Author: Sophie Cater

Webinar: 5 Surprising Ways to Reduce Abandonment During Online Identity Verification

Webinar: 5 Surprising Ways to Reduce Abandonment During Online Identity Verification
By Sophie Cater Posted on
Categories: Jumio, Webinars

 

Increasingly, financial services companies and retail banks are going digital — not necessarily by choice — but as a result of new competitive threats that include new challenger (digital) banks, upstart fintech companies, and even the likes of Amazon and Google. Going digital and giving your customers the ability to open new accounts online lets you cast a wider net and attract more customers across a bigger geography. In fact, some studies suggest that this option translates into 55% more people applying for new accounts.

But, this opportunity is being squandered.

Recent research carried out by digital identity specialist Signicat suggests that retail banks now lose as many as 52% of potential customers at the on-boarding stage, an increase of 35% in the last two years. Much of the abandonment occurs during the identity verification process. It’s not all that surprising that so many online account applications are being abandoned when the enrollment process is time-consuming, complicated, and taxing. In this webinar, you’ll discover some clever tips and tricks and best practices from Jumio, the global leader in online identity verification, including:

  • The importance of offering multiple channels for ID capture
  • The subtle art of messaging & its impact on conversions
  • The critical need to reduce the number of screens
  • Why you need a “yes” or a “no” verification decision….and not a “maybe”

 

Moderator: David Penn
Research Analyst
Finovate

More than 15 years experience as a writer, blogger, and journalist covering financial markets and technology. Formerly Editor-in-Chief of TradingMarkets.com, staff writer for Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities magazine, and blogger for Linux Journal, I am currently a research analyst with The Finovate Group.

Dean Nicolls
Vice President
Jumio

Dean Nicolls is Jumio’s most recent addition to the executive team. He has 25+ years’ experience in B2B marketing focusing on cloud services. These include roles at Starbucks, Microsoft and variety of early stage cloud-based security companies including LiveOffice (acquired by Symantec), TeleSign (acquired by BICS) and, most recently, Infrascale. At Jumio, Dean is responsible for all branding, PR/analyst relations, product messaging, demand generation, and sales/channel enablement. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University and an MBA from the University of Washington.

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Webinar: Payments Must Lead the Way for Bank and Credit Union Digital Transformation Strategy

By Sophie Cater Posted on
Categories: Payment Cards, Payment Data Systems

Like the rest of the industries, financial services industry will go through complete digital transformation, the task is daunting and bankers need to identify and accelerate which parts to transform first – payments by far is the highest frequency interaction consumers have with their banks and credit unions. Hence it is natural, that this is the area which must be a priority for all financial institutions and creates immense opportunities for those who take the lead. In this webinar we discuss why traditional payment methods must transform to digital form and how this is being done, creating Digital touchpoints on how consumers and merchants interact with payments which are crucial for issuers as they are now the preferred way to drive commerce. The speakers  share how to digitally transform the entire card business and to compete, why payment business executives need to provide compelling digital experience(s) that are underpinned by fast, digitized, real-time and interactive processes.

Join Peter Wannemacher, Forrester; Gary Singh, Ondot Systems and Braden More, Wells Fargo & Company.

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“View Your Career as a Marathon, Not a Sprint,” says Mary Jane Ajodah to Future Women in Fintech

“View Your Career as a Marathon, Not a Sprint,” says Mary Jane Ajodah to Future Women in Fintech
By Sophie Cater Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2018, Women in Fintech

MARY JANE AJODAH_FinovateFall

Mary Jane Ajodah covers fintech and emerging technology within the Client Service Delivery Strategy Group at Bank of New York Mellon. Her responsibilities entail developing use cases for emerging technology with various business areas, identifying and driving opportunities for partnerships with third parties, and articulating a strategic vision around new technology for operations. Ahead of her session at FinovateFall – Industry Discussion: Transforming Legacy Businesses with AI – Building win-win Partnerships while Focusing on Utility, Practicality and Efficiency – we speak to her about her career path and her words of advice to the future women in fintech.

Finovate: How did you start your career?

Mary Jane Ajodah: I started my career in IBM’s internal strategy consulting practice. I worked on several projects core to IBM’s reorganization and transformation, including the launch of the IBM Digital business unit. I gained invaluable experience at IBM, particularly around how innovation and change are executed in a mature enterprise.

In late 2015, a recruiter from BNY Mellon reached out to me on a role focusing on fintech within the bank’s Operations Strategy team. Around this time, interest in topics such as ‘enterprise blockchain’ and AI was accelerating, with a great deal of discussion around the future role of custodians and other financial intermediaries. It was a unique opportunity and key point in time. Since joining, I’ve worked on a number of projects related to BNYM’s overall growth and innovation strategy. I’ve also appreciated the opportunity to cultivate our relationships with startups and VCs where there is mutual benefit.

The recurring theme for both of these roles has been driving change within enduring organizations (IBM at 100+ years, and BNY Mellon at 234 years). Mostly, I’ve been fortunate to have learned from inspiring senior leaders, and to have worked with excellent teams.

Finovate: What sparked your interest in fintech?

Ajodah: I was interested in both finance and technology separately, and my current role brings both together. I studied economics and international relations at NYU, and wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on sovereign debt and default. As I started my career, I wanted to ensure I had a skill set that would endure over the long-run – understanding the impact of technology on changing business models is a core component.

Finovate: What was your lightbulb moment?

Ajodah: I’ve had a few lightbulb moments on specific projects during my career, generally uncovering some root cause or issue and proposing a solution after interviews with various stakeholders and subsequent analyses. It is very rewarding when those moments happen.

Finovate: What inspires you?

Ajodah: Travel inspires me the most. I like to do a lot of solo travel, and have visited a lot of cool places. I visited Svalbard, the last human settlement before the North Pole, when it was 24 hours of night. This trip inspired an Off-Broadway show that I wrote and produced this past July — “Savage Force”. We sold out for all the nights of our run.

I am inspired the most by those that can be successful in multiple fields of endeavor – Fridtjof Nansen – who discovered most of the Arctic, along with being a scientist and diplomat, is one of them!

Finovate: Why is the #WomenInTech movement important?

Ajodah: My generation has tremendous opportunities thanks to the success and contributions of the women of generations prior. During the time I spent both at IBM and BNY Mellon, there have always been senior women at the highest levels of management with tremendous energy, experience, and knowledge.

Finovate: What piece of advice would you give women starting their careers in fintech?

Ajodah: View your career as a marathon, not a sprint. The ability to contribute consistently and effectively over time, and put in the intensity where it is truly needed is crucially important.

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“Skills Can Be Learned, but Values and Character Matter Most.” Ghela Boskovich on #WomenInTech

“Skills Can Be Learned, but Values and Character Matter Most.” Ghela Boskovich on #WomenInTech
By Sophie Cater Posted on
Categories: Women in Fintech

Ghela_Boskovich_women_in_tech“Don’t tolerate disrespect or discrimination against you or anyone else. Don’t wallow in imposter syndrome because someone gaslights you. Don’t apologize and don’t explain/justify/mitigate your existence in the room. Be accountable, and hold others accountable for themselves.” Ghela Boskovich, head of fintech/regtech partnerships, Rainmaking Innovation, spent the last ten years focused on business development for core insurance and banking system solutions, and is the founder of FemTechGlobal that bridges the gender gap in fintech and the financial services industry. We speak to her about her career, inspirations and advice for fellow #WomenInTech.

Finovate: How did you start your career?

Ghela Boskovich: In grad school, unbeknownst to me, my committee chair put me forward for an internship with the state utility commission. The phone call telling me I got it was a total surprise. That started my journey into rate-of-return and pricing regulation modeling. My career took a bit of a detour from regulatory analysis, but the path eventually lead to being involved in tech business development. Exposure to core policy admin systems for insurance bled into dynamic pricing solutions for financial services. Pricing, for me, came full circle. It introduced me to the ins and outs of core banking systems, strategies for product development, looking at the whole architectural landscape of product workflows and processes. It was the beginning of my love affair with fintech. Now with regtech playing such a key role in the industry, my career-long romance with regulatory and policy impact is in full bloom.

Finovate: What sparked your interest in fintech?

Boskovich: I was head hunted to join a fintech dynamic pricing solution company to help build out the business pipeline. Fintech, as a hashtag, was still a nascent term at that time. My history with pricing modeling and the fact that I was working with tech that automated relationship pricing created an atmosphere for my curiosity to flourish. I had the perfect perch from which to see how systems, data, modeling, product and customer all fit into a puzzle; pieces which could take different shapes depending on how they were deployed or organized. That puzzle fascinates me, and now all I do is play with these puzzle pieces.

Finovate: What was your lightbulb moment?

Boskovich: There are a few moments in my life when the spotlight suddenly shone on truth, but most of the time it’s little candles that have flickered here and there, one or two being lit by a conversation with colleagues and peers, that combined to eventually light up the room enough to remove the shadows in the corners: the slow dawning of realization. Oddly enough, most of those have revolved around language, grammar, and sentence construct. I see fintech as an alphabet of sorts, piecing it together to craft a sentence (workflow) that has meaning (purpose and output/product and service). The tech itself is built by (logic) language, the way it integrates and speaks to other systems is a communications structure. It all maps back to that, and we’re in a position to refine the language of financial services through fintech.

Finovate: What inspires you?

Boskovich: Language. I adore language and its power, and how the careful, conscious use of language can inspire others. Language of course is a double-edged sword, it can be the most beautiful, constructive, inclusive thing, or it destroys, condemns, and reveals the ugliness inside. Lately I’m trying to pay attention to the former use of language, and in our industry I’m seeing more and more of it inspiring people to be open to change, embrace diversity, and include others who’ve previously been on the sidelines. The language of collaboration is inspiring: improving service through fintech collaboration, expanding inclusion to reach the un- and underbanked, empowering through personal insights with an aim towards financial health. How we talk about our industry is becoming more positive, and that is inspiring.

Finovate: Why is the #WomenInTech movement important?

Boskovich: Taxation without representation is tyranny. At the fundamental level of social organization, the notion that anyone would submit to a government taxation scheme without due representation is antithetical to the idea of democracy. That’s how I see #WomenInTech: a push towards fair representation and say in how tech is deployed, especially as tech as policy is a reality. Women are 51% of the population, and women control 80% of (all and any type of) household discretionary spending. We are a distinct minority in deciding how the money system is designed or run, it impacts us disproportionately to our representation in the industry. That smacks of tyranny. There are myriad business cases for women in tech, so if we’re driven by ROI, there’s justification aplenty. There is, however, a more fundamental reason: representation and justice.

Finovate: What piece of advice would you give women starting their careers in fintech?

Boskovich: Find your tribe. Seek out those that would challenge your assumptions, those who will teach you, and those who will encourage you to do the crazy, irrational, new thing – but who have similar core values and respect for others. They are out there, and they’ll be the best safety net and cheerleading squad you could ask for. Don’t tolerate disrespect or discrimination against you or anyone else. Don’t wallow in imposter syndrome because someone gaslights you. Don’t apologize and don’t explain/justify/mitigate your existence in the room. Be accountable, and hold others accountable for themselves. Fintech is like any other industry (albeit with a dearth of women), and like in any other industry, skills can be learned, but values and character matter most.

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In Conversation with Pini Yakuel, Optimove: Data as Oxygen for Your Business

In Conversation with Pini Yakuel, Optimove: Data as Oxygen for Your Business
By Sophie Cater Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2018, Optimove

Data as Oxygen for Your Business_FinovateFall

PINI YAKUEL_FinovateFallPini Yakuel, CEO and founder at Optimove, has extensive experience in analytics-driven customer marketing, business consulting, and sales. These traits, along with his innovative approaches to entrepreneurship and business-building, have earned him recognition as a thought leader. Yakuel demoed Optimove at FinovateFall 2017, where he showcased the company’s Science-first Relationship Marketing Hub.

Ahead of him speaking at FinovateFall – September 24 through 27 – about Data as Oxygen for your Business, we chat with him about his experience, his outlook, and what he thinks the future holds for emerging technologies.

Finovate: What was your window into fintech?

Pini Yakuel: Technology fascinates me. Always has, since I was a child. When I am thinking about it, I’m drawn in by the promise that the most bizarre, crazy, foolish and inexplicable idea you have can actually come to life. Looking at some of the inventions, developments and tools that have been brought to life in the last decade, you can’t help but think how foolish and crazy, bizarre and inexplicable they probably seemed when they were first originated, talked about in conference rooms, or pitched at board meetings.

This is the aspect that still fascinates me at my work. How will my role change in 10 years? How will my company look? What professions and skills will be necessary, and which will be lost forever, replaced by a simpler, faster solution?

So, I began speaking with a number of people both within my company and outside, to understand how marketing might look 10 years from now. I want to share some of the ideas and notions that were brought up in these conversations.

Finovate: How do you see the marketing world in a decade?

Yakuel: In 2028, rich and diverse customer data will become a commodity, and this data is relevant for everyone. It’s cheap, it’s abundant, and it is easily accessible. All the trends are pointing in the direction of data as a product; consumers are already preferring the benefits of personalization, and 3rd party data is readily available.

As a result of data commodification, consumer data will be available in every marketing channel; the trend toward this commodification can already be felt, although the full-scale effect has not yet taken place. I believe that if we look into the future and imagine a world with easily accessible data, we will also be able to create a single, continuous, customer lifecycle. If today we have three realms of marketing; acquisition, conversion and retention, that are treated as separate aspects of a customer lifecycle and are addressed by different departments, by 2028, we’re going to have one continuous customer cycle.

Finovate: What does this mean?

Yakuel: This potential change has two elements we can apply – the theoretical and the practical. In theory – all marketing campaigns will be built with a mindset of beginning a conversation, a relationship, rather than a “look at me” attitude. Marketers will no longer look at the process as acquiring, converting or retaining customers. Instead, we will all be working toward building relationships with people.

In practice – your CRM database will encapsulate every person in the world, creating an almost infinite database. Your key differentiator will be the ability to leverage AI and ML to discover and deploy actionable insights in a scalable manner.

Finovate: What else does it mean in practice?

Yakuel: This is maybe the most interesting part. Marketing teams will change from the core. Instead of having a few sub departments within marketing, the structure will transition to one self-sufficient relationship marketing studio, in which channels are not siloed. This will give marketers the speed to execute and expand. I also believe this will bring in amazing new talent – the best and brightest, a new breed of marketers – the data savvy individuals who are also highly creative, those who excel at both paths.

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It’s Easy As Three-Ts: the Way to Fintech Success

It’s Easy As Three-Ts: the Way to Fintech Success
By Sophie Cater Posted on
Categories: Uncategorized

“There is no right or wrong answer,” says Chrystina (Tina) M. Giorgio, president and CEO of ICBA Bancard about how banks can work best with fintechs. Ahead of her session at FinovateSpring 2018, Giorgio gives banks some best practice tips from the perspective of someone who has worked as a banker, board member, and innovator.

As community banks look to blend the strength of their operations with fintech innovations, bankers are questioning how to best work with fintechs and their core system providers to bring new products and services to market.

To navigate this terrain, bankers should first prioritize fintech opportunities that complement their banks’ strategic plans. Opportunities could include real-time payments, digital delivery, data analytics and artificial intelligence. They should then share these priorities with their core processors. Due to the present lack of an open banking standard in the United States, a community bank’s core processing system remains a top infrastructure element, and as such, can significantly influence software decisions. Most core processors are already working with or investing in fintech. However, open and ongoing dialogue can help guide core vendors’ investment choices.

There are three primary models banks can follow when choosing how to develop a fintech project that each come with its own risks and rewards:

  • Banks can build a proprietary solution in-house.
  • Banks can collaborate with a third-party to build a solution.
  • Banks can purchase a fintech solution.

There is no right or wrong answer. Ultimately, the “three T’s”-time, treasure and talent should drive the decision. When working with a fintech company, banks will want to follow the process they would for any new vendor and should be sure to look at additional risk factors that pertain specifically to the solution they are acquiring. For example, depending on the solution, more thorough review may be required to properly assess fraud risk, data encryption standards, and KYC (know your customer – the process used to identify and verify customers). More general questions to ask include how long the fintech has been in business, whether it is connected to your core, how much capital it has, who is investing in it, and who its customers are.

Banks will also want to do their diligence to assess whether the vendor can meet regulatory expectations. Fintechs are not regulated like FIs, so bankers should thoroughly evaluate the vendor and the solution for regulatory compliance. Ultimately, balancing fintech utilization against the risks to consumers is the responsibility of the bank. It is vital to put compliance and regulatory issues at the forefront of any fintech deployment, whether the bank builds, collaborates or buys the solution.

ICBA released its Fintech Strategy Roadmap for community banks as they increasingly work in partnership with fintech firms to deliver services to their customers. The roadmap, written in collaboration with Hunton & Williams LLP, offers a look at how community banks can successfully create, collaborate, or invest in fintech partnerships while providing necessary considerations to ensure these strategic decisions fit within regulatory risk parameters.

The Fintech Strategy Roadmap is available exclusively to ICBA members and is the first community bank resource that takes a deep dive into the legal and compliance elements associated with fintech partnerships.

Join Chrystina Giorgio at FinovateSpring 2018, May 8 through 11, 2018 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California. Find out more >>

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ENVEIL: Taking Encryption to New Heights

ENVEIL: Taking Encryption to New Heights
By Sophie Cater Posted on
Categories: Enveil

ENVEIL-cyber-security

“Never decrypt,” says Ellison Anne Williams, CEO at ENVEIL, which provides a data security solution that the finance industry desperately needs. It lets enterprises operate on data (query/analytics) without ever revealing the content of the interaction, the results, or the data itself.

Having previously worked at the National Security Agency (NSA), Ellison Anne’s insights span the whole Big Data picture, aiming to ensure encryption “throughout its entire life-cycle – at rest, in transit, and in use.” We interviewed Williams at last month’s FinovateFall 2017 in New York. Below is the transcript.”

 

Finovate: What is unique about ENVEIL’s approach to securing data?

Williams: Although the company is in its early stages, ENVEIL’s completely unique technology has been in development for far longer. I worked at NSA for 12 years, where the technology was developed.

Current data encryption products still leave gaps of exposure during search and analytic processing. Our response to this problem is to never decrypt, and we have developed the first scalable commercial solution for keeping data encrypted at all times, even when it’s being processed. ENVEIL’s solution uses homomorphic encryption to secure data in use, enabling enterprises to operate on information, both encrypted and unencrypted (such as searches and analytics) without ever revealing the content or results of the operation in the cloud, on-premise, or anywhere in between. Our point-to-point product allows organizations to perform searches and analytics over data in a completely encrypted manner.

 

Finovate: How difficult was this challenge? Why have other approaches to solving this problem failed?

Williams: Previously, decryption was required before searching or analyzing data which leaves the data and the results of the operations potentially vulnerable to outsiders. ENVEIL’s proprietary algorithms, for which 14 patents have been filed to date, enable a method of encryption that protects in-use data to be used at a larger scale. This is the first time in over 20 years of work into homomorphic encryption that this kind of scale has been achieved.

Similar approaches are the current alternatives/workarounds for securing data in use. These competitive behaviors include: not storing store sensitive data in the cloud, maintaining all data on premises; bringing all external data home and performing all searches and analytics on isolated infrastructure; obfuscating operations; asking 100 questions to hide the one that you care about; and, blatant risk exposure by insecurely interacting with data in untrusted locations.

 

Finovate: What are some of the key technological accomplishments or insights that were necessary to make your solution possible?

Williams: ENVEIL’s core technology was developed and deployed at scale inside of the U.S. Intelligence community over petabyte-sized datasets and processing architectures. The point-to-point product is a two-party system consisting of (1) the ENVEIL Client Application and (2) the ENVEIL Server Application. The ENVEIL Client application lives within the Enterprise and is responsible for encrypting the operations and decrypting the results. While, the Server application lives within the environment of the data repository and is responsible for processing the encrypted operations over the data. ENVEIL supports many APIs for submitting operations to the ENVEIL client including REST and JDBC. Therefore, it is simple and seamless to integrate ENVEIL into an enterprise’s existing workflow.

 

Finovate: What are some of the most interesting use cases of your technology, particularly in the financial services area?

Williams: Financial institutions are constantly creating, updating, and sharing some of society’s most sensitive data (financial records, trade secrets, etc.). Without strong protections, they are at risk of losing critical information and the trust of their customers, partners and employees. It is imperative that financial institutions securely interact with data whether it is on premise, or in the cloud and keep sensitive data encrypted even when it’s being used to ensure that the queries and analytics performed are done without ever decrypting the operations, or the data.

Key use cases include:

  1. Securing the financial institution’s usage of data outside of its walls, such as in the cloud or in a data aggregator. Examples include protecting searches for things like M&A or trading research where their interest in a specific M&A target or potential trade could be costly.

  2. Securing the financial institution’s usage of ‘crown jewel’ data on premise, greatly reducing the exposure of the data (eliminating exposure during processing) and therefore risk and financial impact.

In less than one year, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will replace existing data protection rules, impacting companies worldwide. The GDPR includes strict security requirements, with an emphasis on encryption, as part of an overall risk-based approach to cybersecurity. This includes communication, which is a large security concern for the financial industry – sensitive information is constantly being shared across networks, platforms, etc., and if left unprotected, could have a devastating impact on the organization.

In addition to financial services, the use cases for ENVEIL’s robust, horizontal technology span a wide range of large market verticals including cloud security, healthcare, cyber, audit, and supply chain.

 

Finovate: As an expert in this area, how do you react to the almost weekly news of a major data breach? Is this “the new normal”?

Williams: Unfortunately, it has become the new normal and highlights the need to protect data throughout its entire life-cycle – at rest, in transit, and in use.

 

Finovate: ENVEIL participated in the RSAC Innovation Sandbox Contest in February, and made its Finovate debut in September. What’s can we look forward to over the balance of this year and into 2018?

Williams: We will be developing new products around securing data in use – stay tuned!

 

Watch ENVEIL’s full demo at FinovateFall 2017:

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