Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Nubank Exceeds 100 Million Customer Mark

Nubank Exceeds 100 Million Customer Mark
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Nubank
  • Nubank has surpassed 100 million customers, stating that it is the first digital banking platform outside of Asia to reach this customer milestone.
  • Nubank serves 92 million customers in Brazil, over 7 million in Mexico, and close to 1 million in Colombia.
  • In 2023, Nubank achieved record financial results, reaching more than $1 billion in net profit and over $8 billion in revenue.

Brazilian challenger bank Nubank announced this week it has surpassed 100 million customers across Latin America. The fintech estimates it is the first digital banking platform outside of Asia to reach this customer milestone. Nubank is currently active in three countries, serving 92 million customers in Brazil, over 7 million in Mexico, and close to 1 million in Colombia.

The company has a mission of “fighting complexity to empower people,” offering users a digital bank account, credit card, mobile phone insurance, life insurance, personal loans, and investing tools. The company launched business accounts in 2019 to offer small business users a bank account, credit card, and a phone-based payment acceptance app.

“In 2013, we had set ourselves the ambitious goal to reach one million customers in five years, which seemed almost impossible at the time,” said Nubank Founder and CEO David Vélez. “In a decade, we have surpassed 100 million, which is a testament to the trust our customers place in us and to the power of a truly customer-centric business model. These 100 million customers have written their stories together with ours, and we want to honor them in a special way.”

Since its inception, Nubank has been instrumental in helping its customers save more than 440 million hours of waiting in service queues. Additionally, the company estimated that it helped users save 11 billion dollars in banking fees in 2023.

Perhaps more notable than savings consumers on fees and their time waiting in line, Nubank has also been instrumental in promoting financial inclusion in Brazil, a region notorious for its high rate of unbanked adults. Between July 2021 and July 2022, Nubank added 5.7 million credit cardholders to the country’s credit card market. In a survey it conducted of accountholders from 2021, Nubank found that 60% of Brazilian customers improved their financial journey in the first 24 months, citing frequent and responsible use of credit cards and other financial products.

“Being customer-centric has been guiding us since the very beginning,”said Nubank Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer Cristina Junqueira. “Today, we want our customers to see themselves the way we see them: at the center of everything. In reaching this milestone, we want to focus on the real people and individual stories of empowerment and advance our mission to help improve people’s lives.”

From a U.S. perspective, Nubank’s customer number is not the only impressive metric surrounding the fintech. The company closed last year with record financial results, recording more than $1 billion in net profit and over $8 billion in revenue. The positive financials are especially admirable, given that many U.S.-based challenger banks are still seeking to reach the break even point.

Photo by John Petalcurin

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Insights from the Frontlines: Five Fintech Founders Share Their Stories

Insights from the Frontlines: Five Fintech Founders Share Their Stories
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Streamly

In the fast-evolving world of fintech, founders are a breed apart, characterized by their unique blend of grit, determination, and adaptability. Their journeys are often marked by challenges, triumphs, and invaluable insights. In this series of interviews, we delve into the minds of five fintech founders to uncover the lessons they’ve learned, the key traits they believe are essential for a successful founding team, and the distinctive challenges and opportunities they’ve encountered on their entrepreneurial paths. Join us as we explore the stories and experiences that have shaped these innovative leaders in the fintech industry.

Below, we feature insights from:

Reflections on our journey – key lessons learned since launching our company

The winning formula – essential traits for a successful founding team

Our company’s early challenges – overcoming obstacles on the path to success

Our fintech solution – recognising the need and maximising potential

From vision to reality – how it all began

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

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Expensify Travel Goes Head-to-Head with Navan

Expensify Travel Goes Head-to-Head with Navan
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Expensify
  • Expensify is teaming up with Spotana to launch Expensify Travel, a business travel booking platform based on Spotanas Travel-as-a-Service offering.
  • The new travel service will offer Expensify’s business users access to global travel inventory, lower fares, and servicing.
  • Expensify’s new launch makes it a direct competitor with California-based Navan, a corporate travel and expense management platform that launched in 2015.

Business expense management company Expensify announced the upcoming addition of a new set of capabilities today, which will make it a more robust platform to help businesses plan and manage their expenses. The company is launching Expensify Travel.

Expensify Travel will allow the company’s business users to access global travel inventory, lower fares, and servicing. Expensify Travel will be built on top of New York-based Spotana’s cloud-based Travel-as-a-Service platform, which will help clients manage flight changes, cancellations, and unused ticket credits, as well as offer comprehensive travel management capabilities.

“Book your trip in minutes, we’ll handle the rest. We’ve made it effortless for members to search and book flights, hotels, cars, and trains — all at the most competitive rates available,” said Expensify CEO David Barrett. “Our early release will let business travelers manage it all in one place, with real-time support, customizable rules, and the option to assign virtual travel cards to employees. We couldn’t be more excited for the future of Expensify Travel in partnership with Spotana.”

Expensify plans to have the early release of Expensify Travel next week, offering booking and management capabilities, as well as 24/7 Expensify support. In the future, the new travel offering will be directly integrated into New Expensify, the company’s new super app. When booking their travel in the new chat-based app, customers will be able to book and manage trips, manage travel expenses, chat with colleagues, and more. “Through our partnership, Expensify has created a one-stop shop for travel and expense management for their customers with a seamless user experience,” said Spotnana Founder and CEO Sarosh Waghmar.

Expensify’s new launch makes it a direct competitor with California-based Navan, a corporate travel and expense management platform. Formerly known as TripActions, Navan was founded in 2015 and offers expense management tools such as employee spending controls, automated expense management tools, reporting capabilities, and more.

There are key differences between Expensify’s and Navan’s expense management tools, however. While both companies allow clients to use their own existing corporate expense cards with their expense management tools, Expensify also offers users its own branded debit card. Also, Expensify’s interface is focused on being user friendly to serve small and medium sized businesses, while Navan offers features that are tailored to meet needs of a variety of sizes.

It is more difficult to assess the differences between the companies’ travel booking tools, given that Expensify’s tools have yet to launch. However, it appears that the two will differentiate themselves with tools that serve their individual target markets. For instance, Navan offers a high-touch, premium travel experience, the ability to book meetings and events, and consulting services aimed at larger, corporate clients. Expensify’s tools will likely root in the company’s user-friendly, simplified approach.

Photo by Pixabay

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PNC and TCW Team Up to Deliver Private Credit Platform

PNC and TCW Team Up to Deliver Private Credit Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • PNC and TCW have partnered to deliver a private credit solution.
  • The solution will leverage TCW’s loan origination, underwriting, and portfolio management expertise and will tap PNC’s extensive client relationships.
  • The two will offer directly originated, secured cash-flow and asset-based loans to middle market companies.

Financial services company PNC and TCW, a leading global asset manager have teamed up this week to deliver a private credit solution to middle market companies.

The two will leverage TCW’s loan origination, underwriting, and portfolio management expertise and will tap PNC’s extensive client relationships. “We are very excited to announce this new business strategy, which represents a natural extension of TCW’s existing Direct Lending and Rescue Fund strategies with an opportunity to offer investors access to a broader segment of the middle market,” said CIO of TCW Private Credit and chair of the new joint private credit partnership Rick Miller.

The two will offer directly originated, secured cash-flow and asset-based loans to middle market companies, whether or not they have private equity or venture capital backing. Together, PNC and TCW will manage the strategy’s investment activities, which range from origination to underwriting, and portfolio management.

“We are thrilled to partner with PNC to expand our direct lending capabilities and provide financing to a critical segment of U.S. companies, as well as offer a differentiated investment solution for clients,” said TCW President and CEO Katie Koch. “PNC and TCW have a long history of developing creative solutions across a number of joint financings, and this partnership represents an exciting opportunity to capture significant market share of the expanding private credit market by leveraging the strengths of both our firms.”

During their first year, PNC and TCW aim to have $2.5 billion in investor equity capital available to invest. Supporting this fund are investments from PNC and Nippon Life, one of TCW’s strategic partners and shareholders.

Since interest rates have risen and credit has become more expensive, small businesses have become particularly vulnerable to the credit crunch. This vulnerability stems from traditional banks tightening their lending standards to mitigate risk and reduce losses. Delivering a new private credit solution should help address this gap in financing options for small businesses, providing them with much-needed access to capital to support their growth and operations.

Photo by fauxels

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Robinhood Crypto Receives Warning about Securities Violations

Robinhood Crypto Receives Warning about Securities Violations
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Robinhood has received a Wells Notice from the U.S. SEC.
  • In the Wells Notice, the SEC staff alleged Robinhood violated Sections 15(a) and 17A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
  • Robinhood Markets Chief Legal, Compliance, and Corporate Affairs Officer Dan Gallagher said that he is “disappointed” with the Wells Notice. “We firmly believe that the assets listed on our platform are not securities,” he said.

Stock brokerage app Robinhood is feeling the heat from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today. The California-based company revealed in a blog post over the weekend that it received a Wells Notice from the SEC.

In the Wells Notice, staff at the SEC filed an enforcement action against Robinhood, alleging the company violated Sections 15(a) and 17A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The former section requires broker-dealers to register with the SEC and become a member of a self-regulatory organization (SRO), such as FINRA. The section aims to ensure that broker-dealers adhere to standards and practices to protect investors. The latter, 17A, establishes the framework for the National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC). This section also requires transfer agents to register with the SEC and sets standards to ensure securities transactions are efficiently processed.

According to Robinhood’s 8-K filing, “The potential action may involve a civil injunctive action, public administrative proceeding, and/or a cease-and-desist proceeding and may seek remedies that include an injunction, a cease-and-desist order, disgorgement, pre-judgment interest, civil money penalties, and censure, revocation, and limitations on activities.”

Robinhood has made it clear that it is making efforts to comply with the SEC to resolve the issue. The company originally launched Robinhood Crypto, its crypto trading arm, in early 2018. Robinhood Crypto currently allows customers in 48 states and Washington D.C. to buy, sell, store, and in many cases transfer up to 18 cryptocurrencies.

Robinhood Markets Chief Legal, Compliance, and Corporate Affairs Officer Dan Gallagher said that the company uses a “rigorous review process designed to ensure that it does not list digital asset securities.” The company said it has always been careful not to list certain tokens that the SEC has deemed securities in public actions against other platforms. Robinhood has also steered clear of products, including lending and staking, that may be considered securities.

“After years of good faith attempts to work with the SEC for regulatory clarity including our well-known attempt to ‘come in and register,’ we are disappointed that the agency has decided to issue a Wells Notice related to our U.S. crypto business,” said Gallagher. “We firmly believe that the assets listed on our platform are not securities and we look forward to engaging with the SEC to make clear just how weak any case against Robinhood Crypto would be on both the facts and the law.”

Robinhood has not disclosed any specific actions it plans to take to respond to the SEC’s notice. The company can take action to respond to the allegations before the SEC makes a move to sue or settle with Robinhood to resolve the issue. The company said that the development will impact neither the services it provides nor its end customers’ accounts.

Photo by Divakar Meganathan

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Why the U.S. Regulators’ New Resource on BaaS Relationships is Disappointing

Why the U.S. Regulators’ New Resource on BaaS Relationships is Disappointing
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Julie's Column

BaaS-enabled banks have been operating in a regulatory minefield recently. Since late 2023, the U.S. FDIC and CFPB have issued multiple consent orders to banks, citing their BaaS relationships as the cause. From the perspective of an onlooker, it appeared that regulators were issuing the consent orders to make examples out of certain players in the industry, foregoing formal BaaS regulation.

This has been particularly troubling for community banks, which often rely on BaaS to adapt to modern consumer preferences by layering the newest fintech tools on top of their legacy core systems, without the need to build technology in-house or update old technology.

In response to this new stress placed on the country’s smallest financial institutions, three U.S. regulators– the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the FDIC, and the OCC– have published a new third party risk management guide for community banks. The guide is intended to supplement the Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships: Risk Management document the agencies published in June of last year.

The agencies’ newly published document may disappoint, however. That’s because the new document does not provide formal Baas regulation by laying out rules by which community banks can abide in order to avoid consent orders. Instead, the new document lays out “potential considerations, potential sources of information, and examples” for risk management, due diligence, contract negotiation, ongoing monitoring, termination, and governance with third parties.

“This guide is intended to assist community banks when developing and implementing their third-party risk-management practices,” the new document states. “This guide is not a substitute for the TPRM Guidance. Rather, it is intended to be a resource for community banks to consider when managing the risk of third-party relationships. This guide is not a checklist and does not prescribe specific risk-management practices or establish any safe harbors for compliance with laws or regulations.”

Baas-enabled banks seeking to navigate third-party relationships may find the new resource frustrating, however. While some of the advice in the document is helpful, the agencies have built a lot of wiggle room for themselves into the document. Ultimately, however, the guidance is better than nothing.

Regardless of what it lacks, both community banks and even larger financial institutions will likely find it useful to compare the guide’s “potential considerations” to their current internal processes. And in the end, the guidance may help deter another tidal wave of consent orders.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

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Permira Acquires Majority Stake in BioCatch with $1.3 Billion Valuation

Permira Acquires Majority Stake in BioCatch with $1.3 Billion Valuation
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, BioCatch, Funding, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Permira has acquired a majority stake in behavioral biometrics company BioCatch.
  • Existing shareholders, Sapphire Ventures and Macquarie Capital, have also increased their stake in BioCatch.
  • The moves have boosted BioCatch’s valuation to $1.3 billion, which is up from $1 billion last year.

Behavioral biometrics company BioCatch announced it has a new majority shareholder. Permira Growth Opportunities II, a fund advised by U.K.-based global private equity firm Permira, has acquired a majority stake in the Israel-based company by buying out shares from Bain Capital Tech Opportunities and Maverick Ventures in a secondary transaction.

Two of the company’s existing shareholders, Sapphire Ventures and Macquarie Capital, have also increased their stake in BioCatch. While specific terms of the transactions were not disclosed, the company’s valuation is now estimated at $1.3 billion.

BioCatch expects the move will help it accelerate its product roadmap and support its growth in general. The increased commitment from Permia will also aid BioCatch’s global expansion efforts. Specifically, the fraud prevention company will leverage Permia’s Continental European ties, with an aim to add new clients in that region.

“After building a strong partnership with Permira over the last year, we are delighted to welcome them as majority shareholders,” said BioCatch CEO Gadi Mazor. “The firm’s impressive experience within technology and cybersecurity, combined with their scale, global network, and our close working relationship, has been invaluable since their initial investment.”

BioCatch was founded in 2011 and has since raised around $324 million in disclosed funding. The company leverages behavioral biometric intelligence to offer account opening fraud detection, mule account detection, account takeover protection, customer authentication solutions, and more. BioCatch currently has more than 190 financial institution customers across the globe, including over 30 of the world’s largest 100 global banks.

Today’s announcement comes a year after BioCatch earned $1 billion following a $40 million investment from Permia. The move made Permia a significant minority shareholder in BioCatch, right behind Sapphire Ventures and Macquarie Capital.

“We have tracked BioCatch with enthusiasm for many years, and now having been a shareholder since early 2023, our conviction in the business, its growth potential, its technology leadership, and its management team continues to grow,” said Permia Growth Opportunities Partner and Co-Head Stefan Dziaski. “We’re excited to become the company’s majority shareholder and look forward to a continued successful partnership with Gadi and the BioCatch team as we seek to further accelerate growth and expansion in the years to come.” 

Photo by George Prentzas on Unsplash

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Challenger Bank Lunar Raises $25.7 Million

Challenger Bank Lunar Raises $25.7 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Challenger bank Lunar raised $25.7 million (€24.1 million) in funding, boosting the company’s total raised to around $512 million.
  • Lunar plans to use today’s funds to expand on its basic package offered to Swedish residents to become a more full-service bank.
  • In 2023, Lunar reached 850,000 customers, marking an increase from 700,000 customers the year prior.

Challenger bank Lunar announced this week it has raised $25.7 million (€24.1 million) in a supplementary funding round. According to Crunchbase, the new investment boosts Lunar’s total raised to just shy of $512 million, around $54 million of which was brought in over the past four months.

Lunar was founded in 2015 and currently offers retail and commercial digital banking services. The company received its banking license in 2019 and on the retail side offers personal checking accounts with debit cards, youth accounts, in-app PFM tools, a BNPL tool that can be retroactively applied to purchases already made, as well as an investing platform that allows users to invest in stocks, ETFs, and crypto. On the commercial side, Lunar offers business bank accounts, automated bookkeeping, cash flow analytics, expense management tools, loans, insurance, and more.

“Securing €50.9 million in such a challenging market reflects strong confidence in our growth strategies,” said Lunar Founder and CEO Ken Villum Klausen. “We’re seeing robust growth in our newly launched business area Banking Services, where we’re extending our in-house developed Nordic infrastructure to external partners.”

Lunar plans to use today’s funds to expand on its basic package offered to Swedish residents to become a more full-service bank. The company’s banking services are currently available to users in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Approaching its 10th year of operation, Lunar reached 850,000 customers in 2023– including 20,000 business users. This total user number marks an increase from 700,000 customers in 2022. Concurrently, customer activity, as measured by transactions, nearly doubled during this period.

“Our journey doesn’t stop here, “Villum Klausen added. “We’re not just broadening Lunar’s basic banking services, but we’re also evolving into a full-service bank. Our aim is to cater to both private customers and businesses in Sweden, demonstrating our commitment to growth and our vision for the future.”

Photo credit: Lunar

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Upstart Launches RCP, a Tool to Help Banks Customize Loan Offers

Upstart Launches RCP, a Tool to Help Banks Customize Loan Offers
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Upstart launched a new capability, Recognized Customer Personalization (RCP), that allows banks to present customized loan offers to their clients searching for a loan on Upstart.com.
  • Banks can tailor the offer to each prospective borrower based on their risk tolerance, return target, preferred loan size and terms, and geographic focus.
  • Currently, more than 20 lenders within Upstart’s network are already using the new tool.

Lending marketplace Upstart recently unveiled a feature it calls Recognized Customer Personalization (RCP). This new personalization tool enables banks using Upstart’s Referral Network to present a customized loan offer to their customers who use Upstart.com to look for a loan.

The new capability offers lenders on the Upstart Referral Network insight into which of their customers are in the market for a loan and enables banks to send an immediate and automated branded credit offer to the customer. Banks can tailor the offer to each prospective borrower based on their risk tolerance, return target, preferred loan size and terms, and geographic focus. RCP also allows lenders to use their own, in-house underwriting model, or leverage Upstart’s AI-enabled credit decisioning tool.

“In the current economic environment, lenders are laser focused on retaining their customers and increasing the lifetime value of those relationships,” said Michael Lock, SVP of Lending Partnerships, Upstart. “RCP enables them to reach their existing customers in a new way, provide more value, and build loyalty.”

RCP is currently available for personal loans and Upstart plans to expand the program to auto loans and home equity lines of credit in the future. Currently, more than 20 lenders within Upstart’s network are already using RCP.

Charles Eads, Chief Lending Officer of one such lender, Abound Credit Union, noted RCP’s potential to help the credit union serve members outside of its typical geographic boundary. “RCP will enable us to retain and better serve our existing members,” said Eads. “This innovative program will allow us to continue to meet the financial needs of our members in the communities we serve, as well as those members who have moved outside of the area.”

California-based Upstart was founded in 2012 to leverage AI and machine learning to price credit and automate the borrowing process. The company closed its IPO in 2020 and is currently traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker UPST with a market capitalization of $2.02 billion.

Photo by Monica Silvestre

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Expensify, Featurespace, Feedzai, Finastra, Fintech Rundown, Jack Henry, TreviPay, Zafin

This week brings May Day, a day to celebrate the halfway point between spring and summer, and in the world of fintech, there are also exciting developments to mark the start of a new month. Check back for real-time updates on how the fintech landscape evolves this week.

Youth Banking

SCE Credit Union partners with Los Angeles County on youth access banking program.

Credit Unions

UniWyo Credit Union taps Jack Henry to help with merger with Reliant Federal Credit Union.

Digital Banking

Core banking platform provider Finxact and SaaS core modernization and transformation solution provider for banks Zafin announced a new collaboration.

Expense Management

Financial management superapp for expenses and corporate cards Expensify unveils its New Expensify platform geared toward the global self-employed market.

Payments

Fintech infrastructure solution for branded customer wallets, Ansa, secures $14 million in Series A funding.

TreviPay unveils new self-financing option and enhanced payment application features for B2B net terms program.

Stripe decouples payments from the rest of its products stack.

Till Financial partners with EF Educational Tours and EF Explore America to facilitate cashless payments for traveling students.

FastSpring and EBANX partner to expand Pix payments for digital products in Brazil.

DailyPay to offer earned wage access to small businesses nationwide.

Airwallex to provide faster international payments for BILL.

Kojo expands fintech offering to modernize the payment process for contractors.

Fortech selects Shift4 technology to streamline payments at alternative-fuel service stations across Europe.

Lending

Xplor Technologies launches new financial solution for small businesses.

Cross River marks $200+ million in commercial real estate loan originations in the first quarter of 2024.

Blend Labs lands $150 million investment.

Fraud Prevention

Anti-fraud and financial crime software company Feedzai introduces new Chief Financial Officer David Larson.

Featurespace joins The Knoble, an alliance of financial service professionals, law enforcement, regulators, and NGOs committed to fighting financial crime.

Quavo Fraud & Disputes releases QFD Version 24.01 to reduce assignment volumes and enhance automation.

FinScan launches AI solution for sanctions screening of financial instruments.

Wealth Management

Swedish investment platform SAVR secures investment from Incore Invest.

Financial digital platform FactSet unveils AI-powered portfolio commentary.

Treasury Management

Finastra teams up with OpenFin to enhance the user experience of Finastra Kondor, Finastra’s bank treasury management system

Business Banking

Baselayer raises $6.5 million in a Seed round to redefine business risk with AI risk engine. 

Photo by Social History Archive on Unsplash

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B2B Payments Consolidates: Paystand to Acquire Teampay

B2B Payments Consolidates: Paystand to Acquire Teampay
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, PayStand
  • Paystand is acquiring Teampay. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
  • Following the acquisition, Paystand will serve more than one million business customers.
  • Teampay will continue to serve its existing customers under the same brand, and things will be business as usual “in the near term.”

Cloud-based billing and payment platform Paystand announced this week it has agreed to acquire expense management platform Teampay. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The strategic move marks the California-based company’s second acquisition. Paystand purchased procurement platform Yaydoo in 2022. Now, the company services more than one million companies.

Teampay was founded in 2016 to offer spend management, accounts payable automation, purchasing assistant, spend approval tools, accounting automation, and more to help small-to-mid-market businesses and enterprises automate their spending without sacrificing control.

Paystand, which leverages the blockchain and cloud technology to digitize and automate businesses’ cash lifecycle, will use Teampay to scale its services. “With the fusion of Paystand and Teampay we significantly expanded our network, which now touches over one million businesses,” Paystand said in a blog post announcement.

Logistically, Teampay will continue to serve its existing customers under the same brand, and things will be business as usual “in the near term.” The companies did not specify whether Paystand planned to dissolve the Teampay brand and bring the customers under its own platform.

Paystand was founded in 2013 to help businesses digitize receivables, automate processing, reduce time-to-cash, eliminate transaction fees, and enable new revenue. In addition to its B2B payments and billing capabilities, the company also helps businesses leverage the blockchain to securely record their payment history by certifying and notarizing payments on the blockchain. Paystand has raised a total of $98 million. Jeremy Almond is Co-Founder and CEO.

Photo by Alexander Suhorucov

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Salesforce Launches Transaction Dispute Management Tool for Banks

Salesforce Launches Transaction Dispute Management Tool for Banks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Salesforce launched two new capabilities within its Einstein 1 platform, Transaction Dispute Management and Einstein Copilot Banking Actions.
  • Transaction Dispute Management helps service agents streamline dispute management, while Einstein Copilot Banking Actions serves as a chatbot and AI assistant for bank service agents.
  • Salesforce launched Einstein 1 in 2023 to enable customers to infuse AI, automation, and analytics into customer experiences.

Salesforce announced today it has launched new capabilities to help banks resolve transaction disputes. The new, AI-powered tools streamline the entire dispute process to resolve customer inquiries and requests more efficiently.

The new tools include Transaction Dispute Management and Einstein Copilot Banking Actions. These capabilities are available within one of Salesforce’s tool suites, Einstein 1, which the company launched in 2023 to enable customers to infuse AI, automation, and analytics into customer experiences. The two transaction dispute resolution tools help banks combine consumer transaction data with customer data from Salesforce to automate manual tasks, reduce errors, resolve issues, and improve customer communications.  

The Transaction Dispute Management tool is an AI-powered solution that helps service agents at banks streamline dispute management. Like many dispute management tools on the market, Salesforce’s offering works for the entire dispute process– from the time a dispute is submitted until it is resolved. The tool helps banks maintain communication channels with customers, card networks, merchants, and issuing banks. One of Salesforce’s differentiating factors with the tool, however, is that it allows bank agents to use prebuilt email prompt templates and generative AI to draft personalized customer emails related to dispute activity within their workflow. Transaction Dispute Management also integrates with card networks to provide connected workflows, simplifying coordination with merchants.

The second capability Salesforce launched within Einstein 1 today, Einstein Copilot Banking Actions, is a chatbot and AI assistant for bank service agents. The tool helps agents ask questions and receive relevant responses based in metadata, then automate tasks within their workflow. For example, an agent can ask Einstein Copilot to trigger a fee reversal request for a disputed transaction, issue a provisional credit, or pull a list of recent customer transactions. Because all actions run within the Einstein Trust Layer, they do not compromise data security or privacy standards.

“The current process for managing transaction disputes is complex and cumbersome, leading to decreased productivity for bank service agents,” said Salesforce SVP & GM for Financial Services Eran Agrios. “These new capabilities simplify and streamline the entire transaction dispute cycle, enabling banks to deliver exceptional customer experiences and drive innovation across their business.”

Salesforce was founded in 1999, and in the company’s 25 years of operations, it has expanded well beyond a simple CRM solution. The California-based company currently provides a host of sales and marketing tools, digital storefronts and commerce solutions, data analytics and visualization offerings, collaboration software, and more.

Photo by Kindel Media

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