Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Digital Bank Kroo Receives Full U.K. Banking License

Digital Bank Kroo Receives Full U.K. Banking License
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Digital banking startup Kroo received a full banking license from the Bank of England.
  • Kroo will use the new authorization to offer personal current accounts in the coming months.
  • The full banking license places Kroo in competition with Monzo, Starling Bank, and Atom Bank.

Digital banking startup Kroo just received a full banking license from the Bank of England. With the new authorization, the U.K.-based bank plans to offer personal current accounts (checking accounts).

Founded in 2016, Kroo offers a prepaid Mastercard with a tandem mobile app that provides spending insights, peer-to-peer money transfers, bill-splitting capabilities, and more. The payment card, which is biodegradable, works in more than 75 countries.

Kroo will add current accounts to its product line “in the coming months.” After launch, the company will offer its 23,000 customers the option to migrate to the new offering for free.

Kroo CEO Andrea De Gottardo said that the banking license represents a “phenomenal milestone” for the company, which has a mission to create a bank that connects people financially. “The bar to be granted a U.K. banking license is exceptionally high, and I am incredibly proud of the team and our work in achieving this,” De Gottardo added.

Having a full banking license helps Kroo differentiate itself from the massive number of competitors in the digital banking space, since the accreditation enables the bank to protect customers’ deposits of up to £85,000 via the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Along with this, the license allows Kroo to offer a wider range of products, including loans and savings.

Kroo is only the second bank to earn a full banking license with a personal account since 2016. Having the full license places Kroo in competition with major digital banks, including Monzo, Starling Bank, and Atom Bank. Other European-based digital banks Revolut, Klarna, and Wise, have yet to receive their full banking licenses.

Today’s news comes weeks after Kroo closed on a $30 million (£26 million) Series B funding round. The investment brought Kroo’s total funding to $71.5 million.

Photo by James Giddins on Unsplash

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Raisin Bank’s Newest Acquisition Helps it Expand into Bulk Payments and Cash

Raisin Bank’s Newest Acquisition Helps it Expand into Bulk Payments and Cash
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Raisin Bank has agreed to acquire the payment division of Bankhaus August Lenz.
  • The move will help Raisin Bank diversify its revenue sources by adding payment services to its product lineup.
  • Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Banking-as-a-service player Raisin Bank is adding cash and payment services to its product lineup. This comes as the Germany-based firm has acquired the payment division of Bankhaus August Lenz, a private bank headquartered in Munich. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The move will help Raisin Bank diversify its revenue sources by adding payment services. The new capabilities enable Raisin Bank to offer customers electronic payment transactions and cash solutions. Bankhaus August Lenz’s Mirko Siepmann will head up the new division, which aims to help retailers, restaurant, gas stations, and non-bank operators of ATMs, facilitate the operation of more than 4,500 ATMs in Germany. 

“As a service bank, we will act much more independently and powerfully with the expansion of our payment solutions and continue our growth in the banking-as-a-service market throughout Europe advance,” said Raisin Bank Chief Commercial Officer Dr. Andreas Wolf. “With the new business area, we can position ourselves even better as a provider for bulk payments.”

Raisin Bank, previously MHB-Bank, was founded in 1973. The bank acquired European fintech Raisin in 2019 and has since been working toward its goal to become the leading banking-as-a-service provider in Europe. The bank offers digital solutions to help startups, institutional investors, and financial service providers seeking banking licenses to enhance customer and account management, payment transactions, and lending. Raisin Bank stated in today’s press release that adding payment services represents an “important strategic step on the way to becoming a powerful full-service provider.”

Photo by Anete Lusina

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Glia Acquires Finn AI for Undisclosed Sum

Glia Acquires Finn AI for Undisclosed Sum
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finn.ai, Glia, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Digital customer service firm Glia agreed to acquire conversational AI technology company Finn AI.
  • Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
  • Glia Co-founder and CEO Dan Michaeli said that Finn AI is a strong fit for Glia because of its technology, market approach, and company culture. 

Digital customer service firm Glia is enhancing its offering with its recent acquisition of conversational AI technology company and fellow Finovate alum Finn AI.

Financial terms of the agreement, which will integrate Finn.ai’s conversational AI solutions into Glia’s customer service platform, were not disclosed. Glia Co-founder and CEO Dan Michaeli said that Finn AI is a strong fit for Glia because of its technology, market approach, and company culture. 

“This marks a new chapter for Virtual Assistants: Verticalization with Scale,” Michaeli said. “Generic ‘one-size-fits-all’ bot providers have largely failed to meet the full potential of conversational AI, leading to the emergence of vendors focusing on specific industry verticals. Until now, none of the financial services bot vendors have been able to achieve widespread adoption on their own.”

Finn AI Co-founder and CEO Jake Tyler said that joining forces with Glia will offer Finn AI scale. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., Finn AI aims to transform customer engagement and increase financial literacy with its AI-powered conversational banking technology. Among the company’s clients are ATB Financial, BECU, United Federal Credit Union, EQ Bank, Civista Bank, and Truist Momentum.

According to the press release, Finn AI and Glia have a lot of shared clients, and Finn AI’s technology is already integrated into Glia. Post-acquisition, the company’s leadership team will take on leadership positions within Glia. As for Finn AI’s Canadian headquarters, Glia plans to use the location to establish a “Conversational AI Center of Excellence.”

Glia was founded in 2012 as SaleMove. The company offers digital communication choices, on-screen collaboration, and AI-enabled assistance tools. Glia, which has taken home 10 Finovate Best of Show awards for its live demos, most recently showcased its tools at FinovateSpring 2021. Finn AI also boasts accolades from the Finovate audience, having taken home two Finovate Best of Show awards for its demos at FinovateAsia 2016 and FinovateFall 2017.

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The U.K. Proposes 4 New BNPL Rules

The U.K. Proposes 4 New BNPL Rules
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: List series, Uncategorized

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) has seen a lot of hype since the popularity of the technology exploded in 2020. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) estimates that the U.K. BNPL market is worth $3.7 billion (£2.7 billion), and that five million British citizens have used BNPL tools since 2020. This growth is great for BNPL companies, but not necessarily so for the consumers they serve.

That’s because consumers in the U.K. are starting to take on debt to pay for purchases they’ve made using BNPL. According to a recent survey, more than 40% of U.K. consumers have done so. Citizens Advice, which conducted the survey, found that 51% of consumers ages 18 to 34 have borrowed money to pay for BNPL purchases, while 39% of 35 to 54 year-olds and 24% of people aged over 55 have done so.

The most common debt incurred to pay for purchases made using BNPL is credit card debt. Users have also borrowed money from friends and family, borrowed money from their bank overdraft, taken out loans, and have even taken out payday loans. The study also found that more than one in 10 customers of a major bank using BNPL services were already behind on their payments.

This misuse of BNPL technology is why the U.K. FCA released a set of four rules earlier this week. The agency anticipates they will protect millions of consumers.

  1. Lenders will be required to carry out checks to ensure that loans are affordable for consumers.
  2. Advertisements must be fair, clear, and not misleading.
  3. Lenders will need to be approved by the FCA.
  4. Borrowers will be be able to take complaints about BNPL schemes to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The government will create secondary legislation by mid-2023, after which the FCA will consult on its rules for the short-term lending sector.

“Buy-Now Pay-Later can be a helpful way to manage your finances but we need to ensure that people can embrace new products and services with the appropriate protections in place,” said Economic Secretary to the Treasury John Glen. “By holding Buy-Now Pay-Later to the high standards we expect of other loans and forms of credit, we are protecting consumers and fostering the safe growth of this innovative market in the U.K.”

The FCA has made it clear that these regulations do not only apply to BNPL firms. Companies that extend other forms of short-term, interest-free credit will also be required to comply with the same rules. Not only that, the rules also apply to businesses who partner with a third-party lender to provide credit to their customers.

Photo by Nothing Ahead

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Shopify Unveils More than 100 New Features

Shopify Unveils More than 100 New Features
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Ecommerce company Shopify has unveiled more than 100 new announcements today.
  • Among the top new releases are a marketplace that allows fans to use their NFTs to receive personalized benefits and a tool that allows merchants to sell to their audience on Twitter.
  • The announcements were made as part of Shopify Editions, Shopify’s new, semi-annual showcase of fresh tools and updates for its merchant clients.

Ecommerce player Shopify is debuting Shopify Editions, the company’s semi-annual showcase of new tools and capabilities for merchant clients. In today’s announcement, the company is unveiling more than 100 new updates and launches to power what it is calling Connect to Consumer (C2C).

“Welcome to Shopify Editions, where twice a year we show you everything that we’ve been building,” Shopify stated on its website. “We know that brands need new ways to engage with their customers—and that means creating new connections. So this release of Editions features everything you need to win in the new era of commerce: Connect to Consumer.”

Here are some highlights of features Shopify has released so far this year:

  • Point of Sale, which helps merchants sell to customers where they are, including in-person, online, and anywhere else.
  • Hydrogen and Oxygen, which helps any size of merchant start, build, and deploy custom storefronts.
  • B2B on Shopify, an offering that enables Shopify Plus merchants to sell to other businesses on the same platform that they use for selling direct-to-consumer.
  • Shopify Markets, which makes it easy for merchants to engage with and sell to buyers in international markets.
  • Tokengated Commerce, a marketplace that allows fans to use their NFTs to receive personalized benefits such as exclusive merchandise and early access to product releases.
  • Twitter Sales Channel, a tool that allows merchants to highlight their products on their Twitter profile and sell to their audience on Twitter.
  • Tap to Pay on iPhone, which leverages a partnership with Stripe to enable Shopify point-of-sale merchants to expand into offline retail without additional hardware.
  • Local Inventory on Google, a tool that automatically notifies nearby customers when a product is available in store.
  • Shopify Functions, which allows developers to extend or replace Shopify’s backend logic with custom code.

Shopify has also released some smaller updates over the past six months. The company has added data sharing controls, money management tools, carbon neutral shipping options, and its Shopify Capital tool has increased the funding limit for first-time borrowers.

For a look into the rest of the 100+ announcements Shopify is making today, check out the Shopify Editions release page.

While many of the new releases themselves are notable, so is the way the company has decided to unveil them. By rolling up all of the new updates and releases into one large announcement, Shopify is able to make a big deal of even the smallest of updates. For fintechs with fast development cycles and international rollouts, this could be a good model for complex public releases.

Canada-based Shopify was founded in 2004 to bring ecommerce websites and tools to retailers. Since then, millions of businesses in 175 countries have used Shopify to make over $496 billion in sales. Tobias Lütke is CEO.

Photo by Pixabay

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Autobooks Lands $50 Million in Funding to Boost Bank Distribution

Autobooks Lands $50 Million in Funding to Boost Bank Distribution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Autobooks, Daily news, Funding
  • Autobooks has received $50 million in a Series C funding round led by Macquarie Capital.
  • The investment more than doubles Autobooks’ total funding raised, boosting it to $98 million.
  • Autobooks won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateFall 2021.

Payment and accounting platform Autobooks raked in $50 million in a Series C round led by Macquarie Capital with additional support from new and existing investors Baird Capital, Commerce Ventures, Draper Triangle, MissionOG, and TD Bank. The investment more than doubles the Michigan-based company’s total raised, boosting that figure to $98 million.

Autobooks plans to use today’s funding to accelerate distribution into the U.S. banking market.

Autobooks serves more than 60,000 small businesses with a range of tools including digital payment acceptance, online invoicing, online enrollment, accounting, bookkeeping, financial reporting, billpay, and more. The company’s embedded receivables platform for small businesses enables digital invoices, payment acceptance, and automated accounting directly within their mobile banking suite.

To facilitate this, Autobooks integrates its tools with a range of digital banking providers, making its services available to over one third of the U.S. market. Companies that offer Autobooks’ invoicing and payment acceptance tools to their small business clients include Alkami, Bottomline, CSI, FIS, Jack Henry, NCR, and Q2.

In addition to helping small businesses, Autobooks also has the potential to benefit banks. TD Online Accounting, which is a whitelabeled version of Autobooks’ technology, has seen deposits from its 700+ small business clients increase 65%. Simultaneously, the firm has experienced a 2x increase in product usage.

“Businesses are increasingly looking for simple, bundled solutions to get paid and automate their back-office. If the bank can’t offer these services quickly, businesses will (and have) gone elsewhere,” said Autobooks Cofounder and CEO Steve Robert. “To maintain primacy, banks must optimize legacy merchant service programs to include digital payment acceptance tools that feature self-service onboarding. Autobooks makes this possible through our payment facilitation (payfac) model, which can be enabled within days by industry leading partners.”

Autobooks averages more than 10,000 monthly enrollments and has surpassed $40 billion in transaction volume. From 2021 to 2022, the company has experienced 5x revenue growth, 3x employee growth, and 6.5x bank partner growth. Autobooks won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateFall 2021.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

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Filling the Super App Gap in the U.S.

Filling the Super App Gap in the U.S.
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Report series, Thought Leadership

There is a Super App-shaped hole in the U.S., and earlier this year, F.T. Partners published a report titled The Race to the Super App that examines the most eligible companies to fill the gap.

The report details three major categories of potential Super App contenders in the U.S., including challenger banks, large fintechs, and big tech companies/ retailers. Here is a breakdown of U.S. players in each category:

Challenger banks

  • Upgrade
  • Dave
  • Avant
  • Varo
  • Chime
  • MoneyLion
  • Current
  • Mission Lane
  • Oportun

Large fintechs

  • PayPal
  • Square
  • Robinhood
  • Figure
  • Betterment
  • H&R Block
  • M1 Finance
  • TrueBill
  • American Express
  • Wealthfront
  • Affirm
  • SoFi

Big tech companies/ retail

  • Amazon
  • Apple
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Uber
  • Walmart

The report takes an extensive look at the super app industry and details two Super App models. The first is the winner-take-all model. In this approach, the Super App provider begins by offering a banking service and then expands to provide a wider range of services, aiming to eventually become users’ primary financial services tool. The second model is an aggregator approach in which the Super App provider acts as a marketplace that connects users to existing financial services.

Ultimately, banks have a choice to leverage either the winner-take-all model, in which they will build their own Super App to compete with third party players, or to take a hybrid approach in which they both host their banking products on third party marketplaces and offer third party tools to their clients within their own ecosystem. In the former approach, banks will incur competition from major players. However, when taking the latter approach, banks risk relinquishing the primary banking relationship status with their customers.

Photo by Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto

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Kofax Acquires e-Invoicing Network Tungsten

Kofax Acquires e-Invoicing Network Tungsten
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Kofax, Mergers & Acquisitions

  • Kofax is acquiring B2B e-invoicing network Tungsten.
  • The combined companies will offer clients a more holistic e-invoicing approach.
  • Financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.

Intelligent automation software platform Kofax has acquired B2B e-invoicing network Tungsten for an undisclosed amount. Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish anticipates the acquisition will “provide more comprehensive and higher value invoice processing and accounts payable automation solutions” to the company’s customers.

Founded in 2000, Tungsten facilitates invoice-to-pay processes by digitalizing invoices using automation. Headquartered in London, Tungsten enables suppliers to submit tax compliant e-invoices in 54 countries. The company processes invoices for 60% of the FTSE 100 and 68% of the Fortune 500. Last year, Tungsten processed transactions worth over $270 billion for clients including Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and the U.S. Federal Government.

When combined with Kofax’s invoice processing and AP automation portfolio, the combined companies will offer a more holistic e-invoicing approach to companies across the globe. The cloud-based offering will provide solutions for direct supplier onboarding, e-invoice exchange, interoperability, scanned and OCR paper invoices, machine readable PDF invoices, PDF data extraction, and payment processing.

“Finance procurement leaders are looking beyond traditional invoice OCR and workflow capabilities to modern e-invoicing, supplier management, and value-added services – accelerating how they pay and relate with suppliers,” said Tungsten CEO Paul Cooper. “A full technology suite from Kofax will bring efficiencies to how they work with their suppliers, compliantly invoice, and focus on leveraging data to drive insights while reducing cost.”

Kofax was originally founded in 1985 and leverages robotic process automation (RPA) to automate and enhance business’ workflow. The company’s SaaS solutions automate the processing of over 60 million invoices for more than 11,000 organizations around the world. Two years after Kofax went public in 2013, the company was delisted when it was acquired by Lexmark for $1 billion. In 2017, Kofax was once again acquired, this time by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Kofax itself has made a total of 12 acquisitions, including Tungsten.

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MoneyGram Launches Crypto-to-Cash Service

MoneyGram Launches Crypto-to-Cash Service
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MoneyGram
  • MoneyGram is rolling out a service that will enable users to buy cryptocurrency using cash, as well as allow them to withdraw their crypto holdings in cash, at select MoneyGram locations.
  • The new capabilities are made possible via a partnership with Stellar Development Foundation.
  • The service is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Kenya, and the Philippines.

While Western Union is taking payments digital, its competitor MoneyGram is bringing them into crypto. MoneyGram announced today it has begun to roll out a service that will enable cash users to access cryptocurrency via participating MoneyGram locations.

The new service is the result of a partnership between MoneyGram and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the organization behind open-source public blockchain Stellar that allows money to be tokenized and transferred globally. MoneyGram and SDF originally partnered in October of last year, when the two piloted the functionality that enabled digital wallet holders to deposit cash into their digital wallets at MoneyGram locations, send payments internationally via Stellar, and exchange Stellar for cash currency.

The functionality of exchanging cash to cryptocurrency and back to cash again aims to offer unbanked populations access to the digital economy. The fund transfer capabilities don’t require a bank account or a credit card. Consumers that hold a digital wallet with Vibrant or LOBSTR can visit a participating MoneyGram location to load their digital wallets using cash or to cash out their digital currency holdings into cash. MoneyGram expects to collaborate with more digital wallets in the future.

To incentivize adoption of the crypto in/out feature among its 150 million customers, MoneyGram is not charging a fee for the service for the first year.

“A much-needed solution to the cash-to-crypto on/off-ramp problem is here,” said Stellar Development Foundation CEO and Executive Director Denelle Dixon. “Today, almost 2 billion people rely on cash for their livelihood, with no options to access the digital economy. At the same time, a persistent pain point for crypto-native users is off-ramping cryptocurrency quickly and reliably. The groundbreaking nature of this service is how it solves problems for a range of users with varying needs around the world.”

The service is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Kenya, and the Philippines. By the end of this month, global cash-in functionality will be available in seven more countries and cash-out functionality will be available globally (where permitted by law).

MoneyGram, an 82-year-old fintech, was acquired by private equity investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners in a $1.8 billion deal earlier this year. Alex Holmes is chairman and CEO.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION

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ICICI Bank Partners with ZestMoney to Add BNPL Feature

ICICI Bank Partners with ZestMoney to Add BNPL Feature
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • ICICI Bank is integrating ZestMoney’s EMI (Equated Monthly Installments) BNPL network into its Cardless EMI product.
  • Customers can use ZestMoney’s BNPL capabilities to make purchases of up to $12,900 (Rs. 10 lakh).
  • This BNPL tool is currently live for ICICI clients making purchases online and will be available at physical retail locations “soon.”

Another day, another onslaught of BNPL news. Following this week’s chatter on Apple Pay Later and Zopa’s entrance into the BNPL market, ICICI Bank in India announced a partnership with Equated Monthly Installments (EMI) BNPL network ZestMoney.

The tie-up will enable ICICI Bank to expand its Cardless EMI product that facilitates purchases at participating physical retail and e-commerce platforms. When using ZestMoney’s BNPL capabilities, ICICI customers can use cardless credit to make purchases of up to $12,900 (Rs. 10 lakh) online or in-store and pay for it in EMIs. ICICI customers can also use ZestMoney’s flagship Pay-in-3 offering that enables users to split their transaction into three EMIs without extra cost.

“With this partnership, millions of our pre-approved customers can shop from e-commerce platforms and retail merchants registered on ZestMoney by just using mobile phone and PAN,” said ICICI Bank Head of Unsecured Assets Sudipta Roy. “We believe this facility provides immense convenience and improves affordability of our customers, as they can purchase high-value products on EMIs in a secure, instant, and digital manner, without even carrying their cards or wallet.”

This BNPL tool is currently live for ICICI clients making purchases online at ZestMoney’s retailer network which includes Xiaomi, OnePlus, Sugar, Mamaearth, Decathlon, Boat, Yatra, Urban Ladder, Vijay Sales, Titan Eye Plus, and more. BNPL payments made at physical retail locations will be available “soon.”

Launched in 2020, ICICI Bank’s Cardless EMI feature is most popular for users between the ages of 25 to 35. The solution is most widely used in e-commerce shopping platforms, travel, education, insurance, healthcare & wellness, and fashion apparel.

Founded in 2015, ZestMoney enables its 17 million users to apply for a digital credit line within seconds. The company’s merchant network includes 10,000+ online retailers and 75,000 physical stores. In addition to winning Best use of AI/ML at last year’s FinovateAwards, ZestMoney was also selected as a 2020 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and was recognized as the second fastest-growing technology company by Deloitte India in 2021.

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

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What’s Missing to Boost Apple’s BNPL Tool Above the Competition?

What’s Missing to Boost Apple’s BNPL Tool Above the Competition?
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: List series, Thought Leadership

You’ve likely heard by now that Apple has taken the veil off of its BNPL tool, Apple Pay Later. The tech giant announced Apple Pay Later at its World Wide Developer Conference on Monday.

If you haven’t read coverage of the announcement yet, here’s the gist– the new tool will enable Apple Pay users to split any purchase made where Apple Pay is accepted into four installments, paid out over the course of six weeks (check out the video announcement at the bottom of this post for more details).

Apple is coming in late to an already over-saturated BNPL market and faces a lot of competition from well-established players. However, the company is not showing up to compete empty handed. Apple Pay Later has a handful of advantages over other contenders.

Advantages

Acceptance at physical retailers
As mentioned earlier, users can pay with Apple Pay Later anywhere Apple Pay is accepted. This includes many physical retailers. And because 90% of retail purchases are made in-store as opposed to online, Apple already covers a lot of territory that other players haven’t been able to access yet. BNPL giant Klarna currently offers in-store services at just over 60,000 retail locations. As a comparison, Apple Pay is accepted at more than 250,000 retail locations.

Underwriting
The success of a BNPL tool not only hinges on retailer acceptance, but also on underwriting. After all, if your users aren’t paying you back, what’s the point?

While Apple is working with Goldman Sachs as the issuer for the Apple Card, the bank will only be involved in offering access to the Mastercard network and won’t facilitate underwriting. However, Apple’s advantage comes in the form of Credit Kudos, a U.K. startup the tech giant bought last year that enables businesses to leverage open banking to assess affordability and risk.

Physical and virtual card
Some BNPL players already offer both physical and virtual payment cards. However, Apple having both will be a leg up for the company. Having both a physical and virtual presence takes up space consumers’ digital and physical wallets, making it more likely to be top-of-mind (and top-of-wallet).

Brand trust and recognition
According to Statista, Apple has the second most valuable brand in the world at $612 billion. This value is driven by having a brand that consumers trust, recognize, and value. It is widely believed that when Apple releases a hardware product, it will be top-notch. Consumers will expect the same from Apple Pay Later, and will therefore be less hesitant to trust the new tool.

What’s missing?

Apple has thought of almost everything when it comes to Apple Pay Later. One thing I’d love to see is a retroactive payment-switching feature similar to Curve’s Go Back in Time. The tool allows users to free up cash by switching payments from one card to another up to 30 days after the purchase was made.

Apple could allow customers to choose to use Apple Pay Later even after a transaction has been completed in order to free up emergency cash flow. While I wouldn’t advise this as a personal finance strategy, it would offer Apple an even greater leg up on BNPL competitors (including Curve’s when it becomes more widely available in the U.S.).

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SocietyOne Adds Digital Bank Accounts

SocietyOne Adds Digital Bank Accounts
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SocietyOne
  • Australia digital finance platform SocietyOne is adding new checking and savings accounts, SpendOne and SaveOne.
  • SocietyOne is leveraging Westpac’s banking-as-a-service platform to offer the new accounts.
  • Today’s news comes three months after SocietyOne was acquired by alternative lender MONEYME.

It’s 2022 and digital banking is in the air. P2P lending platform SocietyOne is among the many fintechs that have added checking and savings accounts to compete with this decade’s new crop of challenger banks.

The Australia-based company recently unveiled it has tapped its long-time investor Westpac to add these new checking and savings accounts, SpendOne and SaveOne. Westpac’s banking-as-a-service platform will fuel the new accounts, which will work in conjunction with SocietyOne’s fixed rate secured and unsecured personal loans, as well as its free credit score product.

SpendOne and SaveOne can be accessed via SocietyOne’s new mobile app, which offers customers visibility of their transactions and allows them to take out a SocietyOne loan, set up automatic repayments, and access their credit score.

Today’s news comes three months after SocietyOne was acquired by alternative lender MONEYME. According to the press release, the launch of SpendOne and SaveOne “is aimed to fast-track the MONEYME Group’s goal of becoming Australia’s largest non-bank credit provider.” Once the acquisition closed in March of this year, combining the companies significantly increased MONEYME’s customer base and created a $1.2 billion loan book.

“The launch strongly aligns with MONEYME’s diversification strategy and our focus on delivering leading digital-first experiences to empower Generation Now,” said MONEYME CEO and Managing Director Clayton Howes. “The SpendOne and SaveOne accounts are designed to automate good financial habits, giving customers more freedom, flexibility, and a one-stop shop to manage their money.”

Marketed as a transaction account, SpendOne will not charge transaction or account fees. The account comes with many of the features users would expect from a large bank, including a debit card, account-to-account transfer capabilities, and ATM cash withdrawals. Additionally, SpendOne has a round-up feature that lets customers opt to round up their everyday transactions to a select amount, sending the balance to their SaveOne account.

The SaveOne account comes with an interest rate of 1% per year. In addition to the roundup feature mentioned above, SaveOne also helps users save with an autosave option that allows a percentage of customers’ deposits to be automatically transferred to their SaveOne account.

“Adding these products creates a frictionless experience for SocietyOne customers, who can now monitor and manage everyday transactions, savings, SocietyOne personal loans, and their credit score, all in one app,” said MONEYME COO Jonathan Chan. “With easy oversight and automated features to help customers save more, it provides increased control over their finances.”

SocietyOne was founded in 2012. Since then, the company’s platform has matched investors’ funds with over 35,000 customers and, last January, surpassed $1 billion in lending. SocietyOne is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MONEYME, which is listed on the ASX under the ticker MME and has a market capitalization of $220 million.

Photo by Christina Morillo

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