Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

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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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Azimo, Dream Payments, Efigence, Lendio, MapD, MasterCard, Stash, ThreatMetrix, VASCO, VISA

On Finovate.com

  • Efigence Teams Up with Alior Bank, Telekom Romania to Help Launch Telekom Banking.
  • Mastercard Takes Blockchain Mainstream with API.
  • Zighra Launches Flagship Continuous Authentication Product.
  • Stash Reveals Plans to Launch Mobile-First Banking Service.

Around the web

  • Latvian Bank Citadele secures mobile and online banking with VASCO’s DIGIPASS for Apps and CRONTO
  • Azimo’s momentum continues with triple-digit growth.
  • Visa to offer ThreatMetrix technologies through its Visa ID Intelligence platform.
  • Lendio joins lending platform association.
  • Dream Payments unveils its point of sale solution for First Data’s Clover merchants.

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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Kony to Launch Digital Banking Solution Leveraging Daon Biometrics

Kony to Launch Digital Banking Solution Leveraging Daon Biometrics
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daon, Kony

Enterprise application and mobility solutions company Kony unveiled a new digital banking platform and suite of apps. These Next Generation Digital Banking solutions help banks deliver a better user experience cost effectively across any channel.

The suite will be released in the Spring of 2018 and will include digital banking apps for retail banking, business banking, loans, new account onboarding, and digital wallets. In addition to the suite of apps, the company will release its Digital Banking Marketplace that hosts third party partner services to help speed the notoriously-slow app development process.

And thanks to a partnership with Daon, Kony’s Digital Banking Platform will authenticate users with facial, fingerprint, and voice recognition biometrics using the Virginia-based company’s IdentityX solution. IdentityX uses factors such as device-binding, geolocation, liveness detection, and more to offer a seamless user experience. The flexible solution allows for new technology and biometric methods to be integrated as they become available in the future.

Thomas E. Hogan, chairman and CEO, Kony said, “The new Kony Digital Banking Platform, combined with our growing portfolio of banking applications, and our strategic partnership with Diebold Nixdorf, will enable us to achieve our vision to facilitate banking anytime, anywhere, and through any channel – both physical and digital.”

Kony’s CTO, Bill Bodin and Product Marketing Manager, Antonio Sanchez, recently showcased its Digital Banking Platform at FinovateFall 2017. In August, the company unveiled the Kony AppPlatform V8 that aims to help professional developers meet demand for apps and help organizations simplify the app development and deployment processes. Founded in 2007, Kony is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Daon most recently presented its authentication technology at FinovateFall 2016. Today, the company announced that it was selected by VISA to power biometrics for the VISA ID Intelligence Platform that will offer a seamless way for consumers to shop, pay, and bank on their mobile device. Earlier this summer, the company teamed up with EyeVerify to add EyeVerify’s EyeprintID technology to its IdentityX platform. In May, Daon integrated with Experian’s fraud and identity management platform, CrossCore. Check out our profile of Daon along with an interview with the company’s President of the Americas, Conor White.

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EFL Merges with Lenddo

EFL Merges with Lenddo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, Mergers & Acquisitions

Psychometric credit scoring company Entrepreneurial Finance Lab (EFL) announced today it has merged with alternative credit score provider Lenddo. The two companies have joined forces to offer a suite of credit scoring and identity verification products.

Both companies share a mission of “providing financial inclusion for more than one billion new and underserved individuals across the globe.” The new, combined company’s products will be available in more than 20 emerging markets, enabling lenders in those markets to offer citizens access to financial products and tools. Because of limited financial data and credit history availability, access to financial products has been previously unavailable to this underserved group.

“This merger will allow us to apply the right data at the right time on a per client basis, allowing people to use their digital profiles and personality traits to increase their financial options. Financial institutions across emerging markets will be able to predict risk like never before through the combination of our data sources and innovative risk modeling techniques,” said Jared Miller, CEO of EFL.

Each company has facilitated more than 5 million credit assessments since launching– EFL in 2010 and Lenddo in 2011– and have individually helped more than 50 financial institutions to disburse more than $2 billion in credit to people with limited information. The combined company will serve individuals and small businesses by offering banks, telcos, retailers, microfinance institutions, and insurers access to global data as well as machine learning and risk modeling techniques. Borrowers have the ability to choose if and when lenders use their psychometric, social media, and mobile phone data to underwrite risk.

The two entities will operate independently at first and will announce further changes over the next few months. The companies anticipate a name change will “most likely” happen, and expect to announce a branding decision in early 2018. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The first joint product offering went live in Asia and Latin America yesterday. Additional products and features will be announced in the “coming months.”

Headquartered in Bermuda, EFL showcased its credit scoring tool at FinovateAsia 2012 in Singapore. Last year, the company teamed with FICO to enhance the company’s credit scoring methodology. EFL was recently nominated as a finalist in the 2017 MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge.

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