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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Biometric solutions company Daon is leveraging its partnership with North African technology company GEMADEC to help create a life certificate digitalization solution for the Moroccan Interprofessional Pension Fund’s (CIMR’s) mobile app.
Leveraging Daon’s IdentityX platform the mobile app, CIMR DIALCOM, provides CIMR with the client’s proof of life. The app prompts the user to take a dynamic selfie that certifies not only identity but also liveness by having the user complete a series of “life challenges” such as eye blinks and head movements.
To complete authentication, the app compares the selfie with a picture on the user’s photo ID. After the user is authenticated and is confirmed living, the app authorizes their pension payment.
Daon most recently presented its authentication technology at FinovateFall 2016. The company offers verification technology that uses a range of biometrics, including fingerprint, face, voice, iris, keystroke, palm, or a combination. Founded in 2002, Daon is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Tom Grissen is CEO.
Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and Fidor Solutions have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to drive fintech innovation in Kazakhstan and economic development in Central Asia, reports Jane Connolly of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.
As a result of the MoU, the two organizations plan to foster fintech collaboration by developing initiatives to support a cashless economy in Kazakhstan and provide joint fintech education programs with key regional universities.
The understanding also includes support in developing the AIFC fintech marketplace and providing mentorship and partnership for accelerator programs.
Created by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2015, the AIFC drives innovative financial and technology initiatives with accelerator and incubator programs. It also attracts partnerships and investments from fintechs and venture capital firms.
Dubai-based Fidor Solutions – sister company to Fidor Bank – offers technology and advisory services to financial institutions with a focus on open digital banking.
“AIFC has great ambitions for its fintech innovation programme that go beyond borders,” said Kairat Kelimbetov, governor of AIFC. “We are proud to be growing our fintech network by signing an MoU with Fidor, a European fintech that has successfully developed internationally. Their contribution will be valuable to all our members and partners.”
“Fidor share similar core values to AIFC, such as openness and knowledge sharing,” added Gé Drossaert, board member and group CCO of Fidor. “The collaboration between our organizations will pave the way for fintech success in the region with a direct impact on the digital economy and financial access.”
The MoU was signed during the launch of the Fintech Summit of the Astana Finance Days in Nur-Sultan.
Fidor Solutions provides digital solutions for Fidor Bank, which demoed at FinovateEurope 2011. In 2016, the challenger bank was acquired by France’s Groupe BPCE for $158 million. Last year, however, Fidor requested a split from the 200-year-old bank and earlier this year the company’s founder and CEO, Matthias Kröner, stepped down citing “different views on future strategy.”
Apex Clearingpartners with Apex Crypto to launch cryptocurrency platform that helps financial advisors introduce digital currency trading into their clients’ portfolios.
Revoluttaps banking veteran Richard Davies as Chief Operating Officer.
Klarna and BigCommerce expand partnership to also include Klarna’s European core markets.
eToro’s cryptocurrency wallet adds support for 120 ERC-20 standard tokens.
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.
As seems to be the trend this year, D3 Banking Technology has found itself a buyer–and it’s a big one. The digital banking services company announced this week it has been acquired by ATM giant NCR for an undisclosed amount.
Georgia-based NCR, which owns 27% of the global ATM market, anticipates that adding D3’s digital banking expertise will help it move its own digital banking services into new markets. Most notably, NCR plans to expand from cloud-based tools for community financial institutions into on-premise solutions for large banks.
“D3 has a well-earned reputation for innovation and product excellence and delivers one of the most advanced digital platforms for large banks,” said Michael D. Hayford, president and CEO of NCR. “NCR’s Digital First Banking solutions help financial institutions connect with consumers whenever, wherever, and this acquisition helps NCR provide banks of all sizes with an exceptional digital experience.”
D3 CEO Mark Vipond called NCR “a great fit” for D3 and said that the timing of the deal is right. “This transaction enables us to capitalize on new market opportunities and bring top-tier capabilities to our mutual and future clients,” he added.
For NCR, the purchase comes at an interesting time. The $3.7 billion company put itself up for sale in May of this year. And, according to the New York post, two firms have bid on NCR but have recently left the negotiating table. A deal has yet to be finalized.
Since it was founded in 1997, D3 Banking has raised $35 million. The Nebraska-based company debuted its small business banking capabilities at FinovateFall 2015.
NCR, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “NCR,” has roots dating back to 1884, when the company was founded as the National Cash Register Company. NCR most recently demoed its VR collaboration for ATMs at FinovateSpring 2017.
Data connectivity expert Ninth Waveannounced it received a strategic investment from private equity firm SARORAS Private Capital.
The amount of the minority investment was undisclosed but the company said it is “significant.” Ninth Wave said it will use the funds to accelerate the growth of the Ninth Wave Platform, form new sales and marketing initiatives, and expand its leadership team.
“We have been continually focused on advancing our technology, team and strategic partnerships with companies and individuals that help us provide the highest level of services and counsel,” said George Anderson, Founder and CEO of Ninth Wave. “SARORAS is the perfect partner for us and pairs an expertise in our industry with the experience and proven playbook to scale our business.”
SARORAS, which typically invests in middle market technology and business services companies, said that Ninth Wave’s management team, reputation, and technology were the top factors for its investment.
Ninth Wave positions itself as the financial data supply chain, offering a SaaS solution that delivers financial data through a universal standard that satisfies open banking requirements. In addition to data access and data aggregation tools, Ninth Wave also provides tax services that streamline and simplify tax reporting.
Last year, Ninth Wave was spun out from its parent company, Enterprise Engineering, Inc. (EEI). Anderson debuted the newly-formed company at FinovateFall 2018 in New York. The Ninth Wave platform offers access to more than $8 trillion in AUM for eight of the top 10 wealth managers. Since launching last year, Ninth Wave has analyzed more than 10 billion transactions.
Backbase is named a leader in the Forrester Wave for Digital Banking Engagement Platforms for the third year in a row.
InCommbecomes exclusive distributor of Amex prepaid cards in Canada.
TradeshiftlaunchesTradeshift Go 2.0, a payments product offering that increases visibility into employee spending.
Gustopartners with Accelo to sync time-off requests from Gusto to Accelo’s real-time scheduling and resource management module.
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.
By this point, you already know about Libra, Facebook’s cryptocurrency, and the corresponding Calibra Wallet (if you don’t, check out TechCrunch’s deep dive).
There has been plenty of controversy about the new currency, from privacy concerns to complaints about the “decentralized” model giving too many big players too much power. But one of the public’s concerns, security, is in good hands.
That’s because bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure platform HackerOne is working with Facebook to find security vulnerabilities in the code of Move, the cryptocurrency’s open-source programming language. The bug bounty is being conducted in addition to the Libra Association’s testnet available on GitHub.
“The Libra Association is a global effort and so is the Libra Bug Bounty Program. We will be globally inclusive as we promote researcher contributions from all over the world and host bug bounty events in diverse locations,” said the Libra association.
HackerOne offers a platform that recruits security researchers and white hat hackers to identify security weaknesses for its clients, including Twitter, Airbnb, Uber, Yelp, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Since it was founded in 2012, 1,300+ organizations have partnered with HackerOne to find over 120,000 vulnerabilities and award over $51 million in bug bounties.
The California-based company has offices in London, New York, Singapore, and the Netherlands. In 2017, HackerOne earned the Favorite FinDEVr Debut award for its presentation at FinDEVr New York and won the Crowd Favorite award at its FinDEVr London presentation. Mårten Mickos is CEO.
Nordic IT company EVRY announced this week it is planning to sell to Finnish IT company Tieto in a deal worth $1.5 billion.
Tieto’s goal in the deal is to create a Nordic digital consultancy software offering, cloud solutions, robotics, and other services. The new group is slated to have 24,000 employees and annual revenues of $3.4 billion (€3 billion).
“This combination announced today will create a company well positioned to be a leading provider of digital transformation across the Nordics for the benefit of our customers, employees, shareholders and the society,” said Kimmo Alkio, President and CEO of Tieto. “I believe we will create exciting opportunities for professional and personal growth for employees in both companies – and a strong value proposition for our customers. I foresee a very exciting journey ahead.”
In order to close, the deal requires support from two-thirds of the shareholders in each firm. The deal is expected to close in the last quarter of this year but negotiations may drag into the first quarter of 2020.
The new company will be called TietoEVRY and will serve thousands of clients across 90 countries. Alkio will be CEO of the combined company, while EVRY’s current CEO Per Hove will continue in his role until the deal closes. TietoEVRY will be headquartered in Espoo, Finland.
EVRY certainly has lots of promise. This week’s announcement comes six months after the company landed an eight year, $75 million contract with Handelsbanken in Finland, and seven months after partnering with Bankgirot in a seven-year deal worth $77 million.
EVRY demonstrated its PFM solution, Spendific, at FinovateEurope 2015. EVRY arrives at today’s deal with more than 10,000 customers across the private and public sectors and 8,800 employees across nine countries. The company is listed on the Oslo stock exchange under the ticker “EVRY AS” and has a market capitalization of $1.2 billion.
Cloud accounting firm Xero announced a champion move for small businesses today that will not only help businesses get paid faster, but also give them more options on how they get paid.
“Small businesses are fundamental to the growth of major and developing economies around the world; ensuring that they get paid on time is vital to their survival and growth,” said Craig Walker, Founding CTO and Executive General Manager Platform Business Technologies at Xero. “We built the Xero platform to help small businesses grow with better tools, smarter insights and comprehensive connections to the information they need to run their business. Our partnership with Stripe today brings us even closer to helping small businesses spend less time chasing payments, and more time focusing on doing what they love.”
The two are working on solutions to make client invoicing more efficient and to offer more insight into business performance. The first two tools being launched under the partnership are the Stripe Feed and Auto Pay.
The new data feed from Stripe makes it easy for businesses to receive transaction data on sales and invoices in the Xero platform. Prior to today’s integration, Xero facilitated Stripe reconciliation for credit card payments processed through Stripe. The partnership will automatically integrate every payment processed through Stripe, from online invoices to Shopify purchases and processing charges, as individual line items in Xero.
Xero will use machine learning to automatically reconcile transactions. The company said that the new Stripe Feed will be available “in the next few months.”
With Auto Pay, businesses can set up and receive recurring payments for repeat billing customers in Xero. This will come in handy for a multitude of businesses, as Xero reports that more than 1.6 million repeating invoices are paid in Xero month-over-month. This feature will soon be available to customers in the U.S. and eventually roll out across the globe.
The companies have found that small businesses using Stripe payments in Xero invoices, when compared to those without a payment gateway, are already paid up to 15 days faster globally, and up to 16 days faster in North America.
Xero offers its 1.8 million subscribers access to an ecosystem of 700+ third party apps and 200+ bank connections. The company most recently presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2014 when the company’s Head of U.S. Partnerships David Pollock spoke about building an API-driven ecosystem for small businesses. At FinovateSpring 2011, CEO Rod Drury debuted the company’s Business Identification solution.
Founded in 2006, Xero listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) in 2007 and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2012. In January of 2018, the company consolidated to list solely on the ASX and now boasts a market capitalization of $5.9 billion ($8.6 billion AUD). Xero has raised more than $319 million (NZ$470 million) in funding, including $1.4 million pre-IPO; $10.2 million at its IPO; and follow-on rounds from investors including Peter Thiel, Matrix Capital Management, and Accel Partners.
Insuritas to launch insurance ecosystem platform to disrupt insurance delivery while creating new sources of recurring fee income for banks.
TechCrunch reports on the leadership shift at Plaid in which co-founder, CTO, and president William Hockey will step down.
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.
Open banking expert Tokenreceived $16.5 million in a round of funding led by Opera Tech Ventures, the venture arm of BNP Paribas. The investment brings the company’s total funding to $35 million.
Also participating in today’s round are two banks headquartered in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, as well as existing investors Octopus Ventures and EQT Ventures. California-based Token will use the funds to build on its TokenOS open banking platform and develop new payment solutions with digital money and identity technology.
“As the emerging category leader in open banking infrastructure, Token gives banks a fast track to deliver great open banking customer experiences,” said Token Founder and CEO Steve Kirsch. “For banks, establishing an early position in this new hyper-connected market is a competitive advantage; a new wave of independent financial apps and services will soon be available to their customers, so banks need to be clear about their future roles. By solving the infrastructure problem, Token enables them to focus on service innovation and delivery earlier than the competition.”
Founded in 2015, Token was built on the mission to create the next generation of payment capabilities. The company has 4,000 bank clients in its ecosystem in which participating online merchants to connect to the bank to allow the customer to make purchases directly from their bank accounts. Among Token’s clients are Tandem Bank, Think Money Group, An Post, Sberbank Croatia and Slovenia, and Khaleeji Commercial Bank.
Token showcased its PSD2 compliant solution at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Last month, the company partnered with Omni Group to provide open banking and PSD2 compliance solutions to the group’s bank partners. This year, Token won Best Payments Newcomer in the 2019 Card and Payments Awards as well as Fintech Start Up of the Year in the 2019 FStech Awards.
Berkshire Bank partners with Finastra to launch real-time payments.
Belgian online lender Buy Way deploys e-signature solution from OneSpan.
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.