Best of Show winner, earning the honor in both its Finovate debut as well as at our second Dubai-based event in 2019, FinovateMiddle East, Efigence demonstrated the latest improvements to its digital banking platform at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Kostiantyn Stupak from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Data Fueled Decision Making : Our Women’s History Month Conversation with SmartAsset’s Meghan Lapides

Data Fueled Decision Making : Our Women’s History Month Conversation with SmartAsset’s Meghan Lapides
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Diversity in Fintech, Speaker series, Women in Fintech

Finovate’s celebration of Women’s History Month continues with this conversation with Meghan Lapides, who recently became Chief People Officer for SmartAsset.

Founded in 2012, SmartAsset is an online hub for consumer-focused financial information and advice. The company reaches approximately 75 million people each month via its educational content, personalized financial calculators, and other tools. SmartAsset also powers SmartAdvisor, a nationwide marketplace that helps connect consumers with financial advisors.

We caught up with Ms. Lapides to discuss her goals as Chief People Officer, the evolution of human resources and talent management in the tech industry, and how a smart “People strategy” can help companies grow.

Why did you decide to take the opportunity to be Chief People Officer for SmartAsset?

Meghan Lapides: SmartAsset’s mission of helping people get better financial advice really spoke to me. Planning for your future is incredibly important and many people start late. Being part of a company that helps people think smartly and early about financial planning is something that aligns with my personal mission of helping people. When I met the leadership team and members of the People team, I knew this was the place for me. Their passion and intelligence combined with our CEO’s vision was the right combination of factors that confirmed my decision to join SmartAsset.

Is SmartAsset your first fintech? Is there anything unique about building a People strategy in fintech compared to other tech companies you have worked for?

Lapides: Yes, SmartAsset represents my first professional experience in the fintech space! One of the things I love about Human Resources is that when you change companies you get the opportunity to learn an entirely new industry. I love what I do, so I find it exciting to be doing what I love and applying my expertise in a completely new environment. I’ve been lucky to work in multiple different industries, including enterprise SAAS, consumer, and professional services, as well as different fields, such as advertising, public relations, technology, and fashion, so I’ve embraced these opportunities to learn something new. When I was considering my next move, I was interested in companies that were in the fintech space and also mission driven – SmartAsset was both of those things! I also wanted another professional opportunity to be a part of building something great, impactful, and meaningful. I’m thrilled that SmartAsset checked all of those boxes and honored that they selected me to oversee and scale their People department.

How has talent acquisition and management changed over the years that you have been involved in human resources?

Lapides: It’s wild to think about it now, but in my first recruiting coordinator role, we didn’t have an Applicant Tracking System. We used paper files to track candidates and I typed the labels for those files on a typewriter! We went from antiquated processes like that to new intelligent systems that help source great candidates and mitigate bias while offering data collection and analysis to iterate and improve on processes that make the most impact. “Data Fuels Our Decisions” is one of SmartAsset’s core values, and I’m happy that today’s HR systems allow us to make informed decisions in an efficient and timely manner.

When I was thinking of going into HR after studying to be a Marriage & Family Counselor in college, I spoke to a family friend who was the COO of a huge company about whether or not it was the right move. He told me that “Personnel was not for me. I was too creative for that.” We still joke that I have spent the last 20 years proving him wrong.

I’ve been lucky to work for progessive, people-centric organizations, but I’ve seen a huge increase in flexibility and creativity when it comes to managing talent. But more than that, especially post-pandemic, the People team not only has a seat at the table, but also we are key influencers in setting the strategy for the company’s most valuable resource: its people. The intersection of the business and our people is where our team sits and the two can’t be successful without the other. Highly engaged, happy and healthy employees build strong businesses. Businesses that allow people to make an impact internally and externally are the ones that attract the best talent. I am energized by being able to spend my time focusing on building a strong business and a culture that gives our Assets the best chance of success and allows our employees to grow.

What is most important to you in terms of leadership development within a company?

Lapides: Openness and shared vision. We all know how important mission, vision, and values are in building culture – but it’s very important for leadership to have a shared vision on what leadership looks like and how you can support each other to be successful from both the top down and the bottom up. I also think in order for a company to be truly successful – and have a highly engaged workforce – you need to have the openness to create a place where people can come as they are, lead as they are, and celebrate diversity in all forms.

What role can diversity and inclusion policies play to help drive growth and expansion?

Lapides: When you are creating products and services for the world, you need to look like the world you are creating it for. Studies show that the more diverse companies are, typically the more successful they are. But DEI is way more important than financial success. It helps DEI and company expansion to remove barriers to entry, reduce bias, open your recruiting pipeline, and create a safe, open, and equitable culture. When it comes to retaining your best talent, companies must ensure that their workplace allows people to be themselves, engage in real world events and issues, and also create a culture of belonging.

SmartAsset made the decision to remain a remote-first company. This helps our DEI strategy because it removes geographical barriers and helps us to be more accommodating of diverse work styles. Being a remote-first company further allows us to hire talent more quickly to support our rapid expansion given the fact that there are fewer geographic barriers.

What are some of the challenges a People strategy faces as businesses get bigger? How do companies overcome or manage them?

Lapides: Scaling a company is a huge challenge. Processes that worked at 50, 100, or 200 employees don’t always hold up at 500, 1,000, or 2,000. People teams also tend to run lean at a startup, so it’s really important to put talent behind that team – especially as you scale – to ensure the needs of your employees are met and you can get ahead of big projects and initiatives.

Are there any other issues you think might be worth highlighting about your new role?

Lapides: SmartAsset is a remote-first company, which is incredibly exciting because it allows us to hire the best talent wherever they are in the country. However, that comes with challenges as well. We are looking for opportunities to focus on asynchronous workflows to allow people to do their best work in their own time zones, but also have the ability to collaborate across different teams. We are focused on allowing the flexibility for both independent work and cross collaboration, and creating an environment that allows people to build relationships, focus on what is important, further build our culture, and continue to do great work.

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Billpay Innovator doxo Raises $18.5 Million in Series C Funding

Billpay Innovator doxo Raises $18.5 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Doxo, Funding
  • Billpay platform doxo has raised $18.5 million in Series C funding.
  • The round was led by Jackson Square Ventures and featured participation from existing investors.
  • Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, doxo will use the capital to grow its platform and expand its team.

In a round led by Jackson Square Ventures, billpay platform doxo has secured $18.5 million in Series C funding. The capital will help the Seattle, Washington-based company further expand its platform, grow its workforce, build out its billpay provider directory, and accelerate its doxoDIRECT platform to enable billers to receive swift and cost-free direct electronic payments.

Valuation information was not immediately available. The Series C investment takes the company’s total funds raised to $37.3 million according to Crunchbase.

“People are shifting to more customer-centered, secure payment methods and billers are looking for ways to improve their payment experience and boost customer engagement,” doxo co-founder and CEO Steve Shivers said. “By meeting these needs, doxo’s growth has accelerated significantly this past year. We’re very pleased to have Jackson Square Ventures as our partner as we continue to scale to meet demand and expand the benefits we deliver to consumers and billers alike.”

doxo’s flagship solutions, doxo and doxoPLUS, enable consumers to send payments to more than 120,000 partnering billers from a single account. Consumers can use a variety of payment methods including credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, as well as their bank account, and payment information is not shared with billers. The technology enables users to set bill reminders, get real-time status updates, and monitor all of their payment history from a single location.

Available as both a free service and as a premium version for $4.99 a month that adds doxo’s Five Protections package (identity protection, overdraft protection, late fee protection, credit protection, and Private Pay protection), doxo’s technology helps consumers save money as well as improve their financial health.

doxo also offers doxoDIRECT for businesses that do not have billpay on their websites, compelling their customers to use other channels – such as mail, bank payments, and cash payments. doxoDIRECT for businesses enables companies to enhance customer engagement and payment convenience by closing this “gap” with a service that enables fast, free direct deposit payments. The company also publishes doxoINSIGHTS, an analysis of U.S. billpay statistics and bill payer behavior.

“We see doxo not just as a best-in-class billpay solution for both consumers and billers, but as an integral part of the overall ecosystem that will modernize the $4.61 trillion billpay industry,” Jackson Square Ventures co-founder and Managing Director Greg Gretsch said.

A Finovate alum since 2011, doxo most recently demonstrated its latest innovations at FinovateSpring 2019. At the conference, doxo showed how its doxoPay with overdraft protection – powered by fellow Finovate alum Plaid – enables users to track their bank account balance as they pay their bills. This helps consumers to better manage their cash flow and avoid overdrafts. Since then, the company has forged partnerships with energy delivery company National Grid, and payments technology company InComm Payments, and earned spots on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, and Inc. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies rosters.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Financial Crime Compliance Firm Silent Eight Closes $40 Million Series B Funding Round

Financial Crime Compliance Firm Silent Eight Closes $40 Million Series B Funding Round
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Financial crime compliance firm Silent Eight raised $40 million in Series B funding.
  • The investment gives the Singapore-based company $55 million in total capital.
  • Led by TYH Ventures, the Series B round featured participation from HSBC Ventures, Silent Eight’s latest customer.

Silent Eight, an AI-based financial crime compliance company, has secured $40 million in Series B funding. The round was led by TYH Ventures and included top-up investments from OTB Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures, Aglaia, as well as chairman and general partner of Altara Ventures, Koh Boon Hwee. Also participating in the round was HSBC Ventures, Silent Eight’s most recent customer.

“HSBC has been pleased with the progress made by Silent Eight’s AI platform,” HSBC Ventures’ Ore Adeyemi said. “We look forward to continuing to strengthen our partnership through this investment, and we are excited that my colleague Tom Caine is also joining as a Board Observer to help drive this investment partnership.”

Announced in January of last year, the multi-year partnership between Silent Eight and HSBC will enable the bank to enhance its compliance operations. HSBC will integrate Silent Eight Alert Resolution which investigates and resolves compliance issues as well as a human analyst, but with greater speed, precision, and accuracy.

The Series B investment gives Silent Eight $55 million in total capital and quadruples the company’s previous valuation reported in October 2020. Over the same time period, Silent Eight has realized revenue growth of 6x and tripled its workforce.

“We are here to support our customers and the policy makers of the world by ensuring that the benefits of the most advanced Artificial Intelligence systems are available on the frontlines of crime fighting,” Silent Eight CEO and founder Martin Markiewicz said.

Silent Eight builds compliance platforms for many of the world’s leading financial institutions. Deployed in more than 150 markets, the company’s AI-powered platform enforces economic sanctions and investigates all other financial crime risks – including suspicious transactions, beneficiaries, and customers – in real time. Silent Eight helps businesses understand the risks that may be present in both new and existing customer relationships, identify the payment stakeholder in every transaction, and monitor all transactions for potentially fraudulent behavior.

Silent Eight plans to use the capital to expand technology functions in order to support rapid growth in its customer base. The company also plans to hire additional talent, including more than 150 data scientists, developers, and engineers this year. Headquartered in Singapore, Silent Eight maintains global hubs in New York, London, and Warsaw.

Silent Eight co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Julia Markiewicz was recognized by The Financial Technology Report as one of its Top 25 Women Leaders in Financial Technology of Europe for 2022. She was also named to TechNode Global’s roster of top emerging women-led startups in Southeast Asia.

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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

Photo by Wendy Wei from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Photo by Vlad Alexandru Popa from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Photo by Frank Cone from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Photo by Antonio Janeski from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook