Welcome to FinovateEurope 2016: Day 1

Welcome to FinovateEurope 2016: Day 1

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FinovateEurope is finally here, and if you’ll be sitting in the audience today, you’re part of the largest FinovateEurope audience in history!

The first demo session kicks off at 8:45, so grab a cup of coffee and find a seat in the auditorium.

Here are a few key things to remember:

  • Wifi network is FinovateEurope 2016 (no password required)
  • We’ll be live-tweeting throughout the event. Follow @Finovate and tag your tweets #Finovate.
  • Download our event app (search Finovate in the Bizzabo app) to connect with other attendees, view information about the presenters, and more.
  • Lunch is at noon. Buffet tables are downstairs. If you’re looking for a quick option, grab a boxed lunch on the mezzanine level.

Here is the demo lineup for today:

Demo session 1: 8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.

Demo session 2: 10:45 a.m. – 12:05 p.m.

Demo session 3: 1:00 p.m. – 2:20 p.m.

Demo session 4: 2:50 p.m. – 4:10 p.m.

Stay tuned to Twitter for more live coverage. We’ll see you all tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. when the first demo session begins.

FinovateEurope 2016 Begins Tomorrow (Update SOLD OUT)

FinovateEurope 2016 Begins Tomorrow (Update SOLD OUT)

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FinovateEurope 2016 starts tomorrow at 8:00 AM so we’re spending the day rehearsing the demos with the 71 presenting companies. This will be our largest European event to-date and will be packed with new technologies and plenty of networking opportunities.

Here’s what you need to know:

  1. Arrive early to get the perfect seat.
  2. Registration opens at 8:00 AM and the first demo will begin at 8:45 AM in the demo hall at the Old Billingsgate Market (directions).
  3. Download our event app (search Finovate in the Bizzabo app) to connect with other attendees, view information about the presenters, and more. 
  4. Regular tickets are sold out, but a few tickets for the second day only are available here

Agenda

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For specific questions, visit our FAQ at the bottom of the event site or email europe@finovate.com.

Revolut Pulls in $4.8 Million

Revolut Pulls in $4.8 Million

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London-based Revolut launched in 2014 under the premise that people should not be charged for spending and transferring their own money in a different currency. This week, the startup closed a $4.8 million round of funding.

The round was led by Balderton Capital. Additional contributors include: Index Ventures, Point Nine Capital, Seedcamp, and Venrex Investment Management.

Combined with the startup’s previous investments, this round brings its total funding to $7.6 million.

In January, Revolut launched version 2.0 of its personal money cloud. Its redesigned app is focused on offering transparency while maintaining an intuitive user experience.

The company’s CEO and Founder Nikolay Storonsky, and CTO Vlad Yatsenko debuted Revolut at FinovateEurope 2015 in London.

A Cartographer’s Guide to FinovateEurope

A Cartographer’s Guide to FinovateEurope

If you’ve already registered for FinovateEurope, you’ve probably already seen the list of 71 presenting companies that will showcase on 9 & 10 of February at the event in London (if you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time).

For a unique view of the demoing companies, take a look at our presenter map that shows where each company is headquartered:

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The 71 presenting companies represent 20 different countries:

  • 17 are North America-based companies bringing their innovations to Europe
  • 11 are based in the U.K.
  • 6 are Swiss, the country with the densest concentration of presenters

The event is only a few days away, so it’s time to start planning your trip. Here are a few tips:

  1. Register today. This year will be our largest FinovateEurope audience yet and tickets are going fast
  2. Download our event app (search Finovate in the Bizzabo app) to connect with other attendees, view information about the presenters, and more
  3. Check out our Sneak Peek series for a preview of select demos
  4. For specific questions, visit our FAQ at the bottom of the event site or email europe@finovate.com

FinovateEurope 2016 is sponsored by The Bancorp and KPMG.

FinovateEurope 2016 is partnered with Acuity Market IntelligenceAite Group, Bank Innovators Council, BankersHubBayPay Forum, bob’s guide, Byte Academy, Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, CelentThe Cointelegraph, CrowdReviewsDigital Currency CouncilEmerging Payments AssociationFinancial Services ClubFintech Finance, The Fintech Times, Harrington StarrIDC Financial InsightsMapa Research, Mercator Advisory Group, The New EconomyPayments & Cards Network, PitchBook, Plus Journal, SME Finance Forum, techUK, The PaypersVerdict Financial, and World Finance.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVrNY16-V2(wdate)We’re taking our FinDEVr developer showcase to New York on March 29 & 30, 2016. Register today and save $200 through Friday.

The latest from FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 presenters:

  • Thinking Capital to power new “Staples Business Loans” program for small businesses in Canada.
  • Markit lands three new customers for its KY3P (Know Your Third Party) platform.
  • LandedCost from Avalara helps SMEs navigate international taxes, tariffs, and fees.
  • American Banker: OnDeck Capital adds former E-Trade exec to board.
  • Mitek partners with Harland Clarke to improve RDC security.

Alumni Updates:

  • Online trading platform Investfly integrates with the Tradier brokerage API.

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

BlackRock’s FutureAdvisor Collaborating with RBC Wealth Management

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Digital wealth management solution provider FutureAdvisor recently made it big when it was acquired by investment management company BlackRock in 2015.

This week the robo-advisor announced another endorsement. The U.S. branch of RBC Wealth Management is launching a pilot program called RBC Investor Gateway that offers clients a digital advice option powered by FutureAdvisor.

The terms of the deal were undisclosed. As far as the mechanics for the agreement are concerned, RBC will act as the custodian of all of the Investor Gateway client assets and will take responsibility for producing and distributing account statement and tax documents.

RBC makes it clear that Investor Gateway is not meant to replace traditional financial advisors. Rather, the product is intended to serve as a stepping stone for budding investors to build a relationship with RBC Wealth Management as a financial advisor.

Financial Planning quotes Corporate Insight Consulting’s Sean McDermott:

“It gives RBC an opportunity to establish relationships with younger potential clients, who may be comfortable with digitally grounded advice to start, but who will eventually want a relationship with a human advisor. For FutureAdvisor, this further reinforces the brand’s legitimacy and position as a leader in the digital advice space.”

McDermott employs the phrase “further reinforces,” because FutureAdvisor has experienced plenty of recent success:

FutureAdvisor’s Founder & CEO Bo Lu demoed its premium service at FinovateFall 2013.

Sparkroom Acquired by Digital Media Solutions

Sparkroom Acquired by Digital Media Solutions

SparkroomHomepage

Marketing analytics provider Sparkroom was acquired by performance marketing company Digital Media Solutions (DMS) today.

Sparkroom will merge with the DMS team and by combining forces, Sparkroom will expand into new verticals and will add a host of resources to its solutions:

  • Enrollment management
  • Operational consulting
  • Brand strategy and development
  • Creative services
  • Website development
  • Media planning and buying

Sparkroom will retain its autonomy and will continue to operate out of its Paramus, NJ and Toronto, ON locations. As a part of the transition, the company has brought on Marcelo Parravicini as its new CMO.

The Toronto-based company offers marketing services such as SEO, advertising, compliance monitoring, and more. The company also creates software to help companies in a range of industries to analyze marketing efforts and automate performance.

Sparkroom debuted Lead IQ at FinovateSpring 2008.

Ripple Partners with SBI Holdings to Meet Demand in ASEAN Countries

Ripple Partners with SBI Holdings to Meet Demand in ASEAN Countries

Yesterday, financial settlement services platform Ripple announced a partnership that will boost its expansion into a region where it has seen lots of local interest and growth potential.

The San Francisco-based startup has teamed up with financial conglomerate SBI Holdings to form a new company called SBI Ripple Asia.

As a part of the joint venture, SBI Holdings will launch an engineering and business development team to sell and install Ripple’s cross-border payments solutions for banks across the Asia region:

  • Japan
  • China
  • Taiwan
  • Korea
  • ASEAN countries

Australia-based Ripple APAC will continue to service Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, India and the Middle East.

Japan-based SBI, which has 5,000 employees and offices in 20 countries, is a good candidate for helping Ripple reach the new region. The company focuses on Asia’s developing countries and has established joint ventures with companies such as E-LOAN, E*TRADE, MorningStar, and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. SBI holds stakes in 10 financial institutions across ASEAN. Ripple plans to use this network to distribute Ripple Connect, the startup’s enterprise-grade settlement solution.

Ripple’s technology is a distributed global ledger that enables banks around the world to instantly transact with each other without the need for a central bank. The startup uses a distributed open-source payment network to create a distributed currency exchange.RippleConnect

Ripple Connect is a module that processes real-time international payments for banks. It connects the internal systems of financial institutions to the decentralized Ripple Consensus Ledger. It allows banks to exchange payment details before the payment is initiated and communicates with the network to get the lowest currency quote.

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If you’ve ever chatted with Ripple CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen, or heard him speak, it likely wasn’t without hearing a mention of the internet of value (IOV), an internet for money that allows the free and instant exchange of anything of value. As Larsen once explained to me, it makes a P2P money-transfer as easy as emailing a link to an article.

Larsen calls up the concept in a comment on the SBI partnership: “Interbank payments establish the foundation of the internet of value. SBI is the perfect partner to help forge that foundation and then extend Ripple’s capabilities to new use-cases in the future.”

In what Larsen describes as the “kicker” of this deal, Ripple and SBI are exploring ways to list XRP through SBI’s various online brokerage properties.

Larsen launched the Ripple Network at FinovateSpring 2013 under the name OpenCoin. Since its debut, the company now claims:

Moven Partners with CommonBond and Payoff for Customer Loan Refinancing

Moven Partners with CommonBond and Payoff for Customer Loan Refinancing

MovenHomepage

In a move that further expands the neobank’s customer offerings, Moven has partnered with debt-refinancing and -consolidation companies CommonBond and Payoff.

CommonBondTo encourage the financial health of account holders, Moven is offering special deals for student-loan-refinancing platform CommonBond and credit card debt-consolidation platform Payoff.Payoff

 

 

 

Customers who pay using their Moven account at CommonBond receive a $200 credit and 25 basis points off their monthly student-loan repayment. Payoff users receive a $100 credit to their Moven account.

Though the partnership isn’t a full integration with the Moven platform, it’s a good start that competes with traditional banks and other neobanks. American Banker says Moven’s new partnershipes “signal the neobank’s wider goal of becoming ‘the card on file for your life,’ as Alex Sion, Moven’s president and a co-founder, put it.”

This isn’t the first time Moven has expanded its offerings for account holders. In an earlier effort to become top-of-wallet, the company recently launched a deals program that gives card-holder discounts at four merchants.

Moven was founded in 2011 by CEO Brett King. The company debuted its Financial Health platform at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Moven Partners with CommonBond and Payoff for Customer Loan Refinancing”
  • True Potential Scores Significant Investment from FTV Capital”

Around the web

  • MoneySummit interviews Brock Blake, Lendio CEO and founder.
  • PYMNTS interviews CSI globalVCard about trends guiding the evolution of payments in fleet.
  • AdExchanger considers Cardlytics use-cases.
  • WealthSuite from Temenos goes live at Nordea Bank Luxembourg.
  • Compass Plus earns PCI DSS version 3.1 certification.
  • ISCS integrates eSignLive into its SurePower Innovation modern enterprise suite.

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.

Pindrop Raises $75 Million for Phone-printing Authentication

Pindrop Raises $75 Million for Phone-printing Authentication

PindropHomepage

Voice-fraud prevention and authentication startup Pindrop closed a $75 million funding round. This installment brings the company’s total funding to $122 million since its founding in 2011.

Google Capital, a new investor to the Georgia-based company, led the Series C round. Additional contributors include GV, another new backer, and existing financiers Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Citi Ventures and Felicis Ventures.

Pindrop works with three of the top-four largest U.S. banks to authenticate their calls using phone-printing technology that analyzes and assigns risk to the caller. The technology helps a bank’s call center answer key questions:

  • Where does the call originate?
  • Is it a trusted number?
  • Does the caller’s voice sound as it should?
  • What device is the caller using?
  • Should the person’s attempt be blocked?

Pindrop will use the new funds to fuel international expansion. The company already has a small office in the United Kingdom, an area in which, according to Fortune, phone-fraud rates are fourfold higher than those in the United States. Pindrop is also in the midst of expanding to Latin America and plans to extend operations into Asia Pacific later this year.

PindropCEOIn a release today, the company notes highlights from 2105:

  • Saved tens of millions of dollars for enterprise customers
  • Tripled revenue in the last year
  • Doubled its customer base in the last year, including adding two of the top-three U.S. banks
  • Protected 360+ million calls

Pindrop CEO Vijay Balasubramaniyan (pictured) debuted the company’s Fraud Detection System at FinovateFall 2012.

Mitek Partners with Harland Clarke to Improve RDC Security

Mitek Partners with Harland Clarke to Improve RDC Security

MitekHomepage

If you’ve ever had the experience of picking up a check and wondering if you’ve already deposited it, you’ll understand the premise of the new feature from Mitek and Harland Clarke. The two companies have partnered to strengthen the security of Mitek’s Mobile Deposit RDC solution by implementing Harland Clarke’s Photo Safe Deposit feature.

Harland Clarke has printed three mobile fraud-prevention indicators on its checks:

  1. Photo Safe Deposit Icon: An icon that informs the account holder their check includes mobile RDC fraud prevention.
  2. Image Match: Identical magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) code lines printed on both sides of the check. This verifies the front and back belong to the same check and prevent multiple uses of the endorsement.
  3. Mobile Mark: A box for account holders to mark, indicating they have already deposited the check.

MitekHCCheckFeatures

When the account holder photographs the check to deposit it, Mitek’s software scans the check, searching for the printed prevention indicators on Harland Clarke checks. If authenticated, the check images are sent to the bank, which validates the requirements and approves the deposit.

James B. DeBello, Mitek president and CEO, says the new solution “does all the work to increase security and mitigate depositor errors without any extra steps required by consumers or banks.”

Mitek is based in San Diego, California, and debuted its ID authenticity validation at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.