Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

SelfScore Rebrands as Deserve, Closes on $12 Million in Funding

SelfScore Rebrands as Deserve, Closes on $12 Million in Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, SelfScore

Consumer analytics company SelfScore rebranded to Deserve today. The California-based company is still committed to providing underbanked Americans with access to credit, and to fuel that mission, Deserve has received $12 million in funding. Today’s round was led by Accel– with participation from Aspect Ventures, Pelion Ventures, Mission Holdings, Alumni Venture Group, and GDP Venture– and brings Deserve’s total funding to $27 million.

Deserve offers a credit card designed for Generation Z, whose members currently range in age from 6 to 21 years. This group accounts for 25% of the U.S. population and is projected to make up 40% of consumers by 2020. Because Generation Z consumers have thin-to-no credit files, they have difficulty accessing credit products at a fair rate. To combat this, Deserve uses an algorithm to predict credit potential by analyzing consumer attributes such as education, current financial health, and future employability. Sameer Gandhi of Accel described this application of machine learning as a “big opportunity to evolve past the antiquated FICO system in a technologically sophisticated way.”

The company’s Deserve Edu card is specifically focused on students, including international students. The card offers benefits such as an 18-month subscription to Amazon Prime Student, 1% cash-back on all purchases, and no fees on foreign transactions. And, for international students, there is no SSN required. To promote and encourage consumers to build their credit score, the company offers incentives for consumers to upgrade to the Deserve Pro Mastercard, which features 3% cashback on travel and entertainment, 2% cash back on restaurants, and 1% unlimited cash-back on all other purchases.

Under the SelfScore brand, the company assessed credit for more than 100,000 international students. Now, under Deserve, the company will target all 20 million college students and another 20 million young adults in the United States. “When I immigrated to America in 1995, one of the hardest parts of settling down in a new country was my lack of financial security and independence,” said Kalpesh Kapadia, founder and CEO of Deserve. “A credit card is one of many tools that was not accessible to me. This is why I wanted to implement technology that rethinks the process for offering access to fair and simple credit. Deserve represents that mission.”

Founded in 2012, Deserve demoed a consumer behavior analytics service at FinovateFall 2014 under the name SelfScore. The company’s accounts are issued by Utah-based Celtic Bank. Check out our profile of Deserve in our Finovate Debuts series in 2014.

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Kabbage Expands to France and Italy

Kabbage Expands to France and Italy
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Kabbage

Alternative lending company Kabbage has deepened its ties with ING this week. The Atlanta-based fintech is leveraging its two-year strong partnership with the Dutch bank to bring its services to Spain.

Through the partnership, millions of small businesses across France and Italy will have access to the Kabbage Platform via ING, which offers a paperless and automated lending service. Qualifying businesses can access ongoing lines of credit up to $118,000 (€100,000) with ING. By analyzing small business data, the Kabbage Platform is able to quickly underwrite small business loans and continually adjust each line of credit based on real-time business performance data.

“This expansion distinguishes ING as one of the most progressive financial institutions for small business lending across Europe,” said Kabbage Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Rob Frohwein. “Using the power of automation through the Kabbage Platform, our bank partners can reach a dramatically higher number of small businesses than with traditional underwriting, and expand into new geographies without considerable investments or additional operational costs.”

The Kabbage Platform is used by “multiple” top 50 banks across Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, the U.K., and Spain. Earlier this Fall, CB Insights listed the company in its round-up of Top-Targets for European banks. That same week, Kabbage earned its place on the Inc. 5000 list. The company most recently demoed its Kabbage Card small business line of credit at FinovateSpring 2015. Check out our video interview with Kabbage’s COO and co-founder Kathryn Petralia at FinovateFall 2017 last month.

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Tink Receives $16.5 Million in Funding, Announces Expansion, New Clients

Tink Receives $16.5 Million in Funding, Announces Expansion, New Clients
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Tink

Swedish-born PFM app Tink has landed $16.5 million today for its personal financial management app and packaged APIs. The funds come from SEB, Nordea, Nordnet, ABN Amro, Creades and Sunstone and brings the company’s total funding to $30.5 million.

“This latest funding will allow us to put great focus on the European market, scale our offer, and help banks to keep pace with the expectations of their customers,” said Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink. “We see this need continuing to grow as customers exert their rights to access their financial information and take control of their money.”

In addition to expanding its pocketbook, the company has also broadened its horizons. Not only has Tink signed licensing agreements with Nordea, Nordnet, and Klarna, it also announced plans to further its European expansion. Today’s partnerships add to the company’s existing agreements with Sweden-based SEB and Dutch-based ABN Amro who teamed up with Tink last year. Through the partnerships, Nordea, Nordnet, and Klarna can integrate Tink’s aggregation, payment initiation technology, and PFM platform into their existing customer channels. Klarna, a bank focused on the online payment experience, demoed its flagship payment technology at FinovateSpring 2012.

Kjellén announced that the company will be live in 10 European countries at the beginning of 2018. He said that Tink’s technology “transforms the industry” by assisting banks to build a customer experience that helps clients understand their finances, make smarter choices, and “ultimately brings them financial happiness.” Kjellén continued, “We see today’s announcement as evidence of a new generation of bank and fintech partnerships. By working together, we are paving the way for a new era of banking in Europe – unlocking the market to create greater choice and a better deal for consumers.”

Tink is an active supporter of the European Union’s proposed PSD2 legislation and has campaigned for greater consumer access to their financial data. The company’s APIs enable banks to plug-and-play account aggregation, payment initiation, PFM, and product recommendation technology in a single platform.

Tink has 50 employees and was founded in 2012. The Tink app has more than 400,000 users in Sweden. This summer the company earned a place on CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list., Kjellén, along with the company’s Commercial Director Tashi Sylten, took home a Best of Show win for their demo of Tink at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Three years earlier, at FinovateEurope 2014, the company won Best of Show for its debut of the Tink platform.

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FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: AApay Technology

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: AApay Technology
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AApay Technology, FinovateAsia 2017, FinovateAsia 2017 Sneak Peek


A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on November 7 and 8 in Hong Kong. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

AApay is an aggregation payment system, the product of a start-up company founded by three young aspirants who graduated from HKUST.

Features

  • Offers real-time automatic bill-splitting among customers
  • Enables aggregation of various popular payments in the greater China region
  • Provides an efficient platform to launch advertisements precisely

Why it’s great
Share your bill with the world in seconds.

Presenters

Fiona Hong, CMO
Hong is CMO of AApay Technology (Hong Kong) Limited. She has strong market sense and rich knowledge in corporate governance.

Ye Ma, CEO
Ma is CEO of AApay Technology (Hong Kong) Limited. He is a serial entrepreneur and designer.

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FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Strands

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Strands
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateAsia 2017, FinovateAsia 2017 Sneak Peek, Strands

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on November 7 and 8 in Hong Kong. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

Strands is the fintech partner for banks and SMEs, providing solutions that empower people to better manage their financial and consumer lifestyle and facilitating the transition into Open Banking.

Features

  • Enables banks to adopt a role as an SME business partner
  • Provides banks with better understanding of SME’s preferences and behaviour patterns
  • Helps accelerate the process into Open Banking

Why it’s great
Offers one point-of-entry, a 360 degree financial picture, more efficient money management, and an engaging, meaningful conversation between SME and bank.

Presenters

Victoria Yasinetskaya, Marketing Director
Yasinetskaya is a senior marketing executive with extensive experience in FS. She is an active participant in the conversation about women’s role in fintech and setting the precedent for female inclusion in financial services.
LinkedIn

Albert Morales, Product Manager
Morales is the Product Manager of digital money management solutions. Since his previous role at Kantox, Morales has been a hands-on witness of the technological revolution within the finance industry.
LinkedIn

Yogesh Desai, Business Development Manager – APAC
Desai has 18+ years of experience in the technology industry. He focuses on assisting banks to add new revenue streams, enhance customer experience and increase wallet share. He works with banks in the APAC region.
LinkedIn

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AApay Technology, Blackhawk Network, BLUERUSH, Chain.com, Fidor Bank, Strands, Tavant, Temenos, Tink, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

  • Tink Receives $16.5 Million in Funding, Announces Expansion, New Clients.
  • BLUERUSH Raises $1.3 Million in New Funding.

Around the web:

  • Blackhawk Network appoints Charles O. Garner as Chief Financial Officer.
  • Tavant enabling digital mortgage experience for goodmortgage.com.
  • TechCrunch: TransferWise changes fees for GBP transfers, introduces complicated flat transaction fees.
  • Chain.com announces a new service called Sequence, a cloud-based ledger service for managing balances in financial and commerce apps.
  • Fidor partners with Eight to jointly design the customer experience for Fidor’s  financial services marketplace.
  • Temenos and Abu Dhabi Global Market announce fintech collaboration.

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.

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BioCatch to Power Behavioral Biometrics for Samsung SDS America

BioCatch to Power Behavioral Biometrics for Samsung SDS America
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BioCatch

Behavioral biometrics and threat detection firm BioCatch announced it is working with software solutions and IT services company, Samsung SDS America, to combat fraud that occurs after a user has logged in.

Through the partnership, BioCatch will integrate a layer of fraud protection that works beyond the login process into Samsung SDS’ Nexsign enterprise biometric authentication software. The integration is intended to fill security gaps that occur when mobile apps don’t require users to login multiple times to validate their identity. To solve this, BioCatch will collect and analyze more than 500 parameters around a user’s activity– continuously monitoring their behavioral patterns within the app to authenticate the user and detect abnormal bot or malware behavior.

In a statement Eyal Goldwerger, Chief Executive Officer at BioCatch remarked at how new innovations in fintech have made it easy for users to conduct their banking activities. He added:

“However, given how sophisticated fraudsters are today, the consumer-grade authentication protocols that exist leave open the real possibility of account takeovers. In fact, all the fraud that BioCatch finds today, comes from within authenticated sessions, prompted by malware, social engineering and other sophisticated attacks that circumvent the login method entirely. As a result, security continues to be a major factor holding back the full potential of mobile banking and payments… Through Nexsign and our partnership, Samsung has created the platform that resolves this constant battle.”

Founded in 2011, BioCatch monitors 4 billion transactions per month for a handful of major banks. Earlier this year, the company bolstered its fraud detection by forming a relationship with LexisNexis Risk Solutions to offer companies additional risk scores by monitoring user behavior and discerning between real and fraudulent users. In April, the company partnered with Experian to prevent new account fraud for CrossCore users and in February BioCatch teamed up with Nuance Communications to power continuous authentication for Nuance Security Suite solution.

At FinovateFall 2014, the company showed off Invisible Challenges. The company has raised $11.6 million and is headquartered in Israel.

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Clinc Teams with Enacomm to Bring AI Chatbots to Small Banks and Credit Unions

Clinc Teams with Enacomm to Bring AI Chatbots to Small Banks and Credit Unions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Clinc

You may have met Clinc’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Finie at FinovateFall last year, where the company took home a Best of Show award. Today, thanks to a partnership with Enacomm, the Michigan-based company is making that chatbot more widely available.

Through the reseller agreement, Enacomm will distribute Finie to mid-tier banks, community banks, and credit unions. In a statement Clinc CEO Jason Mars described Enacomm as the “right partner” because the company shares Clinc’s “vision for modernizing the consumer banking experience.” Mars continued, “Teaming up with Enacomm will help us to empower a greater number of smaller financial institutions, like community banks and credit unions, with next-generation, voice-controlled AI technology that otherwise would be out of reach.”

Clinc’s Finie AI chatbot leverages machine learning and natural language to engage users in natural, human-like conversations about their finances without requiring them to learn commands or rules. Finie delivers real-time, personalized responses in chat format ranging from spending advice, balance information, and complex transaction details.

“Not only does intelligent interaction technology conserve resources, but Clinc’s advanced AI platform provides the best experience we’ve seen to enable customers to quickly and easily find the information they need to make informed decisions about their money through conversations with their bank accounts,” said Enacomm CEO Michael Boukadakis.

In August, Clinc announced a partnership with USAA. The startup agreed to power AI for the bank’s voice banking skill for Alexa, enabling USAA’s 12 million members to engage with Clinc’s AI chatbot regarding their finances. The skill is currently in a pilot phase.

Clinc was founded in 2015 by Mars and his fellow University of Michigan professors, Lingjia Tang, who serves as the company’s CSO; Michael Laurenzano, CTO; and Johann Hauswald, Chief Architect. Earlier this year, Clinc raised $6 million in Series A funding from Drive Capital, Cahoots Holdings, Hyde Park Venture Partners, and Stuart Porter. Those funds boosted Clinc’s total funding to $7.8 million.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Clinc, D3 Banking, DAVO Technologies, Finicity, Finn.ai, Kantox, Ledger, PayPal, Samsung, Scalable Capital, SecureKey, Top Image Systems, Zafin, Zumigo

On Finovate.com

  • Ledger Partners with Intel to Boost Blockchain App Security.
  • BioCatch to Power Behavioral Biometrics for Samsung SDS America.
  • Clinc Teams with Enacomm to Bring AI Chatbots to Small Banks and Credit Unions.
  • Finn.ai Powers Facebook Messenger’s First, Fully-Featured, AI-Powered, Virtual Banking Assistant.

Around the web

  • PayPal launches PayPal for Marketplaces
  • Forbes: Banks Wanted To Sink Kantox— Now They’re Vying For Its Technology
  • Zumigo’s  Zumigo Assure now prevents payment fraud even when card numbers are compromised.
  • SecureKey collaborates with Intel to enable consumers to access its blockchain-based digital identity technology via traditional web browsers.
  • Finicity launches online platform that allows lenders to order, manage and monitor digital verification reports.
  • DAVO’s Sales Tax App, now available in the Square App Marketplace.
  • D3 Banking partners with P2P payments network, Zelle.
  • Behavioral biometric technology from BioCatch to be integrated into Samsung’s Nexsign platform.
  • Top Image Systems introduces its eFLOW AP solution for SAP.
  • Zafin offers its miRevenue platform as a cloud-based SaaS solution.
  • Scalable Capital provides BlackRock employees with streamlined access to its investment management services.

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.

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Zighra Launches Flagship Continuous Authentication Product

Zighra Launches Flagship Continuous Authentication Product
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Zighra

User authentication company Zighra  launched its flagship product today. Dubbed SensifyID, the new offering provides continuous authentication and threat detection. SensifyID guards against account takeover, remote malware, social engineering, and bot attacks.

By running machine learning and behavioral authentication algorithms, SensifyID is able to monitor user activity within an app combined with data such as device information and environmental factors to offer continuous proof of the user’s identity. The Canada-based company built SensifyID based on its algorithms that learn user behavior within 15 user interactions. The technology works in both online and offline modes.

“The rise of mobile transactions and on-demand services have opened the door for well-organized, ill-intentioned actors to compromise accounts and commit fraudulent transactions across apps in banking, commerce and other industries,” said Deepak Dutt, CEO of Zighra. “By adding SensifyID to our suite of AI-powered analytics, we are taking behavioral authentication to the next level by creating a unique, personalized cognitive profile that cannot be stolen or altered by humans or bots. Businesses that use Zighra’s SensifyID will know exactly when they are interacting with a human customer and when they are not, down to the very second.”

Founded in 2009, Zighra debuted KineticID at FinovateFall 2013. KineticID protects users with more than 700 device types in more than 70 countries. The company’s technology tracks more than over 900 human and environmental traits such as device, network, social, location, behavioral and biometric intelligence, as well as human-machine and machine-machine interactions. In August, Zighra appointed Hari Koduvely as Chief Data Scientist and in December of 2016, the company closed a $1 million round of funding.

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Mastercard Takes Blockchain Mainstream with API

Mastercard Takes Blockchain Mainstream with API
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: MasterCard

Mastercard announced it has tested and validated its blockchain and will be opening access to it via a set of three APIs published on the Mastercard Developers website. The APIs include the Blockchain Core API, the Smart Contracts API, and the Fast Pay Network API.

Mastercard will pilot the blockchain for use in the business-to-business space, implementing it to increase speed and transparency in payments and decrease costs for cross-border payments. The blockchain solution aims to offer a new way for consumers, businesses, and banks to transact. The company describes it as the “key” to its strategy of providing payment solutions that “meet every need of financial institutions and their end-customers.”

Mastercard’s blockchain operates independently of a digital currency. As Justin Pinkham, a senior vice president at Mastercard Labs told Forbes, “We are not using a cryptocurrency, and we are not introducing a new cryptocurrency, because that introduces other challenges—regulatory, legal challenges. If you do a payment, then what we can do is move those funds in the way that we do today in fiat currency.”

The company lists four main differentiators of its blockchain:

  • Privacy — Mastercard ensures that transaction details are only shared among individuals who are a party to the transaction.
  • Flexibility — it can be used in combination with other Mastercard APIs; SDKs are available in six different languages.
  • Scalability — it is designed for commercial processing speeds.
  • Reach — it is integrated into Mastercard’s payment network, which includes 22,000 financial institutions.

“By combining Mastercard blockchain technology with our settlement network and associated network rules, we have created a solution that is safe, secure, auditable, and easy to scale,” said Ken Moore, executive vice president of Mastercard Labs. “When it comes to payments, we want to provide choice and flexibility to our partners where they are able to seamlessly use both our existing and new payment rails based on the needs and requirements of their customers.”

The company’s rival Visa has also began working with the blockchain. Last October, the company announced it had teamed up with Chain to launch a blockchain-based B2B payments service called Visa B2B Connect. Neither companies have made firm announcements regarding blockchain use cases for end consumers.

Founded in 1966, Mastercard demoed its Cash Pick-Up ATM solution at FinovateFall last month. Cash Pick-Up allows the sender to disburse cash to banked and unbanked consumers without a card at an ATM. In addition to today’s blockchain developments, the company has recently joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to explore possible use cases for Ethereum.

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MapD Partners with IBM Power Systems

MapD Partners with IBM Power Systems
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: IBM, MapD

Analytics platform MapD has partnered with IBM Power Systems to enhance its analytical performance. California-based MapD has optimized its MapD Core database and MapD Immersive visual analytics client to take advantage of IBM Power Systems to target the speed at which SQL queries can be performed.

Running queries on IBM Power Systems S822LC for HPC servers versus x86-based servers offers an SQL querying speed that is up to 1.3 x faster than recent benchmarks. On average, the updated queries show a 65% acceleration over the original, benchmarked SQL queries. Upgrades such as these help users analyze billion-row data sets in real-time.

“We’re bringing new performance capabilities to a broader audience only available on IBM Power Systems,” said Ashish Bambroo, VP of Business Development at MapD Technologies. “IBM Power Systems are optimized for the kind of compute-intensive applications where MapD’s technology excels. By harnessing the advantages of IBM Power Systems, we can provide our enterprise customers with more options for tackling the toughest workloads.”

To increase the speed, MapD is leveraging IBM’s POWER CPUs and NVIDIA Tesla P100 graphics processors. The POWER processor CPU works together with the NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPU, accelerating CPU-to-GPU analytic pipelines up to 2.5X. This acceleration bolsters MapD’s platform that uses GPUs to query and visualize billions of records in real-time. The company’s GPU-based platform performs from 75 to 3,500 times faster than traditional CPU databases.

MapD was founded in 2013. The company’s CEO Todd Mostak most recently demoed the company’s Core and Immerse components at FinovateSpring 2017. Mostak also gave a presentation at FinDEVr New York 2017 titled How GPU-Powered Visual Analytics Are Remaking Financial Services. Last month, MapD ranked among the best database and analytics tools according to InfoWorld.

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