Envestnet | Yodlee Launches Suite of Risk Reporting Tools

Envestnet | Yodlee Launches Suite of Risk Reporting Tools

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Data aggregation and analytics platform Envestnet | Yodlee launched a Risk Insight Suite today. The collection of reporting tools are aimed to help lenders bolster information gained from traditional credit reports by leveraging consumer financial data.

Using a co-brandable experience, the reports pull information directly from a prospective borrower’s banks to offer lenders an up-to-date picture of the borrower’s assets, income, and expenses. This detailed level of account information helps lenders with underwriting, origination, pre-qualification, and account review. The system leverages machine learning, along with a risk-based engine to simplify the review process and highlight any issues that may indicate a riskier borrower.

In the press release, Terry McKeown, Practice Manager, Credit Analytics at Envestnet | Yodlee said, “By using consumer permissioned financial data, lenders can obtain a complete financial picture of a borrower. This is especially true for credit invisible consumers who have no credit file or cannot be scored with traditional models, and for subprime consumers whose transactional data can help lenders make more accurate assessments of risk.”

Along with providing more valuable metrics for the lender, the Risk Insight Suite creates a smoother user experience for the end client. Because Envestnet | Yodlee pulls all necessary information directly from the user’s bank, there is no need for the client to supply paper bank statements and tax returns.

This is similar to the company’s Mortgage Asset Verification product launched in December of last year. In comparison, that offering is exclusive to mortgage borrowers, while the Risk Insight Suite of reporting tools caters to a larger audience. Envestnet | Yodlee most recently demoed at FinovateFall 2016 and at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016 where Deviprasad Kocherry, director of platform and product management, and Deven Maru, senior product manager of mobile platform, presented on fast integration using the company’s APIs. Since acquiring Yodlee in August 2015 for $660 million, Envestnet | Yodlee has built out its Advisor Now solution and landed a partnership with Morgan Stanley’s wealth management arm.

LikeFolio Begins Licensing Brand-Mapping Database

LikeFolio Begins Licensing Brand-Mapping Database

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Likefolio, a website that uses social media connections to introduce investing concepts, recently began licensing its Brand Mapping Database. The database, which maps every publicly-owned brand and product, is aimed to help investors and financial research firms discover new insights.

The Brand Mapping Database is more powerful than ticker symbol searches since it analyzes unstructured content, such as positive and negative sentiment on Twitter. The database can also pull data from sites such as Reddit, Facebook and LexisNexis. As Likefolio founder Andy Swan describes it, the Brand Mapping Database informs investors “what consumers are doing on Main Street before it hits Wall Street.”

The licensed version of the Brand Mapping Database will deliver insights into firms’ existing data feeds and will be available to institutional investors, hedge funds, and quant analysts. Additionally, the company is working on deals with a few undisclosed financial app companies.

Swan debuted the LikeFolio platform along with TD Ameritrade’s Managing Director of Active Trading, Nicole Sherrod, at FinovateSpring 2014. Since then, the company took home a win at the Benzinga Fintech Awards and analyzed stocks based on the social buzz around brands’ 2017 Super Bowl commercials.

LendUp Lands $100 Million Credit Facility

LendUp Lands $100 Million Credit Facility

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Payday loan alternative startup, LendUp, announced this week it has received a $100 million credit facility. The financing comes from the company’s long-time partner, Victory Park Capital, and will be used to fund future loan growth. The San Francisco-based startup’s combined debt and equity now totals $325 million.

In addition to the financing news, LendUp also surpassed $1 billion across 3.3 million loan originations since launching in 2012. Sasha Orloff, LendUp CEO and co-founder said, “This is an important milestone for LendUp because it proves the viability and sustainability of the market opportunity for socially responsible lending.”

The company’s team of 200+ aims to help consumers rejected by banks find a safe alternative to payday lenders. LendUp’s flagship products include LendUp Loans, a short-term loan that lets users borrow up to $250 for 30 days; and LCard, a credit card made for those who struggle with credit. In 2016, these products helped borrowers save $55+ million in interest and fees (up from $16 million in 2015). LendUp also offers educational materials, such as free online courses, to give cardholders the information they need to make decisions about their financial future. These videos have been viewed more than 1.2 million times.

CEO Sasha Orloff debuted the company’s API at FinovateSpring 2014. The API exposes LendUp’s core to allow partners to leverage its platform. The company won Best of Show at FinovateSpring 2013 for debuting its product that helps the underbanked build credit. In October of last year, H2Ventures and KPMG placed LendUp in the Leading 50 category of its Fintech 100 list.

Lendio Brings the Franchising Model to Small Business Lending

Lendio Brings the Franchising Model to Small Business Lending

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Lendio has expanded its approach to client acquisition this week by offering franchising opportunities. This boots-on-the-ground approach supports the company’s vision of helping small business owners achieve the American Dream.

Brock Blake, CEO and founder of Lendio said, “With 80 percent of small business loan applications being rejected by traditional banks, now more than ever, small business owners need access to various sources of funding. Having a local presence will help bridge the awareness and trust gap for small business owners, helping borrowers position themselves and their companies for a great future.”

Franchise owners will work with local small business owners in their community to support their needs for working capital. The Salt Lake City-based company will support franchisees by giving them access to Lendio’s marketplace and technology, training, marketing tools, national advertising, and partnerships. Franchise owners will also receive coaching from Lendio’s franchise support team, who will guide them through the process. The company currently has franchisees in five territories, with “significant interest” in many others.

Lendio’s Ben Davis, chief franchising officer said, “Lendio franchisees bring a wealth of knowledge about local businesses and their capital requirements” to “Lendio’s already powerful online marketplace.” Davis continued, “They are connected to their communities and uniquely driven to build great neighborhoods and strong local economies.”

Founded in 2006, Lendio debuted at FinovateSpring 2011. The company, which has raised a total of $31 million, works on behalf of small business borrowers to match them with the right loan, helping the 75 lenders on its platform reach qualified borrowers. Last month, Lendio announced record results for Q4 of 2016 after seeing an 87% annual increase of loans originated through its platform. By the close of 2016, the company had facilitated $240+ million in loans over the course of the year.

Scotiabank and AlphaPoint Wrap Up Blockchain Trial

Scotiabank and AlphaPoint Wrap Up Blockchain Trial

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Blockchain technology infrastructure platform AlphaPoint has finished a successful trial with Scotiabank. The Toronto-based bank tested its internal system with a range of use cases for AlphaPoint’s Distributed Ledger Platform.

The AlphaPoint platform lets banks digitize financial instruments, creating trading venues for blockchain assets, while managing workflows integrated with the bank’s existing infrastructure. Scotiabank tested the platform for multiple months by submitting trade reports to the platform, which ran simultaneously on Microsoft’s Azure cloud and AlphaPoint hardware. The blockchain network converted FIXML messages into smart contracts in real time, establishing a single, permanent record across the network.

“Distributed ledger technology enables institutions to rethink how data flows within their organizations,” stated Joe Ventura, Founder & CEO of AlphaPoint. “Partnering with Scotiabank is an amazing experience – their team is leading the charge by proving out pragmatic, near-term implementations of this revolutionary technology.”

Bitcoin Magazine asked Igor Telyatnikov, president and COO of AlphaPoint, if there were plans to further develop this project. Telyatnikov responded that he could not comment on next steps, but, “he did however indicate that AlphaPoint is planning to reveal some additional news in the near future.”

Founded in 2013, AlphaPoint debuted its digital currency exchange platform at FinovateEurope 2015. Earlier this year, the company appointed former Deutsche Bank director, Scott Scalf, as Vice President. In October 2016, AlphaPoint unveiled StreamCore, a new solution to help banks manage and interact with blockchain data.

Experian Receives Green Light from the FCA in the U.K.

Experian Receives Green Light from the FCA in the U.K.

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Information services company Experian received authorization from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently. The Dublin, Ireland-based firm applied for full FCA authorization in February of 2016. Experian said that the year-long authorization process has helped it to “stress-test [its] risk management structures and the plans [it has] in place to ensure fair outcomes for [its] customers.”

The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority became responsible for regulating consumer credit agencies in 2014. Some of the activities that require FCA authorization, or permission, include:

  • Credit broking
  • Debt administration and debt collection
  • Debt counseling and debt adjusting on a commercial basis
  • Providing credit information services
  • Providing credit reference agency services
  • Peer-to-peer lending

Experian last demoed at FinovateFall 2012, where it debuted Premium Pre-qualification a credit-screening tool. Late last year, Management Today named Experian Britain’s Most Admired Company in the Business Support Services category. In November, American Banker ranked Experian among the top 100 fintech companies.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FDNY17-Logo-RevFinDEVr New York will be here in just three short weeks! Check out company features and take a look at the previews from upcoming presentations. And of course, don’t forget to register today to save!

On FinDEVr.com

  • Barclaycard Brings Payment Functionality to Fashion Accessories.
  • NYMBUS Scores with $16 Million Investment Led by Home Credit Group.

Alumni updates

  • Arxan Technologies completes the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 validation process from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
  • New APIs from Citi to help clients access network with existing treasury applications.
  • Report highlights Nymbus, as a key digital banking player.
  • The Co-operative Group to leverage ACI Worldwide for cloud-based mobile wallet.
  • Lleida.net wins 20-year European patent for its registered email technology.
  • Thomson Reuters enhances data analytics platform with ultra high-speed processing of real-time and historical data functionality.
  • Entersekt announces original equipment manufacturing agreement with transaction processing specialist, Global Kinetic.
  • BBVA to leverage mobile accounting opening technology from Oracle Communications.
  • FinDEVr veteran Hyperwallet adds former SecureNet Payments EVP, Mark Engels, as Chief Revenue Officer.
  • Best of Show winner AutoGravity forges new partnership with Westlake Financial Services to expand financing options for car shoppers.
  • The Paypers interviews Nicole Mantow, General Manager of EVO Payments, parent company of FinDEVr veteran, EVO Snap.

Stay current on daily news from the fintech developer community! Follow FinDEVr on Twitter.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Barclaycard Brings the Ka-Ching to Bling in New Wearables Payment Partnerships. See Barclaycard at FinDEVr in New York this month.
  • Excited to see Finicity at FinDEVr New York on March 21 and 22. Check out our interview with Co-Founder & EVP Nick Thomas.
  • Excited to see NuCypher at FinDEVr New York on March 21 and 22. Check out our interview with CEO & Co-Founder MacLane Wilkison.

On FinDEVr.com

  • Check out this week’s FinDEVr APIntelligence.

Around the web

  • Arxan Technologies completes the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 validation process from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
  • Credit Sesame launches new service that pre-qualifies members for credit cards.
  • Sisense and Narrative Science partner to Merge BI and AI.

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.

BlueVine Lands $75 Million Line of Credit

BlueVine Lands $75 Million Line of Credit

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BlueVine, a small business alternative lending company, has just secured a $75 million line of warehouse financing credit. The funds come from Fortress Credit Corp. and/or funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group.

The company will use the cash to help meet the financing needs of small business owners. This includes expanding Flex Credit, the company’s line of credit financing solution. Ana Sirbu, BlueVine’s vice president of finance and capital markets, says it will help the company to “accelerate into [its] next stage of growth.”

BlueVine launched Flex Credit in April of 2016 to expand beyond invoice factoring by offering businesses a revolving line of credit for which they can be approved within 24 hours. The company’s flagship offering is invoice factoring, which allows companies to turn in unpaid invoices in exchange for working capital to smooth out their cashflow. The credit line ranges from $20,000 to $2 million.

In 2016, BlueVine funded around $200 million in working capital for SMBs. The company anticipates it will fund about $500 million this year. In December of last year, the company closed on $49 million in funding to fuel product expansion. Prior to that, BlueVine was dubbed Best B2B Factoring Service by Business News Daily. The company’s CEO Eyal Lifshitz, along with CTO Nir Klar, CRO Moti Shatner, and VP of Operations Edward Castaño debuted BlueVine at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

A Plus for P2P Lending: Investors to Buy Up to $5 Billion in Loans on Prosper

A Plus for P2P Lending: Investors to Buy Up to $5 Billion in Loans on Prosper

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The rumors from last August are true. P2P lending giant Prosper announced a deal in which a group of institutional investors has agreed to purchase up to $5 billion in loans on the San Francisco-based company’s platform over the next 24 months. Investors include affiliates of New Residential Investment Corp., Jefferies Group and Third Point, and an entity of which Soros Fund Management serves as principal investment manager.

To further vest the interest of the investors in Prosper, the group will earn equity in the company based on the amount of loans they purchase. Additionally, warehouse financing of up to $1 billion will be provided by lenders including Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

“We’re very pleased to be working with this consortium of investors, and believe they will be great long-term partners as we continue to build a large-scale business,” said David Kimball, CEO, Prosper Marketplace. “This deal gives us the funding stability and additional capital markets expertise we need to continue to grow our marketplace and achieve profitability in 2017.”

Despite growing pains brought on in 2016*, Prosper has seen positive growth since mid-2016. Since July, monthly loan originations have climbed “steadily.” That progress has continued into 2017– the company reported an estimated net return of 7.86% for January. As for plans for the rest of this year, the company hopes to onboard banks and other institutional investors to the platform.

Founded in 2005, Prosper presented at FinovateSpring 2009 as well as the inaugural Finovate in 2007.


*The P2P lending industry has been scrutinized since last year, when Lending Club CEO was forced to resign and prosper laid off 28% of its workforce. Additionally, Prosper suffered a 12% drop in lending volume in Q1 of 2016.

Finovate Debuts: Gradatim’s MFInsure Offers Turn-Key Insurance

Finovate Debuts: Gradatim’s MFInsure Offers Turn-Key Insurance

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Gradatim’s MFInsure is an out-of-the-box insurance solution that makes it easy to set up, deploy, and manage insurance products. To further enhance the offering, the company leverages AI to predict life events, identify up-sell opportunities, and provide tailored recommendations for clients.

In his FinovateAsia 2016 demo, the company’s CEO and founder, Prakash Viswanathan showed how the system quickly launches an omni-channel insurance product without the need for IT support. Viswanathan concluded the demo by offering social proof when he said, “We have earned the right to be here because in the last 18 months, this system has on-boarded a whopping 50+ million policies across commercial lines of business, retail lines of business, and small ticket insurance products.”

Company facts

  • $ 2.5 million in funding
  • 40 employees
  • Monthly revenue: $100,000 and monthly revenue growth: 3%

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Prakash Viswanathan (CEO & Founder) and Siva Kumar (Head of Technology) demo Gradatim MFInsure OnDemand Insurance System at FinovateAsia 2016 in Hong Kong

We chatted with Prakash Viswanathan, Gradatim CEO and founder, to get a closer look at the insurtech solution, Gradatim MFInsure OnDemand Insurance, he launched at FinovateAsia last year.

Picture 001Finovate: What problem does Gradatim solve?

Viswanathan: Insurance company CXO’s are facing the challenge of delivering new age digital products to consumers. CXO’s also face the challenge of product innovation required to meet the aspirational needs of business consumers and growing middle income consumers.

Gradatim helps insurance company CXO’s focus on optimization of customer service, helps business teams with product and service innovation and improve internal processing efficiencies – specially in this digital age and with emerging products aligned to the growing middle income consumers.

Small to mid-size insurance carriers have many of the same business goals as their larger industry peers—market growth, accelerated speed to market for new products and the ability to tailor services to their consumer’s needs—but not the same budget allocations or access to resources. That means when it comes to choosing and implementing a policy administration system, cost is a big driver. Achieving the balance between affordability and breadth of functionality is often not possible for small to mid-size insurance carriers.

Gradatim implements cloud based, flexible standard systems for the core processes of life and non-life insurance. Gradatim’s on-demand insurance system, Gradatim MFInsure, is a new age policy administration system that helps insurance companies solve these problems.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Viswanathan:: Gradatim primarily works with insurance companies, brokerage firms, insurance intermediaries and fintech companies.

Finovate: How does Gradatim solve the problem better?

Viswanathan: Gradatim MFInsure is an integrated, end-to-end system that supports all primary processes: from quotation to policy issuance; claims to settlement. It is a complete policy administration system.

Gradatim MFInsure is highly configurable and thus provides the benefit of configuration over coding. Products, processes and channels can be setup by configuration without having to code.

Gradatim MFInsure helps build a engagement model with consumers in the digital age. Not just digital products, but also traditional products across life, P&C, and health. The open, unified digital framework makes it possible to deliver products and services, and create a multi-dimensional customer experience across all devices and channels. They enable the insurance companies to develop and deliver services for use by both insurance staff and customers, via any device or channel.

Gradatim MFInsure helps reduce time-to-market up to 300%. The solution also helps achieve cost savings in underwriting and administer policies by up to 50%. This makes it feasible to launch new products across new markets and achieve faster break-even.

Gradatim MFInsure benefits from the use of cloud services. Cloud-based deployment reduces administrative costs associated with managing a dedicated data center. It is also available on transaction pricing model – an innovative approach to reduce capital investment.

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Above: Gradatim’s on-demand administration system portal

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.

Viswanathan: If I may, I would like to provide two implementation examples:

1- Customer: Asia’s Second Largest General Insurer:

  • Opportunity: Providing a shopping cart to identified and categorized groups – Providing Multiple Insurance Products to the identified group.
  • How it started: Public Accountants in India are members of The Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAI). There are 0.5 Million Public Accountants who are members of the Institute. The Insurer wanted to leverage the relationship with the Institute and provide multiple Insurance products to the Public Accountants. A total of 7 Products were identified and it was decided to create an online portal that can be accessed by the Public Accountants. Once the Public Accountant is validated as a member of the Institute, he / she can benefit from the special discount and special plans and coverages being extended to them by the Insurer.
  • Implementation: All Seven Products setup in Gradatim MFInsure with defined rules for Underwriting. “Online” Channel was configured. Payment Gateway integrated to enable Public Accountants to “BUY” Policy Online.
  • Timeline to implement: The complete setup was completed in 6 weeks.
  • Current Status: More than 3,40,000 health Policies, 72,000 Motor Policies, 2000 Professional Indemnity Policies and 800 Office Protection Policies are Live in the System.
  • Benefits to Insurer: Business Users can maintain the system without need to involve IT. Changes to Coverages, Pricing, Process, Underwriting Rules etc. can be managed by business users.

MFInsure is currently live with this customer across 12 such Groups delivering more than US $30 million in premium per year. The Insurer has created a separate web portal branch to expand this model and manage such relationships in the future.
2- Customer: fast-growing life insurer

  • Opportunity: launch new life insurance products, including term, endowment and annuity products.
  • Channel: post of sale (POS) defined as POS sales persons, individual agents, intermediaries and direct consumer.
  • How it started: approval for products by insurance regulator.
  • Implementation: Gradatim MFInsure for life insurance system was deployed by the insurer to write, underwrite, manage the POS products and issue electronic certificates as a stand-alone policy system. Provision to register and setup agents with a well-defined approval process. It gives the ability to manage agent business, process new business opportunities generated by agents, process payment from agents account and issue policies to customers directly. The system also was enabled to be operated on field using any standard smartphone.
  • Timeline to implement: The complete setup was completed in 12 weeks.
  • Benefits to Insurer: Rapid deployment and be the first to market the POS products. It required an arrangement with Telco to distribute products through the Telco’s agents. It was set up independent from legacy core but having the functionality to update business information and regulatory reporting from legacy core.

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Above: template for quick insurance policy creation

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Viswanathan: I have an entrepreneurial background, having started and scaled multiple businesses in the past and a team that is more than ready to walk-the-talk. “The proof is in the pudding” and it is no wonder that we have been able to help insurers create new markets, build new products and deploy them faster than anyone else can. Over 52 million insurance policies are currently live and active in Gradatim MFInsure.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Gradatim that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Viswanathan: We are excited about the algorithmic engine that has the ability to understand what consumers are interested in — it has more than 13 top-level interest clusters and 450+ detailed clusters!

The algorithmic engine also drives sales to an insurer: imagine if an insurance company can reach out to a consumer when he or she is about to create a travel plan that best suits their upcoming travel.

The introduction of algorithmic engine would be a game-changer for Gradatim and for our insurance customers.

Finovate: Where do you see Gradatim a year or two from now?

Viswanathan: We believe Gradatim is poised to be a category leader – in the on-demand, cloud-based policy systems, managing tens of millions of insurance policies – for a cost far lesser than what insurers currently spend and addressing emerging market needs of consumers who can be categorized as the aspirational class.


Prakash Viswanathan (CEO & Founder) and Siva Kumar (Head of Technology) demo Gradatim MFInsure OnDemand Insurance System at FinovateAsia 2016 in Hong Kong

 

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Check out today’s FinDEVr Feature — FairCom.
  • A Plus for P2P Lending: Investors to Buy Up to $5 Billion in Loans on Prosper.

Around the web

  • Zopa awarded Superbrand status for the first time.
  • Benzinga features M1 Finance CEO Brian Barnes.
  • Kasasa names Guy Daubenspeck Chief Information Security Officer.
  • The Co-operative Group to leverage ACI Worldwide for cloud-based mobile wallet.

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.