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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
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Why it’s great
NayaOne provides the fastest way to execute on digital transformation projects using fintech solutions to innovate, remain competitive, increase revenue, and stay ahead of customer expectations.
Presenters
Karan Jain, CEO& Founder Jain is the former CIO of a multinational bank and a highly regarded technologist and practitioner, now solving a problem in the market he experienced firsthand. LinkedIn
Oli Platt, Product & Marketplace Manager Platt is a data-led product manager with a data science background leading NayaOne’s tech marketplace, working with the best vendors in financial services. LinkedIn
It’s the first day of March, which means FinovateEurope is officially taking place this month on March 14 through 15 at the Intercontinental O2 in London (there’s still time to register). As you preview the agenda and prepare your notes on must-see company demos, you’re probably also filling your schedule with meetings and after parties. Because, let’s face it– sometimes the networking is just as good as the on-stage content.
After 12 years of attending Finovate events, I’ve seen some unique attendees on the networking floor– including a dog and a baby. But who can you expect to see this year? Our audience is generally comprised of financial institution executives, startup representatives, industry analysts, and venture capitalists. However, everyone has a unique “conference personality.” Below, I’ve broken down these personalities into five categories.
The Front Row Fiend
This is the person that arrives extra early to secure their seat in the front row. They’re usually analysts or journalists in search of taking quality, up-close pictures of the on-stage discussions. As an added bonus, because they have their choice of auditorium seat, they usually secure a spot next to a much-coveted power outlet.
The Standing Room Only
Opposite in personality to the Front Row Fiend, the Standing Room Only person prefers the back row. They like being in the back so much that they forgo the luxury of sitting, even during the longest sessions. Whether they stand in the back because they are hoping to run into a colleague or because they enjoy watching the people in the audience, it is possible that the handful of people that stand in the back of the auditorium know something that the rest of us don’t.
The Demo Obsessed
Finovate was a pioneer of the tech demo model back in 2007, and many veteran attendees return each year just to watch the demos. This is where the Demo Obsessed personality comes from. These are the people that pay attention to every detail of every demo. They are both quick to applaud and quick to critique. This brings me to the next personality…
The Tweeter
This person is the perfect combination of someone who thinks quickly on their feet and who knows how to work a social platform. During every session, the Tweeter always has their two thumbs ready to type a comment, reply, critique, or a recently stated statistic into Twitter– and they always do so using the correct hashtags while tagging the proper username.
The Hallway Conference Caller
If you go to enough conferences, there’s no doubt you’ve been the Hallway Conference Caller at some point. This is the person huddled in a corner wearing ear pods and holding their computer so they can jump on a weekly scheduled call and quickly have their input before returning to the auditorium or networking floor.
Massachusetts-based BankProv has inked a partnership with cash management platform MaxMyInterest to offer BankProv Max Savings, a new high-interest savings account.
No minimum balance is required to open the account, which is available exclusively on the MaxMyInterest platform.
MaxMyInterest users can earn up to 4.55% APY on their cash deposits compared to the national savings average of 0.35%.
Future-ready commercial bank BankProv has teamed up with intelligent cash management platform MaxMyInterest. The partnership will give customers and clients of both companies access to a new, high-interest savings account, BankProv Max Savings. The new account will be offered exclusively on the MaxMyInterest platform. No minimum balance will be required to open the account.
“From quickly opening an account to maximizing returns on deposit balances, the BankProv Max Savings account on the MaxMyInterest platform will further enhance the banking experience for our clients,” BankProv co-CEO Joe Reilly said. “We believe our partnership with Max will provide benefits as more consumers continue to seek digital banking options and keep a closer eye on interest rates.”
Additionally, courtesy of the BankProv partnership, the deposits to the new account will be 100% insured. The FDIC covers the first $250,000, and remaining funds will be covered under a special private, industry-sponsored insurance fund called DIF.
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2013, the company has nearly 1,500 wealth management firms registered to use the MaxMyInterest platform with their clients. Max’s platform enables clients to allocate their cash holdings to the highest yielding accounts without having to change their existing bank relationship. The technology determines the optimal allocation of the client’s cash balances on a monthly basis, enabling customers to earn up to 4.55% APY on FDIC-insured deposits versus the national savings average of 0.35%. Max also offers embedded finance solutions that empower financial services companies to offer Max’s intelligent cash management technology from their own websites.
“We are proud to partner with BankProv, an innovative bank that has a long history of serving clients in Massachusetts and across the country,” MaxMyInterest founder and CEO Gary Zimmerman said. “Together with BankProv, we can help clients ensure that all of their funds remain fully-insured, while earning market-leading rates.”
Massachusetts-based BankProv is a commercial bank that provides Banking-as-a-Service and technology-based solutions for corporate clients. The 10th oldest bank in the U.S., BankProv is a subsidiary of Provident Bancorp, which trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker PVBC. In December, BankProv announced that Carol Houle, who had been serving as CFO, and Reilly, who had been serving as Board Chair, had been named co-CEOs and co-Presidents.
MaxMyInterest made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. More recently, the company has announced integrations with modern CRM platforms Wealthbox and Redtail Technology, as well as with Morningstar and fellow Finovate alum Envestnet. Last fall, the company appointed Ateet Adhikari as Chief Operating Officer. Adhikari was previously the COO of ShopRunner, which was acquired by FedEx in 2020. In a statement Adhikari praised MaxMyInterest as having created “the most innovative solution in the market in a way that helps depositors, wealth managers, and banks.”
Wise is unveiling a new look and feel, as well as two new products.
The company anticipates its “visual makeover” will create a more consistent user experience.
The two new products include the Wise Business Card and a money transfer link.
It can be tough for a legacy fintech to make noise among the onslaught of new competing digital tools released on a weekly basis. Despite the challenge, cross-border money transfer product Wise is finding a way.
The U.K.-based company has swapped its color scheme from blue to green. But that’s not all that has changed. As Wise described in a press announcement, “The complete visual makeover features a fresh green palette and a bold new font, and draws from global currencies, languages, alphabets and places around the world.”
Interestingly, Wise changed its name from Transferwise two years ago in an effort to broaden its image from a money transfer company to a more holistic global banking services provider. Today’s change could be seen as a next step in that process. Wise explained that the new look and feel will make its customer experience consistent regardless of the customer’s geographical location or language. This new experience reinforces Wise’s mission to “build money without borders.”
Describing the visual change, Wise Co-founder and CEO Kristo Käärmann said, “Our new look is inspired by the millions of people and businesses worldwide that use Wise today. It draws from where they come from, but also represents the excitement of the world open for them to conquer.”
Today’s announcement also highlighted two new products for the global money firm. The first is the Wise Business Card, which is an extension of the company’s Wise Account. The card is currently available to U.S. customers. The second new product– also for U.S. users– enables users to transfer money to recipients via a link. Instead of requiring the sender to know the recipient’s bank details, the recipient can securely enters their bank credentials after clicking on the link.
Despite today’s progress, Käärmann says the company still has a long road ahead. “People and businesses are still being duped by hidden fees, and losing over £180 billion each year to their banks,” he explained. “This is money they could have otherwise used to pay bills, expand their businesses or even save for a rainy day. We don’t accept it and we’re committed to solving this for everyone, everywhere.”
Wise also celebrated a new milestone in today’s announcement. The company has reached 16 million customers since launching in 2011. Wise’s technology enables people and businesses to hold funds in more than 50 currencies, as well as move money between countries and spend money across international borders. The company went public in mid-2021 and now trades on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker WISE with a current market capitalization of $5.94 billion.
Klarna reported a $1 billion operating loss in 2022, up from a $680 million operating loss in 2021.
Despite the loss, Klarna plans to return to profitability by this summer.
Klarna last reported a full year profitability in 2018.
Consumer payment services company Klarna is inching toward profitability, but is still in the red.
The Swedish company released its operating figures this week, reporting an operating loss of $1 billion for 2022 (10.5 billion crowns). The negative side of the news is that Klarna’s operating loss increased– the company reported a loss of $680 million in 2021. But the positive spin is that Klarna plans to return to profitability by summer.
Last week, the buy now, pay later (BNPL) player reported it has seen a large amount of growth in its U.S. market. The region generated a 71% year-over-year increase in gross merchandise volume, while improving credit loss rates by 37%. As of December 2022, the U.S– with its 34 million consumers– has become Klarna’s largest market by revenue.
Klarna, which last posted a full-year profit in 2018, may be able to reach its 2023 profitability goal. The company has seen increased growth in the U.S. and the U.K. “The U.S. and the U.K. [are] growing at a very high pace, pushing up the average growth number for the whole company,” said company Chief Executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski in a statement to Reuters. Additionally, the company restructured in 2022. Klarna let go of 10% of its staff in May of last year in an effort to rein in costs.
With 150 million customers across the globe, Klarna is one of the pioneers in the BNPL arena and currently offers its BNPL payment tools in 45 markets. More than 400,000 retailers, including H&M, Macy’s, and IKEA, offer Klarna within their checkout flow. The company has raised $4.5 billion since it was founded in 2005.
Almost a decade after the company made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring, digital mortgage platform Roostify has agreed to be acquired by property information, analytics, and data-enabled solutions provider CoreLogic. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“We believe that this is an important transaction for the industry,” Roostify co-founder and CEO Rajesh Bhat said. “From inception, Roostify’s mission has been to accelerate and streamline the home lending journey. Bringing together the power of CoreLogic’s data and analytics suite with the Roostify digital lending platform allows us to accelerate the journey towards a truly data driven digital origination experience in one single platform.”
The integration of the two technologies will help clients secure key data about both borrowers and properties at the beginning of the lending process. This not only saves time and money, but the transparency also helps ensure that lenders receive the information they need as early as possible – before processing and underwriting – in order to minimize errors and make loan conditions clear to all parties. The result is an improved customer experience with less processing and lower underwriting expenses.
Founded in 2012, Roostify currently helps home lenders process more than $50 billion in loans every month. With clients ranging from TD Bank and Santander to CIS Home Loans and First American Mortgage Solutions, Roostify helps lenders close more loans, improve margins, increase the ability to scale their operations, and maximize customer satisfaction. The San Francisco, California-based company offers a 45% decrease in time to close for a customer within 90 days of go-live, an application submission rate of 85%, and only 14 days on average between submission and delivery to underwriting.
“We sit on an incredible amount of data, analytics, and essential workflow solutions that when properly integrated to the loan lifecycle, can deliver a better mortgage experience for borrowers as well as lenders,” CoreLogic President of Mortgage Solutions Jay Kingsley said. “The Roostify acquisition will unlock our ability to quickly execute on this mission.”
Roostify has raised $65 million in total equity funding, securing investments from Mouro Capital, Cota Capital, and USAA among others. Ten Coves Capital led Roostify’s most recent fundraising, a $32 million Series C round in January 2021. Dan Kittredge, Managing Partner at Ten Coves Capital praised Roostify as “well-positioned to accelerate the digitalization of home lending infrastructure,” especially given the fact that “the mortgage lending industry has been relatively slow to embrace digital technologies.” Kittredge added, “the opportunity to re-design the future of home lending through technology cannot be overstated.”
Payment intelligence company Pagos has raised $34 million in Series A funding.
The capital, which takes the company’s total equity funding to $44 million, will be used to expand the company’s engineering team and advance Pagos’ enterprise product suite.
Pagos was founded in 2021 by veterans of Braintree, Venmo, PayPal, Stripe, eBanx, Klarna, and Apple.
In a round led by Arbor Ventures, payment intelligence company Pagos has secured $34 million in Series A funding. The oversubscribed round also featured participation from Point 72 Ventures, Infinity Ventures, and Underscore VC. The investment will enable the company to grow its engineering team and advance Pago’s enterprise product suite.
“Our platform helps companies understand and act on the data that already exists within their payments environment, allowing them to better support changing consumer behavior and demands, reduce their operating costs, increase their revenue, and mitigate unnecessary customer friction — all without having to change their current payments infrastructure,” Pagos co-founder and CEO Klas Bäck explained in a statement.
Pagos’ total funding now stands at $44 million, according to Crunchbase. The Wilmington, Delaware-based company raised $10 million in seed funding in October 2021.
Many of the largest online brands in the world – including Adobe, GoFundMe, and Eventbrite – rely on Pagos’ platform. The company’s technology analyzes more than one billion transactions a year, providing real-time payment transaction monitoring to help companies detect potential issues, trends, and opportunities – all without having to change their existing payment stack. Via solutions like Peacock, Pagos provides businesses with a dashboard that provides full visibility into payments data across vendors, channels, and markets. This enables them to build a flywheel of payments optimization which leads to improved customer conversions and identification of optimal payment methods, as well as the ability to conduct A/B testing and more.
“Payment processing is fundamental to customer relationships, revenue, and a business’s bottom line, but most companies don’t have the data, knowledge, or tools to develop and execute on a best-in-class payments performance strategy,” Bäck said. “Even the small number of companies that do have those resources are leaving money on the table.”
Founded in 2021 by former Braintree, Venmo, PayPal, Stripe, eBanx, Klarna, and Apple veterans, Pagos began 2023 with news that the company had crossed the one billion transaction events threshold for the first time.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
Quoroom is the end-to-end fundraising and cap table management software for private companies. It is a secret weapon to raise capital faster, and manage shareholders and company compliance in one place.
Features
Includes an Investor CRM and Metrics Visualization to raise capital faster
Supplies Data Room and Legal Templates to close a funding round cheaper
Provides Integrated Cap Table to issue shares and manage employee options
Why it’s great
One powerful platform for companies to raise capital and manage investors. One source of truth on deal flow and portfolio companies for investors.
Presenter
Ulyana Shtybel, Co-Founder & CEO Shtybel has 10+ years in capital markets, and is the former Executive Director of the Warsaw Stock Exchange Office in Ukraine. Shtybel was named one of the InspiringFifty 2022 – The Top Fifty Women in European Tech. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
OpenfinanceEcosystem is a marketplace where the best wealthtech solutions are co-created together with the most innovative companies currently taking the lead.
Features
Reduces provider and operational risk
Reduces integration costs and time to market
Selects the best innovative solutions that fit a company’s needs
Why it’s great
Openfinance Ecosystem does not just integrate multiple providers; it also creates synergies with third party solutions to cover the entire value-added chain through a single platform.
Presenters
Gonzalo de la Peña, Founder & Chief Business Development Officer de la Peña has accumulated more than 20 years of experience revolutionizing the fintech industry. LinkedIn
Paula Moreno, Product Lead Moreno holds a degree in Business Administration and joined Openfinance in 2008, accumulating 25 years of professional experience. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
Fyndoo by Topicus will demo its impact-based pricing model, which determines a loan price based on sustainable impact. The company also will demo the ESG Policy Mix Panel: a tool for policy makers to model their ESG policy.
Features
Price a loan based on ESG impact
Differentiate from competitors with a focused ESG policy
Model a company’s ESG policy effortlessly and allow for instant implementation
Why it’s great
Impact-based pricing is a key instrument for creating sustainable change. The Mix Panel is a unique way to model and implement an ESG Policy.
Presenter
Mariam Malwand, Manager New Business Within Fyndoo, Malwand is responsible for managing new business. She ensures a match between the strategic objectives of her clients and the opportunities that Fyndoo has to offer! LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
Partner HUB will demo how banks can use request-to-pay and provide a next-generation EBPP service for their customers. Partner HUB will also showcase its integration with AnswerPay’s RTP solution.
Features
Build a value added service upon the instant payment infrastructure
Provide automated reconciliation for merchants for invoices, payments, and payment requests
Why it’s great
E-invoicing will add significant value to banking in the future. Request-to-pay is the first use case to demonstrate how enriched datasets can create value for banks and their customers.
Presenters
Katalin Kauzli, Co-Founder & Business Development Director Kauzli is an advocate for using invoice data in banking. She is active in several industry initiatives. LinkedIn
Peter Malaczko, Founder & CEO Malaczko has been involved in invoicing IT development projects for the last 20 years, both in the corporate and SME space.
eToro launched its SocialSentiment portfolio of stocks with high ESG and social sentiment criteria this week.
The new offering was made possible courtesy of a partnership with alternative data provider – and fellow Finovate alum – Sentifi.
Sentifi’s technology analyzes more than 500 million tweet – and two million news articles, forums, and blog – in order to create its social sentiment rating (sentScore) for positive social chatter.
eToro has unveiled a new solution for investors looking for exposure to U.S. companies with strong ESG performance. The social investing network has teamed up with alternative data provider Sentifi to launch SocialSentiment, a new portfolio offering that features the top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 that meet ESG and social sentiment criteria. Rebalanced monthly, the initial roster of stocks in the SocialSentiment portfolio are: Verisign, Teradyne, Northern Trust, Mid-America Apartment Communities, Intuitive Surgical, Fifth Third Bancorp, F5 Networks, Equity Residential, Dollar Tree, and Allstate.
‘With this portfolio, we aim to offer retail investors exposure to stocks that are being discussed in a positive light on social and digital channels, adding an extra layer of insights,” eToro Head of Investment Portfolios Dani Brinker said. “We look forward to partnering with the Sentifi team, and working together to harness the power of social networks.”
Sentifi made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia in Hong Kong in 2016, and returned to the Finovate stage a year later for FinovateEurope in London. The company’s AI-enabled technology analyzes more than 5,000 stocks, currencies, commodities, and indices – as well as passive and active mutual funds. Sentifi combines market metrics with social sentiment (sentScore) and an ESG score to create a roster of stocks that have both high ESG credentials and positive social chatter and awareness. Sentifi builds its sentScores by analyzing more than 500 million tweets, as well as two million news articles, forums, and blogs.
“The events over the past several years relating to the meme stock rallies are evidence of how the herd can change direction, and where these changes happen, which is largely in social networks and forums,” Sentifi CEO Marina Goche said. “Social networks, news, blogs, and forums are also a valuable source of changing risk for asset classes and offer dynamic views on ESG performance appreciation and degradation for companies globally — essential for constructing portfolios that outperform a benchmark.”
Investors can buy into the SocialSentiment portfolio with as little as $500. Investors can access tools and charts to track the portfolio’s performance, as well as monitor eToro’s social feed to stay up-to-date on developments in the sector. At this time, the portfolio is not available to investors in the U.S.
eToro’s SocialSentiment portfolio is the latest addition to the company’s suite of Smart Portfolios that give investors exposure to a variety of market themes. The portfolios are for long-term investments, feature unique investment strategies, are curated by eToro analysts, and give investors a way to gain exposure to a diverse range of major market trends without having to pay portfolio management fees.
Founded in 2007, eToro has more than 30 million registered users on its social investing network. Among Finovate’s earliest alums, the company won Best of Show in its debut at FinovateEurope in 2011.
