Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Ignite Sales and FIS Team Up on Digital Engagement

Ignite Sales and FIS Team Up on Digital Engagement
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FIS, Ignite Sales

Data analytics company Ignite Sales and financial services giant FIS joined forces this week. Through the partnership, Ignite Sales will make its customer engagement technology available to FIS community banking clients.

The cloud-based customer engagement and application conversion technology, Ignite Dialogue, is made available in affordable, easy-to-implement packages. Ignite adapted this technology last March to make the service– previously only accessible to larger banks– now affordable and approachable for smaller financial institutions.

“We are excited and honored to partner with the FIS team,” said George Noga, CEO of Ignite Sales. “We share a common goal of empowering banks and credit unions with technology and service that delivers a competitive differentiator in the market place.”

Ignite Dialogue helps smaller banks enhance the customer experience for their consumer and small business customers by guiding banks to discover each client’s needs and match them with products and services tailored to meet their specific financial requirements. The service comes with an IQ Analytics reporting portal that guides the bank to develop their sales capabilities across all channels. The press release reports strong success metrics, citing that banks using the technology “often see customer satisfaction scores go up by as much as 40% and an increase in customer product adoption by as much as 200%.”

Headquartered in Texas, Ignite Sales offers customer engagement solutions for a range of bank sizes. The company also offers LeadLync, which automatically reports customer engagement results and recommendations directly into Salesforce; and IQAnalytics, an on-demand cloud-based analytics solution for customer and front office insights.

At FinovateFall 2013 the company launched the Branch Profitability Dashboard that offers a visual overview of profitability and sales across branches. The dashboard also presents a gap analysis for each sale to uncover where the branch falls short. Last month, Ignite Sales won a 2018 Stevie Award for AI / Machine Learning New Product of the Year.

FIS most recently demoed at FinovateFall 2016. The company debuted its Cardless Cash solution that provides a fast, secure options for sending and picking up cash at any ATM. Headquartered in Florida, FIS serves more than 20,000 clients in more than 130 countries.

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Envestnet | Yodlee’s AI FinCheck Takes Financial Wellness to a New Level

Envestnet | Yodlee’s AI FinCheck Takes Financial Wellness to a New Level
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Yodlee

Data aggregation and analytics firm Envestnet | Yodlee bolstered its PFM capabilities this week with the launch of AI FinCheck.

The AI-powered financial wellness solution leverages consumers’ transaction data, AI, and machine learning to monitor users’ financial health and offer actionable financial guidance tailored to their circumstances. AI FinCheck, along with the company’s OK to Spend feature that offers forward-looking cash flow balance information, are offered as part of Envestnet | Yodlee’s financial wellness suite.

Vice President of Product Applications at Envestnet | Yodlee Katy Gibson said, “By expanding our Financial Wellness Solution to include the new AI FinCheck application, financial service providers can provide their consumers with a personalized virtual financial wellness assistant which delivers actionable insights to help improve their financial health.” She added that because the tool uses real-time data, it can help consumers make informed financial decisions.

For each user AI FinCheck offers automated, personalized financial health insights across users’ spending, saving, borrowing and planning habits. To keep users continuously engaged, the tool offers interactive insights on their preferred channel. This not only helps them improve their financial situation but also improves their relationship with the brand. Some of the features of AI FinCheck include:

  • Provides personalized guidance alongside education
  • Leverages actionable data to deepen customer relationships
  • Enhances Next Best Offer (NBO) strategies
  • Provides contextual recommendations and actionable next steps
  • Makes it easy to deliver a virtual financial wellness assistant quickly and cost-effectively

Other tools in Envestnet | Yodlee’s financial wellness suite include FastLink, which allows users to link external financial accounts and see all of their financial information in one place; Save for a Goal, which helps users set, achieve, and fund their financial goals; and Cash Flow Analysis, which allows users to view historic cashflow data and see forecasted flows for each month.

Envestnet | Yodlee recently demoed its Financial Health Check at FinovateFall last year in New York. At the start of this year, the company finalized its acquisition of wealthtech solutions company FolioDynamix. Last month, Envestnet | Yodlee teamed with Quovo and Morningstar to support open data access for consumers. Envestnet was founded in 1999 and acquired Yodlee in 2015 for $660 million. Envestnet | Yodlee is a public company listed on NYSE under the ticker ENV. It has a market cap of $2.52 billion.

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InComm Acquires Gift Card Impressions

InComm Acquires Gift Card Impressions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: InComm, Mergers & Acquisitions

Prepaid products company InComm is boosting its e-gifting capabilities today with the acquisition of its former competitor in the space, Gift Card Impressions (GCI).

The financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed. Logistically, GCI will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of InComm, and its operations and leadership team members will join InComm’s 2,300 employees across the globe and remain in the company’s Missouri location.

Brooks Smith, CEO of InComm, described GCI as being “on the cutting edge of the digital gift card evolution” and noted the company’s superior method to selling stored value products as being “a much warmer, personalized, and transformative approach.” Brooks added, “This transaction also brings us an experienced management team with a great deal of consumer packaged goods industry knowledge that can be leveraged to help drive the growth of physical and digital gift card sales.”

Brett Glass is founder and CEO of GCI, which has received 40 industry awards for innovation in the last seven years. Glass will continue to lead the company’s team from the Missouri location and said his team is “thrilled to have the opportunity to build on their outstanding track record of achievement.”

This is the company’s seventh acquisition since it was founded in 1992. InComm acquired GroupCard and Zeevex in 2010, Adility and On-Line Strategies in 2012, Giftgango in 2013, and most recently ValuAccess in 2016.

InComm offers more than 500,000 points of retail distribution with 1,000+ brand partners in more than 30 countries. The company debuted CorFire Mobile Commerce at FinovateFall 2011. More recently, InComm showed off the Cashtie API at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. The company made headlines in April of this year with the announcement of a planned $20 million expansion at its Atlanta headquarters, adding 150 new jobs in the state of Georgia.

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OutSystems’ $360 Million Funding Round Boosts Valuation Above $1 Billion

OutSystems’ $360 Million Funding Round Boosts Valuation Above $1 Billion
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Outsystems

Low-code platform OutSystems has proven today that there is quite a market for fast application development without the need to learn code. The proof comes from the $360 million in funding the company received, along with its new valuation the company described as “well over” $1 billion.

Today’s funds come from KKR and Goldman Sachs, which now have a minority stake in the Atlanta, Georgia-based company. OutSystems’ total funding now stands at $422 million. The company will use today’s investment to accelerate expansion and boost software automation R&D efforts.

“We believe we are in the early innings of what will be an extended period of significant growth in the low-code application development market, and we are very excited to be backing a category leader like OutSystems,” said Stephen Shanley, director at KKR.

OutSystems leverages AI, automation and third party integrations to help users build their own apps in a visual way, without the need to know or learn to code. This approach not only cuts down on development costs, it also makes for a much faster time-to-launch.

Founded in 2001, OutSystems has revenues of $100+ million and is growing that figure at more than 70% per year. The company’s 700 employees serve thousands of customers in more than 50 countries. OutSystems’ client list includes Toyota, Logitech, Deloitte, Ricoh, Schneider Electric, and GM Financial.

At FinDEVr New York 2017, OutSystems gave a presentation titled Low-Code, The Next Evolution in App Dev Platforms (Oh, and 5X Faster). Last month, the company launched OutSystems Sentry, a new proactive security monitoring service for the company’s PaaS clients. And In April, OutSystems partnered with Atos to help companies accelerate their digital transformation initiatives.

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BlueVine Brings in $60 Million

BlueVine Brings in $60 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BlueVine, Funding

Alternative lending company BlueVine just landed $60 million in equity funding. The Series E round brings its total financing to $578 million, comprising of $173 million in equity and $405 in debt.

Participating in today’s round are Menlo Ventures, which led the round, new investor SVB Capital, and all major existing investors. BlueVine will use the funds to support and expand its products and to boost its R&D team. “This new investment gives us a stronger market position, as we pursue bigger plans for reaching even more small business owners and expanding our offering,” said BlueVine CEO and founder Eyal Lifshitz.

BlueVine was founded in 2013 and has made its name as a player in invoice factoring. The company issues cash to small businesses in exchange for the sale of their unpaid invoices at a discount. Businesses can receive up to $5 million in working capital in a matter of days to help manage operations.

Tyler Sosin, partner at Menlo Ventures said, “The company has demonstrated dramatic, sustainable growth and has proven that there is enduring value in developing a comprehensive offering of credit products that small and medium sized businesses can use throughout their lifetimes.” He also commented on BlueVine’s potential growth, adding, “we believe there is a real opportunity for BlueVine to emerge as the dominant, multi-billion dollar fintech company.”

Today’s funding comes just one month after BlueVine received a $200 million credit facility from Credit Suisse. At the start of 2018, the company doubled its invoice factoring credit line to $5 million, just after increasing its business line of credit limit from $150,000 to $250,000 in 2017.

BlueVine demoed its small business working capital solution at FinovateFall 2014. Since inception, the company has funded more than $900 million in loans for more than 10,000 customers, 80% of which are return customers.

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Signicat and Mitek Team Up to Improve Digital Onboarding

Signicat and Mitek Team Up to Improve Digital Onboarding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mitek, Signicat

Identity assurance provider Signicat and digital identity verification company Mitek partnered to improve the onboarding experience for end customers while helping banks comply with new regulations.

The two teamed up to create a solution specifically for European-based financial services providers, who are facing a handful of new and ever-changing regulations, including PSD2, AMLD5, and eIDAS. The new tool, available in Signicat’s Digital Identity Platform, integrates Mitek’s Mobile Verify solution to authenticate identity documents presented during a remote, mobile onboarding process. To comply with AML and KYC regulations, Mitek’s Mobile Verify captures an image of the identity document to ensure its authenticity.

“Partnering with Mitek enables us to jointly offer European financial services institutions a customer on-boarding solution that is 100% online,” said Gunnar Nordseth, CEO at Signicat. “The partnership is designed to remove friction from the customer on-boarding process to ensure financial institutions can effectively compete in the marketplace.”

Nordseth also noted that Signicat clients can now simultaneously benefit from Mitek’s Mobile Verify solution, as well as Signicat’s secure authentication, electronic signing, and sealed document archival. Signicat also offers an eID hub, which consists of a wide variety of third party eID providers covering regions all over the world.

Founded in 2007, Signicat demoed Signicat Assure and Signicat Sign at FinovateEurope 2017. Assure combines national e-identities, commercial e-identities, and multiple other methods that offer a fast way to verify the customer’s identity for onboarding. Sign is a digital signature solution that ensures the origin and integrity of the document while maintaining non-repudiation from the sender. In January of this year, the company closed a $2 million funding round, bringing its total financing to $3.9 million.

Mitek is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the ticker “MITK” with a market cap of $307 million. Mitek was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. The company most recently demoed its MobileVerify solution at FinovateFall 2017. Last month, Mitek acquired artificial intelligence and image analysis company A2iA for $49.7 million.

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Token Facilitates Direct Payments for Caxton FX

Token Facilitates Direct Payments for Caxton FX
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: CaxtonFX, Token

Cross-border payments platform Caxton is piloting a new direct payments solution for clients of its multi-currency prepaid MasterCard. The new capabilities come courtesy of a partnership with open banking champion Token.

The integration allows Caxton clients to use the Caxton mobile app to load their prepaid cards directly from their bank account. By leveraging Token’s open banking expertise, Caxton is able to remove friction, lower costs, and benefit from instant money movement.

The company facilitates this direct connection by forgoing debit card rails and instead routing customer payment information using a Smart Token, which transmits only a representation of cardholder data and not the data itself. Token is integrated with Caxton’s existing infrastructure to offer the company direct access to their clients’ banks, given their permission.

In the press release, Marten Nelson, co-founder and CMO of Token said, “Our partnership with Caxton reinforces our commitment to all players in the digital ecosystem; we exist to help them lower costs and deliver an amazing, market-differentiating experience to their customers, through a rich, yet simple integration.”

Caxton has 750,000 private and business customers who processed 7.3 million transactions last year using its multi-currency cards and international bank transfer services. The company plans to begin the rollout of the new service in the third quarter of this year.

Founded in 2003, Caxton leverages the blockchain to help users send cross-border money transfers with less friction and at a lower cost than with traditional banks. At FinovateEurope 2017, the company demoed its Firebird Payment Engine, a private blockchain ledger that facilitates payments without the need for an API. Last June, Caxton debuted multi-currency accounts for SMEs.

Headquartered in California, Token offers banks, payment service providers, developers, and merchants access to the benefits of open banking. The company helps organizations securely connect to their customers’ bank account information in a secure and compliant manner using its Smart Token technology. The company showcased its PSD2 compliant solution at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Last month, the FCA granted Token authorization for open banking payment and information services.

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Gusto Launching its Own Yelp for Accountants

Gusto Launching its Own Yelp for Accountants
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Gusto

Online payroll and HR services provider Gusto is unveiling its Partner Directory today, a directory of accounting firms suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.

The directory offers Yelp-like reviews of accountants and is available to any business– both Gusto customers and non-customers– for free. The tool allows businesses to filter the search results by geography, services offered, software expertise, and industries served.

“We noticed a growing trend of accountants that are competing effectively against larger accounting firms by advising small businesses more holistically. These accountants are differentiating and ‘future proofing’ their practices by offering non-traditional services like benefits and human resources for their clients,” said Gusto Senior Product Manager Mike Lyngaas. “Recommendations for accountants and trusted partners are one of the top requests we get from small businesses, and the Partner Directory allows modern accountants and entrepreneurs to grow their businesses together.”

To curate the directory, Gusto screened more than 4,000 of its accounting firm partners for their payroll expertise, benefits and HR services, ability to help businesses claim the federal R&D tax credit, or even acting as an outsourced CFO. The company adds more accountants regularly to both its list of partners as well as to the directory.

Accountants can leverage Gusto’s technology to run payroll or provide benefits and HR services for all of their business clients. They can also tap into Gusto’s relationships with third party software providers.

Founded in 2011 as ZenPayroll, Gusto serves over 60,000 companies across the U.S. and has offices in San Francisco and Denver. At FinovateSpring 2014, Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves showcased the company’s payroll solution. In March, the company launched a freemium model for its payroll solution and in February was highlighted in Forbes for its diversity efforts. Of the company’s 525 employees, 51% are women.

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Diebold Nixdorf Brings its Bank-Like Kiosk to Emirates NBD Customers

Diebold Nixdorf Brings its Bank-Like Kiosk to Emirates NBD Customers
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Diebold

Diebold Nixdorf announced this week that it partnered with Emirates NBD to bring consumers in the United Arab Emirates access to its digital kiosk that offers a variety of banking services.

The bank has called the kiosk EasyHub, and the capabilities go far beyond a typical ATM. This kiosk allows customers to conduct many of the activities they would typically do in a brick-and-mortar bank, all outside of bank operating hours. Users interact with a video teller and follow written instructions on the screen to sign up for new products and services, apply for and receive a new debit card, update their personal details, request a checkbook, authenticate statements, and even apply for a personal loan.

Diebold Nixdorf’s Vynamic Connection Points, a multi-vendor software allowing for customized applications, is powering the EasyHub kiosk. The device comes with a debit card dispenser, biometric signature pad, document scanner, statement printer, ID reader, cash recycler and coin dispenser, and an NFC reader for contactless transactions.

In a blog post, Abdulla Qassem Emirates NBD group chief operating officer cited EasyHub’s customer-first approach, increased flexibility, and superior service among the benefits of teaming up with Diebold Nixdorf.

Diebold Nixdorf appeared on the Finovate stage alongside Zenmonics at FinovateFall 2014 to showcase an in-lobby terminal. Founded in 1859, the company is partnered with almost all of the world’s top 100 banks and most of the top 25 global retailers. Diebold Nixdorf is headquartered in Ohio and has 23,000 employees across the globe.

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Personetics Accommodates Digital-Only and Challenger Banks

Personetics Accommodates Digital-Only and Challenger Banks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Personetics

Cognitive analytics company Personetics has traditionally served large banks, including six of the top 12 banks in North America and Europe. Today, however, the company launched a new offering that makes its solutions more accessible for smaller digital-only and challenger banks.

The new offering provides a highly customizable, pre-packaged application, lowering barriers for smaller banks to implement AI-powered banking services. Founded in 2010, Personetics leverages predictive analytics to help banks anticipate their clients’ individual needs.

“Personalized and proactive guidance is quickly becoming a must-have requirement for banking, especially for new banks that are built on the promise of a new banking experience,” said David Sosna, Personetics co-founder and CEO. “Our mission is to deliver market-proven engagement and personalization technology that is quick and easy to deploy so digital banks can focus their resources on their go-to-market strategy.”

The implementation, which takes under three months, is designed to work with banks with limited resources. To meet these requirements, the new software package offers:

  • Pre-built banking content: The offering includes hundreds of pre-built insights, financial tips, and personalized advice that the bank can easily modify and control
  • API-first approach: Personetics uses open APIs to integrate AI functionality into a bank’s digital banking experience and allows banks to create their own brand identity and customer engagement strategy.
  • Editing tools: These tools allow the bank to retain control over the content and develop new capabilities to support its own business goals.
  • Fast time-to-market: Personetics delivers a production-level solution in just three months.

Among the first challenger banks to leverage Personetics’ new software package is U.K.-based Tandem Bank, which announced its participation in February. “The Personetics Cognitive Banking Brain provides great AI capabilities with prebuilt insights which enable us to accelerate time-to-market and place personalised highlights in the hands of our customers sooner rather than later,” said Ricky Knox, chief executive at Tandem Bank.

At FinovateFall 2016, Personetics demonstrated its Personetics Anywhere chatbot solution. The company was founded in 2011 and has received $18 million in total funding. Personetics recently onboarded Romania’s Banca Transilvania to offer AI-powered, forward-looking financial guidance to the bank’s clients. The company offers more than 4.3 billion personalized interactions to more than 45 million end customers across the globe.

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Dwolla Launches Start, a Pay-as-You-Go Payment Solution

Dwolla Launches Start, a Pay-as-You-Go Payment Solution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Dwolla

Payments platform Dwolla introduced a new product plan today. It’s called Start, and it offers a white-labeled, out-of-the box way for businesses to send and receive money without a large time or money commitment.

Launching in beta today, Start will complement Dwolla’s other offerings: Scale, which provides a consistent monthly bill with a set number of transactions; and Enterprise, which the company describes as a customizable, “white-glove” approach for complex businesses. Start is differentiated from Scale and Enterprise because it does not lock businesses into contracts, nor does it require monthly minimums. Overall, the new offering helps Dwolla deliver on its commitment of “helping businesses of all sizes start and scale their growth.”

Businesses can integrate their existing app with the Start API or they can use Start’s dashboard, which does not require any coding. After signing up, businesses simply complete AML and KYC checks and can then go live after being contacted by a Dwolla representative.

The beta version of Start is currently being rolled out to select businesses. There is no word on when Dwolla will open the product for a full launch.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, Dwolla offers a white-label payments API that allows firms to credit or debit any U.S. bank account the user has connected. The company integrates with Sift Science to help reduce fraud by leveraging real-time identity verification. And in May of 2017, Dwolla integrated with Plaid to instantly verify and authenticate customers’ bank accounts using tokenization.

The company most recently demoed FiSync at FinovateSpring 2015. Earlier this year, Dwolla closed a $12 million investment led by Foundry Group that brought its total funding up to $51.4 million. Last month, the company partnered with Cryptanite Blockchain Technologies to process their online payments.

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BondIT Integrates Bond Portfolio Solution with FIIG Securities

BondIT Integrates Bond Portfolio Solution with FIIG Securities
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BondIT

Fixed income portfolio platform BondIT has initiated a partnership with FIIG Securities. Through the agreement, FIIG will leverage BondIT’s bond portfolio solution for relationship managers.

Australia-based FIIG offers fixed income services for 6,000 clients, managing more than $7.6 billion (AUD 10 billion) in assets. The company will bring BondIT’s bond portfolio solutions to its core investment management platform, SimCorp Dimension, allowing front office users to leverage the technology for new portfolio construction, investment idea generation, relative value analysis, portfolio monitoring, and portfolio optimization.

In the press release, John Prickett, Chief Operating Officer at FIIG Securities described how more investors are interested in the diversification that corporate bonds can bring to their portfolios and that this spike has increased the demand for fixed income and corporate bonds. He added, “The BondIT software will further enhance our offering, pairing the knowledge of our expert team with the latest technology to identify more fixed income opportunities for our clients and help them maximize their investments.”

Powered by machine learning algorithms, BondIT’s tools empower advisors to automate the optimization of fixed-income portfolio creation and management. The technology allows individual investors to select 12 different constraint dimensions to personalize their portfolio. BondIT leverages these data points, combined with AI, to create algorithms that offer flexibility in optimizing risk and returns in non-linear, multi-dimensional portfolio selections.

BondIT’s COO Eran Nachshon debuted the technology at FinovateFall 2016 in New York. The company added $4 million to its Series B round last week, bringing its total funding to $18.2 million. BondIT is headquartered in Herzliya, Israel and was founded in 2012.

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