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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
JumiolaunchesJumio Go, a real-time, automated identity verification solution powered by AI.
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.
After making inroads into China at the beginning of this month, PayPalannounced another international move today– this time with the U.S.’s friendly neighbors to the north.
The San Francisco-based company has made the PayPal Business Loan for small business owners available in Canada. This isn’t the first time PayPal has launched financing products outside of the U.S. The company also offers loans in the U.K., Australia, Germany, and Mexico.
With this launch, Canada-based small business owners can access from $5,000 to $100,000 in working capital at competitive borrowing rates from terms ranging from 13 to 52 weeks. Businesses can apply online and will receive approval in minutes. Once approved, merchants can receive funds in their business bank account within one to two days.
Before accepting the loan, borrowers can see the transparent cost and fee structure of the loan, including the fixed fee. There are no hidden, origination, late payment, early repayment, or application fees.
“Applying for a traditional loan takes time and isn’t always favorable to small business owners,” said President of PayPal Canada, Paul Parisi. “We’re launching the PayPal Business Loan to offer our merchants easy access to financing, something they desperately need. We look forward to helping more small business owners achieve their dreams to grow locally and globally.”
This news comes almost six years after PayPal began offering business financing solutions. Since that time the company– which was founded in 1998– has provided $10+ billion in funding to nearly a quarter of a million business owners around the world. PayPal reports that historically, the most common uses of the loans include managing cash-flow (44%), purchasing inventory (37%) and investing in marketing (31%).
The loans are currently available to select Canadian business owners by invitation only. PayPal will make the loans available to all Canadian PayPal business account holders next year.
PayPal showcased its Instant Account Creation feature at FinovateFall 2012. The company, which made its 19th acquisition earlier this month, has a market capitalization of $116 billion.
After receiving its banking license from the Bank of Spain last week, personal finance platform Fintonic has become Spain’s newest challenger bank. Having passed all of the certifications, Fintonic is now a payment initiation service provider (PISP) and PSD2 compliant account aggregation service provider (AISP).
“We are very pleased to be pioneers in receiving this license, because it supports our value proposition to always be next to our users helping them with total transparency,” said Lupina Iturriaga, founder and co-CEO of Fintonic.
By becoming a PISP and AISP, the company anticipates it will be able to launch products and services that offer its 800,000 users a better way to manage their money. “Our ambition is to offer an ideal financial service with a platform that integrates different entities while maintaining the standards of independence and transparency promoted by Fintonic,” added Iturriaga.
Fintonic’s flagship offerings include financial management tools, insurance, and lending, which allows customers to take out loans of up to $45,000 (€40,000). The company recently revealed other plans in the works– including account-to-account transfers that happen in near-real time. By the end of this year, Fintonic’s goal is to amass one million users.
At FinovateSpring 2016, Fintonic debuted its alerts and inbox system to help users act in a timely manner on their financial needs and recommendations. The company, which recently received a $21.4 million investment, has $51 million in total funding and, earlier this year, was valued at $180 million.
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.
Alternative lending platform OnDecklanded a new client for ODX, its digital loan origination platform. Investors Bank, with $27 billion in assets and 147 branches in New York and New Jersey, has become ODX’s newest partner.
ODX, an OnDeck subsidiary, is a platform-as-a-service that leverages software, insights, and human input to enable banks to automate small business lending. The offering, which launched a year ago, is as much about supporting banks to reach small business clients as it is about helping small businesses interact with their bank. ODX bank clients can offer small businesses a fully digital loan application and underwriting process that provides funding within 24 hours.
“As a leading small business [loan originations] platform, ODX provides proven technology and professional services that enables bank clients like Investors to offer credit to small businesses faster and more efficiently,” said Brian Geary, President of ODX. “That combination is mutually advantageous for the bank lender and the small business owner.”
Investors Bank joins PNC Bank and others as ODX clients. One of ODX’s original bank partners, JP Morgan Chase, made fintech headlines this summer when the bank announced plans to rescind the partnership.
OnDeck was founded in 2007 and has loaned more than $12 billion to small businesses in 700 different industries across the United States, Canada, and Australia since launch. The company demoed at FinovateSpring 2012 and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $280 million.
Finicityannounces collaboration with American Financial Resources to streamline the asset and income verification process during loan origination.
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.
International payments platform Currencycloud and business payment automation company Bottomline Technologies announced they have teamed up to provide Hargenant Group with a cross-border payments solution.
Bottomline’s payments platform leveraged Currencycloud’s open APIs to give Hargenant, a company that specializes in accounting and payroll for the entertainment industry, the tools it needs to pay suppliers and employees abroad.
Greg Barrow, founder and chairman of Hargenant Global said that the company chose the solution to create efficiencies. “We needed to pay film crews around the world, sometimes on irregular schedules and in various currencies,” he said. “This SaaS-based international payments service helps our team do this from one easy-to-use, controlled payment platform.”
Currencycloud, which debuted its Payment Engine at its most recent Finovate appearance, offers a modular approach to cross-border payments that allows companies to collect, convert, pay, and manage international payment solutions. The company can make domestic and international payments in 38 currencies to 180+ countries and counts Klarna, Azimo, and Travelex among its clients.
This summer, Currencycloud landed a $12.2 million (£10 million) grant as a part of the Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) program. The new investment boosted Currencycloud’s total investment to more than $80 million.
P2P lending company and challenger bank Zopaannounced something consumers can feel good about this week. The U.K.-based company, which brands itself as the FeelGood Money company, launched a tool to help borrowers find the best rate for their loan.
The new tool, Borrowing Power, leverages AI to show users what makes up their personal borrowing power and guide them toward actions to help improve it. Each score is linked to a Zopa loan and shows the user their eligibility and rate. Borrowing Power also shows users what-if scenarios– that is, how their rate may increase if they take certain actions to improve their score. Ultimately, the tool has the potential to positively impact consumers’ financial behavior.
“Customers deserve to know their eligibility for credit, current credit scoring is merely scratching the surface,” said Zopa CPO Didier Baclin. “We have effectively broken open the black box to understand what is going on and, combining this data with additional information about the customer, are able to give bespoke actionable insights to our customers that could enable them to improve their credit risk in a short time frame and then ultimately be able to borrow from Zopa at a better rate.”
The Borrowing Power score, which ranges from one to 10, is simpler than a credit score. The score is comprised of only five elements:
Combination of credit rating data
Credit utilization
Credit limits
Hard searches
Affordability based on personal circumstances
Zopa leverages this data to inform consumers if they can improve an aspect of their credit profile, and in what time period. The company makes it easy for borrowers to understand the loan by showing them the actual interest rate. And, making the score as consumer-friendly as possible, Zopa only uses a soft credit inquiry so that it doesn’t impact their credit score until the loan is official.
Zopa was founded in 2005, pioneering peer-to-peer lending in the U.K., and has since amassed more than 400,000 customers and facilitated $5+ billion (£4+ billion) on its platform.
Last December Zopa made fintech headlines by launching its new bank in beta. The company is currently operating the bank in a period called AWR (authorization with restrictions), meaning it has met all of the FCA’s conditions and is allowed to begin testing the new banking products.
Zopa’s former CEO Doug Dolton debuted the P2P lending platform at FinovateSpring 2008 at Finovate’s very first show in the Bay Area.
Tradeshift to power digital transformation for Abreon.
Q2named a winner in the 2020 CSO50 Awards for Q2 TrustView.
Washington credit union iQ to leverageAlkami to create a personalized user experience.
Stratifydnamed among Chralotte’s best places to work.
ProfitStarsbrings mobile remote deposit to ICBA member banks.
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.
Wealthtech company DriveWealth is making further inroads into Africa this week with the news that it has partnered with Chaka, a Nigeria-based trading platform.
Chaka will leverage DriveWealth’s API to offer its clients access to U.S. stocks. Citi Investment Capital Limited is a licensed Nigerian stockbroking firm and will facilitate the brokerage transactions for Chaka clients.
“Chaka has developed outstanding technology that we’ve integrated with our customizable APIs to make it easy for clients in Nigeria to participate in the U.S. stock market,” said DriveWealth CEO Robert Cortright. “At a time when many Nigerians are seeking foreign investment opportunities for diversification purposes, this partnership fulfills an important component of Chaka’s global offering with access to the largest and most liquid stock markets in the world.”
Chaka CEO Tosin Osibodu called international investing a “daunting task” for most Nigerians and praised DriveWealth for its “best-in-class” technology, highlighting how the company’s fractional share investment technology makes higher-priced stocks more affordable. “Integration of our technologies has gone very smoothly, and we see this as an important long-term partnership for Chaka,” Osibodu added.
Today’s partnership isn’t DriveWealth’s first connection to Nigeria. In July the company teamed up with Sigma Securities and Trove Technologies to launch a digital U.S. equities trading product for retail investors in Nigeria.
Since it was founded in 2012, the company has set up partnerships with firms on six continents, including Asia, where DriveWealth collaborated with Singapore-based Bambu on the launch of a white-label roboadvisory platform for U.S. wealth managers.
At FinovateAsia 2016, DriveWealth released a new API to enable partners to offer a roboadvisory product suite and a self-directed equity investing platform.
Business payments company Bill.comunveiled a new set of offerings for midmarket companies today. With the launch, the California-based company aims to help businesses automate their accounts payable and accounts receivable (AP/AR) functions to become more efficient.
“As companies scale, the advantages of AP and AR automation are magnified. Midsized companies can be in dire need of next-generation, end-to-end back office solutions that help them work smarter, faster and more efficiently,” said Bill.com CEO René Lacerte.
The new capabilities include:
Bill.com purchase orders: syncs purchase orders directly from Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct into the Bill.com platform.
Expanded international payments: increases coverage for cross-border payments to encompass 130+ countries and 106 currencies.
Intelligent virtual assistant (IVA): leverages AI to set up payments and incorporate information directly into the required payment fields.
Premium customer support: includes enhanced support service level options.
“These new offerings will provide insights for customers to act on and enable them to automate their AP/AR processes, thus saving significant time and money while greatly improving productivity,” added Lacerte.
Founded in 2006, Bill.com helps businesses manage accounts payables and receivables with online billpay, custom invoicing, document storage, collaboration tools, and more. At FinovateSpring 2012, Lacerte debuted the company’s CashView tools. Since then, Bill.com has grown to manage workflows and process payments. In fiscal year 2019, Bill.com processed over $70 billion for its network of three million members.
Global crowdfunding platform OurCrowd is padding its pockets today with funding from investment banking firm Stifel. Terms of the deal, which brings a strategic partnership between the two companies, were not disclosed.
Stifel has taken a minority stake in OurCrowd, boosting the company’s total funding up over $112.5 million. OurCrowd’s past investors include Alta Berkeley Venture Partners, United Overseas Bank, and individual investors.
“Partnering with a leading U.S.-based wealth management and investment banking firm like Stifel is yet another major step toward further expanding the OurCrowd brand and investor base,” said OurCrowd Founder and CEO Jon Medved. “We also look forward to collaborating with Stifel’s investment and venture bankers to identify potential ways we can help identify and best support prospects and portfolio companies.”
Under the partnership, the two companies will build an investment portal for Stifel’s accredited investor clients that offers access to venture capital funds and individual portfolio companies on a deal-by-deal basis. In exchange, Stifel will offer OurCrowd’s portfolio companies investment banking services.
Stifel CEO Ronald Kruszewski, whose U.S. retail brokerage has 2,200 advisors overseeing more than $300 billion in client assets under management, said that he anticipates the partnership will offer the firm’s investors access to the “ever-expanding” category of venture capital. “Through this partnership, our clients will gain access to attractive, early-stage investment opportunities that have been typically restricted to traditional VC firms and family offices,” he said.
OurCrowd’s platform hosts almost 37,000 registered investors from 183 countries. The Israel-based company allows these users to participate in startup investment opportunities alongside VCs and institutional co-investors at the same terms. OurCrowd’s curated deal selection process employs a team of investment professionals to review thousands of companies, meet with selected management teams, and select opportunities for investors.
Since it was founded in 2013, OurCrowd has made more than $1.28 billion in commitments and has invested in 200+ companies and funds, 35 of which have made successful exits. At FinovateSpring 2016, the company debuted the OurCrowd mobile app.
