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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
IBS IntelligencefeaturesCustomerXPS’ Clari5 in its latest report.
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.
Data insights startup Segmint has agreed to power analytics capabilities for Austin, TX-based Buzz Points. Specifically, Ohio’s Segmint will enable Buzz Points to help its clients to build marketing segments based on cardholders’ buying behavior.
“The ability to identify customers with a strong probability of action in combination with a strong call to action like rewards is a marketer’s dream,” said Dwayne Spradlin, Buzz Points CEO. “We’re excited to find strategic partners like Segmint that help us continue to offer robust platform solution with an even greater ROI for our clients.”
Founded in 2007, Segmint leverages the raw, unstructured data from banks’ consumer transactions to form marketing insights that lead to customer acquisition, cross-selling, and more efficient marketing techniques.
The company’s products include Merchant Payment Cleansing, a tool that decodes merchants’ cryptic transaction data descriptions; Transaction Analytics, which cleans and categorizes data to make it useful for marketers; and Data-Driven Marketing Platform, an all-in-one tool to help non-technical marketers create, deliver, and monitor campaigns.
Segmint, which demoed at FinovateFall 2012, was founded by John Cale, Nate Shahan, and Rob Heiser, who serves as CEO. The company has raised $30 million.
Everyone, including fintechs, gets by with a little help from their friends. That must be what digital banking solutions provider Kony and financial data expert MX were thinking when they joined forces this week.
Under the agreement, Kony will leverage MX’s PFM expertise to bolster Kony DBX, its digital banking experience product. Specifically, Kony will use MX’s data services for PFM and tap into the company’s solutions for spending categorization and classification.
Explaining the decision to partner, Kony DBX SVP and GM Jeffery Kendall described access to clean, actionable financial data as “critical” for banks and credit unions to meet customer expectations. “We are excited to collaborate with MX to deliver valued-added data services for Personal Financial Management and spending categorization and classification solutions that will give consumers a clear view of their financial health. In addition, banks and credit unions can also gain insight so they can better tailor their digital banking offerings to their customers and members,” said Kendall.
Don Parker, EVP of partnerships at MX added, “Together, and through Kony’s expansive partner network, we will help more banks, credit unions and fintech developers grow faster, reduce costs, and deliver exceptional experiences to their customers.”
The first client of the joint solution is CommonWealth One Federal Credit Union, a 33,000 member credit union with branches in Northern Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and Harrisonburg, VA. “By having access to clean, relevant and categorized data, we will be able to better serve and meet our members’ financial needs, and our members will also be able to aggregate and see all of their accounts in one place, said Larry Flory, CIO of CommonWealth One Federal Credit Union. “Having improved insight into their finances will enable our members to make better financial decisions.”
This is Kony’s second major enhancement this month to the Kony DBX platform. A little over a week ago the company partnered with Micronotes to bring Micronotes’ personalized conversation solution to Kony DBX’s bank customers.
Kony’s CTO Bill Bodin and Product Marketing Manager Antonio Sanchez showcased the company’s digital banking platform at FinovateFall 2017. Kony was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Austin, TX.
MX was founded in 2010 and is partnered with more than 1,800 financial institutions and 43 of the top 50 digital banking providers. Headquartered in Lehi, Utah, MX is a six-time Finovate Best of Show winner, having most recently presented at FinovateFall 2017, where it demoed Discovered Accounts.
RightCapital links up with investment research firm Morningstar.
Turbine, the creator of the Lord of the Rings online game, usesXsolla to power in-game storefront
investorID tapsIdentityMind’s compliance and risk management capabilities
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.
Mobile-first payment innovator Twisto closed a Series B funding round this week totaling $15.7 million (€14 million). The investment brings Twisto’s total funding to $38.7 million (€34.5 million), which is comprised of $23.6 million (€21 million) in equity and $16.8 million (€15 million) in debt.
The round was led by Finch Capital and includes support from existing investors UNIQA Ventures and ING Bank, as well as newcomers Velocity Capital Private Equity and ING Ventures.
The company, which is based in the Czech Republic and Poland, will use the funds to expand further into Europe. Twisto aims to have two million app users in the Central and Eastern European region in the next two years.
Founded in 2013, Twisto offers a simple financing solution to European retail banking customers. The company is best known for its Buy Now, Pay Later tool, which gives consumers an online point of sale financing option, offering instant credit that can be activated in a single click.
The company’s payment card features a favorable exchange rate, is compatible with Apple Pay, and offers 5% more cashback than competitors. The app offers a bill-splitting capability and OCR-powered bill payments that allow customers to pay bills by uploading a photo of the paper statement.
Launched in Prague, Twisto expanded to Poland in the first quarter of last year. Today, the company’s app has been used by more than 500,000 customers. The company’s CEO and Founder Michal Smida demoed the Twisto account at FinovateEurope 2018.
For its first partnership in the U.K., Swedish open banking startup Tink inked a deal this week with major U.K. bank NatWest.
NatWest will integrate Tink’s PFM capabilities and Data Enrichment offering, a tool that cleans and syncs data to categorize transactions for data-driven sales and decision-making optimization. These two enhancements will offer NatWest consumers better insight into their personal spending habits.
NatWest, which joins Tink’s other bank customers BNP Paribas Fortis, Nordea, ABN Amro, SEB, and Klarna, will offer the new PFM capabilities to customers starting in the fourth quarter of this year.
“The partnership with NatWest is a great testament to the quality of our technology — and to the dedication to improve the digital offering and customer experience,” said Tink co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellen. “We believe there are massive opportunities for those who choose to leverage new technology to build greater engagement with their customers. This partnership is proof of just that.”
In addition to its PFM and Data Enrichment products, Tink also offers Account Aggregation, which connects to 2,500+ banks and is live in 10 markets, with coverage across Europe coming by the end of this year. The company also offers Payment Initiation, which allows customers to make payments from a bank’s website or mobile app. In addition to money transfers, Payment Initiation allows customers to transact online and pay bills and invoices.
Tink’s Senior Business Manager, Rudolf Bergslycka and Developer David Frenkel demo the Tink API at FinovateEurope 2019
Founded in 2012, Tink counts more than 500,000 app users and has 150 employees across two offices. The two-time Best of Show-winning company most recently demoed at FinovateEurope 2019 in London.
Cornèr and NDGITpartner to provide direct access to third-party service providers under PSD2 regulation.
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 yesterday’s demos we’re ready for four more today. The day begins with one of our favorite sessions, Analyst All Stars, and concludes with a crowd-favorite, the crowning of the Best of Show winners.
Registration opens at 8 a.m. and the first session begins at 9 a.m. Come early for some pre-show networking or catch up on email with a hot cup of coffee before the show.
Here’s an overview of what the agenda looks like today:
Global payments platform Flywire is extending its agreement with China’s UnionPay, the Massachusetts-based company announced today.
The two are re-launching a program that discounts foreign exchange rates on cross-border tuition and healthcare transactions. The initiative, which first launched last spring, is available to all UnionPay cardholders making payments originating in China. The rate on foreign exchange payments made to participating education and healthcare facilities will be the same as a local bank transfer.
“We strive to offer our clients’ payers the most convenient and secure payment options in each international market they serve,” said Ryan Frere, vice president of global payments for Flywire. “For Chinese students and patients making cross-border payments, UnionPay is the most preferred and trusted brand. We’re pleased to expand this program and bring valuable savings to more payers and institutions.”
UnionPay is a smart partner pick for Flywire. The bank’s home country is the number one origination of students studying abroad. More than 662,000 Chinese citizens studied abroad last year, a figure up 9% from 2017. Medical tourism is also popular among Chinese citizens; more than 630,000 Chinese patients traveled abroad for medical care in 2018.
Flywire originally launched as peerTransfer in 2011, when the company debuted its college tuition payment platform at FinovateSpring 2011. Flywire’s platform processes billions of dollars in payments every year in over 120 different local currencies, connecting more than 1,400 businesses and universities with their customers.
In addition to its Boston headquarters, the company has offices in Chicago, London, Manchester, Valencia, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, Cluj, and Sydney.
Bahrain’s Electronic Network for Financial Transactions (Benefit) is designing and implementing a Know Your Customer (KYC) utility that incorporates blockchain technology, in partnership with Fenergo, a provider of digital Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions, reports Henry Vilar of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
The utility platform will support sectors including retail and corporate banking and asset management, as well as insurance and telecommunications in the future. Fenergo says it deployed the first phase of the eKYC implementation project in four weeks.
Financial institutions that subscribe to Benefit can instantly complete KYC and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance procedures when onboarding new individual and corporate customers through the Fenergo’s eKYC hub and rules engine utilising blockchain.
The centralisation of customer data removes the need for duplicate requests for information, while the elimination of manual processes reduces costs and improves operational efficiencies.
The Fenergo API-first solution enables financial institutions to verify customer identity via biometric identity and verification (ID&V) technology, which links to Bahrain national identity card data before instantly connecting to the eKYC hub.
This will prompt Fenergo’s rules engine to determine the required KYC and AML data and documentation for customer due diligence (CDD) as subscribed by Central Bank of Bahrain. Once the customer is quickly and successfully onboarded, Fenergo will write data attestations to the blockchain for reuse by other financial institutions within the Bahrain ecosystem.
Fenergo CEO Marc Murphy said, “Regulatory mandated KYC utilities represent a massive opportunity to enable significant efficiency, improve customer experience and help drive regulatory certainty. In a digital economy, where open banking and customer choice are at the forefront, making the KYC process digital is a huge enabler for any digital transformation initiative.”
Fenergo is developing the cloud-based utility as part of an initiative mandated by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) to enable financial institutions to seamlessly perform CDD checks for enhanced customer experiences and regulatory certainty. The initiative is part of a wider government scheme, Economic Vision 2030, to improve the kingdom’s economy.
U.S. challenger bank-turned BBVA subsidiary Simplehas a surprising new offering for its mostly millennial client base. The bank wants its customers to start using paper checks.
The Portland-based bank unveiled the news in an email to members yesterday. “We heard you: sometimes you just gotta write a check, even if you do your banking online. So here they are in all their glory—Simple paper checks,” the email read.
The checkbooks are available for $5 for a book of 25 checks and, as Simple noted, “they work just like regular checks (Cursive not required.)” For its clients who may not be familiar with checks, Simple included a special section in its FAQ on paper checks, including a subsection titled, “writing a check” that offers step-by-step instructions.
So why checks, and why now? Simple’s addition of paper checks is likely a patch of sorts. That’s because, along with today’s announcement, the bank also told clients that it is shutting down its billpay service. Starting July 9, users will need to use paper checks to pay bills.
It’s also possible that Simple truly did receive pressure from customers requesting the service. If this is the case, it says two things about the state of fintech. First, it’s a downvote for cash. It’s also a humble reminder that, despite all of the tech available, fintech still lacks proper digital channels that connect consumers with the right recipients. The checks aren’t a substitute for peer-to-peer payment apps such as Venmo and Zelle. Instead, Simple’s customers will likely use the paper checks to pay bills and small contractors who do not accept credit cards.
Founded in 2009 and launched two years later under the name BankSimple, Simple debuted at FinovateFall 2011. In 2014, BBVA purchased the challenger bank for $117 million. In September of 2018, Simple announced it will pay 2.2% interest on savings accounts with balances of more than $2,000. Late last year, seven months after Simple’s CEO and Co-Founder Josh Reich announced plans to leave, the digital bank appointed David Hijirida, a former executive at Amazon, as CEO.
Insuritas and Tower Hill Specialty partner to bring Tower Hill’s property products to market through Insuritas’ bank partner network.
NIIT Technologiespartners with Blue Chip to bring its wealth management application to Blue Chip’s IBM POWER.
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.
