Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

FinDEVr Preview: ChartIQ

FinDEVr Preview: ChartIQ
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ChartIQ, FinDEVr 2017 New York, FinDEVr 2017 New York Previews

FinDEVr PreviewsFDNY17-Logo-Rev highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr New York 2017, March 21 & 22. Tickets are on sale now. Visit our registration page and save your spot today.

ChartIQ will present Finsemble, an Openfin Application Framework that provides infrastructure, services and components for quickly building multi-window financial desktop applications. This presentation will describe the process of building these apps in Finsemble, outline the key problems addressed, and conclude with a quick coding demonstration.

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Why it’s a must-see:

ChartIQ will show how quick and easy it is to build a functioning multi-window financial desktop application in minutes with Finsemble.

Check out more previews of upcoming FinDEVr New York 2017 presentations and don’t forget to register before it’s too late.

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Dwolla Launches Same-Day Bank Transfers

Dwolla Launches Same-Day Bank Transfers
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Dwolla

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Bank access API provider and money transfer system, Dwolla, launched same-day ACH transfers today. This new development allows businesses to deliver money to a client on the same day they initiated the transfer. The same-day ACH capability is much faster compared to the industry standard wait time of two-to-four business days.

In the press release, Dwolla CEO and founder Ben Milne said, “Whether it’s making emergency payouts, improving customer satisfaction through faster refunds, or allowing partners to capture float or vendor discounts, the addition of Same Day ACH to Dwolla’s Access API provides our partners with another competitive advantage for them to own and apply as they see fit.”

Dwolla’s new same-day ACH transfer capability benefits not only the customer experience, but it also complies with upcoming regulations. NACHA, the administrator of ACH, issued new rules last year regulating the sending and receiving of money over ACH rails. Starting September 15, 2017, all banks must be able to receive and process same-day debits and credits.

Founded in 2008, Dwolla set out to make sending money faster and less expensive. The company launched a consumer-facing money transfer product in 2010 and has since phased out of the consumer market to focus on its business offerings. The first product, Access API, helps developers connect their app to the banking ecosystem. Transfer, the second product, helps businesses send and receive bank transfers using a straightforward platform.

Earlier this year, Dwolla closed on $6.85 million in funding, bringing its total raised to just over $39 million. The company last presented at FinovateSpring 2015.

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Envestnet | Yodlee Launches Suite of Risk Reporting Tools

Envestnet | Yodlee Launches Suite of Risk Reporting Tools
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Yodlee

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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.

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LikeFolio Begins Licensing Brand-Mapping Database

LikeFolio Begins Licensing Brand-Mapping Database
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: LikeFolio

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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.

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LendUp Lands $100 Million Credit Facility

LendUp Lands $100 Million Credit Facility
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: LendUp

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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.

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Lendio Brings the Franchising Model to Small Business Lending

Lendio Brings the Franchising Model to Small Business Lending
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Lendio

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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.

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Scotiabank and AlphaPoint Wrap Up Blockchain Trial

Scotiabank and AlphaPoint Wrap Up Blockchain Trial
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AlphaPoint

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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.

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

Experian Receives Green Light from the FCA in the U.K.
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Experian

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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.

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FinDEVr APIntelligence

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Arxan Technologies, AutoGravity, Barclaycard, BBVA, Citi, Entersekt, Evo Snap*, FairCom, FinDEVr APIntelligence, Finicity, FixNix, Hyperwallet, Lleida.net, NuCypher, NYMBUS, Prevoty, Thomson Reuters

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.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Barclaycard, Credit Sesame, Finicity, Narrative Science, NuCypher

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.

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BlueVine Lands $75 Million Line of Credit

BlueVine Lands $75 Million Line of Credit
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BlueVine

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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.

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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
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: 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.

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