NCR Acquires Terafina to Expand Digital Banking Platform

NCR Acquires Terafina to Expand Digital Banking Platform

Two weeks after announcing its purchase of Cardtronics, fintech hardware giant NCR is acquiring Terafina, a company known for its digital account opening and onboarding tools.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

NCR will tap Terafina’s expertise to expand NCR’s sales and marketing capabilities in its Digital First Banking Platform. The offering, which can be tailored to fit institutions ranging in size from large banks to community banks and credit unions, provides an API-led approach to digital banking that can be hosted or deployed on-premise to help banks lower costs and speed up their innovation cycle.

Last year increased the urgency for financial services companies of all kinds to improve their digital customer experiences. Founded in 2014, Terafina suits this need. The company offers a software-as-a-service solution that offers digital onboarding tools and helps banks and credit unions synchronize their branch, call center, and digital operations to provide a consistent user experience across channels.

At FinovateSpring 2019, Terafina Founder and CEO Meheriar Hasan showcased the company’s digital sales platform that helps banks address the needs of their small business clients.

“Digital Banking is a key aspect of the NCR-as-a-Service strategy we laid out at Investor Day in December,” said NCR CEO Michael D. Hayford. “Terafina has been a partner of ours and is already up and running, integrated with our Digital Banking platform. We know this adds value for our clients by making digital account sales, marketing and onboarding easier, so they can provide a superior experience for customers.”

Today’s deal marks NCR’s 29th acquisition since it was founded in 1884. NCR’s purchase of Terafina fits with the company’s strategy to purchase early stage companies to boost its product capabilities and enhance its leadership.

NCR is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and counts 36,000 employees across the globe. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NCR and has a market capitalization of $4.81 billion.



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CoCoNet Appoints Mark Lohweber as New CEO

CoCoNet Appoints Mark Lohweber as New CEO

Digital corporate banking solutions company CoCoNet Software announced a new CEO today. Mark Lohweber is now heading up the company, taking the reins from former CEO Björn Hassing, who will transition to serve as the company’s CTO.

Lohweber will head up CoCoNet’s board of directors, which also consists of Hassing and company CFO and COO Axel B. Wiethoff.

“In corporate banking, many banks have great potential for process and portfolio optimisation through digitalisation”, said Lohweber. “CoCoNet already offers outstanding solutions in this area. That is why I am very happy, together with Axel, Björn and the entire CoCoNet team, to be a strong partner in digitalisation for the banking sector.

Lohweber comes to CoCoNet after leading the banking business unit at IT service management company adesso for 13 years.

Founded in 1984, CoCoNet provides digital banking solutions to banks, with a customer lineup including Citi, GarantiBank, HSBC, ING, JPMorgan, KBC, and UniCredit.

At FinovateWest 2020, the company demonstrated its digital onboarding solution. The solution is tailored to corporate customers and is designed to suit the complex needs of this segment.

Stash Raises $125 Million

Stash Raises $125 Million

Investment platform Stash announced a new round of financing today. The $125 million Series G round boosts the company’s total funding to over $427 million.

Eldridge led the round, which received additional funding from new and existing investors, including Owl Ventures, funds advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Goodwater Capital, Entree Capital, and others.

The funding comes after a year of record growth for Stash, which was founded in 2015. Last year, the New York-based company saw a 100% increase in account openings. It now has five million customers and $2.5 billion in assets under management. Fueling this increase was the boost in automated deposits; Stash reported a 50% increase in the number of customers automating their investments last year.

Stash’s investment platform democratizes long-term investing by making the process easier and more affordable. “We believe in tried and tested principles of regular, long-term, and balanced investing as the key to building wealth. We therefore built Stash to make diversified investing easy, affordable and accessible, backed by personalized advice and accessible education—in order to avoid the pitfalls of short-term speculation and day-trading,” said Stash Co-Founder and CEO Brandon Krieg. “This new round of funding enables us to take this mission to millions more Americans.”

Stash’s newest upcoming product, Smart Portfolios, helps customers build long-term, diversified portfolios that are fully managed by Stash. The new offering is made for users who want to invest, but don’t know where to start. To keep things simple, Stash uses a subscription model instead of charging fees based on portfolio size. The Smart Portfolios product is included in Stash’s Growth and Plus subscription plans, which cost $3 per month and $9 per month, respectively.


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Six Things to Know About Crypto So Far This Year

Six Things to Know About Crypto So Far This Year

Though we’re only four weeks into it, 2021 has been a big year for cryptocurrency. While there has been a multitude of news items in the crypto space, there are a handful of items worth highlighting.

Though much of the cryptocurrency news cycle is often quite hyped, it’s important for the traditional financial sector to keep their finger on the pulse of major news pieces in this space, especially as the decentralized finance trend takes off. That said, here are six things you need to know about what’s going on in the cryptocurrency realm:

Elon Musk stands bullish on Bitcoin

The price of Bitcoin hit an all-time high at the beginning of January of this year. A few weeks later, during an interview on Clubhouse, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, “I do at this point think bitcoin is a good thing. I’m late to the party, but I am a supporter of bitcoin.”

This vote of confidence for the popular cryptocurrency didn’t send the price of bitcoin to the same highs that we saw on January 8. It did, however, offer it a nice boost in price and a stamp of approval that will be beneficial in boosting the cryptocurrency’s legitimacy.

Ethereum hits all-time high

The price of Ethereum reached an all-time high today, this time breaking the $1,600 mark. Fueling the surge is the pending launch of ethereum futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange next week.

While bullish buyers expect to see the price top out around $2,000, others anticipate it will level off.

The Indian government dances around a cryptocurrency ban

India is notorious for its hot/cold relationship with cryptocurrency. In 2018, the country’s central bank banned offering banking services for digital asset firms, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling last year.

This week, the Indian government revealed that it will likely seek to regulate cryptocurrency, instead of ban it.

Visa announced plans to enable cryptocurrencies trading on its network

In an earnings call, Visa CEO Alfred Kelly said that he wants to make cryptocurrencies “more useful and applicable for payments.” To accomplish this, Kelly sees Visa working with wallets and exchanges to enable users to purchase cryptocurrencies using their Visa card or to cash out onto a Visa card to make a fiat purchase at a traditional merchant.

During the call, Kelly disclosed that the payments giant is already working with a handful of digital currency platforms and wallet providers to serve as their card issuer. This list includes crypto.com, Blockfi, Fold, and Bitpanda.

The OCC OK’d stablecoins

In the first week in January, U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) last week published Interpretive Letter 1174 detailing that banks may use stablecoins and independent node verification networks (INVNs) to facilitate payments for customers. Simply put, banks can transfer stablecoins to other banks.

This development happened under the watch of Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks, who stepped down mid-last month. Taking Brooks’ place is Blake Paulson, whose attitude toward cryptocurrencies is untested.

Gemini began offering a savings account

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini is starting to step on traditional banks’ toes. That’s because the New York-based company is launching a savings account called Earn that allows users to move their crypto holdings into high-yield savings paying as high as 7.4%.

Thanks to Gemini’s business model, it can afford to pay the high rate. That’s because it lends users’ cryptocurrency deposits to other borrowers through its partner, Genesis Global Capital, at a higher interest rate.


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Payoneer To Go Public Via SPAC, Now Valued at $3.3 Billion

Payoneer To Go Public Via SPAC, Now Valued at $3.3 Billion

Cross-border payments expert Payoneer is the latest fintech to go public via SPAC merger. The New York-based company has agreed to merge with FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp.

The transaction is expected to close during the first half of this year.

Once the reorganization is complete, the newly created holding company will be renamed Payoneer Global Inc. and the combined company will operate as Payoneer, a U.S. publicly listed entity. After the deal is finalized, Payoneer will have an estimated value of $3.3 billion.

Payoneer was founded in 2005 and offers multi-currency accounts to 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 and get paid globally as easily as they do locally.

“Payoneer is at the forefront of the rapid, global shift to digital commerce across all sectors,” said Betsy Z. Cohen, Chairman of the Board of Directors of FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp. “Its innovative and unique high-tech, high-touch platform positions Payoneer at the epicenter of some of the most powerful and enduring trends driving global commerce today. Its proven ability to facilitate the overall growth of e-commerce through capabilities such as B2B payment digitization, global risk and compliance infrastructure, and the enablement for SMBs to rapidly grow and scale sets Payoneer apart.”

Payoneer has raised $270 million from 18 investors including CBC Capital and 83North. Scott Galit is CEO.

Today’s news of Payoneer opting to go public via a SPAC merger echoes a larger trend. Lately, we’ve seen a rising number of tech companies, including Bank Mobile and SoFi, use SPAC mergers to go public. Benefits of the IPO alternative include a faster and cheaper process, no qualification threshold, and no IPO window.


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InvestCloud Becomes Fintech’s Newest Unicorn

InvestCloud Becomes Fintech’s Newest Unicorn

Wealth solutions platform InvestCloud announced it is now valued at $1 billion, making it a new fintech unicorn. The new valuation comes after the fintech restructured its debt and equity in a recapitalization.

“At a valuation of $1 billion, we can reward early investors in the business, while injecting new capital to fuel the next stage of our growth, further supporting our clients’ needs,” said InvestCloud Co-Founder and CEO John Wise.

Comprising a major portion of the recapitalization, Motive Partners, Clearlake Capital Group, and other InvestCloud client shareholders have agreed to acquire 80% of InvestCloud. As part of the deal, Motive Partners will contribute two portfolio businesses into the firm. The first is Finantix, which it acquired in 2018, and the second is Tegra118, which is a newly-formed company resulting from Motive’s acquisition of Fiserv’s Investment Services business.

InvestCloud expects the addition of Finantix and Tegra118 to solidify its presence in the wealth and asset management marketplace. After the restructuring, InvestCloud will have $4+ trillion in assets on its platform and revenues over $285 million, with a team of over 900 people. Moreover, Finantix and Tegra118 will boost InvestCloud’s presence in and knowledge of continental European and Asian markets.

“Together with Cheryl [Nash of Tegra118] and Christine [Mar Ciriani of Finantix] and their exceptional teams, they enable us to accelerate our plans to build platforms serving the main markets in global wealth and asset management, each utilizing the proven SaaS design principles, architecture and data models of the InvestCloud platform,” added Wise.

InvestCloud will use the expertise at Finantix and Tegra118 to offer four staple platforms and a marketplace:

  • Wealth Advisor Platform – With its existing skillset, InvestCloud will build upon its background in North America, the U.K., continental Europe, and Asia.
  • Private Banking Platform – Leveraging Finantix, InvestCloud will offer an international private banking platform. 
  • Custom Financial Platform – Using InvestCloud’s design-first methods and AI Programs Writing Programs, clients can build unique intellectual property to create cloud solutions.
  • Financial Supermarket – Using the Tegra118 product, InvestCloud will build an international financial supermarket to connect asset managers to wealth managers.

Logistically, John Wise will remain CEO of InvestCloud, while Rob Heyvaert will continue as Chairman. Tegra118’s Cheryl Nash will become the CEO of InvestCloud’s Financial Supermarket division and Finantix’s Christine Mar Ciriani will become the CEO of the Private Banking division.

InvestCloud was founded in California in 2010. The company has raised $54 million from investors including JP Morgan Chase and FTV Capital.


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January’s M&A Fintech Landscape

January’s M&A Fintech Landscape

When analysts predicted what would happen in the fintech sector after the pandemic hit last year, one of the top forecasts was that the industry would consolidate. That is, companies that had an adaptable business model and were fierce enough to fight would get bigger, while other companies would seek exits or sometimes fold altogether.

The economic crunch from the pandemic isn’t the only thing boosting M&A activity. We’ve seen a rising popularity of using a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) instead of an IPO to go public. With these two forces boosting deal flow, we saw seven mergers and acquisitions announced last month:

This is quite a boost compared to last January when we saw only four M&A deals. In the next couple of months before the summer slowdown occurs, we can expect to see more M&A deals in the headlines. Keep an eye out specifically for two types of deals. First, SPACs are becoming a more legitimate option for a company to make a public debut. Second, digital bank acquisitions will increase as last year’s explosion of players in the digital banking space begins to deflate to a more sustainable level.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Visa’s attempted acquisition of Plaid. Visa formally announced its intentions to take over Plaid for $5.3 billion. The acquisition fell through, however, after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block the deal.


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Payshield Leverages Visa’s Verifi to Fight Chargebacks

Payshield Leverages Visa’s Verifi to Fight Chargebacks

PCI-DSS innovator PayShield announced a partnership with Visa’s Verifi, a chargeback protection suite solutions provider this week.

PayShield selected Verifi to bolster its Express Resolve chargeback prevention solution in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Australia-based PayShield is leveraging Verifi’s dispute management tools that offer pre-dispute management solutions for chargebacks. Specifically, Verifi offers a three-pronged approach, allowing merchants to prevent disputes, resolve disputes, and inform the parties involved.

“PayShield has invested an incredible amount of time, effort, and resources into developing and testing our unique API and we are thrilled to be able to offer our ‘Express Resolve’ product to APAC merchants in partnership with Verifi,” said PayShield CEO Daryn Griggs. “Through the PayShield and Verifi relationship, merchants benefit from a global pre-dispute coverage that enables them to identify, resolve, and respond at unmatched velocity, which in turn, delivers higher successful resolution rates and greater cost savings.”

PayShield’s implementation is a timely one, as many merchants and services have had to move their sales online. This increase in card-not-present transactions has increased the potential of fraudulent activity in online purchases. Integrating Verifi’s dispute management tools offers a holistic solution for PayShield’s merchant clients, ultimately helping them land higher win rates, reduce manual reviews, and boost profits.

Founded in 2005, Verifi was acquired by Visa in 2019 for an undisclosed amount. Today’s deal marks Verifi’s first Australia-based partnership. “Extending global coverage by creating meaningful relationships with partners is important for us to enable sellers and issuers to benefit from pre-dispute solutions and evolve the chargeback process to enhance the cardholder experience,” said Verifi CEO Matthew Katz.


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NAB to Acquire Australian Smart Bank 86 400

NAB to Acquire Australian Smart Bank 86 400

National Australia Bank (NAB) announced its intention to purchase digital “smart bank” 86 400 today. The $664 billion (AUD$867) bank plans to spend $168 million (AUD$220) to purchase the digital newcomer.

Since it was founded in 2017, 86 400 accrued more than 85,000 customers, $375 million of deposits, $270 million in approved residential mortgages, and 2,500 accredited brokers.

NAB will integrate the digital bank into its in-house digital bank competitor, Ubank. Twelve-year-old Ubank, with 600,000 users, anticipates the acquisition will accelerate its growth. Specifically, Ubank cited benefitting from 86 400’s experience and technology platform.

“Bringing together UBank and 86 400 is consistent with NAB’s long-term strategy and growth plans and will enable us to develop a leading digital bank that can attract and retain customers at scale and pace,” said NAB Chief Operating Officer Les Matheson. “The combined business will deliver accelerated innovation and an enhanced customer experience to create a stronger and more competitive banking alternative for Australian customers.”

86 400 sought to be a “smart bank” and differentiated itself with a fee-free, transparent approach and local call center. The startup had raised $26 million (AUD$34 million) and had recently received its banking license.

The deal is pending regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed by mid-2021.


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The Commodification of Payments Platforms

The Commodification of Payments Platforms

The following is a guest post by Sandeep Sood, CEO of Kunai.

Last year, Facebook announced that all Whatsapp users in India would be able to send payments using India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

UPI was responsible for 2 billion payments in India during the last month alone. It makes it possible for Indians to pay each other seamlessly, regardless of the platform or bank account they are using. Add 400 million Whatsapp users to this system, and you have the most powerful payment solution anywhere in the world.

You also have the blueprint for the future of payments. In my view, that future is a delightfully simple one, in which universal payments solutions are an inevitability, with or without government standards like UPI;

The story in India is instructive. Before UPI, Softbank and Alibaba-backed Paytm had spent years and millions of dollars building and marketing proprietary digital wallets. UPI has made their solutions irrelevant overnight.

Today, proprietary wallets and payment platforms around the world are attempting to build moats through features and network effects. Yet, there is an obvious ceiling to what people want from their payment solutions…and the reality is that “pay anyone quickly” captures almost everything customers want.

When competing payment solutions reach feature parity, the only thing left are network effects. This means that each solution will have a choice: join a universal standard or fade into obscurity, like Paytm in India. The vast majority will choose to join a universal standard, which means they will become easy to replace.

This is a great outcome for economic growth and FinTech innovation. It is also fertile ground for the upcoming currency revolution. Universal payment solutions will also accept any form of currency with a large user base, be it the US Dollar, the Chinese Yuan, Bitcoin, or Central Bank Digital Currency (CDBC). The currencies of the future won’t compete based on their network effects, but rather more important attributes, such as their monetary policy. This is good news for currency innovations like Bitcoin.

As a FinTech newbie in 2013, I was surprised to find conferences, websites, and companies dedicated exclusively to ‘payments’. I was ignorant to the fact that payments were still generally clumsy and cumbersome…and that they required so much infrastructure and resources to do well. I’m looking forward to a future where the innovation is happening at a level far beyond the enabling of payments.


Sandeep Sood is the CEO of Kunai. He’s been building quality agencies that attract quality teams in order to build quality products. He sold his first agency, Monsoon, to Capital One in 2015.


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In the Battle for Direct Deposits, Plaid Stands with the Little Guys

In the Battle for Direct Deposits, Plaid Stands with the Little Guys

Plaid’s newest product is sure to make consumers happy and large banks slightly terrified. The company is tapping the power of direct deposits for its new launch, Deposit Switch.

The new offering, which goes live in beta today, does exactly as it sounds. It offers financial institutions and fintechs a tool to help end consumers easily change which account their paychecks are deposited into.

Switching the destination of direct deposits is a hassle for consumers, and generally requires manual paperwork that has to change hands between their bank and employer. Deposit Switch aims to end this headache. The company is relying on its instant switch method that connects a consumer’s payroll account directly through Plaid Link, the quick-start method to integrating with Plaid’s API.

For end users, the direct deposit switch can be done in four steps, as illustrated below:

deposit switch flow

“For financial institutions, high-friction onboarding experiences can lead to consumer drop-off and inactive accounts—and can ultimately prevent banks from becoming a consumer’s primary financial institution,” Plaid noted in a blog post announcement. “A significant opportunity exists for expanded innovation that leads to better consumer outcomes. Plaid can help by building the infrastructure that bridges the gap between financial institutions and payroll data, starting with direct deposits.”

In addition to giving consumers more control over their financial lives, Deposit Switch could also be a boon for smaller financial institutions (FIs) and fintechs. That’s because Deposit Switch is a new tool for them to win over consumer deposits.

Generally, banks use a high interest rate, a one-time bonus, or an enticing gift to incentivize their clients to change their direct deposit. These options are costly, And for smaller FIs and digital banks especially, may not be feasible.

Many digital banks are having difficulty boosting their total assets under management in the first place. This is due to two reasons 1) consumers use them as an “accessory” bank while storing and depositing the bulk of their money in larger institutions and 2) Many clients that use a digital bank as their primary financial institution may not have as much net worth and/or don’t receive as high a salary as those who choose to bank with traditional FIs.

Yotta, a fintech app that helps users build their savings, is one of the fintechs beta testing Plaid’s Deposit Switch. “Working with Plaid, we’ve made it faster and easier for customers to take the first step by establishing and funding their accounts with direct deposit,” said Yotta co-founder, Ben Doyle. “Yotta also integrates with Plaid Exchange, so customers can securely use their Yotta account with other fintech apps for digital payments, financial planning, investments and more. Fintech is the new normal for most Americans and Plaid helps Yotta meet customers where they are.”

So what about large, traditional FIs? Should they be worried that fintechs are making it too easy for clients to pour their paychecks into competing accounts? The short answer: yes.


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Get Ready for Finovate in Focus

Get Ready for Finovate in Focus

Next month, we’re introducing a new way to focus on the hottest themes in fintech through our new event series. Dubbed FinovateFocus, the new series includes two micro-events that take place on the last Thursday of every month.

Each micro-event– FinovateFocus Connect and FinovateFocus Roundtable– serves up new content and ample networking opportunities to help you stay ahead of the curve on a new topic in fintech while forming relationships with key players. And we’re keeping things simple; FinovateFocus Connect is only one hour while FinovateFocus Roundtable is an hour and a half.

You can choose which format works best for you:

FinovateFocus Connect

This event maximizes your time by bringing you nine presentations and nine meetings, all within the span of an hour. The platform will alternate between three-minute presentations and three-minute meetings, which are pre-assigned based on common interests.

FinovateFocus Roundtable

This discussion-based event includes your choice of two moderated, 30-minute roundtables with 15 minutes of networking before and after the roundtable conversation. To encourage engagement, each roundtable is limited to eight participants each.

For the February event, here are the roundtable discussions to choose from:

  • Earning customer trust in the digital age
  • Future of payments –are we turning into a cashless society?
  • Effective customer acquisition, engagement, and retention – the Experience Age
  • Boosting CX in banking with AI – conversation banking: exploring back-end technologies
  • Authentication, biometrics, and digital identity in digitized society
  • Chatbots, AI, automation as a platform for revolutionizing the CX
  • Personalization and customization with data in the banking and payments industry
  • Insights into how to support financial futures for customers in a post-COVID-19 world
  • Customer Service NOW
  • Video banking as a preferred means of customer communication
  • What do customers want – Meeting customer needs
  • APIs and Open Banking – Putting the customer in the driver’s seat

More themes each month

If February’s topic of digital UX doesn’t pique your interest, we’ll be highlighting Small Business Survival in March and Maximizing Your Data’s Value in April. We’ll release the remainder of next quarter’s topics soon so stay tuned.

See you next month!

FinovateFocus starts on February 25 with the topic of digital user experience. The Connect portion will run from 9 am to 10 am Central time while the Roundtable portion will run from 10:15 am to 10:45 am Central time.

Registration opens soon so get ready to secure your spot!


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