Author: David Penn

The Philippines’ Lone Fintech Unicorn Secures $300 Million in New Funding

The Philippines’ Lone Fintech Unicorn Secures $300 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Mambu

In a round led by Warburg Pincus, Insight Partners, and Bow Wave Capital Management, Philippines-based mobile payment company Mynt has secured $300 million in new funding. The investment, which also featured participation from Itai Tsiddon, Amplo Ventures, Globe Telecom, and Ayala Corporation, gives Mynt a valuation of more than $2 billion and solidifying the company’s status as the biggest technology unicorn based in the Philippines.

“We have been able to continuously expand by introducing game-changing innovations while improving our profitability profile,” Mynt president and CEO Martha Sazon. “We are excited about our new partnership with Warburg, Insight, Itali Tsiddon, and Amplo, as they each bring strategic value to our team in the pursuit of our vision towards finance for all.”

Owned by Philippine mobile operator Globe Telecom, Mynt is the company behind the GCash app. The popular solution enables customers to buy prepaid airtime; pay bills at more than 600 partner billers throughout the Philippines; send and receive money anywhere in the country; as well as access savings, credit, insurance, and investment products and services. GCash currently has more than 48 million users.

Most recently, Mynt has piloted a new cash loan offering, GLoan, that enables qualified borrowers to take out loans of up to PHP25,000 (approximately $500 USD) that can be repaid over 12 months. GLoan joins the company’s GCredit offering, which disburses more than PHP1 billion ($200 million USD) in loans every month and has disbursed PHP15 billion ($3 billion USD) as of June of this year. Mynt notes that its GCredit solution has the best repayment rates with the lowest number of past-due and non-performing loans locally. Unsurprisingly, Mynt is also looking to offer Buy Now Pay Later services “within the year” as well.

Mynt’s GCash is also one of the growing number of financial apps to incorporate pro-environmental functionality into its solution. The app has a feature, GForest, that serves as a gamified environmental stewardship program that enables users to convert points earned from using GCash into a virtual tree. These virtual trees are then planted as actual trees in specific locations in the Philippines. Mynt says that it has 8.7 million users of GForest within the GCash app.

Founded in 2015, Mynt has been recognized as a leader in the digital transformation of payments and other financial services in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic. With nearly half the country’s population using its technology, Mynt is on pace to reach a gross transaction value of PHP3 trillion, more than triple of what was achieved last year. The company has reported peak daily app log-ins of 19 million and daily active transactions of 12 million.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Photo by Meo Fernando from Pexels

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Stalking the Smart Money: Meet the Investor All Stars of FinovateEurope 2022

Stalking the Smart Money: Meet the Investor All Stars of FinovateEurope 2022
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2022, Speaker series

At a time of almost unprecedented financial liquidity, being able to separate the investment-worthy wheat from the chaff may be more important than ever. Additionally, knowledge of where the so-called “smart money” is investing within the growing field of fintech is an invaluable aid for those attempting to better understand where fintech is right now and where it is going. And for those within financial services, or in industries adjacent to it, who are looking to do business with innovative fintech companies, knowing where the most informed investors are putting their capital can be a great guide to identifying where some of the best opportunities to partner and form collaborations may be found.

This is what makes Finovate’s All-Star Investment Panel: Where the Smart Money is Investing in Fintech one of the biggest and most popular attractions at our events. At our upcoming conference in March, FinovateEurope, we’ve put together a star-studded panel of some of fintech’s most informed and accomplished investors to help you gain unique insights into which fintechs the “smart money” is betting on and why. Check out a sneak peek of our All-Star Investment Panel below.

  • Rana Yared, General Partner, Balderton Capital: Yared joined Balderton Capital in 2020. She previously worked as a Partner at Goldman Sachs in their Principal Strategic Investments Group. Later, as part of GS Growth, Yared oversaw investments in financial technology and enterprise technology. Yared also oversaw the commercialization of Goldman Sachs’ technology assets in New York and London. LinkedIn
  • Aman Ghei, Partner, Finch Capital: Ghei led Finch’s investment into Twisto (sold to Zip) and sits on the board of AccountsIQ, Symmetrical, Lantum as well as being involved in the firm’s investments in Goodlord, TaxScouts and Squirro. Ghei’s experience ranges from Credit Suisse’s Technology team to Accel Partners in London to Facebook’s content distribution business in Europe. LinkedIn
  • Luis Valdich, Managing Director, Fintech Investing, Citi Ventures: Joining Citi Ventures in 2015, Valdich is responsible for fintech investing in both the U.S. and Europe, as well as in Latin America and Southeast Asia/India. Before Citi, Valdich founded and ran JPMorgan Chase’s Strategic Investments group for nearly eight years and invested in more than 30 companies. LinkedIn
  • Jay Wilson, Investment Director, AlbionVC: At AlbionVC, Wilson focuses on all aspects of technology, with a particular focus on how technology is redefining financial services from retail to institutional finance, and at every level of the IT stack including blockchain, AI and machine learning, predictive analytics, robotics, and the cloud. LinkedIn

The FinovateEurope 2022 Investor All-Star panel will be moderated by Sunaina Sinha Haldea, Global Head of Private Capital Advisory with Raymond James. Haldea founded placement agent and secondaries advisor Cebile Capital, which was acquired by Raymond James Financial in 2021. Also a prolific angel investor and non-executive director, Haldea’s leadership of Raymond James / Cebile Capital has enabled the firm to become one of the leading advisors in private equity and real assets.

FinovateEurope 2022 will be held in London, England from March 22 through March 23. Both in-person and digital all-access passes are available with big savings available to those attendees who register by November 19th. For more information, visit our FinovateEurope 2022 hub today.

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Assembly Payments and CurrencyFair Consummate Merger; Rebrand as Zai

Assembly Payments and CurrencyFair Consummate Merger; Rebrand as Zai
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CurrencyFair, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions

Announced earlier this year, the merger between cross-border payments marketplace CurrencyFair and payment workflow automation platform Assembly Payments has secured regulatory approval. The merged company has also rebranded as Zai as part of a new focus on providing a wider set of integrated financial services to mid-market businesses and enterprise-level customers within and beyond the Australian market. The CurrencyFair brand will remain intact to serve consumers and small businesses with the kind of fast, affordable foreign exchange the company has offered for nearly a decade.

Paul Byrne, who served as CEO and President of Currencyfair for more than five years, will now serve as CEO and President of the new entity Zai. “Our vision with Zai is to boldly transform the future of financial services,” Byrne said in a statement. “The Australian market is very close to our hearts – both Assembly Payments and CurrencyFair were founded by Australian innovators.”

To underscore this point Byrne added that Zai was first to market with NPP, Australia’s New Payments Platform, and that the company planned to launch its new, real-time digital payments solution, PayTo, in the middle of next year. PayTo will enable merchants and businesses to initiate real-time payments from their customers’ bank accounts.

“Zai will continue our tradition of being customer-centric, solving problems and adding value around our five core capabilities,” Byrne said. These areas – payments, global payment accounts, partner ecosystem, lending and settlement, and services – represent major growth opportunities according to Byrne, in what he described as a “$2 trillion revenue market for payments.” In addition to expanding its presence in Australia, Zai plans to launch in the U.K., the U.S., and Asia in 2022 and to grow its workforce from 170 to 450 by 2025.

“We are already seeing the benefits of expansion as we forecast a second successive year of 60% growth in processing volume to $6.5 billion in 2021,” Byrne said.

Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and launched in 2009, CurrencyFair has been a Finovate alum since 2012. Ahead of the merger with Assembly Payments, the company had securely exchanged the equivalent of €10 billion, enabling its customers to send money to more than 150 countries. The company had raised more than $24 million in funding before acquiring Assembly Payments, picking up an additional $35 million in funding from Standard Chartered afterward.

“By bringing together the complementary strengths of CurrencyFair and Assembly, we are supporting the merged company in offering the full range of payment services,” Standard Chartered group chief executive Bill Winters said earlier this year, “providing retail and corporate clients access to fast, high-volume domestic and cross-border payments.”

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UNest Forges Strategic Partnership with Avibra to Bring Insurance Benefits to Families

UNest Forges Strategic Partnership with Avibra to Bring Insurance Benefits to Families
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, UNest

The business of helping parents provide financial education and savings for their children has been one of the more robust areas of innovation in fintech. One such company, UNest, based out of Hollywood, California, announced this week that it has entered a strategic partnership with Avibra to further its mission of bringing financial planning, saving, and investment solutions to parents and their kids.

“Together with Avibra, we are addressing three key areas for families – financial, insurance, and healthcare,” UNest founder and CEO Ksenia Yudina explained. “As the leading app to help parents save for their kid’s future, we have insight into other focus areas for our customers. Alongside pragmatic saving and investment tools, families need insurance coverage and access to healthcare. Avibra shares our customer-centric philosophy and desire to create solutions that empower underserved communities.”

Founded in 2019 and headquartered in New Jersey, Avibra is an app-based advisor offering free and affordable finance, insurance, and financial well-being benefits. These benefits include a la carte solutions such as increased life and AD&D coverage, telehealth and teletherapy services, as well as phone repair and roadside assistance. Courtesy of the newly announced strategic partnership, UNest customers will get access to a $10,000 complimentary AD&D insurance policy – with the option to earn up to $5,000 more in additional coverage. They will also have the ability to choose from Avibra’s a la carte benefits – via the company’s Dollar Benefits Store – at a cost of just $1 per week.

“We are both mission-driven companies and the close alignment in our ethos makes this collaboration a natural fit,” Avibra founder and CEO Yogesh Shetty said. “Similar to UNest, we believe that everyone deserves access to top-quality healthcare and financial solutions. Avibra’s team is focused on improving the lives of hard-working families. Through this partnership, we hope to inspire parents and their kids to be proactive in preparing for each life stage.”

To access Avibra, UNest customers use the UNest Rewards section of the company’s app. Founded in 2020, UNest has developed one of the largest collections of rewards partners offered via a savings and investment app. UNest also offers its customers cash back when they enroll and shop with more than 100 different national brands including Disney+, Old Navy, and Nike.

At the company’s Finovate debut in September, Garrett Gilbertson and Peter Mansfield demonstrated the UNest’s financial planning, saving, and investment app for families. UNest offers tax-advantaged investment accounts for children, giving young people an early opportunity to begin saving for higher education, a first car, a first house, or simply to pave the way for better financial security in adulthood. UNest’s gifting program enables parents to enlist the support of extended family members and friends to contribute to their child’s account.

UNest offers a regular account for $2.99 a month and a family account for $5.98 a month. The Family plan adds the ability to include up to five children in the plan, while retaining all the same features – multiple investment options, unlimited gifts from friends and family, cashback from UNest Rewards, and a savings calculator – as the regular plan. Both plans give parents complete visibility and control over how the money is invested and spent until the child reaches adulthood.

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Veem Teams Up with Visa, Q2 to Bring Digital Money Management and AR/AP Innovations to SMEs

Veem Teams Up with Visa, Q2 to Bring Digital Money Management and AR/AP Innovations to SMEs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Q2, Veem, VISA


From a collaboration with Visa to a partnership with Q2, new Finovate alum Veem, which made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall, continues to offer the kind of solutions to help make business payments easy, efficient, and affordable.

In fact, within one month of the company’s first-ever demo on the Finovate stage – a presentation of Veem’s Partner Connect product – the San Francisco, California-based company inked two major deals with some of the most innovative companies in financial services and digital banking.

Veem’s partnership with Visa, announced in the first half of October, will give the company’s 400,000+ customers access to a new SMB Visa card program, as well as digital money movement capabilities courtesy of Visa’s real-time push payments platform, Visa Direct. The agreement will enable Veem customers to generate and issue virtual Visa payment cards that can be used to cover business costs ranging from payments to suppliers to more general business expenses. The virtual card program, along with Veem’s spend management tools, also provides reconciliation and other financial benefits to help customers further digitize and streamline their operations. Access to Visa Direct will give Veem’s U.S. clients the ability to send money directly to both bank accounts and eligible Visa cards in more than 160 currencies.

“Visa is renowned for having broad network acceptance both domestically and internationally,” Veem CEO Marwan Forzley said. “Our collaboration helps Veem expand digital payment options for our customers, as we continue to build the next generation global solution for businesses.”

Veem also last month announced that it was teaming up with digital banking innovator Q2. The partnership is geared toward taking the friction out of the accounts payable/accounts receivable process for SMEs by making Veem’s AP/AR automation platform available to the 450+ financial institutions and 1.5 million businesses on Q2’s digital banking platform.

“This partnership with Veem gives our Financial institutions the ability to deliver Veem’s modern payment services to SMB customers with agility and reliability,” Q2 Innovation Studio Managing Director Johnny Ola said. “Businesses are looking for embedded solutions that act as a one-stop-shop to conduct all their day-to-day transactions. With our integration with Veem, we are excited to give our financial institution customers the option to offer small businesses innovative technology solutions.”

The two collaborations were only part of a very busy autumn for Veem, which was founded n 2014. Also last month, the company appointed Jeff Revoy as Chief Growth Officer and Travis Green as Vice President of Product Management. Revoy brings 20 years of CEO, President, and C-level experience at a number of public and VC-backed firms. Previous to his joining Veem, Revoy was Chief Operating Officer for SpaceIQ, a real estate workplace management software company he founded in 2016 that was acquired by WeWork in the summer of 2019.

In September, Veem secured $31 million in strategic funding in a round led by Truist Ventures. The company said in a statement that the capital will help it develop a robust channel partner program to broaden the company’s geographic footprint. The investment takes the company’s total equity funding to just over $100 million.

“This funding round marks an important milestone for the company, putting us in an ideal position to build out our channel partner program and prepare for Veem’s next stage of global growth,” Forzley said when the investment was announced. “Our channel partner network serves as our vehicle to better commercialize our product offering and further expand upon our market development efforts.”

As Veem’s FinovateFall debut showed, the development of its channel partner program has already borne fruit. At the conference, Veem’s Revoy and Connor Grilo demonstrated a new minimal code integration – Partner Connect – that enables banks to offer their clients an all-in-one, global payments platform designed for small and mid-sized businesses that keeps the bank’s branding at the forefront. The solution is integrated with the major accounting platforms so that, with a couple of clicks, users can reconcile what they are sending out from or receiving in Veem with their accounting software.

“There’s no back and forth, there’s no trying to keep two separate systems,” Revoy said from the Finovate stage. “All of this is automated and designed in a way so that, as a business owner, it can be fast, it can save you time, hopefully it will save you money, and will save you a lot of headaches, because everything is tied together.”

Photo by Ariadne Barroso from Pexels

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Prepaid Technologies Raises $96 Million in Growth Financing

Prepaid Technologies Raises $96 Million in Growth Financing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

Birmingham, Alabama-based prepaid digital payment solution provider Prepaid Technologies has scored $96 million in funding. The round was led by Edison Partners and StepStone Group, and also featured participation from Stifel Venture Bank and Top Tier Capital Partners.

The company has enjoyed 15,000% straight-line growth in its load value, as well as revenue gains of 9x over the five years since it last raised capital – $5 million in 2016. Prepaid Technologies currently has 1,700+ customers and 450 active partners including banks, payroll processors, payment providers, as well as digital banking platforms, enterprise technology companies, and merchant services providers. The company’s technology enables its customers to access and customize both B2C and B2B payments for payroll, rewards, purchasing, and disbursement.

“We purpose-built our platform to create a turnkey way for companies to configure payments solutions across their enterprise however they operate,” Prepaid Technologies CEO Stephen Faust explained. “Clients access payments through our dashboard technology or integrate solutions into their workflows through our robust API suite. We’re laser-focused on productization and customization that will help to transition more companies to card-based and digital solutions.”

With financial services clients such as CertiPay, Rocket Mortgage, PNC Bank, and Cornerstone – and boasting customers like Delta, Lowe’s, and Samsung more broadly – Prepaid Technologies was founded in 1998. The company acquired Dash, the purchasing card portfolio and expense management solution from Finovate alum Karmic Labs, in 2019. Prepaid Technologies has leveraged this acquisition to launch its MyDashCard app and dashPerks, a cashback rewards program for cardholders.

Prepaid Technologies will use the new capital to fuel market expansion and to continue to develop both its technology payments platform and its customer-focused prepaid solutions. As part of this week’s investment, Edison Partners Managing Partner Chris Sugden will join Prepaid Technologies’ board of directors.

In a statement, Sugden underscored the unique opportunities available to companies like Prepaid Technologies in the current environment. “Loyalty payments and refund programs present an enormous niche opportunity,” Sugden said. “There is both a programmatic vertical opportunity and underserved community opportunity.” He praised the company’s “incredible load volume and data set” as well as the “deep banking and payments expertise” of Prepaid Technologies’ management team.

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Digital Adoption, the Customer Experience, and the Latest from the Finovate Podcast

Digital Adoption, the Customer Experience, and the Latest from the Finovate Podcast
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Horizn, InfoCorp, Ocrolus, Podcasting, PwC

The latest round of Finovate Podcasts features four of the companies that won Best of Show awards at FinovateFall in September. A common theme in the conversations with most of these firms is the importance of customer engagement at a time in rapid digital adoption.

Below is a small sample of what Finovate VP and program host Greg Palmer and his guests are talking about. For more, be sure to check in for new episodes of the Finovate podcast every week.

Find the Finovate podcast at Soundcloud and follow Greg Palmer on Twitter for the latest in programming news and updates.

Corey Cederquist, Director of Customer Transformation & Data Science Advisory, and Brian Morris, Partner – Customer Analytics and Marketing, with PwC. Host Greg Palmer talks with Corey Cederquist and Brian Morris about “getting back to the basics” of understanding the customer.

“We often joke internally that we’re not your parent’s PwC and, as a collective customer transformation team, we’re constantly challenging ourselves to be more provocative in the way that we engage with technology, the experiences that we drive for our clients, and the insights that we deliver.”

Janice Diner, founder and CEO, and Steve Frook, Senior Vice President of Global Sales, with Horizn. Host Greg Palmer sits down with Janice Diner and Steve Frook to discuss digital adoption and how to prepare your customers – and yourself – for the wave.

“From a Horizn standpoint, we are absolutely focused on helping financial institutions to be able to achieve three key objectives: the first one is overachieving their digital growth goals, the second is successfully supporting mergers and new platform launches, and then the third component is driving mass adoption of new innovation and capabilities.”

Ana Echavarren, CEO of Infocorp. Host Greg Palmer and Ana Echavarren talk about user experience and “happy customers”.

“We’ve been doing this since 1994 through IC Banking, our digital channel platform that’s already implemented in more than 40 banks in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are helping people love their banks because we give them superior experiences with our digital channels. Today banks need to build loyalty through digital engagement. That’s why you need as a bank to have customers that love going to your application and your bank.”

David Snitkof, Head of Analytics at Ocrolus. Host Greg Palmer and David Snitkof discuss the future of lending.

“How fast could a mortgage be? At some point in the future, you’ll be able to get a mortgage in a couple of days. It’s harder to say when than to say what but, in theory, if you could process all of the information, and it’s all there available, you should be able to get a mortgage in a couple of days versus a month or more – what it takes today.”

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Moven Teams up with Apex Edge to Bring Bill Negotiation to Financial Wellness

Moven Teams up with Apex Edge to Bring Bill Negotiation to Financial Wellness
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Moven

Partner-enablement platform ApexEdge will bring new savings opportunities to Moven’s financial wellness platform courtesy of a partnership announced this week.

“We’re excited to help the financial services industry find new ways to help consumers save, while living within their means,” Moven CRO Bryan Clagett said. “Banks and credit unions particularly, can differentiate by offering services that have immediate impact to consumers’ bottom line, while supporting their brand ambitions of acting as a financial advocate.”

ApexEdge uses actionable intelligence to spot and secure savings opportunities for consumers. Via its BillShark bill negotiation service, ApexEdge enables management and negotiation of a wide range of monthly bills including cable television, Internet, wireless, home security. The company says that it has provided more than 350,000 customers with a savings success rate of 85% and an average savings of $295. The partnership with ApexEdge only enhances the value that Moven offers its clients. The technology helps move financial wellness beyond turning data into actionable insights to tangibly saving customers money via cost savings not traditionally available through banks and credit unions.

“It is exciting to play a role in the financial wellness movement that the retail banking industry is embracing,” ApexEdge CEO Steven McKean said. “By partnering with innovative companies like Moven, banks and credit unions have access to the tools and technology to affect real, meaningful positive change in the daily lives of their customers and members.”

Moven’s bank-in-a-box solution enables banks and fintechs to launch a fully functional digital challenger bank in 90 days. The company’s platform uses both proprietary bank and third-party data to give institutions the ability to offer real-time insights for their digital banking customers. The platform’s features – such as Spend Meter, Savings Stash, and Spend by Category – further help customers get a more holistic view of their finances. The technology leverages open APIs and SDKs to provide scalability, optimize speed to market, and ensure an integration and launch that is both customizable and quick.

Moven founder Brett King joined Q2 VP of Strategic Solutions Rahm McDaniel in a demonstration of CorePro, the core processing platform behind Moven’s digital bank-in-a-box, at FinovateSpring 2021 in May. The technology is geared toward enabling community and regional banks, as well as credit unions, to compete with the digital-native offerings from challenger and neobanks.

Winner of Best Embedded Finance Solution at this year’s 2021 Finovate Awards, ApexEdge was founded in 2020. Earlier this fall, the company announced that a new, financial wellness mobile app Upwise, offered by MetLife, would offer Billshark bill negotiation services among its initial suite of capabilities.

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Instant Payments, TED, and PIX: Open Banking Advances in Brazil

Instant Payments, TED, and PIX: Open Banking Advances in Brazil
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, MasterCard, Nubank, Payoneer, VISA

This week marks the beginning of Phase 3 of Brazil’s embrace of open banking. Phase 3 is the second-to-last stage of the implementation plan set out by the Brazilian Central Bank. According to reports, Phase 3 arrives about one month late – the original date was September 30th – but the changes that the newest phase of the open banking initiative will bring are significant enough to be worth the wait.

Divided into four parts, the goal of Phase 3 is to usher in the regulation of payment initiation from any online platform. This will initially involve enabling consumers to pay for products and services using PIX – without the consumer having to use their bank’s app. PIX is the smartphone-based, instant payments technology launched by the Brazilian central bank almost a year ago. The second part of Phase 3, enabling payments made with TED (transferência eletrônica disponível) and transfers between accounts of the same bank, is set to begin in mid-February of 2022; the third part, enabling payments via bank slip, is slated to begin in late June; and the fourth and final part of Phase 3, enabling payment by debit account, is set to go live at the end of September.

Payment initiation is only one component of the open banking project Brazil has undertaken. Giving consumers the ability to make price comparisons, as well as compare rates and credit offers, are also major new possibilities for consumers that will be available thanks to the introduction of open banking in the country. These elements are expected to begin at the end of March 2022.

“The initiation will have a great impact especially on fintechs, which may offer more practical solutions for consumers or improve your internal financial processes from direct payment,” Belvo General Director Albert Morales explained. “Large banks, on the other hand, should start to rethink prices and solutions offered, both to attract new users and to retain users.”

Brazil’s open banking project, approved in 2019 by the country’s central bank, is part of a larger modernization effort for the Brazil’s entire financial system. And while the global pandemic has played a major role in complicating the project’s original timeline, officials expect open banking to be fully implemented in the country by September of next year.

Read more about Brazil’s open banking project in this interview with Otávio Damaso, Regulation Director for Brazil’s central bank, conducted by The Paypers last month. Damaso explains why Brazil has embraced open banking, and how open banking fits into the larger context of regulatory changes and trends in the country.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

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Women in Fintech: Empowering Small Businesses with Sophie Gorman of Metro Bank

Women in Fintech: Empowering Small Businesses with Sophie Gorman of Metro Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Interview, Women in Fintech

Founded in 2010 by Anthony Thomson and Vernon Hill, Metro Bank was the first new high street bank to go live in the U.K. in more than 100 years. Currently led by CEO Daniel Frumkin, the institution offers banking services to both retail and business customers, buttressed by its acquisitions of SME Finance in 2013 and of the loan portfolio for P2P loan marketplace RateSetter in 2021.

We caught up with Sophie Gorman, Lead Product Owner with Metro Bank to learn more about how the institution leveraged its hybrid, digital, and physical model to better serve both individuals and small businesses. We also asked Ms. Gorman about the meaning and importance of agility in banking and what women can do to succeed in the male-dominated world of finance.

Tell us about yourself.

Sophie Gorman: I have worked in the financial services space for almost 10 years, spanning roles at several banking organizations in the U.K. like Silicon Valley Bank and Lloyds Banking Group. During this time, I gained valuable experience across a wide range of customer segments and channels.

For the past three years, I have been a part of the Metro Bank team. Metro Bank is the first new retail bank in the U.K. in over 100 years; we launched in 2010 and now serve more than two million customers with leading banking services. At Metro, we’re bringing together digital and physical experiences to provide a personalized approach to banking, challenging the big banks and traditional players.  

I’ve worn several different hats at Metro, and I now serve as lead product owner. I am responsible for delivering new digital products and services across our mobile and online banking platforms to help small businesses manage their finances. I am excited to continue to build out Metro’s business banking division, delivering value to our customers by leveraging existing and new technologies to make their financial lives easier.

How can banks embrace agility from an organizational level?

Gorman: It’s easy to believe your institution needs to deliver every feature from day one, but such thinking is actually counterproductive to embracing an agile approach. It’s important for banks to be able to pivot and tweak their offerings based on factors like user feedback, market research, and usage trends from the get-go. Such an approach to agility ensures the organization can evolve and innovate more quickly, ultimately proving to be more helpful for developers and stronger for overall team morale.

How do you support small businesses, especially those who aren’t ready to work with accountants?

Gorman: We are committed to empowering small businesses with easy, convenient digital tools to manage their finances. Recently, we’ve been focusing on providing internal bookkeeping capabilities to help businesses that may not work with accountants. One of the services our partner Sensibill provides is digital expense management, which helps our small business customers digitally capture, store, and organize their business receipts with plans to expand the services to include invoices.

The spend data captured by Sensibill helps us know and understand our customers better, which allows our bank to surface more relevant products and services based on their unique business needs. We are committed to leveraging this data to enrich our customer segments and deliver services to help our business customers grow. Our data is starting to demonstrate insightful trends that can help inform decisions.

I’m especially excited about our team building open banking APIs to allow customers to integrate transactional data with their accounting providers. With this functionality, customers can seamlessly share transactions in real-time. And as these businesses grow and become more sophisticated, they’ll be able to easily take advantage of additional tools.

Tell us about Metro Bank’s hybrid model.

Gorman: Metro Bank is bringing together digital experiences and the physical stores to provide our customers with the best possible experience for their individual needs. We recognized that customers still craved face-to-face interactions with our store colleagues and Local Business Managers in certain instances, but still wanted the optionality and convenience for digital at their fingertips. We’re in a unique position because Metro isn’t a true neo-bank, but it’s not one of the U.K.’s Big Four either. We’ve been in the market for a little over 10 years, so we’re still relatively young and growing quickly. It’s been a fun ride so far, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

How can women grow within organizations? 

Gorman: For women looking to grow in the banking or technology space, I’d encourage them to lean into their transferable skills. Oftentimes women make the mistake of thinking they have to fit into a certain box based on their current role, making it difficult to transition into other roles or find opportunities in a new area. But by nurturing and harnessing those transferable skills, women can gain the confidence to apply their knowledge and diverse skill sets to other areas, continuing to deliver value to the organization in new ways and grow.  

I’d recommend finding a mentor in the organization with influence outside of your immediate team to provide you with visibility and push for opportunities that will stretch you. This helped me transition into a more technology based role. I also loved reading Viv Groskop’s How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking which has some fantastic practical tips for those suffering from the dreaded Imposter Syndrome.

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From Affirm to Visa: The Latest from the Buy Now Pay Later Beat

From Affirm to Visa: The Latest from the Buy Now Pay Later Beat
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Klarna, List series, Marqeta, MasterCard, PayPal, VISA

The Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) revolution shows no signs of abating any time soon. A combination of newcomers, Buy Now Pay Later pioneers, and even credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard are figuring out new ways to integrate themselves into the biggest consumer commerce phenomenon since shopping by smartphone.

According to CNBC, which bases its analysis on data from FIS Worldpay, the Buy Now Pay Later market has an estimated value of $60 billion globally as of 2019 – though there are even higher estimates. Excluding China, this sum represents 2.6% of all e-commerce. And while BNPL represents less than 2% of sales in North America, the overall BNPL market, CNBC believes, could reach $166 billion by 2023.

Here is just a smattering of this week’s headlines from the Buy Now Pay Later beat that only underscores the velocity of the flight from credit cards and traditional consumer financing.

Stripe teams up with Klarna as BNPL competition from Square, PayPal intensifies

Klarna, a company with a long pedigree in providing consumers with alternative payment options, announced this week that it was partnering with ecommerce innovator and payments platform Stripe. The deal will enable Stripe customers in 20 countries to offer Klarna as a payment option to their customers. As part of the partnership, Klarna will use Stripe to accept payments from consumers in both the U.S. and Canada.

“Over the past years, Klarna and Stripe redefined the e-commerce experience for millions of consumers and global retailers,” Klarna Chief Technology Officer Koen Köppen said. “Together with Stripe, we will be a true growth partner for retailers of all sizes, allowing them to maximize their entrepreneurial success through our joint services. By offering convenience, flexibility, and control to even more shoppers, we create a win-win situation for both retailers and consumers alike.”

The partnership is widely seen as a way for Stripe to compete with payments rivals PayPal and Square, which have deepened their commitment to BNPL in recent months. Square agreed to acquire Australia’s Afterpay for $29 million in August. A month later, PayPal announced its $2.7 billion acquisition of Japanese Buy Now Pay Later company Paidy.

Affirm partners with American Airlines to ease cost of holiday travel

In a move well-timed to take advantage of end-of-year travel trends, American Airlines has announced a partnership with Buy Now Pay Later innovator Affirm. The collaboration will enable eligible travelers to pay for the costs of airfare over time on an installment basis, providing them with “flexibility, transparency, and control,” according to Affirm Chief Commercial Officer Silvija Martincevic. Using Affirm, travelers can pay for flights costing at least $50 with monthly installments without having to pay late fees or worry about hidden charges.

“While consumers are as eager as ever to get away,” Martincevic said, “they remain conscious of fitting travel into their budget.” Martincevic cited a survey conducted by the company that indicated that 74% of Americans queried said they would spend more on holiday travel this year “than ever before,” but that 60% were worried that they would not be able to “afford to travel as they would like to.”

The offering is currently available only to select customers, but will be expanded to include more U.S. consumers in the weeks to come. The collaboration marks the first time that American Airlines has integrated BNPL options into its website.

Marqeta and Amount announce collaboration to help banks offer BNPL

The partnership announced this week between card issuing platform Marqeta and bank technology provider Amount will make it easier for financial institutions to get into the Buy Now Pay Later business. Marqeta and Amount have forged a virtual card and loan origination partnership that will enable banks to go to market with their own BNPL/virtual card offering in months. This will help them boost revenues, grow market share, and promote loyalty.

Echoing the challenge that banks and other financial institutions face from Big Tech and fintech alike, Amount CEO Adam Hughes pointed to the partnership with Marqeta as a way for banks to close the consumer expectations gap between themselves and more tech-savvy, tech-native enterprises entering the financial services space. “Banks must compete or continue to lose market share to digital challengers who offer a more flexible way for their customers to pay,” Hughes said.

Part of what makes the Marqeta/Amount partnership interesting is how it takes advantage of research that suggests that a significant number of consumers who have used BNPL would prefer it if the service came from their bank or credit card provider. Amount’s modular approach to BNPL is configurable, easy to deploy, and integrates readily with banks’ legacy platforms, giving FIs the ability to introduce BNPL offerings over a variety of different channels and payment methods.

Berlin-based Billie banks $100 million in funding

The latest reminder of the international growth of Buy Now Pay Later comes from the $100 million investment secured by Berlin, Germany-based, B2B Buy Now Pay Later startup, Billie. The Series C round was led by U.K.-based Dawn Capital and featured participation from Tencent and, interestingly enough, Klarna. In fact, Klarna’s investment comes in the wake of a strategic partnership with Billie in which the two companies will integrate their service to better leverage their core competencies, with Billie serving business customers and Klarna handling retail consumers.

“BNPL for B2B is still in its infancy phase,” Klarna CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski explained, “even though the demand has never been higher. We are here to solve problems and by being able to offer this service to our merchant partners together with Billie, we are doing just that.”

The Series C round gives Billie a valuation of $640 million, and is believed to be the largest B2B Buy Now Pay Later funding round to-date. Co-founder and co-CEO of Billie, Dr. Matthias Knecht noted that those companies buying from larger businesses and individual retailers are increasingly embracing a “digital-first” approach that includes not just “modern user interfaces, high limits for shopping carts, as well as real-time decisions for B2B” but options like BNPL, as well. “There is nearly no provider of a BNPL product (for these companies) like what Klarna offers for B2C,” Knecht said. “We aim to close this gap.”

Visa expands BNPL offerings in Canada via partnership with Moneris

International card company and financial services provider Visa has been making inroads of its own into the Buy Now Pay Later market. This week, the company made headlines in the Canadian fintech news space via a new collaboration with unified commerce company Moneris.

“We’re happy to be working with a trusted brand like Visa Canada on providing a buy now pay later option to Canadians,” Moneris Chief Product and Partnership Officer Patrick Diab said. “Bringing flexible payment methods like buy now pay later to our merchants helps them offer their customers more options when it comes time to pay.”

Courtesy of the new collaboration, merchants partnered with Moneris will be able to leverage Visa’s BNPL solution – Visa Installments – to give eligible Canadian credit cardholders access to installment payments on qualifying purchases. Cardholders can use the existing credit on their cards to pay for purchases in smaller, equal payments over a defined time period, with no additional, new service sign ups or requirement to apply for a new line of credit.

Moneris is set to begin offering Visa Installments to its customers by the spring of 2022.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

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Mastercard Launches Touch Card to Support Visually Impaired Consumers

Mastercard Launches Touch Card to Support Visually Impaired Consumers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Diversity in Fintech, MasterCard

Mastercard introduced its latest innovation to help ensure that visually impaired and partially sighted consumers can use its spending and credit solutions as readily as any other cardholder. The company’s Touch Card, announced this week, enables the visually impaired to easily determine whether the Mastercard they are holding is a credit, debit, or prepaid card thanks to a few simple design elements to the physical card itself.

At a time when payment cards are becoming sleeker, eschewing the boldly embossed letters and numbers that have distinguished these cards for decades, the new Touch Card features a new design that, while not bucking the trend toward flatter, thiner cards, provides the kind of tactile cues that visually impaired consumers can use to select and use the right card. With a series of notches on the side of the card – a round notch for credit cards; a broad, square-shaped notch for debit cards; and a triangular notch for prepaid cards – Mastercard’s new Touch Card is another example of what Mastercard Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Raja Rajamannar called innovation “driven by the impulse to include.”

“The Touch Card will provide a greater sense of security, inclusivity, and independence to the 2.2 billion people around the world with visual impairments,” Rajamannar said. “For the visually impaired, identifying their payment cards is a real struggle. This tactile solution allows consumers to correctly orient the card and know which payment card they are using.”

The new cards have been endorsed by The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) in the U.K. and by VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired in the U.S. Co-designed by augmented identity specialist IDEMIA, Mastercard’s Touch Card works with bot point-of-scale terminals and ATMs, meaning that the new solution can be readily deployed at scale.

“With one in seven people experiencing some form of disability,” Rajamannar said, “designing these products with accessibility in mind gives them equal opportunity to benefit from the ease and security of a digital world. No one should be left behind.”

It is worth mentioning that the Touch Card is only one of Mastercard’s initiatives to empower those with visual impairments. The company includes its signature melody, which signifies that card transactions have been completed successfully at the checkout counter, among these efforts.

Photo by Marina Leonova from Pexels

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