Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Mizuho International Taps SymphonyAI to Bolster AML

Mizuho International Taps SymphonyAI to Bolster AML
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Mizuho International selected SymphonyAI’s Sensa to enhance AML detection within its European Capital Markets Division.
  • Sensa’s machine learning models– including changes in behavior, risk similarities, anomaly detection, and hotspot identification– help organizations detect money laundering activity.
  • Sensa operates under SymphonyAI, which acquired the company in 2019.

Mizuho International selected SymphonyAI’s Sensa to bolster its fight against Anti-Money Laundering (AML). Specifically, the London-based securities and investment banking arm of Mizuho Financial Group will use Sensa to enhance AML detection within its European Capital Markets Division.

Sensa leverages advanced machine learning models that include changes in behavior, risk similarities, anomaly detection, and hotspot identification. The company combines these models with its set of scenario rules to help firms detect money laundering risk. With 46 patents and $100 million in research and development, Sensa’s technology won Aite-Novarica Group’s 2021 Fraud & AML Impact Innovation Award and is a top 10 DARPA innovation. The company was founded in 2008 and has since garnered $106 million in funding from the likes of Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, and others.

“We are thrilled to be deploying industry-leading AML transaction monitoring (TM) capabilities. Our next-gen AML TM strategy sought a more refined rule detection and advanced AI solution to find real AML risk and reduce false positives and analyst review times by holistic scoring. We needed a solution that helps analysts, through user interfaces, to deliver all the information needed to expedite investigations,” said Mizuho EMEA’s Chief Compliance Officer Dinesh Joshi. “SensaAML will make a significant difference in our long-held fight against money laundering. Our financial crime team will be empowered and more effective.”

SymphonyAI, the company behind Sensa, offers AI SaaS solutions for enterprises across a range of verticals, including retail, consumer packaged goods, finance, manufacturing, media, and IT/enterprise service management. Founded in 2017, the California-based company acquired Sensa in 2019 for an undisclosed amount.

The topic of AI– specifically generative AI– has received a lot of attention since Open AI launched its consumer-facing ChatGPT tool late last year. The fraud and financial crime space is prime for AI enhancement, especially generative AI enhancement. As Bain Capital Ventures Partner Sarah Hinkfuss explained in a recent blog post, “Generative AI can produce new training data to train and re-train fraud models. One of the challenges with piracy and fraud has been the cat and mouse game of security providers building to address the latest exploited weakness, only for fraudsters to find the next weakness. Training models on yet-unseen examples of fraud generated by generative AI provides the opportunity to stay one step ahead.”

Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Payoneer Earns E-Money License from the U.K.’s FCA

Payoneer Earns E-Money License from the U.K.’s FCA
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Payoneer
  • Payoneer received its e-money license from the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority.
  • The license will enable the digital commerce company to continue serving its U.K.-based customers.
  • Having earned the license, Payoneer now plans to grow its footprint in the U.K. region.

Global digital commerce company Payoneer received its e-money license from the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) this week. The license will enable Payoneer to continue to provide its e-money services to U.K.-based businesses.

“The FCA traditionally sets the tone of financial regulation globally and therefore we are extremely proud to be receiving our e-money license in the U.K., said Payoneer Payment Services CEO and SVP of Payoneer Europe James Allum. “We’re excited to be able to continue serving our customers in the U.K. and with our relationship with the FCA. Our customers in the UK now have confidence in Payoneer’s consistent ability to provide regulated financial services of the highest standard.”

With the new U.K. money license, Payoneer will grow its footprint in the region, offering its digital money services to U.K.-based businesses.

Payoneer was founded in 2005 and offers multi-currency accounts to five million customers ranging from marketplaces, sellers, freelancers, gig workers, manufacturers, banks, suppliers, and buyers. With a mission to “democratize access to financial services and drive growth for digital businesses of all sizes from around the world,” Payoneer helps users pay, get paid, and manage funds on a global scale. The company also offers working capital– providing advances to Amazon and Walmart sellers, as well as to small businesses.

In 2021, Payoneer went public via a SPAC merger with FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp. The company listed on the NASDAQ in June 2021 under the ticker PAYO. Scott Galit is CEO.

Photo by Pixabay

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Market Data Firm QUODD Acquires Competitor Xignite

Market Data Firm QUODD Acquires Competitor Xignite
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Xignite
  • QUODD has agreed to acquire fellow market data company Xignite.
  • Combined, the two companies will serve more than 2,200 firms, ranging from large banks and wealth management platforms to smaller digital investment tools.
  • Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Two market data firms are combining this week, as QUODD Financial Information Services acquires Xignite. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

QUODD said the purchase reinforces its commitment to become “the premier cloud-based global financial market data and content provider.” Company CEO Bob Ward added, “Xignite is well known for being an early adopter of delivering high-quality market data solutions via the cloud as well as for its extensive API-driven data catalog. I look forward to working with Stephane Dubois, CEO of Xignite, and his team to help us fuel our next chapter of growth delivering the most accessible and reliable data for our customers.”

Combined, Xignite and QUODD will serve more than 2,200 companies, ranging from large banks and wealth management platforms to smaller digital investment tools. QUODD will leverage Xignite’s technology to enhance its QUODD Fuel, which will integrate Xignite’s content catalog; and Universe+, which will leverage Xignite’s market data.

QUODD’s technology enables clients to stream, embed, look up, and download pricing data for global equities, fixed income, indices, options, futures, and end-of-day pricing for global mutual funds. The company is owned by NewSpring Holdings’ Financeware, a probability-analysis technology and marketing strategies provider, which acquired QUODD in 2019 for an undisclosed amount.

NewSpring Holdings has lofty ambitions for the Xignite buy. “Our goal for the combined organization is to create the industry’s leading provider in centralized market data augmented with superior customer service, anchored in the strength of long-standing relationships and supported by leading technologies, which is why this transaction was a perfect fit,” said NewSpring Holdings General Partner Jim Ashton. “2022 was another year of strong organic growth for QUODD and, combined with Xignite, we are continuing to raise the bar in transforming the digital adoption of financial data for market participants.”

Founded in 2000, Xignite offers market data APIs to its brokerage, wealth management, and fintech clients. The company’s APIs offer a range of market data– including real-time stock prices, historical stock prices, options prices, futures prices, mutual fund prices, ETF prices, foreign exchange rates, bond prices, and more. Combined, the company’s customers use Xignite’s APIs more than half a trillion times each month.

Photo by Pixabay

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

PhonePe Raises $100 Million at $12 Billion Valuation

PhonePe Raises $100 Million at $12 Billion Valuation
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • PhonePe raised $100 million in funding from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds, bringing its total funding to $2.2 billion.
  • The investment values the company at $12 billion.
  • PhonePe will use the funds to scale its existing payments and insurance businesses and to enter new financial services sub-sectors.

Digital money app PhonePe just raised $100 million in funding from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds. The investment follows a $350 million round PhonePe received last month and brings the India-based company’s total funding to $2.2 billion.

Today’s round, which values PhonePe at $12 billion, contributes to the company’s $1 billion capital raise target. Within six weeks of benchmarking the $1 billion goal, PhonePe is almost halfway there. The company has already raised $450 million and “expects further investments from leading global, as well as prominent high net worth Indian investors in due course.”

The mobile payments innovator will use the investment to scale its existing payments and insurance businesses. The funds will also fuel PhonePe’s entry into new businesses like lending, stockbroking, ecommerce, and account aggregators, which it plans to begin pursuing in the next few years.

“Our investment in PhonePe reinforces our conviction on backing best in class Founders while betting on the financial digitization of the next 450 million Indians,” said TCF Chairman and Managing Director Gopal Srinivasan. “We view this more as an opportunity in a population scale business for New India, driven by an outstanding management team with razor sharp focus, as driven by execution.”

PhonePe was founded in 2015 and now facilitates payments for its 440+ million registered users. The company’s end-to-end payments solution offers businesses a no-code payment gateway platform and provides consumers with a payment app where they can pay bills, send money, buy gold, invest, and shop online and in-person.

The company, which was acquired by Walmart-owned Flipkart in 2016, distanced itself from the Flipkart brand in 2020 via a financing round that dropped Flipkart’s ownership of PhonePe from 100% down to 87%. Earlier this month, the company began facilitating international transactions through Unified Payments Interface (UPI), enabling Indian travelers to make UPI transactions to foreign merchants using PhonePe platform.

Photo by Michael Skok on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FIS Breaks Off Merchant Solutions, Plans to Restore Worldpay Brand

FIS Breaks Off Merchant Solutions, Plans to Restore Worldpay Brand
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, FIS, WorldPay
  • FIS is letting go of its Merchant Solutions business, along with the Worldpay brand, which it originally acquired for $34 billion in 2019.
  • The company states that Worldpay needs a different capital allocation strategy to enable the brand “to pursue more aggressive investment opportunities, including M&A.”
  • The spin-off is expected to take 12 months.

FIS acquired Worldpay for $34 billion in 2019, and after rumors of a break-up swirled last week, the Florida-based firm announced plans to let go of and restore the Worldpay brand. Specifically, FIS is spinning out the Merchant Solutions business it created from the Worldpay acquisition.

Jeffrey A. Goldstein, FIS Chairman of the Board, said that “… the spin-off of Worldpay will unlock shareholder value by improving both companies’ performance, enhancing client services, and simplifying operational management. We are confident that this is the right time for the separation of Worldpay.” Goldstein added that the Merchant Solutions business requires “increased investment in growth and a different capital allocation strategy” than FIS.

In its press release announcing the change, FIS explained that this different capital allocation strategy will enable Worldpay “to pursue more aggressive investment opportunities, including M&A.” The long-term goal of the spin-off is for Worldpay to expand geographic coverage of its eCommerce tools, strengthen its enterprise offerings, and shift toward software-led payments.

After the split, which is expected to be completed in the next 12 months, FIS and Worldpay will retain strong ties. As a result, FIS’ Merchant Solutions business will take on the Worldpay brand, which will be restored. Originally founded in 1971, Worldpay conducted $2 trillion in payments volume in 2022. Charles Drucker, who was Worldpay CEO from 2004 until the acquisition in 2019, will oversee the spin-off and will once again serve as the company’s CEO when the separation is finalized.

Founded in 1968, banking technology company FIS has acquired a total of 17 companies, two of which were purchased after the Worldpay acquisition in 2019. The company offers 450+ solutions and processes more than 110 million transactions each day. FIS is publicly listed on the NYSE and has a current market capitalization of almost $40 billion.

Photo by Monstera

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Checking in on Fintech in Africa

Checking in on Fintech in Africa
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Diversity in Fintech, Report series

Fintech in Africa has experienced a growth spurt in recent years. Last month, investment banking firm FT Partners took a deeper look into the state of fintech in Africa in a report titled Fintech In Africa: Momentum is Building and the World is Taking Notice. The report examines underlying drivers of recent growth, offers details of the fintech investment scene, and provides an update on the state of important trends such as challenger banking and open finance.

Below are a handful of highlights from the 207-page report, which you can check out in its entirety on FT Partners’ website.

Underlying drivers of growth

The report highlights the multiple factors currently creating the perfect storm for fintech growth in Africa at the moment. The continent’s young, underbanked, tech-savvy population has long-favored cash, but is showing increasing favor for mobile-first technologies as mobile adoption rises and governments seek to further financial inclusion.

Some of the supporting statistics include:

  • Almost half of the world’s mobile money customers reside in Africa
  • More than half of Africans are unbanked or underbanked
  • 65% of those in Sub-Saharan Africa are unbanked or underbanked
  • 90% of payments are still made using cash
  • Mobile penetration is 80%
  • 47% have access to internet
  • The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement went into effect in 2019, opening up cross-border payments and creating the potential for a single currency.

State of Open Banking

It is well known that open banking and open finance create a wealth of benefits to end consumers– including increased control over use of their data. In addition to this, Africa is poised to benefit from open banking, which is expected to extend banks’ reach to rural populations and lower costs and barriers to entry of banking services by facilitating innovation in the space.

Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa have each made inroads into creating formal regulation surrounding open banking:

  • Nigeria’s Central Bank issued its regulatory framework for open banking in 2021 and is currently working on operational, technical, and security guidelines
  • Kenya’s Central Bank emphasized open infrastructure as a strategic pillar for the financial services industry as part of its four-year-strategy announced in 2020
  • South Africa is home to six banks currently offering customers open banking services.

Challenger banking scene

Many fintechs have risen to serve the underbanked or unbanked populations in Africa, a group that makes up more than half of the country’s total population. FT Partners reports that many challenger banks are finding initial success in serving as alternative lenders to customers that lack access to traditional banking channels, and then building out a more robust set of services on top of their lending offering. Key to this, the report notes, is an efficient and reliable underwriting model.

Fintech investment scene

In 2022, African fintechs garnered $1.5 billion in funding across 135 deals. This is up significantly from 2019, when the continent’s fintechs brought in $340 million across 27 transactions.

In such a cash-heavy, underbanked society, it is no surprise to see that payments and banking technology was the most popular sub-sector for investors in 2022, having received more than $2 billion in funding volume. The report also notes that the payments and banking technology is responsible for more than half of the fintech financing deals over the course of the past six years.

New investors in the African fintech space over the past two years include:

  • Vitruvian
  • QED
  • Silver Lake AQD
  • CommerzVentures
  • Dragoneer
  • Fidelity
  • Insight

Photo by Nothing Ahead

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Visa Partnership Fuels Wirex Crypto Card Issuance

Visa Partnership Fuels Wirex Crypto Card Issuance
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, VISA
  • Wirex deepened its partnership with Visa.
  • The new agreement enables Wirex to issue its crypto debit and prepaid cards to more than 40 countries.
  • The company is working on finalizing another partnership that will facilitate card issuance in Australia.

Cryptocurrency payments company Wirex unveiled a strategic partnership with Visa this week. The agreement makes Wirex a member of Visa in the U.K. and in the Asia Pacific region and will enable the fintech to issue its crypto debit and prepaid cards to more than 40 countries.

The two players began their partnership at Wirex’s launch in 2015, when the U.K.-based company unveiled its crypto-enabled Visa card. The payment card enables users to buy, hold, exchange, and sell 150 currencies– from traditional to cryptocurrencies. Additionally, Wirex customers can use their Visa card to spend their currency holdings at live rates at more than 80 million locations where Visa is accepted.

In addition to the live crypto-to-fiat conversion, Wirex offers free international ATM withdrawals, zero monthly fees, free fiat-to-fiat exchanges, and up to 8% back in crypto rewards on every purchase.

“It’s great to strengthen our partnership with Visa, who have played an important role in allowing us to bridge the gap between the traditional and digital economies,” said Wirex APAC Regional Managing Director Svyatoslav Garal. “Visa’s proven commitment to safety, security and innovation will help us to continue developing a next-generation app and card.”

The partnership aligns well for payments giant Visa, which is working to position its brand in the Web3 space. “Visa wants to bring more payment options to consumers by connecting digital currencies with our network of banks and merchants,” said Visa Head of Digital Partnerships, Asia Pacific Matt Wood. “We’re excited that Wirex is expanding their focus on Asia Pacific, making it easy and seamless for people to spend their crypto balance at the millions of merchants that accept Visa in the region.”

Wirex was founded 2014 by Pavel Matveev and Dmitry Lazarichev. Since then, the company has raised $27.8 million in funding and facilitated more than $20 billion in crypto transactions. Wirex, which expanded to the U.S. last year, said it plans to make a partnership announcement “in the coming weeks” that will facilitate card issuance in Australia.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Tazapay Raises $16.9 Million for Cross-Border Payments

Tazapay Raises $16.9 Million for Cross-Border Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Cross-border payments company Tazapay raised $16.9 million in Series A funding.
  • The investment, which brings the company’s total funding to $21.9 million, was led by Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia.
  • Tazapay processes “hundreds of  millions” of dollars each year in card and local, real-time payment methods.

Singapore-based cross-border payments company Tazapay closed $16.9 million in Series A funding for its cross-border payments technology today. Today’s round, when combined with the company’s Seed rounds, boosts Tazapay’s total funding to $21.9 million.

Investors include Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia, which led the round, along with new investors EscapeVelocity (escp.vc), PayPal Alumni Fund, and angel investor Gokul Rajaram; and existing investors Foundamental, January Capital, RTP Global, and Saison Capital.

Commenting on the investors, Tazapay CEO and co-founder Rahul Shinghal said, “These partners will help us realize our vision to be the foremost cross border infrastructure for global platforms as we double down on growing our market presence and consolidating every real-time banking network in the world under one API. We are grateful to both our new and existing investors for acknowledging the evolving needs of our ecosystem and supporting our aspirations.”

Tazapay will use today’s investment to scale across Asia, expand in the Middle East and Europe. enhance its core capabilities, and add more local payment methods for cross-border e-commerce, education technology, Software-as-a-Service, and travel.

Founded in 2020, Tazapay facilitates card and local, real-time payment methods for businesses and consumers. The company’s API offers access to a global network of 170+ markets for its card coverage and 85 markets and processes “hundreds of  millions” of dollars each year.

The investment comes at a time when both interest in and development of real-time payment technologies are on the rise across the globe. PhonePe, one of India’s largest fintechs, recently announced it will make its UPI payments available in the UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal and Bhutan. And in the U.S., the Federal Reserve’s FedNow payment scheme is nearing completion. In fact, banking-as-a-service provider Finzly just unveiled a new API yesterday that offers connection to the U.S. FedNow Service in a sandbox environment.

Photo by Tatiana Syrikova

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finzly’s New API Offers Access to FedNow Payment Rails

Finzly’s New API Offers Access to FedNow Payment Rails
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finzly
  • Finzly has released an API connection to the U.S. FedNow Service.
  • The API enables developers to test out the new set of payment rails in a sandbox environment.
  • FedNow, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s real-time payment rails, is set to launch later this year.

Banking-as-a-service provider Finzly released its new API that offers connection to the U.S. FedNow Service in a sandbox environment.

Through its sandbox, Finzly enables fintech, bank, and third party developers to use its API to build real-time payment experiences via the FedNow’s pilot version.

“The future of the economy is connected and real-time. Insurance payouts, government benefits, healthcare payments, online commerce, subscriptions, point of sale, investment, lending, treasury, and several other platforms are expected to connect to the new FedNow Service for an integrated, cardless, bank-to-bank, instant payment experience,” said Finzly Founder and CEO Booshan Rengachari. “Finzly APIs and its direct connection to the FedNow service will accelerate the adoption of instant payments in several use cases. We are excited about being the world’s first player to offer access to FedNow service via an API.”

Launching later this year, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service is a set of new, real-time payment rails. The service will facilitate instant money transfers to and from any U.S. financial institution at any time of day, on any day of the week for both commercial and retail customers.

Today’s news comes a little over two years after Finzly announced it was among 110 other organizations participating in the FedNow pilot program, a beta test of the new rails. Other non-bank pilot participants include ACI Worldwide, Finastra, Jack Henry & Associates, and Q2 Software.

Founded in 2012, Finzly offers banking-as-a-service tools via Finzly OS— which it demoed at FinovateSpring last year– that enable users to launch a modern bank from scratch. The company offers an API that connects to all U.S. payment rails, including Fed ACH, Fedwire, RTP, SWIFT, and now FedNow. Formerly known as SwapsTech, the North Carolina-based company recently added a handful of clients, including Veritex Community Bank, Coastal Community Bank, First Internet Bank, and ICBA Bancard. Finzly recently

Photo by Benjamin Svobodny

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Canoe Intelligence Raises $25 Million

Canoe Intelligence Raises $25 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Canoe received $25 million for its alternative investment intelligence platform.
  • The Series B round was led by F-Prime Capital with participation from Eight Roads Ventures and others. 
  • Canoe will use the funds to hire new employees, enhance its products, and expand into Europe.

Alternative investment intelligence company Canoe Intelligence closed out its Series B round today, announcing a $25 million round led by F-Prime Capital with participation from Eight Roads Ventures and others. 

“Following a year of significant growth and progress for Canoe, we are thrilled to partner with F-Prime and Eight Roads to advance Canoe’s capabilities for the alternative investment ecosystem,” said company CEO Jason Eiswerth. “As alternative investments continue to gain popularity amongst institutional and individual investors, the new injection of capital will allow us to further serve our customer base and streamline alternative investment data globally.”

Today’s round follows the company’s Series A rounds, which were announced in 2020 and 2021 and led by The Carlyle Group and Nasdaq Ventures. All previous investment amounts were undisclosed, so Canoe’s total funding is unknown.

Canoe will use the funding to hire new employees, enhance its offerings for enterprise customers, develop new data products, and work on its core platform. The company will also begin a push to expand into European markets. “The EMEA alternative investment industry is nearly the same size as North America and its data challenges are identical, yet today there is no comparable local solution,” said Eight Roads Partner Alston Zecha. “Canoe has a significant opportunity to deliver customer value in Europe first where it already has a presence, as well as other regions in [the] future.”

Canoe was founded in 2013 to help alternative investment firms streamline their data management processes. The company’s platform leverages AI and machine learning to automatically collect and categorize documents, extract and validate data, and deliver the sorted data investors need to make more informed investment decisions.

Each year, Canoe processes over six million documents and extracts more than 20 million data points. When compared to a manual approach, Canoe’s AI-based automation results in a 20x increase in the number of funds each employee can process. The New York-based company, which currently supports more than $5 trillion in assets under advisement, grew its client base over 200% in both 2021 and 2022.

Photo by Quentin Groome

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Oracle Launches Cloud Banking Services

Oracle Launches Cloud Banking Services
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Oracle launched Banking Cloud Services, a suite of six services to help banks modernize their offerings.
  • Banks can mix and match the services and use them as standalone capabilities or incorporate them within their existing infrastructure.
  • Oracle has financial services clients in 140 countries and manages risk for 24 of the 28 top systemically important financial institutions.

Cloud application services company Oracle unveiled Banking Cloud Services, a set of six composable cloud native services aimed to help banks modernize their capabilities.

“Banks must innovate to succeed in today’s hyper competitive environment,” said Oracle Financial Services Executive Vice President and General Manager Sonny Singh. “We have built one of the world’s most comprehensive suites of cloud-native SaaS solutions so that banks of all sizes can innovate with speed, security, and scale without compromising their existing environments.”

Banks can select any combination of the six services as standalone capabilities or to work within their existing infrastructure. The Banking Cloud Services include:

Banking Accounts Cloud Service
This service offers scalable demand deposit account processing that integrates with a bank’s existing process flows and technology.

Banking Payments Cloud Service
The payments tool facilitates real-time processing for payment types including for cross-border, high-value, bulk, retail, and 24×7 payments.

Banking Enterprise Limits and Collateral Management Cloud Service
This service offers banks a holistic view of their collateral management exposure and reduces risk by tracking exposure, credit underwriting, decisions, and approvals.

Banking Origination Cloud Service
This tool helps banks streamline the onboarding process and automate underwriting decisioning for retail and small business customers. The automation helps banks scale originations to increase deposit and credit volumes.

Banking Digital Experience Cloud Service
This digital banking solution serves as a customer acquisition tool that offers digital experiences supported by video, chatbot, AI, and natural language processing-based engagement tools.

Banking APIs Cloud Service
Oracle Banking APIs Cloud Service offers more than 1,800 banking APIs to help banks establish an open banking platform that boosts innovation while remaining compliant. Banks can leverage open banking to improve their customer experience and increase revenue by embedding their services among third party providers.

Oracle is a 46-year-old company based in San Francisco. The firm has financial services clients in 140 countries and manages risk for 24 of the 28 top systemically important financial institutions. Oracle is publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ORCL and has a current market capitalization of $236 billion.

Photo by Pixabay

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Listerhill Credit Union Taps Glia for Digital Customer Service

Listerhill Credit Union Taps Glia for Digital Customer Service
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Glia

When every year is declared the year of the customer, it means more firms are motivated to upgrade their customer service technology. That may be why Listerhill Credit Union selected digital customer service company Glia to overhaul its digital customer service technology.

“Glia has enabled us to provide online service that mirrors our personalized, in-branch experience, allowing members to feel connected as a part of the Listerhill community regardless of communication channels,” said Listerhill Digital Strategist Dustin Holland.

Listerhill is leveraging Glia’s Digital Customer Service (DCS) suite, which includes online collaboration tools such as co-browsing to support its 92,000 members across five U.S. states. The credit union has implemented DCS in its mortgage lending department to guide members through mortgage applications and help them if they have a question or need assistance completing the process.

Listerhill said that this application of Glia’s DCS has resulted in “significant” new growth for its mortgage business. In fact, the credit union’s mortgage application conversion rate is four times the industry average, which has added up to an additional $2 million in mortgage sales year-over-year.

“By seeing who is actively reviewing mortgage information on our site, I’m able to connect and offer assistance that can help move a member closer to applying for a mortgage with Listerhill, without bothering members who are looking for other services,” said Listerhill Mortgage Originator Specialist Angela Underwood. “It’s a high-touch sales process that aligns to Listerhills’ focus on great member experiences.”

New York-based Glia was founded in 2012 as SaleMove. The company offers digital communication environments, on-screen collaboration, and AI-enabled assistance tools for clients who need to support end customers online, over the phone, in home office environments, and via video. Glia has taken home 10 Finovate Best of Show awards for its live demos and most recently showcased its tools at FinovateSpring 2021. 

Last June, Glia acquired conversational AI creator Finn.ai for an undisclosed sum. Last month, Glia announced a major update to its call center platform that integrates Finn.ai’s conversational AI to automate phone interactions and facilitate banks’ migration from phone-centric to digital-first customer service.  

Since it was founded in 2012, Glia has raised $152 million. The company has partnered with more than 400 credit unions, banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, and was recently named a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company for a third year in a row. Daniel Michaeli is CEO.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook