Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Ping Identity Launches New Features, Multi-factor Authentication API

Ping Identity Launches New Features, Multi-factor Authentication API
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Ping Identity

PingIDHomepage2.16

Identity security company Ping Identity launched improvements to one of its solutions this week.

PingFederateThe enhancements are for Ping Federate, which offers banks an omnichannel authentication and access-management solution that uses multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on, and limited access security.

The Colorado-based company launched two upgrades:

  1. Elastic scalability:
    Uses IT rules to dynamically grow and shrink AWS and OpenStack environments to lower costs while ensuring services remain available.
  2. Contextual MFA:
    Allows administrators to require MFA when users log in under certain circumstances, for example, when accessing apps from outside their network, from public wi-fi or after hours if coming in from an unmanaged device.

Additionally, Ping Identity released an API to allow companies to integrate MFA directly into their web and mobile app authentication flow.

Ping Identity launched in 2003 and now secures access for 1.3 billion identities across 1,500 enterprises. Currently, the company is experiencing record growth of more than 40% YOY and in 2016 expects to achieve $100+ million in annual recurring revenue. Andre Durand is CEO.

At FinovateEurope 2012 Ping Identity debuted secure social networking login for financial institutions.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Cardlytics Takes Advantage of its Massive Amount of Customer Spend Data

Cardlytics Takes Advantage of its Massive Amount of Customer Spend Data
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Cardlytics

CardlyticsHomepage

Cardlytics, a company that harnesses the power of customer purchase data, has introduced the first major product outside of its flagship native banking channel, Cardlytics Direct.

Dubbed Platform Solutions, the new offering is decidedly more creative than the product name itself and is broken down into three services:

  1. Cardlytics Audiences:
    Targets customers using campaigns across a variety of media types that leverage past purchase data to predict future spending behavior.
  2. Cardlytics Measurement:
    Helps marketers measure and optimize marketing strategies by using actual customer purchase data across 1500 financial institutions.
  3. Cardlytics Insights:
    Helps businesses understand customer spending behavior across all brands to help make strategic business decisions pertaining to marketing, merchandising, real estate, etc.

The Atlanta-based company got its start with a card-linked offers solution, Cardlytics Direct. This flagship product allows financial institutions to provide merchant-funded rewards within its online or mobile banking application to boost customer loyalty. Big-name financial institutions such as Bank of America, PNC, MasterCard, and Fiserv are already using Cardlytics Direct.

While Cardlytics is primarily promoting Platform Solutions to retailers and marketing agents, the company also sees opportunity for financial services to use the new offering, stating on its website:

“Whether banks want to leverage Cardlytics Direct to provide a rewards-based loyalty solution, or they want to use Cardlytics Platform Solutions to improve their marketing of other bank products and services, Cardlytics can help.”

Cardlytics has been using customer spend data for a few years already (watch the company’s FinovateFall 2013 demo), but today’s launch is the first focused product offering leveraging customer data.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Spreedly Secures $3 Million Financing Round

Spreedly Secures $3 Million Financing Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Spreedly

SpreedlyHomepage

Payments software startup Spreedly closed a $3 million round of funding this week.

Contributors to the round include existing investors, along with Belgian venture fund Emerge, and Harold Mechelynck, a new investor.

The North Carolina-based company, which prides itself on concentrating solely on software for payments, now boasts a total of $5.5 million in funding since it was founded in 2008. The company plans to use the new funds to expand operations, accelerate product development, and introduce new features.

Along with the increase in its venture capital investments, Spreedly has grown as well. On an annualized basis, the company handles a total of $3 billion in transactions, up from $1 billion in June 2015. Spreedly CEO Justin Benson comments on the company’s growth:

Since focusing our business on creating new opportunities for merchants, platforms and payment providers to work together, we’ve substantially increased our customer base, the number of transactions we conduct, and our future potential.

Originally focused on subscription-based payments, Spreedly pivoted in 2013 to launch a credit card vault in the cloud. The new platform enables businesses to securely tokenize client credit card information for repeat transactions across any of the 100+ payment gateways it supports, all while remaining PCI compliant. The company handles 1+ million transactions every month for its 300 clients.

At FinovateSpring 2014, Spreedly’s CEO Justin Benson and Business Development Brendon Prebble showed off the company’s new payment-distribution method and card-on-file updater.

Most recently, at FinDEVr San Francisco 2015, Spreedly CTO Nathaniel Talbott explains how Spreedly’s APIs help navigate the payments ecosystem.

https://finovate.wistia.com/medias/6bzxyw48uo

For more developer-focused presentations, check out our FinDEVr developer showcase in New York on March 29 & 30, 2016. Register by Friday to save on early bird price and lock in your spot.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Loan Matchmaker Lendio Posts 2015 Growth Numbers

Loan Matchmaker Lendio Posts 2015 Growth Numbers
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Lendio

Lendio Homepage2.16

Small business loan marketplace Lendio released a report stating it helped fund more than 5,100 businesses in 2015, up almost 13x from the 400 the company served in 2014, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The Utah-based company experienced record growth across all areas of its business in 2015. Here are the highlights:

  • Facilitated $128+ million in financing for small businesses (up more than 10x from $12 million in 2014)
  • 100% YOY revenue growth
  • 57% of customers returned for additional financing
  • Average loan size of $25,000
  • Helped fund businesses in all 50 states and part of Canada

Founded in 2005, Lendio prides itself on “fueling the American Dream” by working on behalf of small businesses as a lender-matchmaking service. At FinovateSpring 2011, Lendio showed how it works on behalf of the 75 lenders on its platform, helping them expand their reach to find qualified borrowers. The platform enables lenders to filter borrower applications by preferences such as credit score, time in business, revenue, profits, etc.

Lendio’s infographic offers further insight into its 2015 activity:

Lendio2015Infographic

LendioFS11Demo

Lendio’s CEO Brock Blake and CTO Trent Miskin presented at FinovateSpring 2o11.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinDEVr APIntelligence

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BBVA, Bluefin Payment Systems, Entersekt, Envestnet, Modo Payments, PayPal, Simple, Xero, Yodlee

FinDEVrNY16-V2(wdate)We’re taking our FinDEVr developer showcase to New York on March 29 & 30, 2016. Register by Friday to save on early bird price and lock in your spot.

Developer news

  • American Banker: BBVA rehires a co-founder of Simple to build open APIs.

The latest from FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 presenters

  • Ingo Money partners with PayPal, adds instant check-splitting.
  • PayPal unveils carrier partnerships and NFC payment capability.
  • Modo Payments closes $2 million in funding.
  • PayPal unveils redesign of its Android and iOS mobile apps.
  • Envestnet | Yodlee teams up with South African API marketplace, Limitless.

Alumni updates

  • Bluefin Payment Systems and Worldnet partner for PCI-Validated P2PE on the Worldnet Payment Platform.
  • Xero teams up with Google; bringing gmail and Google Apps for Work to its platform.
  • FirstBank to deploy multi-factor authentication technology, Transakt, from Entersekt.

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

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BBVA, eWise, Featurespace, Lending Club, Lendio, Payfone, Striata, Taulia, Temenos, ThreatMetrix, Zooz

On Finovate.com

  • Check out this week’s “FinDEVr APIntelligence”
  • “Loan Matchmaker Lendio Posts 2015 Growth Numbers”
  • “Open API! Shamir Karkal to Head BBVA’s New Developer Platform”

Around the web

  • eWise expands data aggregation network to include institutions in Singapore and Thailand.
  • Peel Hunt Technology’s sector report highlights Featurespace.
  • ThreatMetrix enters into agreement with FUJI SOFT to provide online fraud solutions to Japan.
  • Lending Club opens to retail investors in Maryland and North Dakota, bringing its total to 45 states and Washington D.C.
  • Striata makes its Secure Document Repository (SDR) available for general release.
  • Spend Matters interviews Cedric Bru, Taulia CEO.
  • Zooz taps former Worldpay executive Chester Ritchie as its new EVP of sales and development.
  • Temenos announces plans for $500 million refinancing of its banking facilities.
  • Payfone deploys at an additional tier-1 bank in the U.S., now protects 50+ million U.S. accounts.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Blackhawk Network Names Talbott Roche New CEO

Blackhawk Network Names Talbott Roche New CEO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Blackhawk Network

Screen Shot 2016-02-23 at 1.27.05 PM

TalbottPrepaid card and digital commerce company Blackhawk Network has named a new CEO. The company’s Board of Directors appointed Talbott Roche, pictured at right, who succeeds William Tauscher as the company’s chief executive.

Tauscher, who served as CEO since 2010, will continue to serve as chairman on the company’s board of directors. Regarding the transition, Tauscher states, “It has long been my intention for Talbott to one day lead the company as president and CEO, and I have supreme confidence in her abilities and leadership to carry this great organization forward.”

Roche has served as SVP of Blackhawk for five years and will continue to serve as the company’s president. She is a graduate of Stanford University.

Blackhawk went public in 2013 and has since completed nine acquisitions. The company employs 2,500 people in 24 countries.

BlackhawkDemo

Tomas Campos and Sheila Andres presented GoWallet at FinovateFall 2012 in New York.

At FinovateFall 2012, Blackhawk debuted GoWallet, a direct-to-consumer mobile app that helps users manage all of their prepaid cards in a single place. The app also enables customers to purchase and personalize gift cards, and offers access to special coupons and offers.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Guardian Analytics Appoints New CEO

Guardian Analytics Appoints New CEO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Guardian Analytics

GuardianAnalyticsHomepage2.16

PacalinBanking fraud prevention company Guardian Analytics appointed a new president and CEO today.

Laurent Pacalin will take the place of Terry Austin who had been with the company since 2009.

Pacalin, who holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, is an expert in analytics, financial crime and e-Commerce. He most recently worked as Group VP of Oracle Sales Cloud. Prior to that, Pacalin served as CMO of FICO.

Additionally Pacalin is co-founder of Clean Tech Open, an accelerator for clean tech startups helping to reduce climate change.

Guardian Analytics board member Skip Glass notes a bright future with Pacalin as chief executive:

“Laurent’s leadership skills and ability to scale high-growth organizations combined with a customer-centric approach and passion for innovation will have an immediate impact on the company’s success.”

Guardian Analytics is based in Mountain View, Calif., and was founded in 2005. The company demoed its FraudXCHANGE solution at FinovateFall 2012 in New York.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

PayPal Unveils Carrier Partnerships & NFC Payment Capability

PayPal Unveils Carrier Partnerships & NFC Payment Capability
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: PayPal

PayPalHomeopage2.16

Last week, PayPal upgraded its mobile app with a cleaner user interface, quick PIN login and other enhanced features. Today, the San Jose-based company announced further updates, powered by partnerships that will offer it access to Vodafone’s 454 million users and America Movil’s 286 million subscribers.

The payment company’s partnership with Vodafone enables European-based Vodafone wallet users to make NFC payments at brick-and-mortar POS locations. The combined solution is powered by partnerships with Raphaels Bank and Carta Worldwide.

This marks the first NFC payment availability for PayPal users, who can connect their PayPal account to their Vodafone wallet and pay using Visa or MasterCard credit and debit cards, as well as prepaid cards. To promote the new offering, Vodafone is rewarding users up to 1GB of bonus data each time they use PayPal to recharge their Prepaid Combo plan online.

VentureBeat cites Anuj Nayar, PayPal’s global head of product communications, who highlights the mutual benefit of the partnership, stating, “From PayPal’s point of view, Vodafone gets access to our integrated platform — in app, online, in-store, and can offer our services to their customers. PayPal will gain access to millions of users.”

Vodafone wallet, launched in 2013, is available in Germany, Spain, the U.K., Italy and the Netherlands. The PayPal integration is now available to users in Spain and will launch in the four remaining countries later this year.

Additionally, PayPal announced similar partnerships with Mexico-based Telcel and Brazil-based Claro (both America Movil subsidiaries). Starting this spring, the telcoms’ users will have the option to use their PayPal accounts to manage and make everyday purchases on their mobile devices.

NewMoneyThese partnerships are a part of PayPal’s new brand campaign titled New Money, in which the company aims to showcase how it is, “enabling a faster, simpler and more inclusive way for people to manage and move money, whether online, in-app, in store or in new contexts.”

At the end of 2015, PayPal counted 179 million active users. Dan Schulman is CEO.

Next month FinDEVr New York 2016 will feature a presentation from PayPal’s Braintree (along with 50+ other fintech companies) that will showcase new trends and tools for developers. Check it out and register today.

Braintree last presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 and at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Jose.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: CopSonic, Corezoid, Currency Cloud, Dashlane, DriveWealth, Entersekt, Fiserv, GMC Software Technology, Kasasa, LockByMobile, PayPal, Xero

On Finovate.com

  • “Best of Show Winner DriveWealth Inks New Partnership with Stoxs”
  • “CopSonic and Natixis Team Up to Launch UltraSound Payment Solution, SwipeSonic”
  • “PayPal Unveils Carrier Partnerships, NFC Payment Capability”

Around the web

  • LockByMobile is working with Visa APIs to enhance consumer transaction controls.
  • Kasasa launches new auto loan direct marketing program, Kasasa Fuel.
  • GMC Software teams up with SundaySky to improve customer experiences via video.
  • Fiserv announces that 25 credit unions have committed to CUnify, its account processing platform.
  • Corezoid is among the first Ukranian startups to participate at Startup Grind (in Ukranian).
  • Xero teams up with Google, bringing gmail and Google Apps for Work to its platform.
  • Dashlane web engineer Thomas Guillory explains why his company is building its next web app using React.js.
  • FirstBank to deploy Transakt, a multi-factor authentication technology from Entersekt.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

United Capital Acquires FlexScore

United Capital Acquires FlexScore
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FlexScore, Mergers & Acquisitions

FlexScoreHomepage

FlexScore, a platform that gamifies financial planning, was purchased by California-based advisory firm United Capital this week. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

United Capital, which holds $15 billion in assets under management, plans to use FlexScore as a tool to help its advisers engage clients.

The FlexScore platform assesses and scores the user’s financial health and assigns action steps (as seen below) to improve their score. The goal is to reach a top score of 1000, which signifies financial independence.

flexscoremystepsUnited Capital CEO Joe Duran commented to Investment News that FlexScore fits the “missing piece” from the company’s digital suite for clients and advisers. Additionally, Duran stated, “The right intersection is not technology alone, or people alone, but when you have an interactive engaging experience that is powered by people.”

In the future, Duran plans to implement the scoring tool within retirement plans to stimulate engagement. The company is in talks with potential partners for this use case.

United Capital began its relationship with FlexScore in 2014 when it purchased FlexScore’s parent company, Valley Wealth, in a deal that excluded FlexScore.

FlexScore co-founders Jason Gordo and Jeff Burrow launched the startup at FinovateSpring 2013. Since then the San Francisco-based company has raised $4.7 million and created a mobile version of the app (launched at FinovateFall 2014 in New York).

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinovateEurope the Musical (Yes, Really)

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2016

With all the buzz from FinovateEurope last week, there’s plenty of post-show media to review in the form of articles, blogs, podcasts, and even videos.

However, there’s one piece that stands apart from the rest. Fintech Finance wrote and directed a song* about FinovateEurope 2016, and it’s unlike any coverage we’ve seen before. It’s worth checking out:

Fintech Finance managed to gather and record 47 fintech companies, including presenters, audience members, and analysts, to sing through the fintech melody. Here’s the chorus (sung to the tune of Renegades by X Ambassadors):

But I said wait/
This is great/
Legacy we shall update/
Finovate!

For those less musically inclined, watch Fintech Finance’s (non-musical) video summary (below) or check out the 62 individual company interviews.

*Fintech Finance discloses, “We do not own any copyright of the song – this is a parody based on the original amazing song “Renegades” by X Ambassadors. Original Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j7. Audio Provided by: http://www.inchstudio.com/”

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook