Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz), Author at Finovate

In Partnership with Equifax, Zumigo Further Protects Merchants

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 25, 2015
Categories: Security, Zumigo

Online merchants generally rely on a card’s CVV number to protect against fraud, but that 3-digit code is easy for a fraudster to obtain. Today, Zumigo is helping to change that by launching an enhancement to its payment validation service, Assure Payments.

In a partnership with Equifax, the San Jose-based company is making it more difficult for a fraudster to complete an online purchase using stolen card credentials. This ultimately protects merchants against chargebacks.

During the online checkout flow, Zumigo asks the customer to provide information such as name, address, and mobile number. It verifies the credentials by pairing the information against Equifax’s mobile billing records. As a secondary verification method, Zumigo compares the location of the customer’s mobile phone with their IP address and shipping address.

Here’s a sample risk analysis:

When some data points do not match up, as in the example above, the merchant identifies the transaction as high-risk, and is advised to take further measures to verify the purchaser’s identity.

At FinovateSpring 2014, Zumigo launched Assure, which automatically populates forms on behalf of consumers for easy checkout flow or account opening. Both solutions are available to merchants via an API integration into their mobile or web checkout flow.

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Alt Credit Score Startup, Aire, Raises $1.1 Million

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 25, 2015
Categories: Aire, Funding

London-based Aire.io, the startup that is democratizing credit scores for people with thin or no credit files announced a $1.1 million round of funding today.

While Aire received the new installment in January, it has not been made public until now. The funding comes from existing investor SparkLabs Global Ventures, with additional contributions from:

Andrew Mullinger
Peter Jackson
Tom Glocer

Aire pulled in its initial Seed round of $300k in the summer of 2014. When added to the second Seed round in today’s announcement, the startup’s funding totals just under $1.5 million.

Aire’s recently launched Credit API enables lenders to perform a credit check on people who do not have financial history on file with traditional credit bureaus. Its predictive algorithms assign a score to consumers based on self-declared data and other reliable sources, such as LinkedIn.

The startup is a TechStars company, and has received multiple other accolades. Here are the latest:

Fintech City: Hottest Ten Fintech of Europe
Business Insider: Top 15 Start-ups in Europe
DataMonitor Financial: FinTracker Award

Aire launched its Credit API at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. Check out the live demo video.

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Finovate Debuts: OnlinePay.com’s Mobile Wallet Review

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 24, 2015
Categories: Mobile Payments, onlinepay.com

Onlinepay.com has created a mobile wallet for shopping, topping up online accounts, and P2P payments. The app, which it debuted at FinovateEurope 2015, launched in the Apple App store last December.

Facts

Founded 2014
Established in Singapore
Partnered with e-commerce and gaming companies

The app is targeted toward millennials. It functions as a prepaid mobile wallet with three main features:

Shopping
Social Payments
Services

The features, along with the user’s wallet balance, are displayed on the home screen:

1) Shopping

Users browse items in the in-app shopping mall. When they find something they’d like to purchase, the entire transaction is handled within the app.

E-commerce companies partner with OnlinePay to add a button to their checkout flow that enables customers to pay using their mobile wallet balance. Retailers can also send targeted offers such as the one above.

2) Social payments
Similar to Venmo, OnlinePay makes P2P payments social by enabling users to share their payment history with others. An activity feed broadcasts to the entire network of OnlinePay users or just to their group of friends. Users can elect to keep their payment activity private.

3) Services
With the Services tab, users top up Forex trading accounts or purchase online gaming components, which are instantly applied. Users are not require users to exit their Forex trading application or leave their game to make purchases.

Chat
The company offers 24/7 chat support to resolve any issues. Users can also use the feature to chat with their friends.

OnlinePay debuted its mobile wallet at FinovateEurope 2015.

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Finovate Debuts: PhotoPay’s BlinkOCR Recognizes Data by Context

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 20, 2015
Categories: PhotoPay

PhotoPay’s optical character recognition (OCR) technology helps replace manual data entry. The company demonstrated BlinkOCR at FinovateEurope 2015.

While there are a handful of successful companies with OCR solutions on the market, PhotoPay has three distinguishing features:

Works with no internet connection
Recognizes data type by context (email, URL, reference number, dollar amount)
Flexible enough to capture data from non-standardized paper, computer screens, and unique documents, such as a letter invoice

Facts

Self funded
13 employees
Partnered with banks in 10+ countries
Over 16 million end users of PhotoPay technology
Based in the UK
Creator of the Photomath app calculator

The software works in 40 countries. A total of 15 banks in Europe have implemented the solution, including the second largest bank in Germany and second largest bank in the Netherlands.

The BlinkOCR software development kit (SDK) has 50 lines of code, making it easy to embed into a bank’s existing mobile app. The user experience is simple:

1) Select the desired field

2) Scan the fields necessary for payment (IBAN, reference number, and amount due):

3) Edit the data, if necessary, and select the checkmark to finish and confirm the payment.

Other solutions for financial institutions include:

Standardized payment forms
The user photographs their entire bill, and PhotoPay captures, recognizes, and categorizes the data from the document. This enables the customer to pay the amount they owe without keying in data. The technology currently works with standardized payment forms for 15 European countries.

Customer mobile on-boarding solution
PhotoPay’s BlinkIDScan captures data from ID documents and securely stores the data locally on the phone. Depending on the document type, the user scans elements such as the machine readable zone (MRZ), the form, or barcode, to capture the data.

The technology is free for end-users, and helps remove the sting from the chore of paying bills. In fact, one large European financial institution reported that, after implementing PhotoPay’s technology, the number of bill payments on its mobile app increased six-fold.

PhotoPay demonstrated at FinovateEurope 2015.

The company created the Photomath app in October of 2014 to showcase its OCR technology. The app has been downloaded more than 11 million times on iOS alone in the last 3 months (it will launch on Android soon). Additionally, the Netexpolo Forum and UNESCO recently awarded the Photomath app the 2015 Netexpolo prize in the field of educational technology.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 20, 2015
Categories: Arxan Technologies, BankBazaar, BehavioSec, Comarch, Dealstruck, Digital Insight, Jemstep, Malauzai Software, PhotoPay, Quantopian, True Potential, Xero

On Finovate.com

Finovate Debuts: PhotoPay’s BlinkOCR Recognizes Data by Context.

Finovate Alums Win Gold, Silver, and Bronze at PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015.

Around the Web:

PYMNTS interviews DealStruck CEO & Co-founder about how the startup works with traditional banks. Come see DealStruck demo at FinovateSpring 2015.

BBC News features BehavioSec’s behavioral biometrics security.

iZettle integrates with Xero to keep business’ sales, VAT, deposits & processing fees updated with accounting.

Consumers Credit Union deploys online, mobile, and tablet banking solutions from Digital Insight.

Arxan Technologies earns finalist spot in Info Security Product Guide’s Annual 2015 Global Excellence Awards.

Gartner’s CRM Vendor Guide 2015 features Comarch.

Robb Gaynor, chief product officer for Malauzai Software, talks about plans for an Apple Watch app. See Malauzai demo its technology in San Jose at FinovateSpring 2015.

True Potential launches True Potential One to help investors consolidate and simplify their finances.

The Economic Times feature on mobile banking quotes BankBazaar.com CEO Adhil Shetty.

Dealstruck appoints Ryan Campbell as Vice President of Sales.

Quantopian-supported research to be published in Stocks & Commodities magazine.

Oink featured on NBC 24 Today’s Money Monday program

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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PayNearMe Brings Online Cash Payments to ProfitStars’ EPS Smart Pay Express

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 20, 2015
Categories: PayNearMe, ProfitStars

Two forces in the payments industry, ProfitStars and PayNearMe announced a partnership today. Through the agreement, merchants using ProfitStars’ Enterprise Payment Solutions (EPS) Smart Pay Express will have access to PayNearMe’s cash payment technology.

Financial institutions using the system will be able to offer their business banking customers an all-in-one payment platform to help businesses accept cash for online purchases from underbanked and cash-preferred customers.

When a customer makes a purchase online using PayNearMe, they receive a code, which they bring to one of 17,000 physical retail locations (such as 7- Eleven). Once the cashier at the store scans the code, the customer pays in cash. After payment, PayNearMe transfers the funds to the merchant, who is notified to ship the item the customer ordered online.

PayNearMe presented at FinDEVr San Francisco in 2014. ProfitStars last demonstrated its Budget Manager at FinovateSpring 2012.

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Flint Mobile Opens Up for Developers to Embed In-App Card Payments

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 19, 2015
Categories: Flint Mobile

In an increasingly mobile world, even small businesses are on the go. Flint Mobile’s technology helps mobile SMBs, such as contractors, accept card payments on their mobile devices. Today, the company is launching App2App Connect, a free, lightweight feature that relies on Flint’s card-scanning technology to offer embedded payments within mobile apps.

Using App2App Connect, developers add a “Take Payment” button into mobile SaaS apps that offer SMBs solutions such as client scheduling, appointments, or sales. Since Flint takes control of card data entry and management, developers stay PCI compliant and don’t need to deal with the payments process.

Small businesses using a mobile app with the new capability will be able to accept credit card payments on the spot, without additional hardware, instead of invoicing their clients. Here’s how it works:

Also starting today, businesses using Flint’s iOS and Android apps can accept a wider variety of cards. In addition to Visa and MasterCard, the California-based company is launching support for American Express and Discover. For all cards, Flint charges 1.95% for debit card payments and 2.95% for credit card transactions.

Flint launched its first product offering in San Francisco at FinovateSpring 2012.

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Finovate Debuts: How Bitbond Leverages Bitcoin to Benefit Borrowers and Lenders

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 17, 2015
Categories: Bitbond

Bitbond’s peer-to-peer bitcoin lending platform connects small businesses looking for loans with lenders in search of a fixed-income investment. Because it uses Bitcoin, Bitbond has three advantages over traditional P2P lending companies:

Global
Since Bitcoin works across country borders, it doesn’t charge foreign exchange fees.
Instant
Instead of relying on ACH money transfers, the funds travel at the speed of Bitcoin– instantly.
No bank account necessary
Unlike traditional P2P lending platforms, users do not need a bank account to borrow or lend.

Though many think of Bitcoin as risky, Bitbond protects users from the digital currency’s volatility by denominating loans in U.S. dollars (USD). With USD as the base currency of the loan, the value is fixed, which mitigates exchange rate fluctuations.

Stats

$212,000 equity raised
4 employees
7,000+ registered users from 120 countries
Originated 500+ loans to date
Launched in 2013
Headquartered in Berlin, Germany

Borrowers

Borrowers create an account and submit a loan request that includes the purpose, along with income, location, and other information. Loan amounts begin at BTC 0.1 ($28)* for a term ranging from six weeks to five years. Borrowers pay a fee between 0.5% to 3% of the loan amount, in addition to interest.

If borrowers want to seem more attractive to lenders, they can pay Bitbond to assess their creditworthiness. The rating ranges from A to F, and depends on factors such as credit bureau rating, type of employment, eBay feedback score, and other applicable factors.

The screenshot below shows a lender’s view of a borrower’s profile page:

Borrower benefits:

Access to a global lender base
No bank account necessary
Lower interest rates
The interest rates range between 8% and 25%, which is often less than local lenders.

Lenders

To browse available loan requests, lenders filter listings by rating, term, country, and base currency:

Lender benefits:

Access to a global, diverse asset class
Zero fees, lenders pay only taxes

Autoinvest

At FinovateEurope 2015, the startup launched Autoinvest. This new feature does exactly what you would assume: it automatically allocates funds for lenders based on pre-selected criteria: risk, currency, and geographical region.

To begin auto-investing, lenders must:

1) Determine amount to allocate

2) Select U.S. dollar or Bitcoin as the base currency. While all payments are conducted in Bitcoin, if lenders select USD, the value is fixed in dollars and the borrower and the lender mitigate exchange rate fluctuations that are common with the digital currency.

3) Appoint risk rating (Low, Medium, High)

4) Choose up to six different geographical regions

After this process, Bitbond screens and allocates funds for the lender, who has visibility to all investments in their portfolio summary.

Bitbond debuted Autoinvest at FinovateEurope 2015. Check out the live demo.

*based on Bitcoin value as of March 17, 2015

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Finovate Debuts: Yoyo is More than Just a Mobile Wallet

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 17, 2015
Categories: Yoyo

Yoyo is a mobile wallet at its core, but offers more than just a simple payment capability. The platform blends payments, loyalty, and shopping to help retailers reach their customers in new ways.

Stats

• $5M seed funding raised
• 25 employees
• 15,000 registered users since launch in January 2014
• Processes over 150,000 transactions a month

Since customers use a variety of payment methods, most retailers cannot track customer spending patterns. Yoyo gathers level III (item-level) data from purchases. By understanding users’ trends and preferences, Yoyo helps retailers offer rewards, enhance loyalty, and improve the customer experience, while minimizing friction at the point of sale (POS).

For consumers
The Yoyo app home screen (pictured above) maps retail locations that accept payment via Yoyo, shows users their payment activity, and offers quick access to the mobile wallet to enable POS payments.

After a customer adds payment information into the app, they pay at the POS using a QR code the app generates for each transaction. When the retailer scans the code, the payment is complete. Yoyo automatically credits rewards or loyalty points earned, updates the balance on their mobile wallet, and digitally stores the itemized receipt.

For retailers
When consumers pay using their Yoyo mobile wallet, they provide data on what and when they’re buying, as well as how much they are spending. Using Yoyo’s analytics and offers, retailers generate campaigns directed at different customer segments to encourage more frequent, higher spending. The campaigns also entice new customers with special deals, as well as inspire one-time customers to return.

Yoyo also offers a companion card. The back of the card has a printed QR code, along with instructions on how to register for a Yoyo account. When a retailer scans the code, new customers immediately begin receiving loyalty points. Additionally, if the customer prefers to pay with cash, they can still reap their loyalty points or redeem coupons when they present the card at the point of purchase.

What’s new?
At FinovateEurope 2015, Yoyo announced it will open the rails of its mobile platform for white-label use. In addition to Yoyo’s new, white-label option, the startup recently announced integration with the Apple Watch, giving users the ability to pay at the POS with a touch of their wrist.

Also, Yoyo is expanding its London-based operations internationally into Asia.

Check out Yoyo’s demo video from FinovateEurope 2015 where it announced the availability of its white-label API.

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Finovate Debuts: TransferTo’s Mobile Remittance Platform Gives the Sender More Control

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 13, 2015
Categories: TransferTo, Uncategorized

TransferTo’s mobile remittance platform allows users to send money across borders in real time, and for a specific purpose. The San Francisco-based company aims to solve two pain points in remittance payments:

1) Small remittances incur large fees of up to 50%, making wire transfers an inefficient way to send money under $50.

TransferTo specializes in low dollar remittance payments by creating a low-cost way to send small amounts of money.

2) Senders are not able to control how the recipient spends the money.

TransferTo places the sender in control by allowing them to dictate the specific purpose for which the recipient uses the funds

Stats

Partnered with a network of 400 mobile network operators and utility providers in 100+ countries
Has over 1,000 B2B customers in 30 countries
Processes more than 45 million transactions annually
Founded in 2005
Consumers are using the service 3x per month on average
On average, each sender remits money to 2.5 people

The company’s secret sauce is in its partnerships. By connecting the sender’s mobile network operator (MNO) with the recipients’ MNO or utility provider, TransferTo offers a low-friction way to debit and credit the accounts.

Use Cases

1) Top up airtime via SMS
The image below shows the SMS flow. In this case, a user tops up the airtime minutes of their friend or family in the Philippines. Using any device, they send TransferTo an SMS of the recipient’s mobile phone number and select the amount to send, 90 PHP.

After agreeing to the $2 fee, the 90 PHP is automatically and instantly applied to the recipient’s prepaid airtime minutes.

2) Top up electricity meter via mobile app
On a smartphone, the sender uses the mobile web app or native Android app to send remittances. In the example below, the user wants to send 50,000 Indian Rupees (Rp) to a friend or family member in Indonesia.

They enter the recipient’s mobile phone number and meter number and select the amount to load on the prepaid electricity meter. After agreeing to the fee and confirming the amount, the beneficiary instantly receives Rp 50,000, along with instructions on how to apply the balance to their electricity meter.

It is also available on a web platform:

Depending on the recipient’s geographical region, the sender can specify remittances for:

Mobile phone
Television
Electricity
Education
Grocery
Pharmacy
Phone service
Healthcare
Public Transportation
Gas/ Petrol

TransferTo’s API enables financial institutions and money transfer companies to offer a white-labeled service as a complement to traditional P2P payment services. PayPal, Wells Fargo, and Western Union are current clients.

TransferTo demonstrated prepaid electricity remittance at FinovateEurope 2015. Check out the live demo video.

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HelloWallet Launches with First Bank Partner

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 11, 2015
Categories: HelloWallet

In May of last year, Morningstar purchased HelloWallet for $52.5 million. This week, the startup appears to be broadening its business model by launching with its first bank partner, KeyBank.

Since rolling out in 2009, HelloWallet has distributed its PFM platform to employers to offer as a benefit to their employees. By adding banks to its distribution partners, the startup will reach more users.

Matt Fellowes is the founder of HelloWallet and was recently named chief innovation officer at Morningstar. Fellowes states:

“Our goal is to democratize access to financial guidance for all Americans. Working with KeyBank is a tremendous opportunity to offer the bank’s clients consistent, personalized guidance so they can feel confident in their ability to make well-informed financial decisions.”

The Cleveland-based institution will use HelloWallet to offer customers a free financial health score, ranging from 1 to 100. The scores assess users’ financial health and allow them to compare themselves against peers.

HelloWallet will also offer external account aggregation, a first for KeyBank. By adding external bank account information, customers will see a full picture of their overall finances.

The financial wellness program will roll out in phases over the course of this year.

HelloWallet demonstrated at FinovateSpring 2011.

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Alumni News: March 11, 2015

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 11, 2015
Categories: Authentify, Avoka, Cachet Financial Solutions, Check Point, FinanceIt, Quisk

Quisk discusses its experience at FinovateEurope 2015.

Check Point Software Technologies introduces Check Point Threat Extraction, a security approach that ensures documents are delivered to a malware-free network.

Paybefore selects the Navy FCU Visa Buxx app, powered by Cachet Financial’s Select Mobile Money, as Best in Category in the Judges’ Choice category of the 2015 Paybefore Awards.

Authentify launches xFA SecureCallCenter to help FIs protect call center reps from social engineering attempts.

ANV Group selects Avoka’s Transact technology to help improve the user experience for its insurance customers.

Talent Refresh features alternative lender, Financeit.

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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Finovate Blog

Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

In Partnership with Equifax, Zumigo Further Protects Merchants

Alt Credit Score Startup, Aire, Raises $1.1 Million

Finovate Debuts: OnlinePay.com’s Mobile Wallet Review

Finovate Debuts: PhotoPay’s BlinkOCR Recognizes Data by Context

Finovate Alumni News

PayNearMe Brings Online Cash Payments to ProfitStars’ EPS Smart Pay Express

Flint Mobile Opens Up for Developers to Embed In-App Card Payments

Finovate Debuts: How Bitbond Leverages Bitcoin to Benefit Borrowers and Lenders

Finovate Debuts: Yoyo is More than Just a Mobile Wallet

Finovate Debuts: TransferTo’s Mobile Remittance Platform Gives the Sender More Control

HelloWallet Launches with First Bank Partner

Alumni News: March 11, 2015