Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

ACI Launches Payments Risk Management Solution to Boost Fraud Protection

ACI Launches Payments Risk Management Solution to Boost Fraud Protection
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide

Electronic payments company ACI Worldwide announced it will enhance its fraud protection efforts today. The Florida-based company launched the UP Payments Risk Management Solution, which Andreas Suma, vice president of ACI Worldwide said “combines fraud and transaction data from the payment universe and insights from ACI’s global fraud experts—stopping fraud and improving every customer experience across the payments ecosystem.”

The solution offers cloud-based, real-time fraud management services to protect payments, regardless of a number of circumstances. The payment can be card-present or card-not-present; initiated using ACI’s or a third-party’s payment engine; or conducted by a bank, intermediary, or merchant. By leveraging machine learning, Up Payments Risk Management can react and adapt to new fraud signals, then use fraud and payment data through modeling and analytic systems. “The necessity for universal fraud management services in the cloud continues to increase, and banks, intermediaries, merchants and telcos seek to outsource everything from payments, fraud, compliance and security-related tasks,” Suma said.

Founded in 1975, ACI Worldwide has been delivering fraud protection and prevention for more than 20 years and draws on more than 40 years of payments experience. The company executes more than $14 trillion in payments and securities each day for more than 5,100 organizations across the globe, including more than 1,000 of the largest financial institutions.

At FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, the company gave a presentation titled, Simple, Global, and Secure eCommerce Payments with ACI Worldwide’s Next-Generation API. The presentation showcased ACI’s COPYandPAY solution, an SAQ-A compliant JavaScript payment-form solution. Earlier this month, the company partnered with STET, a European clearing and settlement system, to serve payment service providers across Europe. In July, ACI Worldwide expanded its operations by opening a new office in Romania. The company has 4,100 employees in 31 offices across the globe and is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker ACIW.

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Ripple Entices Banks with New Accelerator Program

Ripple Entices Banks with New Accelerator Program
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Ripple

One of the first rules of basic economics is that incentives matter. Blockchain solutions company Ripple must be privy to this rule because the California-based company today unveiled a new accelerator program and marketing incentives to promote bank interest.

The company announced it will now offer a reward for banks that are the first in their markets to process and promote commercial payments on RippleNet, the company’s enterprise blockchain solution that connects banks, payment providers, digital asset exchanges and businesses. Banks will be rewarded in the form of rebates, funded through $300 million worth of XRP.

The program is intended to accelerate adoption and usage of Ripple and is two-fold– consisting of a Volume Rebate and an Adoption Marketing Incentive. The Volume Rebate program offers rebates to RippleNet members once they’ve achieved integration and volume milestones by predetermined deadlines. The rebates are issued either in XRP or USD and depend on the volume, but vary from covering 50% to 300% of the integration and first-year license fees.

The Adoption Marketing Incentive is available on a first-come, first-serve basis and matches financial institutions’ marketing spend used to promote Ripple products to their end clients. Ripple will also support efforts by providing marketing content and messaging framework and tools. For both programs, selling restrictions are in place to support a healthy XRP market.

Monica Long, VP of Marketing at Ripple, likened the incentive program to PayPal’s early adoption and referral bonuses. Long said, “Since we’re offering the incentives in XRP, we anticipate seeing an added benefit of building an easy on-ramp for institutions to use XRP in their payment flows to lower liquidity cost in the future.” Long added that the reception of the incentive programs was “very positive” in early testing.

Company co-founder Chris Larsen, who debuted Ripple (originally known as OpenCoin) at FinovateSpring 2013.Brad Garlinghouse took the reins as Ripple CEO last fall. The company made headlines this spring when it partnered with BBVA to complete an international money transfer using RippleNet. In July, Ripple expanded its suite of offerings that support XRP and last month the company selected Singapore for its new Asia office location.

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Finicity Teams with DataVerify

Finicity Teams with DataVerify
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Finicity

Data aggregation and insights company Finicity announced it has integrated with risk mitigation firm DataVerify to offer mortgage lenders real-time borrower asset verification.

This capability will combine Finicity’s Verification of Assets (VoA) solution– part of the Utah-based company’s set of asset and income verification tools launched earlier this year– with DataVerify’s DRIVE platform that automates underwriting for lenders. DataVerify works by comparing borrower data across multiple databases to assess risk and fraud levels, identifying the legitimacy of borrowers to help lenders avoid loan quality issues.

“With real-time asset verification from Finicity, lenders that use our DRIVE platform will be able to get quick insight into a borrower’s financial information and thus make more efficient and smarter lending decisions” said Brad Bogel, ‎senior vice president at DataVerify. He continued, “The data can be accessed and verified in a matter of clicks, shortening the loan approval process for a greater overall consumer experience.”

Finicity was founded in 1999 and has since developed more than 16,000 bank integrations. The company most recently demoed its credit decisioning solution at FinovateFall 2017. Earlier this summer, Finicity signed a data exchange deal with JP Morgan Chase to allow bank partners to leverage third party financial apps without disclosing their login credentials.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Coinbase, DAVO Technologies, EverSafe, Finicity, Ondot, Ripple, Tradeshift, Wave

On Finovate

  • Wave Brings Business Services to Royal Bank of Canada’s Online Banking Platform
  • Finicity Teams with DataVerify.
  • Ripple Entices Banks with New Accelerator Program.

Around the web

  • Tradeshift joins the Hyperledger Board.
  • DAVO to offer app to Poynt merchants via Poynt’s App Marketplace
  • Ondot, Elan provide two-way fraud alerts for My Mobile Money app.
  • EverSafe wins a spot in Fidelity’s list of “8 financial tips for new widows.”

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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P2Binvestor Launches Bank Partnership Program

P2Binvestor Launches Bank Partnership Program
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: P2BInvestor

Peer-to-business crowdlending platform P2Binvestor (P2Bi) has launched a bank partnership program today. The new initiative will offer small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) working capital while providing banks access to a diversified asset class.

Under the partnership, banks will front 50% of the capital with a senior secured position. P2Bi’s base of private investors will provide the remaining half of the capital and businesses will receive the funds with a blended interest rate of 8% to 12%. By partnering with P2Bi, banks can quickly extend multi-million dollar lines of credit to growing SMBs and establish a lending relationship with them at an early stage in their business development.

The Colorado-based company’s CEO Krista Morgan explained that regulatory and technology hurdles have made it difficult for business borrowers and banks to connect. “Until now, there hasn’t been a solution like this, which unfortunately has forced growing companies to take on expensive and time consuming funding,” Morgan said. “We’re enabling banks to lend to businesses they otherwise wouldn’t be able to due to strict lending standards,” she added.

Piloting the bank partnership program is New Resource Bank, a San Francisco-based bank with $331 million in assets under management and a focus on social, environmental, and economic change. “P2Binvestor is excited to be powering New Resource Bank’s line of credit with both our marketplace and proprietary receivables lending platform,” said Morgan.

Vincent Siciliano, president and CEO of New Resource Bank describes the program as a “win-win” for the bank and for businesses. Siciliano said, “By using P2Bi’s platform, growing businesses will be able to secure capital that they typically wouldn’t be able to access through bank lending alone. This allows us to offer a greater suite of lending products to the community of sustainable businesses we serve.”

Founded in 2012, P2Bi debuted at FinovateSpring 2013 and, at FinovateFall 2014, the company showcased its borrower application and loan management platform. In November of 2016, P2Bi closed a $7 million Series A round, bringing its total equity funding to $9.6 million. Last month, Forbes featured the company in an article titled, “When Venture Capitalists Said, ‘No,’ This Woman Didn’t Give Up.”

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doxo Surpasses 30,000 Payable Billers on its Platform

doxo Surpasses 30,000 Payable Billers on its Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Doxo

Consumer bill pay service doxo announced it reached a milestone today. The Seattle-based company now has more than 30,000 billers on its platform, allowing users the ability to pay even more companies from a single website.

This achievement also gives doxo a new status– the Seattle-based company now has more billers on its platform than any other bill paying service in the U.S. The company attributes the growth to the network effect between users and billing service providers. That is, doxo’s user base of 2 million consumers add billers who they want to pay to the platform while billers join the platform to offer their clients a fast, easy way to pay.

The company’s CEO and co-founder Steve Shivers said that the accomplishment is an “important milestone” for the company, especially when coupled with the fact that doxo surpassed 2 million users earlier this year. “The most compelling service we provide to our users is the ability to pay all of their bills from a single, secure, mobile-friendly account,” Shivers said.

doxo is compatible with existing billing systems and allows billers to electronically connect for free. The platform offers a simplified experience for end users and provides a complete online payment system for billers who have yet to go digital. Among the company’s list of billing partners are AT&T, National Grid, Puget Sound Energy, Kansas City Light, and more providers across finance, utilities, healthcare, telecom, banking, and insurance sectors.

doxo debuted its Control Panel at FinovateSpring 2011. The company received the 2015 Washington Excellence Award for Consumer Payments and Customer Service and most recently was named to the Red Herring Top 100 North America Winners in 2017. Founded in 2008, doxo has raised $18.8 million.

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Finastra Partners with VASCO to Offer Customers eSignLive Capability

Finastra Partners with VASCO to Offer Customers eSignLive Capability
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: VASCO

It turns out, banks can gain a lot from business tools. That’s probably why business solutions company VASCO and financial services software company Finastra teamed up. Under the agreement, London-based Finastra now offers an interface from its LaserPro loan origination solution to VASCO’s eSignLive e-signature solution.

The LaserPro loan origination solution offers a streamlined way for commercial lenders to originate and process loan transactions. By adding eSignLive’s e-signature capabilities, LaserPro will make the loan signing process even more efficient. The integration will reduce costs and manual errors for lenders– making a clean audit trail– and will offer borrowers flexibility on when and where they sign their documents.

“Digital loan origination and processing require a high amount of compliance and financial institutions need to balance those requirements with security and ease of use,” said VASCO Chief Executive Officer, Scott Clements. “In partnership with VASCO, Finastra is enabling a trusted process and trusted transactions, which are essential in digital loan origination and processing.”

VASCO President Tommy Petrogiannis and Director of Technical Sales Francois Leblanc demo at FinovateFall 2017 in New York

VASCO most recently presented eSignLive at FinovateFall last month in New York. The company’s President Tommy Petrogiannis and Director of Technical Sales, Francois Leblanc, took the stage to debut the eSignLive Digital Lending Solution. The solution leverages the blockchain and e-signature capabilities to offer a fully compliant, fully digital lending solution. In July, VASCO appointed Scott Clements as CEO and earlier this year was selected by Mizuho Bank for its DIGIPASS, digital application security solution.

Finastra was formed earlier this year by acquiring and combining D+H and Misys. London-based Misys debuted its Fusion.Fabric.cloud software development environment at FinovateEurope 2017 in London.

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Personal Capital Launches Education Planner to Prepare You for College Costs

Personal Capital Launches Education Planner to Prepare You for College Costs
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Personal Capital

Wealth tech player Personal Capital has picked up on the student loan crisis. The company announced today it is adding a new feature to its dashboard to help families plan and prepare for the rising cost of higher education.

Personal Capital’s Education Planning Tool helps users understand costs of a specific college, compare in-state vs. out-of-state college costs, determine annual savings needs, and track their progress. The differentiating factor in Personal Capital’s new tool is that it allows for what-if scenarios and hypothetical income analyses. For example, users can determine how much more they would need to save if their student took a fifth year to graduate or if they sold their house, received inheritance money, or retired. Users can model multiple potential outcomes and compare the results to their current plan and see the possible effects on their overall portfolio and retirement readiness.

When starting a new education goal, users enter information about their student, planned education costs, and current savings. The planner accounts for inflation or deflation and calculates how much the user needs to save per month or per year to stay on track. Users can see the projections, edit their contribution amounts, and select specific schools to determine potential changes.

Founded in 2009, Personal Capital debuted its One-Click Investment Proposals at FinovateSpring 2014. At FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, the company’s Ehsan Lavassani, Founding Engineer & Chief Engineering Officer, and Ravi Gundlapalli, Director of Frontend Engineering, gave a presentation titled, Data-Driven Account Opening. Personal Capital was recently named in CB Insights’ Fintech 250 List. Earlier this year, the company extended its Series E funding round by $40 million, bringing its total capital to $215 million. In late August, Personal Capital reached $5 million in assets under management. Jay Shah is CEO.

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Ayondo Pursues IPO After Reverse Takeover Deal Lapses

Ayondo Pursues IPO After Reverse Takeover Deal Lapses
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ayondo

Here’s a quick update on our report a few weeks back that social trading company ayondo would not be undergoing a reverse takeover (RTO) IPO due to a lapsed bid from Singapore-based property developer, Starland Holdings. Today, ayondo has announced that, despite the bid falling through, it is determined to become the first fintech company to IPO on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

The Frankfurt-based company’s CEO Robert Lempka said, “The end of the RTO opens up the way for ayondo to pursue an Initial Public Offering (IPO) instead. The preparation work for an RTO and IPO is almost identical in Singapore and therefore provision is made for a listing in early 2018.”

Other parties involved in the listing include sponsor, UOB Kay Hian Private Limited, as well as the Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX). Both continue to support ayondo in its listing efforts.

Founded in 2008, ayondo offers a brokerage platform that lets users copy the moves of top traders to optimize returns. At FinovateEurope 2013, the company unveiled the newest version of its service, its London brokerage, and a trader career training curriculum. Last month, ayondo received its portfolio management license from German regulator (BaFin).

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Arroweye Solutions, ayondo, eSignLive, Interxion, OurCrowd, Personal Capital, SecureKey, Temenos, Trustly, VASCO

On Finovate.com

  • Ayondo Pursues IPO After Reverse Takeover Deal Lapses.
  • Personal Capital Launches Education Planner to Prepare You for College Costs.
  • Finastra Partners with VASCO to Offer Customers eSignLive Capability.
  • Trustly Teams Up with Emric to Broaden Payment Options for Businesses.

Around the web

  • Cuffelinks features Jon Medved, CEO and Founder of OurCrowd.
  • Openbank, the digital bank of Santander Group, selects Temenos Core Banking.
  • Interxion working with global institutional agency-model broker INSTINET to host the firm’s BlockMatch.
  • Arroweye Solutions selected by Obsidian to produce custom local open-loop prepaid cards.
  • SecureKey Technologies adds National Bank of Canada to its digital identity network.

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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SocietyOne Tops $350 Million in Loans

SocietyOne Tops $350 Million in Loans
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: SocietyOne

Australian P2P lender SocietyOne announced today it has issued more than $350 million in loans on its platform since 2012. Additionally, the company has the highest number of current loans, setting a record for itself with $200 million in its books.

“Our growth in 2017 underlines the demand from consumers for a real alternative to the major banks. Consumers are looking for a better deal on their finances and our risk-based pricing is attractive for customers that have demonstrated that they have a good credit history,” said Jason Yetton, CEO and Managing Director of SocietyOne. The company’s loan volumes have seen seven successive quarters of growth. In fact, loan volumes in the first three quarters of this year have totaled $141 million so far; surpassing the $139 million in loans facilitated over the entire course of 2016.

Yetton also noted the growth of SocietyOne’s AgriLending product, which launched in 2014 to serve Australia’s farmers and ranchers. Out of the $350 million in lending on the company’s platform, $80 million was issued to farmers, ranchers, and their agents via AgriLending. “I’m also pleased at the way we are getting behind Australian livestock farmers as the growth in SocietyOne AgriLending has shown. The team is standing ready to help them even more so as rural and regional Australia waits for the rains that will kick start the Spring growth and rearing season,” said Yetton.

In addition to having a strong base of borrowers, SocietyOne reported that the number of lenders on its platform has also risen. The company has an investor base of 320 individuals who have committed a total of $61 million in loans. On the bank side, SocietyOne has 20 partners who have, to date, contributed $100 million of the $350 million in loans advanced to borrowers.

SocietyOne presented its P2P lending platform at FinovateAsia 2012 in Singapore. The company offers borrowers personalized repayment programs with lower interest rates than major banks. Users can borrow between $5,000 to $50,000 for unsecured, personal loans for two, three, or five year terms. In August, the company celebrated five years of facilitating loans and earlier that month was recognized at the 2017 Australian Business Banking Awards.

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Bill.com Discloses September Investment Round, Doubles Total Funding

Bill.com Discloses September Investment Round, Doubles Total Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bill.com, Funding

Business payments network Bill.com has updated the news regarding the $100 million in funding it landed last month. The round was lead by JPMorgan Chase and Temasek, with participation from lead investors in each of Bill.com’s earlier funding rounds. The financing doubles the company’s previous funding total to $200 million.

In a blog post titled Funding for a Better Future in Digital Payments, Bill.com CEO René Lacerte said the company plans to do “what no other fintech company has been able to do before: eliminate checks and paper from the business operating manual.” Lacerte continued, “With this additional capital, we will cross the chasm shifting digital payments from early adoption to major, widespread market acceptance.”

Bill.com was founded in 2006 to help businesses manage accounts payables and receivables with online billpay, custom invoicing, document storage, collaboration tools, and more. Today, the company remains focused on digital, paperless payment options and offers the largest business payment network in the U.S. Bill.com’s 2.5 million members account for more than 1% of all U.S. businesses and process more than $50 billion in payments each year. The company has 100,000 customers and is partnered with four of the top 10 U.S. banks and with more than half of the top 100 accounting firms.

Bill.com’s Lacerte debuted the company’s CashView tools at FinovateSpring 2012. Last month, the company won the Accountex User Favorite Award in the Bill Pay Solution category. Most recently, Bill.com announced a partnership with JP Morgan Chase in which it will help Chase’s business customers manage their cash flow.

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