BankiFi Launches its Open Cash Management Platform for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

BankiFi Launches its Open Cash Management Platform for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
  • BankiFi launched its Open Cash Management platform this week.
  • The U.K.-based fintech built its latest offering to bring the benefits of both embedded banking and open banking to small and medium-sized businesses.
  • A “supercharged” version of BankiFi’s current platform, the new offering works alongside existing accounting systems and requires no tech integration.

The new Open Cash Management platform offered by BankiFi will provide SMEs with a fully embedded banking service that enables them to manage a wide variety of banking capabilities. Invoicing, payments, collections, accounting, cash forecasting, and working capital optimization insights are all available via the platform, which is built with small and medium-sized businesses in mind.

“The Open Cash Management Platform is a business banking super app,” BankiFi Chief Product Officer Marijke Koninckx said. “With Open Cash Management, banks can offer their small business customers a full embedded banking service, which revolves around procure to pay and order to cash workflows. Instead of offering a banking channel for simple tasks, such as checking account balances and making payments, banks can instead offer a rich and comprehensive service to their SMBs centered around a bank’s brand and digital channel.”

The new offering is described by the company as a “supercharged” version of its current service that combines the benefits of both embedded and open banking. The platform leverages a suite of pre-existing bank connectors that allow the solution to be onboarded without the hassles of technology integration. The solution also works alongside the company’s existing accounting system.

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Manchester, U.K., BankiFi began 2022 by helping TSB launch a new app, Revenu, that will enable small businesses to leverage SMS, WhatsApp, email, and QR codes to get paid faster. Also this year, BankiFi announced that it was joining the Visa Fintech Partner Connect program to help bring SME business banking solutions to Visa’s clients and partners.

BankiFi has raised $3.7 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. The company includes Co-Operative Bank, Praetura Ventures, Tech Nation Fintech, the Nationwide Building Society, and the FIS FinTech Accelerator in Partnership with The Venture Center among its investors.


Photo by Karolina Grabowska

Plastiq Unveils New Plastiq Pay Solution to Help SMEs Manage Inflation’s Impact on Cash Flow

Plastiq Unveils New Plastiq Pay Solution to Help SMEs Manage Inflation’s Impact on Cash Flow
  • Plastiq launched its new Plastiq Pay solution this week.
  • The new offering will help small and medium-sized businesses better manage cash flow and automate payment processes.
  • Plastiq has raised more than $140 million in funding and includes Kleiner Perkins among its investors.

The new offering from San Francisco, California-based fintech Plastiq is designed to help small businesses better manage their cash flow at a time of exceptional inflationary pressure. Plastiq Pay, launched this week, enables companies to reclaim time spent managing vendor payments by hand, and makes it easier for SMEs to connect with affordable working capital.

“Plastiq Pay represents the biggest update to our product offering since our founding,” Plastiq Chief Operating Officer Stoyan Kenderov said. “It solves the mismatch of how businesses and suppliers want to make and receive payments by digitizing back office processes and providing instant access to short term financing to make money flow easier. It is the result of more than a decade of working with SMBs to help solve their biggest challenges and friction points.”

Plastiq Pay has five main capabilities to help small businesses become more efficient and better able to compete: invoice data capture, team workflows, automatic two-way sync, a cash flow dashboard, and short term financing options. Along with a mobile app that enables companies to manage payables remotely, these resources help small businesses automate all the critical components of the invoice receipt, payment approval routing, submission and bill reconciliation process.

“Plastiq’s payment automation features are built for CFOs that want to upskill their teams, get people out of mundane and manual work, focus on more meaningful finance function optimization, and reduce cos with a more elegant, modern payables platform,” Plastiq Chief Financial Officer Amir Jafari said.

Plastiq’s latest offering comes in the wake of a pair of partnerships forged in late 2021. In December, the company announced that it was working with PayGround to help patients manage and pay for healthcare expenses. The strategic partnership leverages Plastiq Connect APIs to enable PayGround to integrate Plastiq’s payment capabilities into PayGround’s mobile app. Patients can then create and use their PayGround Digital Wallet to pay the medical expenses using whatever payment method they prefer – from credit cards to HSAs to bank accounts. Last fall, Plastiq teamed up with community-powered corporate card Trust to help businesses pay for their marketing investments using their Trust cards.

‘Trust is focused on helping members of the Trust community make smarter marketing investments and increase cash flow,” Trust CEO James Borow said. “Paying for marketing investments through bank transfers (ACH) or check can restrict cash flow and constrain growth. Our partnership with Plastiq will help remove that hurdle.”

Founded in 2012, Plastiq has raised more than $140 million in funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins, B Capital Group, and Khosla Ventures.


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Secure Document Exchange Platform FutureVault Teams up with Envestnet | Yodlee

Secure Document Exchange Platform FutureVault Teams up with Envestnet | Yodlee
  • Secure document exchange and digital vault platform FutureVault announced a partnership with Envestnet | Yodlee.
  • FutureVault made its Finovate debut in 2016 at FinovateFall in New York.
  • FutureVault CEO Daniel Kenny took the helm of the Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based company in January.

Last week we announced that Envestnet | Yodlee had partnered with fellow Finovate alum Backbase to bring new data aggregation, account verification, and enriched transaction data insights to banks. This week we report that Envestnet | Yodlee has forged a collaboration with another Finovate alum, FutureVault.

The partnership will enable FutureVault to leverage Envestnet | Yodlee’s data aggregation and analytics platform to enhance its ability to serve its financial services and advisor clients with advanced document exchange solutions. FutureVault’s platform supports front, middle, and back-office teams with the tools they need to securely access, share, and manage sensitive information and documents. These tools give organizations the ability to aggregate and centralized financial documents and data from multiple institutions into FutureVault’s secure digital vault, provides financial planning professionals with a holistic view of client finances, and enables trusted advisors to build better relationships with their customers.

“The integration with Envestment | Yodlee is another milestone in our aggressive 2022 technology roadmap,” FutureVault CEO Daniel Kenny said. “This integration is driven by our plan to continue building the most comprehensive digital vault solution and will contribute toward our strategic platform vision that brings together Documents, Data, and Digital Assets.”

FutureVault put the partnership in the context of the company’s Personal Life Management initiative. This thesis is based on aggregating financial documents and data in a secure location while giving financial planners and advisors the ability to leverage FutureVault’s technology to provide a “family office” type of service.

“This integration with Envestnet | Yodlee is not only driven by improving the relationship advisors will have with their clients,” FutureVault co-founder and Executive Chairman G. Scott Paterson said. “It is about ultimately providing clients with access to the best tools to manage their financial lives that extend beyond the advisor.”

FutureVault made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2016 in New York. Recently, the company has partnered with companies like PureFacts to facilitate secure and automatic delivery of financial statements, and with enterprise wealth management platform d1g1t. With this collaboration, FutureVault’s secure document exchange technology will help the d1g1t better manage its compliance, document retention, and document sharing responsibilities.

“We know that there is a significant need across the industry for all-encompassing solutions,” Kenny said when the strategic partnership with d1g1t was announced in late March. “By partnering with the exceptional team at d1g1t, we can bring that type of integrated solution to the market that addresses the many workflow challenges firms and advisors face, while elevating the experience for both clients and advisors.”

Founded in 2014, FutureVault has raised $2.3 million in funding. Current CEO Daniel Kenny was appointed to the position in January of this year after serving briefly as the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Previously, Kenny was an executive at HSBC for more than 22 years.


Photo by Tara Winstead

EU Toughens Crypto AML Rules; ADGM Academy and Singapore University Promote Fintech Literacy

EU Toughens Crypto AML Rules; ADGM Academy and Singapore University Promote Fintech Literacy

One of the many fascinating conversations I enjoyed at FinovateEurope last week was my chat with Trulioo Chief Technology Officer Hal Lonas. Among the topics we discussed was the way evolving regulations were impacting the business of keeping financial services companies compliant with regard to KYC and AML requirements.

This week we learned that the European parliament is moving closer to embracing another measure to tighten rules with regard to financial services – in this case, cryptocurrency transactions. Members of two parliamentary committees this week approved new rules to ban anonymous cryptocurrency transactions as part of an overall European Union-wide anti-money laundering campaign.

The new regulations will require all transfers of cryptocurrencies, regardless of size, to include information on the source and the beneficiary of the assets involved. This information, which will be made available to regulators, would cover transactions from wallet addresses that are held by private users (“unhosted wallets”). The new requirements, however, would not apply to P2P transfers made without an intervening provider.

“Illicit flows in crypto assets move largely undetected across Europe and the world,” Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs co-rapporteur Ernest Urtasun explained. “(This) makes them an ideal instrument for ensuring anonymity.”

The new policy has its critics. Supporters such as Urtasun have pointed to the disclosures of the Panama and Pandora Papers as good reasons for bringing additional scrutiny to cryptocurrency transactions. But critics such as Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer with Coinbase, suggest that the new regulations are based on a false premise: that cryptocurrencies represent a significant vehicle for illegal activity.

“The truth is that digital assets are in generally a markedly inferior way for criminals to hide their illicit financial activity,” Grewal wrote in a blog post earlier this week. “That’s why, according to the best research available, by far the most popular way to hide illicit financial activity remains cash.”

By contrast, Grewal noted “digital assets and the immutable nature of their blockchain technology actually enhances the ability to detect and deter illicit activity.”

The proposed legislation will now be voted on by the full parliament and national ministers.


April is Financial Literacy Month. Be sure to check out our themed coverage of financial literacy both on the Finovate blog in general and here in Finovate Global in specific all month long.

To this end, we found news of the Memorandum of Understanding recently signed by the Abu Dhabi Global Market Academy (ADGMA) and the National University of Singapore’s Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF) to be especially noteworthy.

The goal of the pact is to help bring thought leadership to the fintech community and bolster the fintech ecosystem in Abu Dhabi “and beyond.” There are three main pillars to the agreement: research and publication, technology development, and knowledge dissemination – each of which contributes differently toward the goal of facilitating knowledge exchange across regions and encouraging research collaboration.

What’s interesting about this initiative is the way it supports financial literacy and education among professionals already in the field of financial services. “We, at AIDF, look forward to the close collaborations with ADGMA in research advancements, the education of skilled professionals, and nurturing of FinTech entrepreneurs,” Duan Jin-Chuan, Executive Director of the Asian Institute of Digital Finance at the National University of Singapore, said. “We see these activities as a vital component in pursing a better future for our countries.”

The ADGM Academy, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE, was established in 2018 to build expertise, financial education, and literacy in the region. The Academy is part of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), an international financial center, and features coursework areas including banking and finance, digital and fintech, and entrepreneurship, as well as national, personal, and professional development.


FinovateEurope ended just a few days ago. Of all our events, our London conference often provides the best showcase for international fintech innovation – especially from developing economies and parts of the world not always considered to be fintech hubs in spite of their economies.

Below is a quick run-down of companies in this category that demoed their latest solutions at FinovateEurope last month.


Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia


Photo by ArtHouse Studio

Conversations from FinovateEurope: Embedded Finance and Banking with Celent’s Zilvinas Bareisis

Conversations from FinovateEurope: Embedded Finance and Banking with Celent’s Zilvinas Bareisis

Zilvinas Bareisis is Head of Retail Banking at Celent. Based in London, Bareisis specializes in consumer and card-based payments, as well as identity and authentication. He is especially interested in payments innovation, and what he calls “the perfect storm” of competitive, regulatory, and technology developments that are shaping the present and future of consumer payments.

We sat down with him at FinovateEurope in London to discuss his thoughts on current fintech trends and what we should expect in the “new normal” of banking in 2022.

On banking priorities for 2022

Embracing the open ecosystem is a really big topic right now – from open banking to embedded finance. How do you innovate around products and how do you differentiate yourself? Banks are starting to talk about their purpose, how they embrace different communities they may be serving, and how they tailor their products to those communities. Even things like crypto (are important). Twelve months ago I didn’t think retail banks should be interested in crypto, and here we are talking about that now.

On the role of enabling technologies in financial services

You really need to have the right set of technology tools – and those tools are diversifying. It’s easier now to have composable building blocks that might be coming from different parties, platforms like low code and no code that do not require much IT capability so that business users can start developing applications and, of course, the cloud. A lot of our clients are looking into how to migrate to the cloud and how fast.

On the promise and potential of embedded finance

At the heart of embedded finance is the idea that customers are out there, doing their own things and, as they do those things, they realize that there might be a need for a financial services product, which is something they can acquire right there and then. The idea itself is not new; you and I have probably bought car insurance at the same time we bought our car at the dealership. What’s changing is that there are nice, big, sophisticated digital experiences, first of all, and it’s easier now for financial services to plug into those experiences because now the technology is catching up.

Check out the rest of our conversation with Zilvinas Bareisis from FinovateEurope 2022 on what’s next in the “new normal” in fintech and financial services.


Photo by Max Vakhtbovych

Mitek Agrees to Acquire UK-Based KYC Technology Innovator HooYu

Mitek Agrees to Acquire UK-Based KYC Technology Innovator HooYu
  • Digital identity verification and fraud prevention innovator Mitek has agreed to acquire KYC technology company HooYu.
  • Mitek will pay $129 million (£98 million) for the U.K.-based company.
  • Both firms are Finovate alums. Mitek made its most recent appearance at FinovateFall 2017. HooYu demoed its technology on the Finovate stage most recently at FinovateEurope 2018.

Mitek’s agreement to acquire KYC technology specialist HooYu will help businesses verify their customer’s identity via a combination of biometric verification and real-time bureau and sanction database checks. Enabling institutions to leverage biometrics, ID document validation, geolocation, and identity confidence scoring with bureau checks and sanction list reviews will help them secure a more complete picture of their consumers.

HooYu’s ability to coordinate these features will not only enhance the identity verification process for Mitek’s customers, the technology will also enable them to optimize workflows and empower companies to deploy identity solutions across channels faster.

“Having a single platform that easily orchestrates and configures a KYC journey to manage identities and identify bad actors is becoming a prerequisite for any business transacting digitally,” HooYu CEO Keith Marsden said. “Bringing together Mitek’s lead in identity, liveness, and biometrics, with our orchestration, configuration, and journey services simplifies identity management for financial institutions.”

Mitek’s acquisition of HooYu comes in the context of a global digital identity solutions market that is expected to grow from $23.3 billion in 2021 to $49.5 billion by 2026, a compound annual growth rate of 16.2%. MarketsandMarkets, whose digital identity solutions report was cited by Mitek in this week’s acquisition announcement, credited the rise in both identity-related fraud and data breaches, as well as the need to keep pace with new regulations, for the growth in this market.

Additionally, the rise of the cryptocurrency and NFT (non-fungible token) markets – and the new regulatory regime that will accompany them – puts a further strain on the compliance requirements of businesses. For all the legitimate activity in crypto and NFTs, there is no doubt that these growing markets also represent new opportunities for illicit and criminal behavior.

“Our current geopolitical, commercial, and technological environment represents a perfect storm for bad actors,” Mitek CEO Max Carnecchia said. “Mitek is leading the fight against fraud by providing the technology that businesses need to stamp out digital money launderers and sanctioned individuals.”

In 2018, HooYu demoed its verification technology at FinovateEurope in London. The year before, Mitek demoed its Mobile Verify technology at FinovateFall in New York.


Photo by Ann H

Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee Partner to Bring Data Aggregation, Account Verification, and Enriched Transaction Data to Banks

Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee Partner to Bring Data Aggregation, Account Verification, and Enriched Transaction Data to Banks
  • Two Finovate alums, Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee are teaming up to help financial institutions better serve their customers.
  • The collaboration will offer pre-built integrations with Envestnet | Yodlee’s Data Aggregation, Account Verification, and Transaction Data Enrichment solutions.
  • Both Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee made their most recent Finovate appearances at FinovateFall in New York in September.

A newly announced partnership between Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee will enable financial institutions to offer their customers a holistic view of their finances, as well as an improved customer experience. Specifically, the partnership will bring account data aggregation, account verification, and transaction data enrichment from Envestnet | Yodlee to the Backbase Engagement Banking platform. The move enhances Backbase’s financial wellness capabilities and intuitive customer journeys, and supports the company’s goal of becoming a category leader in the engagement banking platform space.

Backbase CPO Karan Oberoi called the collaboration a “major milestone” in the company’s efforts to “bring value to every step of the full customer lifecycle on a single, unified platform.” Oberoi highlighted the ability of the Backbase Engagement Banking platform to help financial institutions leverage technologies from innovative fintechs like Envestnet | Yodlee “while limiting implementation, procurement, and risk assessment time.”

Adding Account Data Aggregation to the platform will enable customers to combine and maintain all of their financial accounts in a single application. In addition to making it easier for customers to better understand their financial status, the feature also increases stickiness – as well as the potential for cross-selling opportunities – as customers spend more time on the bank’s app. Account Verification allows customers to add and verify their financial accounts in a single app without requiring the use of micro-deposits. Both KYC and AML compliance are also enhanced by the addition of the account verification capability. Lastly, by providing transaction data enrichment, the platform will lower the cost- of-serve for financial institutions and improve customer engagement.

“Entering into this strategic partnership with Backbase is another proof point on how industry leaders are relying on quality data, comprehensive coverage, and intelligent insights from Envestnet | Yodlee to meet fast-growing banking demands,” Envestnet Data and Analytics Group Head Farouk Ferchichi said.

Both multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winners, Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee made their most recent appearances on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall in New York last September. Backbase demoed a customer onboarding solution that consolidates customer finances via direct deposit, billpay auto linking, and debit card account opening. Envestnet | Yodlee showed how Conversational AI technology can be deployed to deliver hyper-personalized financial insights and goals-based micro-savings applications.


Photo by Essow

FintechOS Unveils Accelerators to Enhance SME Mobile Onboarding and Lending

FintechOS Unveils Accelerators to Enhance SME Mobile Onboarding and Lending
  • FintechOS has launched a pair of accelerators – for mobile lending and mobile onboarding – to enable institutions to support small businesses.
  • The new offerings are built for speed, enabling companies to lower account opening times to less than 15 minutes.
  • Headquartered in London and founded in 2017, FintechOS made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall in New York.

Digital banking and insurance solution provider FintechOS unveiled a pair of new accelerators to help financial institutions better serve their SME clients. The offerings, announced this week, support SME mobile lending and onboarding, and enable institutions to reduce the amount of time required to open a current/checking account to less than 15 minutes.

Calling SMEs “the backbone of the global economy”, FintechOS CEO and co-founder Teo Blidarus decried the “lending gap” that has kept many small businesses from being able to secure the critical funding they need in order to grow. “Our high productivity fintech infrastructure, digital and core financial technology blocks combine here with a low-code approach to help institutions close the gap by rolling out tailored financial services experiences at speed.”

FintechOS’ accelerator for mobile onboarding gives financial institutions the ability to implement a modern UX. This will enable them to readily configure both design and content, as well as journey sequence and product logic. The accelerator for mobile lending allows SMEs to access the financing solutions they need in minutes with an out-of-the-box loan origination journey that can be easily configured and requires no technical expertise. Both accelerators embrace a mobile-centric approach that allows small businesses to use their device of choice for both onboarding and financing, which will help lower abandonment risk during the account opening and lending process.

The launch of FintechOS’ account onboarding and mobile lending accelerators comes just days after the company announced a collaboration with digital transformation consultancy Tesselate Group. Together, the two companies will work to bring innovative lending solutions and strategic planning to financial institutions. The partnership will focus on product verticals including digital journey accelerators, ecosystem connectors, and lean core components.

“We’re on a mission to enable companies to build innovative financial services and products at the speed the market requires,” FintechOS VP of Ecosystem Todi Pruteanu said. “Our ecosystem is fundamental to achieving this objective, and FintechOS is investing significantly to build an industry-leading partner infrastructure.”

In February, FintechOS forged a global partnership agreement with fellow Finovate alum Onfido. The pact integrates Onfido’s identity verification solution into FintechOS’ customer onboarding, lending, and claims management journeys. Two of FintechOS’ customer-centric platforms for banks and insurers – Lighthouse and Northstar – feature Onfido’s identity verification and liveness technology.

Among Finovate’s newer alums, FintechOS demoed its technology on the Finovate stage for the first time in September at FinovateFall. At the conference, FintechOS’ Paula Costea and Steve Rooney demonstrated Sunglow, the company’s “super app for banking.” Sunglow enables consumers to finance and book vacations in a seamless, end-to-end customer experience that factors in every component of the lending and booking processes.


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FinovateEurope: The Road to Digitalization and the Challenge of Innovation

FinovateEurope: The Road to Digitalization and the Challenge of Innovation

FinovateEurope 2022 is a wrap. Our first European fintech conference in what we all hope is truly the post-pandemic era was an excellent opportunity for Finovate veterans and newcomers alike to meet and share insights on the most critical issues in fintech today.

In many ways, the two keynotes that began each day of our two-day event served as reminders of both the accomplishments of fintech to date, as well as the challenges that innovators in fintech and financial services will face going forward.

From commodity products to intelligent services

In his keynote address on how fintech trends in 2022 will drive transformation in financial services, David Brear contextualized his remarks by describing the journey financial services has traveled from analog through digitization en route to becoming truly digital. CEO and co-founder of fintech consultancy 11:FS, Brear underscored the notion that this journey was defined by the evolution of financial services from “commodity products to intelligent services.” He suggested that many companies in financial services were still essentially bringing digital tools to enhance analog solutions – not unlike attaching a carriage to a Clydesdale. As such, he sees the transition toward truly digital banking as “only 1% finished” with plenty of room to go.

For Brear, the current moment is one of execution rather than ideas. Entrepreneurs and companies in financial services have a better idea than ever of what their customers want, and now is the time for firms in this space to ambitiously act to meet those needs. Interestingly, and foreshadowing the themes of the next day’s keynote from AI scientist Inma Martinez, Brear observed that fulfilling these needs will help banks and financial services companies gain or regain the kind of intimate, personalized relationships that are more reminiscent of the kind of connections that smaller, more community-based versions of these institutions historically have enjoyed with their customers and members.

Solving complexity to better serve humanity

Creating an appropriate role for artificial intelligence (AI) was the topic of our Day Two keynote address – How To Use Data Analytics & AI To Create Human Centric Financial Products – from AI scientist Inma Martinez. As someone with decades of experience with artificial intelligence, Martinez has a healthy respect for the capacity of AI to do things that human beings cannot. At the same time, however, Martinez insists that these capacities need to be harnessed in a way that enables AI’s complexity-solving abilities to respond to human needs for “safety, enjoyment, and purpose.” Reminding her audience that the world is not merely “computational,” Martinez said that AI needs to be imbued with EQ, or emotional intelligence, that prioritizes rather than simply includes the role of human cognition. This would support an evolution in design thinking from the basic objectives of “usability, functionality, and convenience” to the more satisfying, emotional, and human-centered goals of being “memorable, assuring, and wholesome.”

Martinez also emphasized the importance of a modern approach to data and data management called the data mesh. This concept calls for leveraging distributed architecture to give end users the ability to readily access and query data where it lives rather than having to deal with a singular, centralized location such as a data lake. Improving the ability to access data is critical, Martinez explained, in a world in which data is both the key to a deeper, more meaningful understanding of customer behavior and the primary source of insights that can streamline the process of creating and innovating new products and services.


Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

Alkami Agrees to Acquire Financial Data Analytics Company Segmint

Alkami Agrees to Acquire Financial Data Analytics Company Segmint
  • Alkami has entered a definitive agreement to acquire financial analytics company Segmint for $135.5 million in cash.
  • The acquisition will combine Segmint’s data insights with Alkami’s digital account opening and digital banking technology.
  • Both companies are Finovate alums. Alkami made its Finovate debut as iThryv in 2009. Segmint made its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall in 2012.

Another day, another big acquisition in the fintech space. Today we learned that cloud-based digital banking solutions provider Alkami Technology has agreed to acquire Segmint, a financial data analytics and transaction cleansing specialist. Alkami will pay $135.5 million in cash for the Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio-based company, and expects its total addressable market to grow by $1 billion courtesy of the acquisition.

“Our customers want to deepen their customer relationships and grow revenue,” Allkami CEO Alex Shootman said. “To do so, they must transform raw account and transaction data into insights that lead to highly personalized communications. Segmint applies machine learning to transaction data to help FIs better understand their account holders and automates messaging with incredible precision and personalization across multiple channels.”

The acquisition will enable financial institutions partnered with Alkami to benefit from the combination of data sets from both Alkami and Segmint. In addition to providing a more comprehensive view of account holders, the combination also will bring greater precision and additional use cases to Segmint’s data models. Further, financial institutions will be able to use this data to leverage digital banking to better target, engage, and build customer relationships.

Approved by the boards of directors of both companies, as well as Segmint stockholders, the acquisition is expected to close in Q2 of this year – assuming regulatory approvals and customer closing conditions are met.

As we noted, the Alkami/Segmint acquisition is the second big fintech acquisition involving a Finovate alum this week. We reported yesterday that Canadian identity verification company – and Finovate Best of Show winner – SecureKey – agreed to be acquired by digital security and privacy company Avast.


Photo by Anthony

FinovateEurope 2022 Best of Show Winners Announced

FinovateEurope 2022 Best of Show Winners Announced

Day One of FinovateEurope is in the books. The demos are done and, now that the votes of our attendees have been counted, we are happy to introduce the winners of Best of Show for FinovateEurope 2022.

Dreams for its engagement banking platform, rooted in cognitive and behavioral science, that offers a unique way to engage your customers. Demo.

Finshape for its technology that helps banks win the race for digital customers through ready-made digital products and custom delivery services. Demo.

mmob for its technology that makes embedded finance easy and empowers consumer-facing fintechs to supercharge their growth through embedded finance partnerships. Demo.

SESAMm for its technology that leverages big data and artificial intelligence to provide investment signals to investors. Demo.

Trulioo for its global identity verification technology that helps organizations mitigate risk, reduce fraud, and scale compliance programs globally. Demo.

Thanks to all of our demoing companies, our speakers and presenters, our sponsors and partners, and our outstanding audience of both in-person and digital attendees. Be sure to stay connected to the Finovate blog and social media @Finovate to keep up with the latest from our FinovateEurope companies and presenters.


Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their three favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The five companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 through 2021 conferences are below:
FinovateEurope 2015
FinovateSpring 2015
FinovateFall 2015
FinovateEurope 2016
FinovateSpring 2016
FinovateFall 2016
FinovateAsia 2016
FinovateEurope 2017
FinovateSpring 2017
FinovateFall 2017
FinovateAsia 2017
FinovateMiddleEast 2018
FinovateEurope 2018
FinovateSpring 2018
FinovateFall 2018
FinovateAsia 2018
FinovateAfrica 2018
FinovateEurope 2019
FinovateSpring 2019
FinovateFall 2019
FinovateAsia 2019
FinovateMiddleEast 2019
FinovateEurope 2020
FinovateFall 2020
FinovateWest 2020
FinovateEurope 2021
FinovateSpring 2021
FinovateFall 2021

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Welcome to Day One of FinovateEurope 2022

Welcome to Day One of FinovateEurope 2022

In September, we celebrated Finovate’s triumphant return to live events with FinovateFall in New York. Six months later, it’s time to cheer once again as Finovate returns to London for our first live event in Europe since 2020.

FinovateEurope 2022 begins today, March 22, in London, and continues through March 23. This week’s conference will feature two days of live demonstrations, inspiring keynotes, and rousing discussions and debates on the latest innovations in financial technology.

Day One also will feature our European Women Payments Network (EWPN) event from 2:00pm to 5:00pm. This special afternoon session will feature a panel of experts discussing the role of ESG in fintech and financial services, followed by a dynamic hackathon, and a networking opportunity for attendees.

Here is what we have in store for today on Day One of FinovateEurope 2022. All times GMT.

8:15am – 9:00am | Registration & Networking

9:00am – 9:05am | Welcome from Finovate

9:05am – 9:20am | Keynote Address: The Biggest Trends in Fintech and How They Will Drive Transformation in Financial Services

9:20am – 10:20am | Demo Session #1

10:20am – 10:35am | Special Address: Accelerate Innovation and Unlock Business Value

10:35am – 11:10am | Networking Break

11:10am – 11:45am | Power Panel: Financial Inclusion – How the Industry Should Work Together to Meet the Needs of All Marginalized Groups of People

11:45am – 12:45pm | Demo Session #2

12:45pm – 1:00pm | Special Address: The Future Will Be Tokenized … Or Will It?

1:00pm – 2:00pm | Lunch & Networking Break

2:00pm – 2:35pm | Investor All Stars: Where Is the Smart Money Investing in Fintech?

2:35pm – 3:50pm | Demo Session #3

3:50pm – 4:20pm | Networking Break

4:20pm – 4:55pm | Power Panel: Financial Crime – How Harnessing New Technologies Can Change the Game

4:55pm – 5:00pm | Closing Remarks from Finovate

5:00pm – 6:30pm | Drinks, Networking, and Best of Show


Photo by Naveen Annam from Pexels