FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Leveris

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Leveris

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FE2017-V2-wdateA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on the 7 and 8 of February 2017 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

Leveris delivers full-stack, standalone, core bank and lending platforms for traditional banks, challenger banks and consumer brands.

Features

  • Lower Cost: Cloud-native
  • Marketplace banking: Plug-n-play third party product and/or service
  • Lending solution means revenue from day one

Why it’s great
Banking platforms like Leveris will help banks create new ways to make money by delivering value through data. Banks will ultimately become data platforms and to a lesser extent, banks.

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Conor Fennelly, Founder & CEO
Fennelly has been at the forefront of enterprise software development for the financial services industry since 1995. He has engineered innovative solutions for banks, blue chips and governments.
LinkedIn

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FDNY17_EventLogo_v1(wdate)FinDEVr Silicon Valley was a success! Tickets for upcoming FinDEVr London and FinDEVr New York are at their lowest prices now. Register today for London or New York to save your spot!

On FinDEVr.com

  • Avalara Adds New CMO Jeremy Korst.

The latest from FinDEVr Silicon Valley presenters

  • Finovate Debuts: Sindeo Revamps the Mortgage Application Process.

Alumni updates

  • Flybits CEO Hossein Rahnama interviewed in TechRepublic feature on IoT trends in 2017.
  • ScientiaMobile recognized by CIOReview as one of the most promising CDN solution providers of 2016.
  • AFK Insider lists Craft Silicon’s Uber-challenging app, Little, in its look at major technology developments in Africa in 2016.
  • FinDEVr alum Streamdata.io joins Google Technological Partner program.
  • Inc. lists Xero and PayPal among 8 business apps that will crush it in 2017.
  • LTP: Trulioo CEO Stephen Ufford writes about the problem of gift card fraud.

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

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: unblu

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: unblu

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-1-43-40-pmFE2017-V2-wdateA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on the 7 and 8 of February 2017 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

unblu’s live collaboration suite helps the world’s leading banks deliver an in-person experience online. Over 80 banks worldwide trust unblu.

Features

  • Facilitates customer acquisition and end-to-end onboarding
  • Lifts conversion rates and increases sales through live engagements
  • Offers customers consulting from the comfort of their home

Why it’s great
Allows you to create a virtual branch rivaling any high-street presence. unblu is changing how banks do business and deliver services through their digital channels.

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-1-52-16-pmPresenters

Jens Rabe, CMO
Rabe loves to understand technology and its potential impact on real life problems to help design new ways in which business can be done.
LinkedIn

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-1-56-39-pmLuc Haldimann, CEO, unblu
Haldimann combines vision, persistence and entrepreneurship. A true inventor, he strives to make lasting contributions to the technology and business worlds.
LinkedIn

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Wealth Wizards

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Wealth Wizards

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FE2017-V2-wdateA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on 7 & 8 February, 2017 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

Wealth Wizards is the U.K.’s first independent online financial adviser. It is here to revolutionise financial advice and make it accessible to everyone.

Features

  • Gives the user a manageable plan for retirement
  • Checks whether new pension contributions are affordable
  • Fully-regulated advice, online

Why it’s great
It is making planning for retirement a lot less daunting thanks to the use of tech.

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-2-54-10-pmPresenters

Andrew Firth, Chief Executive
Part of the founding team of Egg, Firth is passionate about pioneering the development of automated financial advice in the U.K.
LinkedIn

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-2-54-32-pmPeet Denny, Chief Technology Officer
Denny is a pragmatic and business-outcome-driven senior technical consultant and champion of achieving business agility through technical excellence.
LinkedIn

Simple’s Annual Disclosure Will Be the Only One You’ll Read This Year

Simple’s Annual Disclosure Will Be the Only One You’ll Read This Year

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When it comes to annual disclosures from financial services companies, I’ll be honest—I never read them. When they arrive as direct mail, I shred them. When they arrive in digital form, I file the unopened email into a folder.

All of this changed last week when I received an email from BBVA-owned Simple (FF11) titled Lint, floss, Regulation E. (Required legalese inside). Here’s how the email began:

Today’s the wonderful day! We’re legally required—and freely excited—to send you these very important Annual Disclosures of Regulation E Guidelines for Electronic Fund Transfers and Privacy Practices.

Encouraging expressions motivate readers to continue, saying, “Don’t sleep too soon!” and “Let go your reluctance!” Following these energy-inducing phrases, the email launches into “lines of regulatory poetry,” otherwise known as Regulation E, (a siren song to fraud).

To reward users for reaching the end of the disclosures, the email concludes with a “Museum of the Mundane.” In case you aren’t a Simple customer and don’t have the luxury of reading the most entertaining regulatory disclosure email ever created, here are the features from the “Museum:”

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Simple concludes the entertaining email with mundane wishes:

Give thanks, Julie! Today’s a bigger day than you thought. Pull out a blanket, pop some champagne, and gather your friends for a reading of this caring, protective, regulatory gift. Regulation E! Yes, please!

There you have it. From Team Simple to you and yours, bidding you mundane wishes this holiday season.

Nutmeg Closes $14.6 Million Series D Round

Nutmeg Closes $14.6 Million Series D Round

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U.K.-based wealth management company Nutmeg brought its total funding to $90 million today after closing its Series D round, which was led by Taipei Fubon Bank.

The news comes hot on the heels of Nutmeg’s most recent funding when it scored $37 million in Series C funding last month from Convoy, Hong Kong’s largest firm of independent financial advisers. Adding two Asian investors in the past two months comes as a hint as to what’s next for the roboadvisor. Nutmeg CEO Martin Stead told TechCrunch,

There is a very significant market opportunity before us, in the U.K. and beyond, and we are going to capture it. With these new funds, we will continue to invest in product innovations which disrupt the industry and deliver a better deal–and a better experience–for customers. And, we are going to expand into new categories and new territories.

Expansion into the Asia Pacific region is a logical move, since it’s currently experiencing a fintech boom, while the U.S. market is saturated (see our wealth tech coverage for more on this).

Nutmeg, which manages $735 million for its 25,000 clients, debuted its digital wealth management technology at FinovateEurope 2012 in London. In early 2016 the company was recognized on the European Top 100 List at the European Fintech Awards, and the company’s former CEO and founder Nick Hungerford was named one of the U.K.’s coolest people in fintech. In May of 2016, Martin Stead, Nutmeg’s former chief revenue officer, assumed the role of CEO.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Nutmeg Closes $14.6 Million Series D Round”

Around the web

  • Taulia reaches supply chain finance into aerospace sector.
  • The New York Times highlights Credit Karma and Mint.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Top Direct-to-Consumer Wealthtech Plays

Top Direct-to-Consumer Wealthtech Plays

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Our wealthtech industry coverage continues this week. We looked at the industry last week and reviewed the top trends earlier this month. Today we’re taking a look at industry players with B2C offerings—in other words, companies that market directly to consumers and not through businesses.

Since wealthtech is broader than just roboadvisers, we’ve divided B2C wealthtech players into seven categories and laid out our top picks for each group. Since category sizes vary, the number of our selections also vary.

Top in-house builds from traditional players
These are offerings from traditional wealth management firms that have been built in-house (or purchased and then white-labeled) and marketed under the firm’s brand.

Fully automated roboadvisers
These are online platforms that provide automated, algorithm-based portfolio management without intervention from human advisers and without personalized, one-on-one conversations with a human adviser.

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-4-06-40-pmAcorns takes a unique approach by linking a user’s debit card and investing their “spare change”

Hybrid roboadvisers
These are traditional advisory services, including personalized conversations and actively managed portfolios blended with computerized portfolio recommendations. Business Insider reports hybrid roboadvisers will manage 10% of all investable assets by 2025.

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-4-11-08-pmSigFig has partnered with multiple banks, including Wells Fargo, Pershing, and Citizens Bank

Non-U.S. roboadvisers

Alternative investing platforms
These are platforms that link participants to unconventional investment types, such as private equity, hedge funds, futures, real estate, etc.

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-4-18-08-pmWith Motif, uses invest in grouped stocks and ETFs that revolve around a common theme

Non-U.S. alternative investing platforms

News and information companies
These are online platforms that help users discover news and market trends before they go mainstream. Some include social networking aspects.

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-4-23-47-pmTickerTags helps users discover trends even before they become news

Finovate Debuts: Agreement Express Helps Advisers Offer Nonintrusive Onboarding

Finovate Debuts: Agreement Express Helps Advisers Offer Nonintrusive Onboarding

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Onboarding software provider Agreement Express helps wealth management firms, payments, and insurance companies create and manage a consistent onboarding experience across channels for all of their product offerings.

At FinovateFall 2016, the company demoed the newest version of its wealth management offering, an onboarding solution that helps advisers interact with clients in a nonintrusive, compliant manner. The new release improves the customer experience by helping firms gather and re-use existing client data instead of requesting the same information multiple times, which causes friction and deteriorates the client experience.

In his demo on the FinovateFall stage, Agreement Express CEO Mike Gardner opened by depicting the difficulty advisers have in getting solutions up-and-running quickly, saying, “At Agreement Express, we unite advisers, clients, back office teams, and compliance … in one platform that allows transformation in just two weeks.” He later noted the software is made to work quickly even for large firms.

Company Facts

  • Founded in 2001
  • Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • Working with Global Payments and M&T Bank
29615085762_a907570331_kCEO Mike Gardner and Account Exec Andrew Grocholski demoed Agreement Express at FinovateFall 2016

screen-shot-2016-12-19-at-4-10-26-pmAfter his presentation at FinovateFall, we conducted an interview with Mike Gardner, Agreement Express CEO, to gather more information about the company and its future plans.

Finovate: What problem does Agreement Express solve?

Mike Gardner: Agreement Express solves the problem of slow, inefficient, paper-based client onboarding in financial services. Because it’s such a huge problem, FIs usually go one of two routes: reducing the scope and only solving one piece of the project, or trying to solve the whole thing in one go with a massive BPM project that takes a couple of years to go live. Agreement Express is onboarding software that financial institutions can implement in just a few weeks, and gives them the data and flexibility they need to iterate and configure their process on an ongoing basis. It’s essentially building the perfect path as you go, enabling firms to receive immediate value and get in the fast-paced technology race, without the risk of trying to predict the future and get it all right without consulting meaningful data.

agreement-express-product-screenshot-1Agreement Express document management screen

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Gardner: We service key financial institution markets globally, primarily wealth management, payments, banking, and insurance. In those markets, we serve Fortune 1000 companies and top industry leaders such as Global Payments, Elavon, M&T Bank, National Bank Correspondent Network, Questrade, and more.

Finovate: How does Agreement Express solve the problem better?

Gardner: Agreement Express does two things that sets it apart from the competition: it solves the entire client onboarding problem from front to back office, and enables firms to go live in weeks, not months or years.

Our platform solves more of the problem in less time, and allows users to configure and iterate on an ongoing basis. This allows firms to realize tremendous value right away, and lowers the risk of trying to get everything perfect in advance and delaying time-to-value for a year or more.

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

Gardner: We are proud of the work we’ve done with all of our clients, but one that comes to mind is Global Payments, one of the largest merchant acquirers in the world. By consolidating all of their merchant onboarding processes into Agreement Express, they were able to increase application return rates from 40% to 100%, and virtually eliminate back-office data entry. It was exciting to watch such a large institution make so much digital progress in a short time.

agreement-express-product-screenshot-3Agreement Express adviser workspace

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

Gardner: We work with some of the largest global merchant acquirers, which gave us the confidence that we could successfully help Global Payments make a significant digital transformation.

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

Gardner: On our current trajectory, we’ll be continuing our global expansion, opening new offices around the world. We’ll be continuing to make Agreement Express accessible to the entire financial services enterprise, from the largest firms to the smallest partners in their network. Typically, software is either made for big or small companies, but Agreement Express will be used by the whole ecosystem for a completely integrated client onboarding experience.


Check out the video of Mike Gardner (CEO) and Andrew Grocholski (Account Executive) demoing Agreement Express at FinovateFall 2016.

Nubank Raises $80 Million in Series D Funding

Nubank Raises $80 Million in Series D Funding

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Financial services innovator Nubank closed on $80 million in Series D funding led by DST Global earlier this month, marking DST’s first investment in a Brazilian company. Other participants in the round include Founders Fund, QED Investors, Redpoint, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia, and Tiger.

This is Nubank’s sixth round of funding and brings its total amount raised to $178 million. While there was no report of the company’s latest valuation, FT Partners reports that after its $52 million Series C round closed in January, Nubank was valued at $500 million. The company will use the funds to accelerate hiring efforts and expand its product offerings. Specifically, Nubank hopes to add a rewards program and add more credit products.

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Founded in 2013, Nubank offers a Mastercard credit card with a companion mobile app that features PFM capabilities, spending alerts, and a card-lock feature. The company has had success in differentiating itself from other financial institutions in Brazil, which offer credit cards with 400% APR. In comparison, Nubank’s APR comes in significantly lower at 145%. This differentiation has led to Nubank receiving 7 million applications for its card, which currently holds a waiting list of 500,000 applicants.

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Nubank Co-founder and CTO Edward Wible, along with Lucas Cavalcanti, lead software engineer, showcased at FinDEVr New York 2016 (pictured above) in a presentation titled Our Money, Our Rulebook. which explored how Nubank deals with real-time, double-entry accounting on a per-customer basis. In October, H2 Ventures and KPMG listed Nubank among 50 leading fintech companies.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FDNY17_EventLogo_v1(wdate)FinDEVr Silicon Valley was a success! Tickets for upcoming FinDEVr London and FinDEVr New York are at their lowest prices now. Register today for London or New York to save your spot!

On FinDEVr.com

  • Nubank Raises $80 Million in Series D Funding”

The latest from FinDEVr Silicon Valley presenters

  • Aerospike announces 100% year-over-year bookings growth.
  • NuData Security partners with Arvato Financial Solutions to combat fraud and enable a smoother customer experience.

Alumni updates

  • InComm partners with MOL Global to launch PlayStation Network prepaid products to be distributed through 7-Eleven stores in Indonesia.
  • Commerce Bank chooses Temenos to upgrade core deposit banking system.
  • Token signs memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Fidor Bank for digital payments.
  • PYMNTS.com interviews Nick Thomas, cofounder of Finicity, in the wake of his company’s latest funding round.
  • Arxan Technologies wins six industry IoT security awards.
  • TemenosMarketPlace receives the Banking Technology Readers’ Choice Award for “Best emerging/innovative technology product/service” at the Annual Banking Technology Awards.
  • InComm expands partnership with Target Australia to offer gift cards in stores and online.
  • PayPal teams up with Citibank, FIS to expand cross-channel presence.

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

Akamai Acquires Cyberfend for Bot Detection

Akamai Acquires Cyberfend for Bot Detection

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Web and mobile security company Akamai added to its expertise today after acquiring Cyberfend, a bot detection company. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Massachusetts-based Akamai, which went public on NASDAQ in 1999, aims to help banks and businesses protect their websites, mobile apps, and cloud environments. Akamai launched Bot Manager earlier this year to help thwart automated bots, which use stolen credentials to log into legitimate ecommerce and financial services websites.

Launched in 2014, California-based Cyberfend debuted BotFender, a cyber attack automation detection service, at FinovateSpring 2016. BotFender combines human cognitive science with machine learning algorithms to create a website security layer that is invisible to the end user and detects attacks in real time. Cyberfend is backed by Y-Combinator and protects 1 billion transactions every month.

Stuart Scholly, senior vice president and general manager of Web Security at Akamai, said, “The addition of Cyberfend’s technology is intended to give our customers a better way to spot and stop credential abuse on their sites—benefiting both the online business and its users.”

Cyberfend is Akamai’s third acquisition this year—after acquiring Concord Systems in September and Soha Systems in October—and its 16th acquisition since launching in 1998. As we reported earlier this year, Akamai is bolstering its security capabilities to become more appealing to potential, large acquirers, such as Google or Microsoft.

Akamai most recently presented at FinovateEurope 2015 in London where it debuted Client Reputation Service, designed to help FIs forecast security issues and protect against DDoS attacks, web attackers, screen scrapers, and scanning tools. The company is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Tom Leighton is CEO.