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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Chatbot platform builder Chatbots.Studioannounced this week it teamed up with Yozobi (pronounced YOU-zo-bee) to become the U.K.-based company’s technical partner and advisor.
In what Chatbots.Studio is calling a “mutually beneficial partnership,” Yozobi will leverage Chatbots.Studio’s engineering and technological expertise. In turn, Chatbots.Studio will tap Yozobi’s experience with business development and sales, as well as gain a fiduciary U.K. partner.
Headquartered in Ukraine, Chatbots.Studio helps businesses digitize client communications. Businesses can leverage the company’s commercial bot templates for a range of online messaging platforms, including Viber, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.
Earlier this year, Chatbots.Studio unveiled a partnership with Visa in which Chatbots.Studio will leverage Visa’s payments rails to help SMBs increase their non-cash payments. Two successful projects have been launched in Kazakhstan and the platform is in beta-testing in Dnipro and Kyiv.
Chatbots.Studio will demo its latest technology at FinovateFall later this month in New York. Register today to see the demo live and meet with the company in person.
Indian online lending marketplace Namaste Credit announced it is becoming a “fully-fledged digital-only bank” for micro small and medium businesses (MSMEs), reports Ruby Hinchliffe of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.
The neobank will have a “foundational software-as-a-service (SaaS) play” and aims to offer the first one-stop-shop for MSMEs. It will include automated credit, banking, and accounting solutions.
The soon-to-be-launched app, dubbed Namaste Biz, will centralize MSME’s cash flow, banking applications, and credit management tools.
“Our transition to a neobank will not only help the start-up get a firmer grip into the banking and non-banking financial company (NBFC) ecosystem but also balance revenues with customer acquisition costs to maintain a profitable growth path,” said Namaste Credit’s co-founder and director, Lucas Bianchi.
He added, “We believe a technology-based integrated platform that can bring together banks, NBFCs and other stakeholders can completely transform the financial services industry, specially from a B2B perspective.”
The company is confident the conversion will give them a “substantial competitive advantage.” Fellow co-founder and director Gaurav Anand said the newly-turned neobank will “accelerate customer and channel acquisition,” “reduce operational costs significantly,” and allow them “to expand quickly to global markets.”
At its core, Namaste Credit serves as an online marketplace for small business loans. The service connects borrowers with relevant lenders to help them find the loan that best suits their circumstance. The company also offers robotic process automation to help underwriters accurately assess risk. Namaste Credit demoed at FinovateFall 2018.
Credit SesameRaises $43 Million in Advance of IPO.
Around the web
Salt Edgemarks 400+ integrations with open banking APIs.
Payfoneteams up with Digital Matrix Systems to help companies fight fraud.
Fenergoappoints Louise O’Connell to the newly created role of Chief Customer Officer.
StrategyCorpsbrings on former Geezeo executive, Bryan Clagett.
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.
Personal sales assistant Vymo recently teamed up with FE Credit, the consumer lending services division of Vietnam-based VP Bank.
Through the partnership, Vymo is handling pieces in FE Credit’s mortgage lending workflow. Specifically, Vymo is helping FE Credit with customer acquisition, lead generation, and onboarding. The India-based company will offer its automated sales tool to help FE Credit’s team of 20,000 sales executives and 8,000 agents become more productive.
Vymo prompts the salesperson to make notes about their sales calls
After the deal is closed, Vymo helps agents follow up with up-sell and cross-sell opportunities and makes it easy to track down missed payments.
Vymo’s sales tool offers multiple ways of driving productivity, beginning with assisting with client onboarding and authentication. The tool also assigns each lead to the best agent for the job based on experience and geographical location, offers next best action suggestions, and sends timely nudges to sales agents. Additionally, by notifying agents of the leads on their mobile device, FE Credit’s team is able to follow up on inquiries within 15 minutes. When a meeting is complete, the app prompts the salesperson to make notes about the client and how the meeting went.
FE Credit, the largest lending organization in Vietnam, initiated the partnership in an effort to work on its ambition of “better, not more,” meaning that it wants to improve upon its existing services before offering consumers more services. Kalidas Ghose, Vice Chairman and CEO of FE Credit, said the company selected Vymo “because of its unique application of automation and AI technology that allows for seamless data capture and contextual recommendations.”
With 140 employees, and 100,000 users on its platform Vymo has raised $23 million since it was founded in 2013. The company demonstrated its sales tool at FinovateAsia 2018 and has since made a major geographical expansion, launching in the U.S. a couple of months back.
The following is a guest post by April Rudin, founder and president of The Rudin Group, a firm that designs marketing campaigns for financial services companies.
Rudin will host the Wealthtech and Investech stream at the Summit, which takes place right after FinovateFall on September 26. The event also features an AI stream, which will be hosted by Lindsay Davis of CB Insights. Tickets are available as an add-on to FinovateFall or as a separate event.
Wealth management has entered the digital age. While it might not be readily apparent given the breathless coverage of whether and when the industry will cross the threshold, rest assured, the moment is here. The question is: Are all firms ready to seize the moment?
The financial services industry has been historically reticent to adopt new technology. And for good reason — finance, and wealth management especially — is a client-driven business where discretion is valued as much as — if not more than — financial acumen. In the early days of fintech, financial firms could rest knowing that they were keeping their client’s data and dollars safe rather than chasing the new, shiny tech toy on the block.
But now, financial service firms cannot afford to rest on their laurels and their patchwork of clunky, proprietary, tech solutions. Clients are used to being able to access the world at their fingertips and are no longer willing to let their financial data live elsewhere. And it’s not just Millennials and Generation Z demanding the convenience. Mobile Baby Boomers also want to be able to safely access their financial data with just a few clicks of a mouse whether they’re at home or traveling.
But despite the demand, companies still delay implementing new tech solutions, citing both perceived costs and compliance risks. While these factors shouldn’t be brushed aside, wealth management firms must find intelligent ways to power through.
Whereas firms once had the luxury of relying on the anticipated return on investment when deciding to embark on new technology products, a new ROI has entered the block: return on inertia. Put another way, what is the cost of doing nothing while rival upstarts and incumbents alike find ways to intelligently integrate technology into their firms?
It used to be that technology was housed only in the IT department of financial services firms. These were specialists who mostly loaded computers with new programs and knew how to troubleshoot when things went awry. But in today’s world, IT can no longer be thought of as an ancillary part of the business. Everything from onboarding, performance tracking, to investment recommendations has the ability to be touched by technology — freeing up time advisors can spend doing direct client work. The whole wealth management supply chain is being automated and firms must have tech specialists at all levels.
Does this mean that firms have to jump into tech willy nilly? Not necessarily, but the time of taking a wait and see approach for technology has also passed. The technology is here and clients demand it.
Waiting to implement technological solutions will only lead to otherwise avoidable costs and heightened risk exposure, Ernst & Young noted in a recent report.
Client onboarding is one area where tech is sorely needed. While some clients may appreciate the personal touch of in-office meetings to handle paperwork and account transfers, others may see the analog approach as a red flag. How does a paper-based business ensure the safety of client records, they may wonder. Video conferencing, online ID verification, and e-signatures are just a few of the ways the onboarding process can be made less cumbersome and client friendly while still falling inline with compliance.
From there, wealth management firms can consider implementing robo-advisor-like technology into their practice to facilitate decision making. The human touch will always be important for wealth management but tech-aided portfolio construction and reporting will allow advisors to have more meaningful discussions with clients, freeing up time for more customized solutions.
The ease of making and monitoring recommendations becomes especially important as high net worth families often have their assets spread across multiple investment types and financial institutions. While 10 years ago having a dashboard that can provide real-time data of those assets was once considered a novelty, clients now demand that rapid transparency.
Firms can no longer get away with listing the reasons not to embrace technology. And while risks to data integrity and security should not be minimized, firms will have to think of ways to buttress their controls while also directing their firms into the new era.
The return on investment may at first appear uncertain, but the return on inertia is definite — and bleak.
Merck Sharp & Dohme FCU deploys trio of biometric authentication solutions from Fiserv.
New partnership bringsnCino’sBank Operating System to Allied Irish Banks.
Entrust Datacardpartners with JPMorgan Chase to pilot email security project.
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.
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Illuma Labs’Illuma Shield provides passive voice authentication for call centers. It reduces operating costs, enhances security against fraudsters, and eliminates friction from the customer experience.
Features
Reduce average handle time and operating costs
Enhance security against fraudsters and social engineers
Elevate user experience by eliminating friction in the authentication process
Presenters
Milind Borkar, Founder & CEO Borkar has over a decade of experience spanning R&D and marketing, and leads the IP and business development activities for the company. LinkedIn
Jeremy Whittington, Co-Founder & CTO Whittington has over 20 years of experience architecting SaaS applications, and leads architecture and product development activities for the company. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
NYMBUSSmartLaunch enables financial institutions to quickly and cost-effectively stand up fully-outsourced digital banks to attract new customers and revenue growth.
Features
Allows banks to immediately compete with today’s emerging digital challenger banks
Doesn’t require technology conversions
Doesn’t require banks to hire new resources
Why it’s great NYMBUS SmartLaunch is a pioneer in the industry’s transformation by eliminating the need for financial institutions to undergo a conversion or hire new resources to digitally innovate and compete.
Presenter
Drew Dizon, Senior Vice President of Strategic Solutions With over 17 years of fintech experience, Dizon helps to identify and evaluate potential products and solutions that promote the strategic growth initiatives at NYMBUS. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Stratifyd has developed an AI infrastructure to automate and analyze the voice of the consumer for financial enterprises using unsupervised and supervised technology.
Features
Offers the fastest time to insights
Utilizes predictive intelligence to provide deeper understanding of customer feedback
Leads with machine learning, removing human bias
Why it’s great Stratifyd’s AI-powered platform ingests, analyzes, and visualizes omni-channel data through unsupervised machine learning and natural language understanding to deliver real time customer analytics.
Presenter
Kevin O’Dell, Chief Technology Officer O’Dell is growing and scaling the company by solving the most challenging customer analytics problems faced by enterprises. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Cinchy is the first data collaboration platform built for the enterprise. The company allows people, SaaS tools, legacy systems, and artificial intelligence to collaborate on data in real-time.
Features
Cuts tech project delivery times in half
Eliminates data fragmentation and data integrations
Embeds unprecedented levels of data privacy
Why it’s great Cinchy’s unique network-based architecture for enterprise data is a radical new alternative to the 40-year-old paradigm of buying, building, and integrating separate applications for every use case.
Presenter
Dan DeMers, CEO and Co-founder DeMers spent over a decade as an IT executive with leading global financial institutions. In 2019, he was selected to join the Canadian Council of Innovators. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
ValidiFI is redefining how financial services measure risk and process payments. With innovative data and technology the company increases client acquisitions, reduce processing fees and facilitate payments.
Features
Validate a payment will be successful before submitting for processing
Eliminate the cost of overdraft and NSF fees
Create velocity, transaction type, and address filters to fight fraud
Why it’s great The PRO provides ALL the tools you need to increase your payment processing success rate AND validate that there is money in a bank account before you process a payment.
Presenters
Oscar DiVeroli DiVeroli serves as the CEO of ValidiFI. He has an extensive background covering 30 years of progressive management and business ownership experience in different industries. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
BlytzPay is an app-less, mobile point of sale solution that allows merchants and businesses to communicate, invoice, and collect from their customers using a text message.
Features
Promotes financial inclusion by allowing customers to pay bills with cash
Facilitates billing transparency with two-way communication
Offers a secure, efficient, one-click text-to pay solution
Why it’s great BlytzPay’s cash option provides a solution that allows different socioeconomic classes an equally convenient, secure, efficient opportunity to participate in the world of digital payments.
Presenters
Robyn Burkinshaw, Founder and CEO Burkinshaw, a serial entrepreneur, is passionate about bringing technologies to market that break down barriers and enable financial inclusion for all. LinkedIn
Trevor Atwood, SVP of Sales Atwood is the SVP of Business Development for BlytzPay and leads all partnerships and merchant development efforts. He was previously Sales Manager for Progressive Leasing. LinkedIn
