Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

FinDEVr Preview: Digital Business Art

FinDEVr Preview: Digital Business Art
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Digital Business Art, FinDEVr 2016 Silicon Valley, FinDEVr 2016 Silicon Valley Preview

FinDEVr PreviewsFinDEVrSV16-withdate highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Tickets are on sale now. Visit our registration page and save your spot today.

Digital Business Art will present its Digital Banking Platform (DBP). The main virtue of the product is its ability to ensure 99.99% of a bank’s front-end-system availability, regardless of the state of the bank’s back-end system. This means that a bank’s client services will be permanently available and will not depend on its internal processes.

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Why it’s a must-see
This innovative platform is built to ease the life of a bank’s IT department and its specialists, and to ensure seamless functioning of the business. DBP delivers an agile, flexible system-orchestration, impressive performance, and lower cost. This allows banks to focus on customers and products, rather than waste a huge budget on expensive infrastructure.

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FinDEVr Preview: Cognitect

FinDEVr Preview: Cognitect
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Cognitect, FinDEVr 2016 Silicon Valley, FinDEVr 2016 Silicon Valley Preview

FinDEVr PreviewsFinDEVrSV16-withdate highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Tickets are on sale now. Visit our registration page and save your spot today.

Cognitect will introduce you to Datomic, its immutable database that never forgets. It’s naturally distributed, built for modern architectures, and it scales with your data—without sacrificing your existing storage investments. The company will share how Datomic’s built-in history has been used in fintech to more effectively manage critical data.

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Why it’s a must-see
Cognitect’s approach to auditability will change your world. Using Datomic, an immutable database that never forgets, you can query across all history, without any extra effort on your part. No more loss of valuable time and critical resources to answer basic questions. No more workarounds to understand the story of how your data got to now.

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FinDEVr Preview: Entrust Datacard

FinDEVr Preview: Entrust Datacard
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Entrust Datacard, FinDEVr 2016 Silicon Valley, FinDEVr 2016 Silicon Valley Preview

FinDEVr PreviewsFinDEVrSV16-withdate highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Tickets are on sale now. Visit our registration page and save your spot today.

With Entrust Datacard you’ll learn how integrating second-factor authentication into banking applications using soft tokens and one-time passwords (OTPs) can safeguard your banking applications. Banks can leverage the security protection offered by Entrust Datacard without the need for a large investment in development resources.

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Why it’s a must-see

  1. Offers a simplified way to incorporate second-factor authentication into banking applications.
  2. Helps combat fraudulent transactions, especially card-not-present fraud, which is on the rise due to the move to EMV technology.
  3. Ability to leverage this technology without significant investment in resources.

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FinDEVr Preview: MX

FinDEVr Preview: MX
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinDEVr 2016 Silicon Valley, FinDEVr 2016 Silicon Valley Preview, MX

FinDEVr PreviewsFinDEVrSV16-withdate highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Tickets are on sale now. Visit our registration page and save your spot today.

MX will be unveiling a next-generation financial API platform. The fintech community can benefit from advanced features and real-time, open-source solutions. This presentation will explore how to create call-back mechanisms and client-side libraries, including RubyGem and NodeJS.

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Why it’s a must-see
The company’s MX Atrium API gives you more than 30,000 connections to financial institutions. It also cleanses, categorizes, and classifies all transaction data with the greatest accuracy on the market—all with fintech-friendly pricing and no user limitations. Get access to the code in 30 seconds and see our world-class documentation for yourself.

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Akamai Acquires Soha Systems

Akamai Acquires Soha Systems
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Akamai, Mergers & Acquisitions

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With security emerging as one of the largest themes of our upcoming FinDEVr developers conference, it’s no surprise to see movement in that segment of the industry. Yesterday, cloud services provider Akamai acquired security company Soha Systems.

While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Akamai describes the purchase price as “immaterial” for the company. California-based Soha, which offers secure access-as-a-service for enterprises, has raised almost $10 million since it was founded in 2013. Under the acquisition, Akamai will use Soha’s services to extend its portfolio of Cloud Networking Solutions and to “simplify and improve remote and mobile access to enterprise resources, while at the same time minimize the exposed attack surface.” In a press release, Robert Blumofe, EVP, Platform, and GM, Enterprise and Carrier Division, said, “By adding Soha’s secure access technology to our cloud networking solutions, we believe we are well positioned to help our customers take full advantage of the key trends, cloud and mobile, driving enterprise computing.”

The deal comes less than a week after the company’s announcement of its acquisition of Concord Systems, an IoT company. In fact, Akamai has been on an acquisition spree of security companies; recent deals include Bloxx in November 2015 and Prolexic in 2013. According to TechCrunch, Akamai is bolstering its security to become more appealing to potential, large acquirers, such as Google or Microsoft.

Akamai presented at FinovateEurope 2015 in London where it debuted its Client Reputation Service, designed to help FIs forecast security issues and protect against DDoS attacks, web attackers, screen scrapers, and scanning tools. The company most recently released the Akamai Bot Manager to mitigate screen scraping, automated clicks, and illegitimate transactional activity.

Akamai was founded in 1998 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Tom Leighton is CEO.

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Payoneer Closes $180 Million Series E Round

Payoneer Closes $180 Million Series E Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Payoneer

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Global mass payout services provider Payoneer announced a $180 million round of funding today. The Series E round is from Technology Crossover Ventures, the same firm that has backed Facebook, Netflix, and Spotify.

This new round doubles the New York-based company’s previous funding amount, bringing its new total to $270 million. Payoneer CEO Scott Galit said the company will use the funds for further expansion, as Payoneer receives 250,000 business applications per month. While Galit would not comment on Payoneer’s valuation, Business Insider estimates that it is “likely in the billions.”

Payoneer has 800 employees across the globe; it recently opened offices in India, Japan, and the Philippines. According to TechCrunch, today’s round is the company’s last before it will begin seeking an IPO.

At FinovateAsia 2013, Payoneer launched a commercial account that offers businesses the ability to receive funds from a global network. Payoneer’s money-transfer solutions process “many billions of dollars a year” in 150 currencies for small businesses and professionals. The money-transfer solutions enable clients to withdraw the money at their local bank account in their own currency. The company also facilitates mass payouts for businesses looking to transfer money internationally, a service that supports companies such as Newegg, Airbnb, and Fiverr.

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FinDEVr APIntelligence

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Bluefin Payment Systems, Braintree, Fidor Bank, FinDEVr APIntelligence, Hyperwallet, IBM, PayNearMe, PayPal, PwC, Temenos, Totum Wealth, UCX, Wisdom Design Associates, Xero

FinDEVrSV16-withdateOur FinDEVr New York developer showcase was a success! FinDEVr Silicon Valley will be held October 18 & 19 in Santa Clara. Register today to save your spot!

On FinDEVr.com

The latest from FinDEVr New York and upcoming Silicon Valley presenters

  • Fidor Bank teams up with Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank to launch first community based digital bank in the region.
  • PayPal promotes Braintree’s William Ready to chief operating officer.
  • PYMNTS.com talks with Hyperwallet VP Tomas Likar about the challenge of payments in the on-demand workforce.
  • IBM announces $200 million investment in its Watson IoT business in Munich. See IBM at FinDEVr Silicon Valley, October 18 & 19.

Alumni updates

  • Bank of Ireland to deploy UniversalSuite core banking solution from Temenos.
  • Xero Announces Improved Integration with PayPal
  • Bluefin Announces Issuance of Patent on Decryption as a Service
  • Kristina Campbell joins PayNearMe as chief financial officer.
  • Xero teams up with Barclays to improve access to transaction data for U.K. businesses.

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

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Two P2P Sharing-Economy Players Team Up—Airbnb and Zopa

Two P2P Sharing-Economy Players Team Up—Airbnb and Zopa
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Zopa

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While the concept of P2P lending is creative in and of itself, U.K.-based P2P lending pioneer Zopa is letting its creative roots show. Today the company partnered with Airbnb to help customers pay back their loan.

Here’s how it works, upon logging into their Zopa dashboard, borrowers click a link to sign up to become an Airbnb host. If they earn £500 from Airbnb within six months, they get £50 off their loan. If they earn £1,000 from Airbnb rentals, they get £100 off. U.K. hosts earn an average of £2,000 per year for renting their home for 46 nights, which means borrowers would need to rent out their homes around 18 times over the course of a year to take full advantage of Zopa’s offer.

screen-shot-2016-10-04-at-10-35-48-amWhile the partnership makes sense for Zopa—it’s a focused way to help borrowers increase their income—it seems unlikely that banks will make the same move. The risk and liability that come with the nature of the P2P sharing economy are native to both Airbnb and Zopa but do not mix well with a highly regulated bank.

Since it was founded in 2005, the company has already helped 54,000 borrowers finance home-improvement projects. The loan-repayment offer is only available to new Airbnb hosts who receive a quote from Zopa from 1 September 2016 to 1 September 2017 and are approved for a loan.

Zopa debuted at FinovateSpring 2008. Since then, the company has weathered the ups and downs of the financial crisis and the P2P lending industry itself. Earlier this year, Zopa revamped its product lineup, debuting Classic, Access, and Plus, which allows institutions to lend to higher-risk borrowers. In May, the company began offering auto loan refinancing, tapping into the used-car-financing market. Most recently, Zopa appointed Ronen Benchtrit as its CTO in an effort to grow its technology strategy.

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FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: VIX Verify

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: VIX Verify
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateAsia 2016, FinovateAsia 2016 Sneak Peek, VIX Verify

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FA2016-V1A look at the companies demoing live At FinovateAsia on 8 November 2016 in Hong Kong. Register today.

Businesses trust VIX Verify’s greenID platform to provide seamless customer onboarding and develop integrated identity-verification services in response to increasing regulatory requirements.

Features:

  • Quick and accurate real-time verification using mobile or web-based process
  • AML/CTF and KYC compliance with global regulations
  • Multiple options to simplify the integration process

Why it’s great
Give your customers a smarter experience. With mobile onboarding tools and greenID’s latest technology, your customers can verify themselves anywhere, anytime and on the go.screen-shot-2016-10-04-at-10-42-24-am

Presenters

Ken Burrows, Founding Member & Global Head of Sales
With two decades of experience providing enterprise solutions to organizations, Burrows’ extensive background in the field of electronic verification drives the expansion of VIX Verify to the world.
LinkedInscreen-shot-2016-10-04-at-10-42-48-am

Gerald Soo, Regional Sales and Client Services Manager
Specializing in South East Asia, Soo has more than a decade of strong technical experience spanning the globe. He knows the ins-and-outs of SMEs and Fortune 500 companies.
LinkedIn

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FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: eWise

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: eWise
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: eWise, FinovateAsia 2016, FinovateAsia 2016 Sneak Peek

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FA2016-V1

A look at the companies demoing live At FinovateAsia on 8 November 2016 in Hong Kong. Register today.

eWise provides a financial data-aggregation API. With its partner WeInvest, it will demonstrate TrackWealth, the new wealth-management tool for Singaporean investors.

Features

  • Consolidate accounts: add all investment accounts in one place
  • Analyze growth: view the portfolio performance over time
  • Assess risks: review exposure by products, geography and currency

Why it’s great
TrackWealth is using eWise’s patented client-side aggregation technology, allowing users to add and aggregate all of their financial accounts within the personal data-vault on their own devices.

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-3-17-30-pmPresenters

Dean Young, Head of Product Management at eWise
Young has more than twenty years’ experience in the financial services industry, initially with Westpac and most recently in global roles with international vendors.
LinkedIn

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-3-18-27-pmBhaskar Prabhakara, Founder and CEO at WeInvest
Bhaskar co-founded WeInvest with the vision to help everyone take control of their finances and make better investment decisions. He has 12 years’ experience within banks, brokerages and asset managers.
LinkedIn

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FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Marketsmojo

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Marketsmojo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateAsia 2016, FinovateAsia 2016 Sneak Peek, Marketsmojo

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FA2016-V1A look at the companies demoing live At FinovateAsia on 8 November 2016 in Hong Kong. Register today.

Marketsmojo is a multi-algorithm-based financial investment analysis platform which offers full coverage and is unbiased. The company aims to go global with the same approach over the next few months. More than 500 formulas run on every listed stock, which are based on fundamental research, technicals, expert broker recommendations, price movement, news and sentiment. This adds up to quality, valuation, and trend forecasting.

Why it’s great
The company started making operational level profits one month after its launch.

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-3-03-21-pmPresenter

Dr. Mohit Batra, CEO & Founder
Batra is a PhD with more than 20 years of financial services and technology experience. He was a founding member of Moneycontrol, CNBC India. Additionally he served as country head of wealth at ABN Bank; director of MOSL; and CEO of ACM.
LinkedIn

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Aire Raises $2 Million, Receives Regulation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

Aire Raises $2 Million, Receives Regulation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Aire, Funding

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Alternative credit-scoring company Aire is a London-based startup that shows no sign of “Brexiting” any time soon. The company just closed an additional $2 million in funding, adding to the funding round it closed in April.

Today’s round was led by White Star Capital alongside Sunstone Capital and Accion Venture Lab and brings Aire’s total funding to $7 million. The company plans to use the new funds to expand its platform into new markets.

Aire announced it is now authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the financial regulator in the U.K. If you’re not familiar with the FCA, this is a pretty big deal for a startup. Receiving FCA authorization brings Aire onto a level playing field with the big-three credit bureaus.

In a statement, Aire co-founder and CEO Aneesh Varma said:

It’s a huge step for us and also for credit scoring. We strongly believe that lenders and their customers need a fairer and more accurate way to assess creditworthiness […]. As things stand, genuine hard-working people are being penalized by the way credit scores are created, and that’s not good for growth, innovation or well-being. We believe we have a solution to address this issue, balancing the numerous forces at play across data, ethics, regulation and technology.

Aire seeks to democratize access to credit by gathering meaningful data about potentially credit-worthy clients via an online interview and other reliable sources. By using artificial intelligence, the company processes the data to qualify users for credit. The company also helps lenders by expanding the pool of qualified applicants. Although Aire is currently focused on working with personal loan and credit card lenders, it plans to broaden its range of financial products.

Founded in 2014, Aire launched its API at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. In April the company was recognized in the European Fintech Top 100 list at the 2016 European Fintech Awards. Most recently, the company was featured in Tech City News magazine for its use of artificial intelligence.

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