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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Okanii solves all of the problems of moving value around the world by creating the true internet of value.
Features
Cost – Okanii offers a 100x cost reduction that makes $0.01 micro-payments profitable
Security – Quantum proof hyper-tokenization, unbreakable, zero fraud
Scalability – easily supports all of the worlds’ transactions
Why it’s great Okanii is the opposite of blockchain. Make payments/ transactions in any asset (181 currencies, stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate) across any use-case (P2P, B2C, B2B), instantly, securely, and at no cost.
Presenter
Grant Colhoun, CEO Colhoun is a serial entrepreneur, payments expert, and a recovering investment banker. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Circlys is a social saving plan based on circles model (rotating savings and credit association /committees) with trusted users that have been risk accessed.
Features
On-time payment
Flexible plans
Long term saving benefits
Access to liquidity that fits any financial plans
Why it’s great Circulate with Circlys and according to plan.
Presenters
Hanan Alanazi, Operations manager
Khaled Hassoun, CEO Hassoun has eight plus years of experience in tech start-ups in which he undertook multiple roles in managing business aspects. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Fraud prevention has many layers, each with its own view. However, fraudsters attack across all layers. With fcase holistic fraud investigations, you can now manage all fraud from one mission control.
Features
Centralized fraud prevention automation
Holistic manual fraud investigations
Fraud mission control
Why it’s great Built from the ground up to massively manage your fraud operations from one mission control, fcase is one golden source of fraud data, delivering a reduction in fraud, customer friction and improves efficiency.
DriveWealthpartners with Bamboo to give Nigerians real-time access to trade 3,500+ stocks listed on the U.S. stock market.
OnDeckbuilds liquidity with new $125 million securitization.
Salt Edgeteams up with Exprivia to expand access to open banking solutions.
Insuritaspartners with Security Federal Savings Bank to launch digital insurance agency platform.
Coinbaseadds five new currencies to its Coinbase Card – XRP, BAT, REP, ZRX, and XLM – as it brings its card to ten new countries.
MastercardlaunchesMastercard Accelerate, a worldwide initiative that gives fintechs access to the company’s suite of digital solutions to help differentiate their offerings.
Finastrainks partnership with UAE-based United Arab Bank, which will deploy the company’s Fusion Corporate Channels and Fusion Cash Management solutions.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Customer segmentation identification company SheerID is receiving a boost for its platform today with a $64 million investment. The funds bring SheerID’s total funding to $96 million.
The round was led by CVC Growth, which will join SheerID’s board of directors. SheerID will use the funds to fortify its marketing, sales, and engineering efforts; launch in more geographies, and add more consumer segments relating to occupation, interests, causes, and affiliations.
SheerID was founded in 2011 to help companies gate exclusive offers to high-value customer segmentation groups. The segmentation, for example, prevents customers from using their student ID from the 1990s to score a discount on a laptop today. Other segmentations include military personnel, teachers, and seniors. “Our platform allows brands to create offers that honor and recognize an entire consumer tribe, increasing trust and word-of-mouth, and decreasing customer acquisition costs,” explained SheerID CEO Jake Weatherly.
The new funds come at a time of significant growth for SheerID. The company has seen 4.5x revenue growth over the past three years, ranked 243 in the Deloitte and Touche Fast 500, and landed 200 customers including Target, Amazon, Lowe’s, Comcast, Google, T-Mobile and Urban Outfitters.
“Our exponential growth is driven by major shifts in personalization, privacy, and performance marketing,” Wealtherly said. “Marketers are struggling to capture the attention of consumers who want more control over their personal data and less uninvited marketing from brands.”
Oregon-based SheerID demoed its verification platform at FinovateSpring 2019. The demo showed how the SheerID platform can help banks not only verify credentials for exclusive offers but can also fuel personalized marketing.
Wealth management solutions provider WeInvestlaunched a new product today that aims to help financial services companies discover new investment tactics.
The new offering, StratWealth, is a strategy marketplace with more than 100 algorithmically-generated, customized investment strategies for banks, brokers, and asset managers to choose from. With an initial investment minimum of $4,000, StratWealth also caters to retail clients. The platform, which hinges on a dashboard to visualize different products, offers access to portfolios comprised of 90,000 funds including customized stock and ETF baskets.
“Through our proprietary StratWealth platform, we are enabling financial institutions by providing them with a pool of expert investment ideas to choose from and hence accelerating the entire process of product development,” said CEO Bhaskar Prabhakara. “With this, we hope that the collective financial landscape globally will benefit – with better investment strategies and a wider variety of customized portfolios to choose from.”
The impetus for StratWealth was the rising demand for thematic investments which often deliver better long term performance than traditional investment strategies.
WeInvest’s partners for the tool include MSCI, Solactive, and Schroders. “Our indexes will provide them with the tools they need to assess and measure these structural trends and create customized thematic portfolios with a focus on a number of megatrends,” said Beng Eu Lim, Head of South East Asia Client Coverage at MSCI.
Founded in 2015 and with 38 employees, WeInvest offers its services in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Dubai. Prabhakara most recently presentedAdviseWealth at FinovateMiddleEast 2018 in Dubai. WeInvest’s clients include Singapore’s Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank and Dubai’s Mubasher Financial Services.
Fintech is a global game, so why don’t we always hear about all of the global players? The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, for example is often overlooked when it comes to fintech.
The Milken Institute, a non-profit think tank, recently looked beyond the borders of the U.S., Europe, and Asia to better understand the state of fintech in MENA– specifically in the UAE and Bahrain. The findings come in the Milken Institute’s recent reportThe Rise of FinTech in the Middle East: An Analysis of the Emergence of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
The publication reports that the region receives only 1% of all VC fintech investment across the globe. But considering funding numbers alone paints a different picture than looking at fintech activity as a whole in the region. Looking beyond funding numbers, the report details the state of fintech in the region, its challenges, and what to watch.
MENA’s fintech pulse
Just getting started
It may be true that the rest of the globe receives 99% of all VC fintech investment, but the UAE and Bahrain are just getting started. Policymakers began forming fintech-specific initiatives in 2017 and, with only a couple of years of development, there is still plenty of time for the countries to grow the depth and breadth of fintech in the region.
Potential clients
The MENA region has around 450 million residents, an ample population to support a wide range of fintech initiatives. What’s more, half of all residents are under 25 years old and more likely to be tech savvy, having grown up with technology touching almost every aspect of their lives.
Geographical advantages
MENA acts as a gateway to neighboring Asia, which has two positive aspects. First, it is ripe with potential fintech partners. Second, Asia has a large population of financially underserved residents in need of the types of alternative financial services fintechs offer.
Growth
The region’s fintech sector is growing at a 30% compounded annual growth rate. By 2022, it is estimated that 465 fintechs in the region will garner $2+ billion in annual funding, a 25x improvement when compared to the $80 million in funding fintechs brought in in 2017.
What to watch
Milken’s report states that the following fintech subsectors are emerging regularly throughout the MENA region:
Payments
Remittances
Insurtech
Lending
Regtech
Digital banking
Crowdfunding
Blockchain
Cryptocurrency
And of that list, payments dominate. The fintech scene in MENA is comprised of 85% payments, money transfers, and remittances companies. This, the report details, is fueled by the prevalence of mobile devices and internet connectivity.
Challenges
Lack of local talent
As with many regions across the globe, MENA struggles to find local talent with specialized fintech expertise. Perhaps exacerbating the issue, the region’s major growth sectors such as traditional financial services, oil, and healthcare attract many of the experts from the talent pool.
Regulation
Again, MENA startups are not unique in their struggle with regulation. However, in its report, Milken pointed out that MENA fintechs often face extreme regulatory hurdles that outshadow typical regulatory challenges in their number and complexity. Examples include Visa requirements, licensing fees, quotas for employee hiring, and square footage requirements.
Cost of doing business
Regulation is just one aspect that adds to the cost of doing business in the region. Other factors are a high cost of living, licensing, and work visa costs.
For a more complete picture of the state of fintech in the region I highly recommend reading the full report. And to see MENA’s newest technology demoed live, and to hear from the most renowned industry leaders in fintech in the region, be sure to check out FinovateMiddleEast, taking place on November 20 and 21 in Dubai. Tickets are still available.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Analytics and decision management technology company FICOannounced two new products this week as it snapped up security access provider EZMCOM. Transactional details of the acquisition were undisclosed.
The acquisition has facilitated the launch of FICO Identity Proofing, digital onboarding technology; and FICO User Authentication, a suite of multi-factor, biometric, and behavioral authentication capabilities.
EZMCOM was founded in 2006. The company’s identity proofing, biometric, behavioral and risk-based authentication technology is used by tier-1 banks across the globe, ultimately serving 60 million customers.
“As our clients expand their digital offerings, they are requesting more sophisticated identity proofing and authentication capabilities to complement our fraud, compliance, customer lifecycle, and customer engagement applications,” said FICO CTO Claus Moldt. “Behavioral and biometric authentication are becoming the gold standard to prevent identity spoofing and improve customer protection, while reducing friction. By adding this technology to our portfolio, we will provide our clients with a seamless approach to authentication and customer onboarding – across digital channels, mobile devices, servers and workstations.”
Founded in 1956 as Fair Isaac Corporation, FICO presented “Rapidly Deliver Contextually-Powered Stream Processing” at FinDEVr New York 2016.
Last week, Q2 completed its sixth acquisition since its 2004 launch. The digital banking services company closed the books on a $510 million deal to purchase PrecisionLender, a sales enablement platform.
“We are thrilled with the outstanding talent, culture and industry expertise the PrecisionLender team brings to the Q2 family,” said Q2 CEO Matt Flake. “We are also excited about the potential we have to help our customers improve margins, profitability and the quality of their relationship with their key accounts using our combined data insights and commercial banking solutions.”
Q2 will leverage PrecisionLender to further its corporate banking expertise and solidify its leadership in digital banking. Going forward, PrecisionLender will operate as Precision Lender, a Q2 company.
Q2 debuted Q2 Biller Direct at FinovateSpring 2018 and the company’s CIO Lou Senko made a cameo appearance in ALTR’s demo at FinovateFall earlier this year.
P2P lending company and newly initiated challenger bank Zopa is taking a first step on its banking journey with the rollout of a new savings product. The U.K.-based company is launching fixed-term savings accounts that will be available for terms of one month and pay 4% interest.
This news comes after the company received partial authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) last December and launched bank products with its staff as beta testers. This partial authorization is the reason behind the limited nature of the savings accounts. Zopa is currently operating in a period called AWR (authorization with restrictions), meaning the company has met all of the FCA’s conditions and is allowed to begin testing bank products.
Under those restrictions, Zopa cannot accept more than $64,000 (£50,000) in customer deposits, so it is only inviting 200 current investors to test out the new savings product. There is no word yet on when the restrictions will be lifted.
“Inviting existing customers to test our Fixed Term Saver is a major milestone in our bank journey,” said Zopa CPO Didier Baclin. “It is a great opportunity to ensure that the product meets their expectations before the full launch next year so that we deliver a great product that customers can trust.”
Zopa’s choice to start its bank product offerings with a high-interest savings account doesn’t come as a surprise. As we covered last month, multiple fintechs are offering high interest bearing accounts in order to attract customer deposits away from their primary, traditional bank.
Last year, Zopa closed a $77 million (£60 million) investment round that contributed to the company’s total of $297 million in funding it’s received since launching in 2005. Zopa is seeking to raise additional funding this year, stating that the fresh capital will offer the boost it needs to have the FCA’s restrictions removed.
Zopa’s former CEO Doug Dolton debuted the P2P lending platform at FinovateSpring 2008 at Finovate’s very first show in the Bay Area. The company was founded in 2005, pioneering peer-to-peer lending in the U.K., and has since amassed 400,000 customers and facilitated $5 billion (£4 billion) on its platform.
Revolutunveils metal cards in silver and space grey.
Chief Administrative Officer of the Royal Bank of Scotland interviewsBioCatch CEO.
ITSectorinaugurates 6th Software Development Center that will focus on the financial sector, AI, and 5G.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
