FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley: Backbase Rebrands, Boku Booms, and SecureKey Finds Opportunity in Acquisition

FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley: Backbase Rebrands, Boku Booms, and SecureKey Finds Opportunity in Acquisition
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, Boku, FinovateEurope 2023, SecureKey

This week we began our celebration of FinovateEurope’s earliest alums. In honor of FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley Showcase – a new feature designed to highlight the innovations of FinovateEurope alums – we’re highlighting the companies that introduced their innovations to Finovate’s European audience more than a decade ago – and are still among the top innovators in fintech today.

Visit our FinovateEurope Alumni Alley Showcase hub to learn more about this special opportunity for FinovateEurope alums.

Don’t Call It A Comeback: Backbase’s Big Rebrand

Founded in 2003, Backbase has been demonstrating its fintech innovations on the Finovate stage for more than a decade. Making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2011, the company made its most recent on-stage appearance at FinovateFall in 2021, demoing the Backbase Engagement Banking Platform. In that ten years, the Amsterdam-based company was awarded Best of Show on four occasions, including three from the company’s demos at our conferences in London.

From its origins as a Bank 2.0 innovator, helping banks take advantage of the growing consumer interest in online and mobile banking, to its current incarnation as an Engagement Banking specialist, Backbase has demonstrated a consistent mission of enabling FIs to turn emerging technologies into opportunities for better customer service and engagement. The company’s official rebrand this fall only underscores much of what Backbase has been about all along.

Backbase founder and CEO introducing Backbase’s technology at FinovateEurope 2011.

“Our proven growth model has brought us to where we are today and it’s time to evolve our branding to reflect that growth,” Backbase founder and CEO Jouk Pleiter said. “Backbase is the innovation partner enabling traditional banks and credit unions to take the leap into the platform era, and we’re just getting started.”

Most recently, Backbase announced an expanded relationship with Boston, Massachusetts-based Eastern Bank ($22 billion in assets). The institution deployed Backbase-as-a-Service (BaaS) and Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform to enable it to offer new digital banking solutions.

Boku Blossoms as Mobile Payments Boom

When Finovate audiences first met Boku at FinovateEurope 2011, the San Francisco-based company had 60 employees and $40 million in equity funding. Today, the direct mobile payments company is a publicly traded entity with more than 300 employees and a market capitalization of more than $390 million. Boku processes more than nine billion in payments every year, and includes some of the largest digital brands – from Google and Spotify to Netflix and Microsoft – as customers of what it bills as the largest mobile payments network in the world.

Boku founder Mark Britto demonstrating the company’s mobile payment technology at FinovateEurope 2011.

Boku was among the fintechs to recognize early on the potential mobile payments had to bring financial services to un- and underbanked consumers that owned mobile phones, but did not own credit cards or traditional bank accounts that would enable them to participate in online commerce. The company launched mobile wallet payments in the Philippines in 2012, brought mobile payments to Sony’s PlayStation Store in 2014 and, in 2020, acquired the Estonia-based carrier billing company Fortumo for $41 million.

This fall, Boku announced that it will supply Amazon.com with its digital wallet and other local payment methods as part of a new, multi-year agreement. Boku CEO Jon Prideaux said that the partnership helped reinforce the company’s “strategic move” into digital wallet payments.

SecureKey: Acquisition As An Enabler of Further, Faster Innovation

More than ten years after SecureKey won Best of Show at FinovateEurope 2011 for its authentication technology that leveraged contactless cards to streamline the online checkout process, the Toronto, Ontario-based company announced that it had agreed to be acquired by NortonLifeLock’s digital security and privacy firm, Avast.

SecureKey CEO Greg Wolfond demoing the company’s technology at FinovateEurope in 2011.

“SecureKey’s vision has been to revolutionize the way consumers and organizations approach identity and the sharing of personal information in the digital age,” SecureKey CEO Greg Wolfond said when the acquisition was announced this spring. “By working closely with governments, financial institutions, and businesses, we have an established track record of trusted and mature identity networks that provide consumers with the secure digital capabilities they deserve.”

SecureKey’s digital identity technology enables more than 200 million secure transactions a year internationally. Prior to the acquisition, SecureKey also had made major inroads in helping organizations and institutions, including governments, embrace modern authentication technologies. The company’s Verified.Me distributed digital identity verification network and Government Sign-In by Verified.Me provide secure and convenient login options to hundreds of government services and applications online. Both authentication services are provided by Interac under an exclusive Canadian licensing agreement.

Photo by Chris Panas

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X1 Card Raises $15 Million, Adds In-App Stock Purchasing

X1 Card Raises $15 Million, Adds In-App Stock Purchasing
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Challenger credit card X1 has raised $15 million, bringing its total funding to more than $60 million.
  • Along with today’s announcement, X1 is also unveiling a new in-app stock investing tool that will enable cardholders to purchase stocks using points.
  • X1 will use the funds to fuel growth and roll out new services for its members.

Challenger credit card X1 has raised $15 million this week. The funds bring the company’s Series B round to $40 million and elevate its total funds to more than $60 million. The investment was led by Soma Capital and included contributions from Brian Kelly (The Points Guy) and Kyle Vogt.

While the self-described smart credit card did not provide an exact valuation, the company said that today’s round increases X1’s total valuation by more than 50% over where it stood four months ago, when the company raised $25 million in Series B funding.

X1 will use the funds to fuel growth and roll out new services for its members. One such new feature is X1’s new investing platform that enables cardholders to buy stocks in the X1 app using their rewards points. X1 will guide investors by recommending stocks based on the cardholder’s spending habits, risk preferences, investment goals, income, and time horizon. The new capability will begin rolling out to select cardholders in the coming weeks.

The company said in the press release that it has future plans to expand the stock purchasing features “to compete with more traditional investment options.” Based on this, we can expect features common to Acorns and Robinhood such as spare change investing and automatic investment deposits.

For a card with no annual fee, X1’s rewards are hard to beat. The company offers cardholders 2x points on every dollar spent, 3x points on every dollar spent for the year if transactions exceed $15,000, and 4x points on each dollar for one month of purchases for each referral. X1 has paid out more than $10 million in rewards points since exiting its beta last October.

“With X1, we want to build an iconic and enduring consumer finance brand in an industry that’s long overdue for disruption,” said X1 CEO and Co-founder Deepak Rao. “We’re honored by the reception our card has continued to receive and to have raised this funding from Soma Capital, an early investor in more than 20 unicorns. With our innovative new investing platform, we’re excited to reimagine yet another sector in the consumer financial market.”

Outside of its rewards structure, X1 has other unique features that help differentiate itself in the crowded credit card market. The company has a stainless steel card and offers users virtual card numbers that they can set to expire on a specified date in order to avoid forgetting a subscription or a free trial period. The former automatically expires after one use, while the latter automatically expires 24 hours after it is activated.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

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Canadian Cross Border Payments Innovator Buckzy Raises Series A Funding

Canadian Cross Border Payments Innovator Buckzy Raises Series A Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Buckzy Payments, Daily news, Funding
  • Canadian real-time cross border payments company Buckzy has raised $14.5 million in Series A funding.
  • The investment was led by Mistral Venture Partners and Uncorrelated Ventures, and featured participation from new investors Luge Capital and Blue 9 Capital, as well as existing investor Revel Partners.
  • Buckzy made its Finovate debut in 2019 at FinovateFall.

In a round led by Mistral Venture Partners and Uncorrelated Ventures, Canada-based real-time, cross border payments company Buckzy has secured $14.5 million in Series A funding. Valuation information was not immediately available. This week’s investment takes the company’s total equity funding to more than $23 million, according to Crunchbase.

“This round of financing is a validation of Buckzy’s vision to create an intelligent and automated international payment system,” Buckzy CEO Abdul Naushad said. “We’re on a mission to build the plumbing for real-time money movement globally, the same way high-speed internet fundamentally shifted the communications industry.”

New investors Luge Capital and Blue 9 Capital, and existing investor Revel Partners, also participated in the round. Luge Capital General Partner Karim Gillani will join Buckzy’s board as an advisor.

Buckzy offers real-time, cross border payments and Banking-as-a-Service capabilities via an embedded finance platform. The platform offers multi-currency bank accounts, local settlement accounts, and real-time FX quoting and booking. A licensed money transfer company, Buckzy has signed up more than 140 bank, neobank, and fintech customers since going live with its platform in 2020.

Calling the cross-border payments market a $150 trillion market globally – and one that is still underserved – Mistral Ventures Partners Managing Director Code Cubitt praised Buckzy for its ability to deliver “a much better customer experience, more automation, and lightning-fast payments.” Cubitt said the company had “the right blend of experience, expertise, and insight to build the next generation of cross border payments.”

Buckzy’s funding news comes at the same time that the company announced the appointment of Seema Rai Nair as VP of Customer Success and Network Expansion. Nair will be responsible for growing the company’s partnership network of banks, fintechs, ecommerce platforms, and other financial service providers.

“Demand for real-time and near real-time international payment services is rising around the world, and companies are increasingly turning to alternative providers such as Buckzy to address their need for fast, secure international payments,” Nair said in a statement.

Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Buckzy was founded in 2018. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in New York the following year.

Photo by Andre Furtado

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Finastra Integrates Clinc’s Conversational AI into its Digital Banking Platform

Finastra Integrates Clinc’s Conversational AI into its Digital Banking Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Clinc, Daily news, Finastra
  • Finastra and Clinc have partnered to integrate Clinc’s conversational AI technology into Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform.
  • Finastra will offer its 8,600 financial instiution clients access to Clinc’s AI virtual assistants to help mitigate the load on call centers while providing quality answers to end users.
  • Finastra was founded in 2017 as a merger between Misys and D+H.

Financial software company Finastra has tapped conversational AI fintech Clinc this week. The two have partnered to integrate Clinc’s Virtual Banking Assistant technology into Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform. 

The added capabilities will enable Finastra’s 8,600 financial institution clients to increase digital engagement with their customers. Clinc’s Virtual Banking Assistant helps banks manage common banking requests through different channels, which ultimately helps reduce the volume of calls into the call center.

Clinc was founded in 2015 to build what it calls a “human-in-the-room” level of virtual assistant powered by AI technology and machine learning. The company’s solution understands natural language and leverages elements from the user’s inquiry– such as wording, sentiment, intent, tone of voice, time of day, location, and relationships– to craft an answer that is not only human-like, but also useful in answering the original question.

“We are incredibly pleased to be able to offer our AI solution to banks in collaboration with Finastra, whose FusionFabric.cloud platform is viewed around the world as a leading financial technology ecosystem,” said Clinc CEO Jon Newhard. “Our Virtual Banking Assistant, which can be integrated seamlessly as part of a digital transformation strategy, enables financial institutions to engage customers efficiently but without losing the personal touch. This is vital in an era when increasing numbers of consumers are demanding authentic and intuitive experiences from chatbots.”

Clinc’s technology will be available in Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud, a marketplace that helps financial services firms find pre-built, ready-to-integrate apps into their Finastra products. Since launching in 2017, FusionFabric.cloud has had 566 customers sign up and has helped form more than 153 partnerships.

“Financial institutions worldwide will benefit from increased access to Clinc’s innovative chatbot technology,” said Finastra Chief Product Officer, Universal Banking Narendra Mistry. “Understanding how real people talk and interact is critical as banks and credit unions work to ensure that the customer experience remains strong while embracing new technologies. We’re delighted to welcome Clinc to our technology ecosystem, and for Finastra’s customers to be able to easily offer conversational AI as part of their digital strategy.”

Finastra was founded in 2017 as a merger between Misys and D+H. The latter acquired Mortgagebot in 2011 for $232 million. Mortgagebot was among the first companies to demo at a Finovate event. The company won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2007. Finastra’s technology spans lending, payments, treasury and capital markets, and universal banking. The U.K.-based company counts 90 of the world’s top 100 banks as clients.

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

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5 Tales From the Crypto: Fidelity’s New Offering, Ledger’s Card, Kriptomat’s Exchange, and More!

5 Tales From the Crypto: Fidelity’s New Offering, Ledger’s Card, Kriptomat’s Exchange, and More!
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cryptocurrency, Daily news, Ledger

Fidelity Brings the Bitcoin

If you’ve been crying over your crypto wallet due to all the negative headlines about digital currencies, then now is the time to dry your eyes and thank Fidelity for giving crypto enthusiasts the greatest sign of approval since BTC and ETH peaked last year.

Fidelity announced this week that it has enabled cryptocurrency trading in retail accounts. Fidelity Crypto, as the offering is called, enables retail accountholders to buy and sell both Bitcoin and ethereum with as little as $1. The new functionality will be available in 35 U.S. states initially – California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Texas are among them. Fidelity plans to bring the technology to other states; the company is offering an early-access sign-up to let interested customers know when Fidelity Crypto is approved in their state. Similarly, the company is examining other cryptocurrencies with the potential to “expand trading opportunities over time.”

The fallout from FTX and the collapse of even the most widely traded cryptocurrencies have been only a few of the headwinds that might have convinced Fidelity to wait longer to launch its crypto trading capability. As recently as this month, a group of senators including Elizabeth Warren asked the company to reconsider its plan to enable its customers to invest up to 20% of their retirement savings in Bitcoin. Clearly those eager for signs of spring amid this crypto winter need look no further than Fidelity.

Ledger’s Crypto Card

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, French fintech Ledger has launched its crypto debit card in the U.K. and Europe. The new Crypto Life card enables users to transfer crypto between Ledger’s hardware wallets and card accounts via Ledger’s Ledger Live app. Crypto Life offers 1% crypto rewards in both Bitcoin and USDT, as well as offering 2$ in BXX, the native token of Baanx. Baanx is the U.K.-based fintech that developed the technology for Crypto Life.

Ledger users can use Crypto Life at approximately 90 million merchants and online stores across the U.K. and Europe that accept Mastercard. Ledger VP of International Development JF Rochet called the new offering an “easy and secure solution to pay with crypto that also allows you to self-custody until you want to top up.”

Headquartered in Paris, France, and founded in 2015, Ledger demoed its technology one year later at FinovateEurope 2016. The company specializes in trusted hardware solutions for Bitcoin and blockchain applications, which it distributes both directly via online sales as well as through an international network of retail merchants.

Kriptomat Adds Real Time A2A Payments via Volt Partnership

Sticking with the crypto-across-the-pond theme, we read news that Kriptomat, a cryptocurrency platform based in Estonia, has teamed up with U.K.-based payment gateway provider Volt. The goal of the partnership is to give customers the ability to make account-to-account payments, in real-time, to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies.

More than 500,000 cryptocurrency traders and investors on the Kriptomat platform are expected to benefit from the partnership. Previously, Kriptomat customers were required to use methods such as bank transfers, credit cards, and even e-wallets to make their transactions. Integrating with Volt payments will enable customers to be seamlessly directed to their banking app when paying with Volt, where they can authorize payments using their preferred authentication method. The result is a faster, more streamlined, and less costly way for Kriptomat customers to fund their crypto purchases.

“Today’s new crypto users are more like car owners, who expect to turn the key and have it work immediately – without learning the ins and outs of the processes that happen in the background,” Kriptomat CEO Srdjan Mahmutovic said. “Volt’s technology has helped us provide that level of usability to our customer base.”

BlockFi’s “We’re Not FTX”-Based Bankruptcy

The news that many feared was coming to BlockFi arrived this week as the cryptocurrency company, which carved out a niche in the space as a lender for small cryptocurrency investors, filed for bankruptcy. The company’s Chapter 11 filing follows the bankruptcy filings of other cryptocurrency lenders such as Celsius Network and Voyager Digital, both of which tapped out in July. But the far more looming shadow over BlockFi’s misfortunes is clearly the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, with which BlockFi was financially entangled.

That said, both BlockFi’s bankruptcy declaration and the opening statement from BlockFi attorney Joshua Sussberg in court yesterday were attempts to do as much untangling as possible. Sussberg referred to BlockFi, which FTX both financially supported and – at one point – moved to acquire, as the “antithesis of FTX.” He credited BlockFi for its “focus on creating an opportunity for people that otherwise don’t have access to the financial system.”

Dimon’s Crypto Curious Bank: JP Morgan Gets Crypto Wallet Trademark

If Fidelity can be credited for the “giant leap” in crypto this week, should we salute JP Morgan’s “small step” of securing a crypto wallet trademark?

There’s a certain sport in highlighting any pro-crypto moves by JP Morgan – given the the outspoken crypto-skepticism of the bank’s legendary CEO Jamie Dimon. As a refresher, Dimon has referred to cryptocurrencies as “decentralized Ponzi schemes,” and said that the “notion that (crypto) is good for anybody is unbelievable.”

But that’s not stopping the bank he runs from expressing some crypto curiosity including, this week, news that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved of the J.P. Morgan Wallet. According to the registered trademark, the J.P. Morgan Wallet supports “virtual currency transfer + exchange, crypto payment processing, virtual checking accounts, and financial services.”

JP Morgan has been open about its interest in launching a digital wallet since October. Despite the disinterest of the bank’s CEO in most things crypto, JP Morgan has worked with Fidelity and New York Bank Mellon to offer various cryptocurrency related services and, earlier this month, completed the first cross-border transaction using decentralized finance (DeFi) on a public blockchain.

Photo by Anna-Louise

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Greenwood Raises $45 Million to Bring Digital Banking to Black and Latino Communities

Greenwood Raises $45 Million to Bring Digital Banking to Black and Latino Communities
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Diversity in Fintech, Funding
  • Greenwood, a digital banking platform catering to black and Latino communities, raised $45 million in new funding this week.
  • The funding round was led by Pendulum, an investing and advisory platform for founders of color.
  • Atlanta, Georgia-based Greenwood was named after the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was known as “Black Wall Street” in the early 20th century due to its high concentration of black-owned businesses.

In a round led by Pendulum, a strategic growth investing and advisory platform for founders of color, digital banking platform Greenwood has secured $45 million in new funding. A digital banking platform designed to meet the needs of members of the African-American and Latino/Hispanic communities, Greenwood will use the funding to advance its goal of closing the wealth gap between ethnic minority and majority populations and enable African-Americans and Latinos to more readily build generational wealth.

“Our vision is to make Greenwood the premier destination for black and Latino wealth creation and regeneration while keeping community connection and collective professional advancement at the center,” Greenwood chairman and co-founder Ryan Glover said.

Joining Pendulum in this week’s funding were a host of new investors including Cercano Management, Cohen Circle, The George Kaiser Family Foundation, and NextEra Energy. Existing investors Bank of America, Citi Ventures, PNC, Popular, Truist Ventures, TTV Capital, and Wells Fargo also contributed.

Greenwood also announced the launch of a new offering that takes advantage of its recent acquisitions of The Gathering Spot and Valence, a pair of African-American owned private membership networks for black professionals, entrepreneurs, and corporations. The offering, called Elevate, gives its members access to The Gathering Spot’s private membership network – including the organization’s physical clubhouses in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. – as well as Valence’s professional networking platform and recruiting database. The launch of Elevate is geared toward helping Greenwood fulfill both the community building and career advancement components of its mission.

“Greenwood is poised to create new outcomes and equip our communities with the resources they have been systematically excluded from in the pursuit of economic opportunity,” Pendulum CEO and co-founder Robbie Robinson said.

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Greenwood has more than 100,000 customers on its platform, and more than one million individuals in its combined community including The Gathering Spot and Valence. The fintech offers a digital bank account with no hidden or overdraft fees, a Mastercard debit card, support for P2P transfers, two-day early wage access, and a global ATM network. Greenwood also provides opportunities for its customers to help communities in need via programs like Feed a Family (in partnership with Goodr), donations to non-profits such as the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and NAACP from customer spare change round-ups, and monthly small business grants of $10,000 to African-American or Latino/Hispanic owned businesses. The platform also offers financial education and information designed for black and Latino audiences via its Greenwood Studios operation. Greenwood’s banking services are provided courtesy of a partnership with Coastal Community Bank.

The name of the digital banking platform was inspired by the Greenwood District, a historic African-American community in Tulsa, Oklahoma that, in the early 20th century, featured one of the greatest concentrations of black businesses in the U.S. Known as “Black Wall Street”, the community was the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 in which a mob of white Tulsans destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the Greenwood District. The attack was described as the “single worst incident of racial violence in American history.” Hundreds were hospitalized and estimates of the number of Oklahomans killed ranged from 75 to 300.

Photo by Dazzle Jam

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Fintech Apps Need These 5 Mobile Features to Attract Gen Z Users

Fintech Apps Need These 5 Mobile Features to Attract Gen Z Users
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Guest Post

The following is written by Lance Boyer, a recent college graduate and a Gen Z journalist.

Generation Z made up about 40% of active U.S. consumers in 2020, according to Fast Company. It also has more buying power than any of the Generation X, Boomer, or Silent generations. And it’s growing rapidly.

Generation Z is better off than the Millennial generation too. “Core” Millennials graduated high school and college into one of the worst economies in living memory. Despite the pandemic recession, Generation Z’s job and earning prospects have improved.

Financial technology providers can’t ignore Gen Z any longer. If you’re in the business of making budgeting, banking, and investing accessible to mobile users in the United States, you need to tailor your offerings to Gen Z — and now, not in 10 years.

That means designing your mobile app with younger users in mind. Here’s where to start.

5 Key Mobile Features for Gen Z Users

If you plan to market your mobile fintech app to Gen Z users, ensure it includes these five features.

1. A Unified View of User Finances

Most of the best personal finance apps have something in common: they give users a unified view of their finances inside and outside the app.

Your app shouldn’t only show balance and transaction information for accounts accessible directly through the app (if any). It should also display real-time or near real-time data from securely linked external accounts. It’s ultimately the user’s choice to link or not link these accounts, but your app should create as little friction as possible in that decision.

This adds a layer of development complexity for apps with money management functionality, as opposed to “simpler” budgeting apps that should link to external accounts. But it’s well worth the added investment and will increasingly become essential as the lines between banking and budgeting apps blur.

2. Social Sharing Capabilities

And not just standard Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat integrations. That’s old news.

Your app needs to make it easy — and fun and worthwhile — for users to generate their own content within the interface. Venmo does this simply but very well by allowing users to make transaction details public. Find an equal balance between privacy and disclosure in your product.

3. Stringent Privacy Controls (Beyond What’s Required by Law)

Your fintech app should have stringent privacy controls above and beyond what’s required by applicable law.

Your app shouldn’t make “low privacy” the default, and certainly not because you’re banking on monetizing your users’ data. That data is valuable, but you should come by it honestly. Gen Z is much more digital savvy than older generations and knows “if you’re not paying, you’re the product.”

You can undoubtedly incentivize users to share more with a freemium model or rewards for more sharing if you make it clear that you have users’ interests at heart.

4. Flexible Subscription Options

The more control you give your users over how and when they pay for your product, the more trust you’ll earn and the more you’ll make from them in the long run.

Don’t overcomplicate your payment options. Too many choices paralyze the user. Simple, straightforward payment verticals — one for pay as you go, one for pay for what you use, one for annual or quarterly subscriptions, and so on — are the way to go.

5. On-Call Support

The misconception that Gen Z doesn’t like talking to real humans must go away. Sure, the average Gen Z’er isn’t apt to chat on the phone for hours, but if you consider texting a form of talking — and it is — then Gen Z is just as chatty as its predecessors.

Maybe, more importantly, Gen Z is happier to be micromanaged than its predecessors. The average Gen Z’er seeks positive reinforcement and isn’t afraid to ask questions.

Lean into these preferences by investing in on-call support for your fintech app. This is a big ask for smaller enterprises, so it’s OK to charge for this service as long as it’s optional. Albert’s Genius function is a great example. It’s a built-in financial sherpa operating on a pay-what-you-want model, starting at a few dollars per month.

Final Thoughts

Generation Z makes up a larger percentage of active U.S. consumers than the Millennial generation, and it’s about to have more buying power. Its oldest members are already aging into the coveted 25-to-54 age demographic.

If your fintech app isn’t tailored to Gen Z’s preferences, you’re already behind the curve.

Fortunately, your development team doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to appeal to Generation Z. Including five key value propositions does the trick:

  • A single-dashboard view of user finances — both in the app and in external linked accounts
  • Seamless social sharing capabilities and user-generated content tools
  • Stringent privacy controls that keep users in the driver’s seat
  • Flexible payment options rather than one-size-fits-all subscription or flat-fee models
  • On-call human support, whether free or paid

These “big five” are just the start. You’ll likely find your younger users demanding additional features and functions. But the big five are non-negotiable. The sooner you work on them, the better.

Photo by cottonbro studio

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FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley: Pioneering PFM, French Fintech, and an Investor Social Network

FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley: Pioneering PFM, French Fintech, and an Investor Social Network
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: eToro, FinovateEurope 2023, linxo, Meniga

FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley is a great way for our pioneering alums to show that, more than a decade later, they are still driving fintech innovation. Check out our Finovate Alumni Alley hub for more information on how to get involved.

To celebrate the launch of this new opportunity, we’re going to highlight alums that demoed their technologies at some of the earliest FinovateEurope events. From Best of Show winners to late blooming breakouts, FinovateEurope has spent the past dozen years showcasing the companies that have become many of fintech’s favorites. Over the next few weeks heading into the winter holidays, we will share their stories here.

A Best of Show Winner – Meniga

One of four companies to win Best of Show in our inaugural FinovateEurope in 2011, Meniga introduced itself as a mobile PFM solution provider for retail banks in Europe. Hailing from Reykjavik, Iceland, and founded in 2009, the company partnered with Íslandsbanki to help its technology reach 5% of households within the first year of launch.

Today the company has grown into a digital innovation partner for more than 165 banks around the world and grown its workforce ten-fold. From its start as a white-label PFM innovator, Meniga has added to its finance management offering with Cashflow Assistant and Smart Money Rules solutions, and added a suite of data management solutions for consolidation, enrichment, and discovery to its product mix. The company also now offers Beyond Banking solutions for banks, as well. These products include customer engagement/empowerment solutions like Carbon Insight and solutions for SME customers such as Cashback Rewards and Market Intelligence.

Meniga co-founder Georg Ludviksson introducing Meniga to the FinovateEurope audience in 2011.

Long-time Meniga CEO and co-founder Georg Ludviksson stepped down in August. The company’s new CEO, Simon Shorthose, said in a statement that the company was in a “prime position for growth” due to the “rapid modernization of banking technology and the move to real-time cloud infrastructures.” He added “Meniga’s solutions are at the forefront of helping banks take their digital banking experience to the next level of hyper-personalization.”

A Late Blooming Breakout – Linxo

One of the benefits of FinovateEurope is not just the ability to showcase for companies in Europe in general, but also for the opportunity of countries not always associated with fintech innovation to show what entrepreneurs in their nations are up to.

France is one example of such a country and Linxo – which made its Finovate debut in 2011 and, nine years later, was acquired by Credit Agricole for an undisclosed sum – is one example of just such a company. Co-founded in 2010 by CEO Bruno Van Haetsdaaele and headquartered in France, Linxo demoed its platform that represented the first bank account aggregation service for French financial institutions.

Linxo co-founder and CEO Bruno Van Haetsdaele on stage at FinovateEurope 2011.

“This transaction enables us to accelerate and strengthen our services for the Crédit Agricole Group, while giving us the opportunity to develop our offering in France and internationally for our clients and prospects with Oxlin, our ACPR-authorized payment institution, and to continue the development of Linxo, one of France’s most popular personal financial management apps,” Van Haetsdaele said when the acquisition was announced.

More than three million users in France leverage Linxo’s mobile app to manage their budgets and simplify their finances. Linxo had raised more than $26 million in funding prior to its acquisition.

From Good to Great and Still Going – eToro

Helping investors navigate the financial markets was the goal of many fintechs that demoed their technologies on the Finovate stage in the early years. But one of the innovators in this space to make a big first impression that only has grown bigger over time is eToro.

Another company to win Best of Show in the first FinovateEurope, eToro was an established investing network with more than 1.5 million registered users from 120+ countries in 2011. The company is among the pioneers in social investing, with innovative solutions that helped novice traders and investors learn from successful, veteran traders and investors, and improve their own outcomes in the market.

eToro CEO Yoni Assia demonstrating the eToro network at FinovateEurope in 2011.

Among the more popular companies to demo at FinovateEurope, with six Best of Show trophies won from 2011 through 2017, eToro today is still one of the biggest social investing communities in the world with more than 30 million registered users currently sharing their investment strategies on the platform. The company launched its mobile app in 2012, offered trading in cryptocurrencies in 2017 and, this year, unveiled both fractional share investing with zero commissions and eToro Options for options traders in the U.S.

This month, eToro teamed up with Broadridge Financial Solutions to enable proxy voting for investors on its platform. The ability to cast proxy votes will extend to investors holding fractional shares, as well. The partnership is a victory for advocates of corporate accountability by enabling eToro investors to weigh in on issues ranging from mergers and executive pay to ESG initiatives and goals.

Photo by Peter Spencer

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Small Business Banking Provider Tide Acquires Funding Options

Small Business Banking Provider Tide Acquires Funding Options
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Small business banking platform Tide has agreed to acquire lending marketplace Funding Options.
  • Tide will integrate Funding Options’ loan matching technology into its own business loan comparison site.
  • Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

A rising tide lifts all boats. Or in today’s case, a rising Tide lifts Funding Options. That’s because small business banking provider Tide has agreed to acquire lending marketplace Funding Options. Financial terms of the deal, which was first reported by AltFi News, were not disclosed.

U.K.-based Tide was founded in 2015 to help small businesses save time and money on banking and administrative tasks. The business bank accounts offer accounting tools, expense cards, invoicing, payment collection capabilities, business loan comparisons, and cashflow insights. Tide currently counts more than 450,000 sole traders, freelancers, and limited companies as clients.

By integrating Funding Options’ business lending comparison technology into its own, Tide will be able to offer small businesses a broader set of options when applying for a loan. That said, Tide plans to maintain the Funding Options brand as it exists today. Funding Options CEO Simon Cureton will continue to lead Funding Options and will also be charged with leading Tide’s business loan comparisons.

“With this deal, Tide is aiming to create one of the UK’s biggest digital marketplaces for SME credit, and to make it easier for small business owners to access this vital resource,” Tide CEO Oliver Prill told AltFi. “We know that getting credit is even more important to our members in these challenging times: not just in terms of the rising cost of doing business, but also when high street banks are typically slower to offer smaller businesses loans.”

Funding Options was founded in 2011 and now maintains a network more than 120 lending partners. Since launch, the company has matched small businesses with more than $812 million in working capital in increments ranging from $1200 to $5 million.

Once finalized, the deal will mark Tide’s first acquisition.

Photo by Nuno Obey

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Enhance Your Fintech App for the Gig Economy 

Enhance Your Fintech App for the Gig Economy 
By Charlie Burgess Posted on
Categories: Accusoft, Sponsored, Thought Leadership

This is a sponsored post by Accusoft.

Faster, flexible and easy. It would be surprising if those words weren’t the top cited needs for your customers on what they expect when using your fintech app. If you can provide these obvious, yet sometimes elusive characteristics in your next release, you’ve hit the jackpot or, at the very least, met expectations!

Speaking of customer expectations, faster, flexible, and easy ARE the expectations. Any usability friction can at best annoy. At worst, it can cause you to lose customers, particularly when competition is fierce, and especially after the past few years with the rise of the “gig economy.”

What is the Gig Economy?

The gig economy is based on flexible, temporary, or freelance jobs, often involving connecting clients and customers through an online platform. But not only that, the gig economy also connects and attracts those customers who expect speed, flexibility, and ease of use. 

Starting in 2020, the gig economy grew substantially as jobs were eliminated, and previous full-time workers turned to part-time and contract work for income. Many workers took delivery service jobs bringing necessities to home-bound consumers.

Thriving within the gig economy is a big opportunity for fintechs. The gig economy spans generations – from those in their first job who have added a side hustle, to those working multiple temp or freelance positions, to those in retirement who want to earn some extra income. What they all have in common is the need for services that are fast, flexible, and easy to use. They don’t have the time or patience to deal with clunky, slow services that don’t deliver to their expectations.

A recent GWI report on U.S. fintech trends shows that the widespread usage of digital financial tools offers brands a huge upside for fintech applications, particularly with the “gig economy.” 30% of Americans participate as workers in the gig economy in some way, and digital financial tools are by far the most preferred way to manage their multiple streams of income.

If You Integrate (Fast, Flexible, and Easy to Use Document Processing), the “Gig” Will Come

Fintech companies may be on the cutting edge of software innovation, but even their most sophisticated applications need the ability to accommodate a variety of document-heavy processes used in the financial services industry. That’s why 94 percent of them leverage some form of digital document management solution.

Developing or enhancing a fintech app for the gig economy is tricky, as they expect more of their software applications than ever before (faster, more flexible, easier). Piecemeal solutions that offer only a few features are being overtaken by more comprehensive platforms that deliver a fuller end-to-end experience. Developers are adjusting by making essential technology upgrades to their tech stack, incorporating more capabilities, while also building innovative features that set their solutions apart from the competition. Thanks to third-party software integrations, they’re able to do it all.

Third-party software integrations allow developers to build more cohesive software solutions that provide all the essential features a customer may require. Instead of pushing them into a separate application to interact with their documents, provide a signature, or fill out a digital form, they deliver an unbroken experience that’s easier to navigate and manage from start to finish.  

Upgrading Your Fintech Application’s Potential

By turning to a partner with the right software integrations, fintechs can quickly implement powerful features while keeping their own development efforts focused on designing best-in-class capabilities and bringing them to market quickly.

With more than 30 years of experience helping fintechs enhance their integrations, Accusoft’s collection of SDK and API solutions provides a broad range of document and image processing solutions that can help improve efficiency, reduce errors, and deliver a better overall user experience. Whether you need the viewing, editing, and document processing features of PrizmDoc, or the image clean-up, conversion, and OCR capabilities of ImageGear, our family of software integrations can make it easy for fintechs to incorporate the functionality they need without having to rethink their tech stack. And most importantly, fintechs will be well prepared to meet and sustain the growing expectations of the gig economy for speed, flexibility, and ease of use while using their digital finance tools. 

To learn more about how Accusoft integrations can help your fintech app stay relevant in the gig economy, talk to one of our solutions experts today.

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Cion Digital and upSWOT Team Up to Bring Embedded Finance Solutions to Commercial Loan Brokers

Cion Digital and upSWOT Team Up to Bring Embedded Finance Solutions to Commercial Loan Brokers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cion Digital, Daily news, UpSwot
  • Cion Digital and upSWOT have teamed up to bring embedded finance and embedded business management solutions to commercial loan brokers.
  • Courtesy of the partnership, the two companies will enable wealth managers and commercial loan officers the ability to identify ideal financing solutions, as well as broaden their offering with new embedded financial and business management tools.
  • Cion Digital made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring. Making its Finovate debut in 2000, upSWOT returned to the Finovate stage in September for FinovateFall.

Cion Digital, which offers technology to help businesses find the right loan products that suit their needs, has partnered with fintech platform upSWOT. Together, the two Finovate alums will provide wealth managers and commercial loan brokers with embedded finance and embedded business management solutions. These tools will empower these businesses to offer their customers access to a wide variety of tools – including accounting, ERP, payroll, e-commerce, CRM, marketing, and POS business applications – via more than 200 API-enabled apps.

“Cion Digital is focused on using data and machine learning to help financial advisors and commercial loan brokers secure financing for their clients that meets their clients’ unique financial objectives and curate high-value relationships for lenders and financial institutions,” Cion Digital Chief Product Officer Taylor Adkins said. Adkins noted that the partnership with upSOT will make available a wealth of data sources and insights that can be used to further help business owners identify the financing solutions they need – as well as add to their offering with embedded finance and business management resources.

“Fintech has incredible power to dramatically reshape the success of SMBs,” upSWOT CEO Dmitry Norenko added. “The institutions that enable SMBs to take advantage of these dramatic shifts in technologies are institutions that care about their customers and ensuring that they will still be here in a decade.”

A Finovate alum since 2000, upSWOT most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage in September as part of FinovateFall. At the conference, upSWOT showed its white-label, digital-banking-embedded solution that connects to more than 200 integrated SaaS applications, delivering actionable insights, cash flow forecasts, and more. Earlier this month, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based fintech announced a partnership with Standard Chartered to launch a pilot project in Singapore that would give Standard Chartered’s SME customers intelligent forecasting capabilities. Founded in 2019, upSWOT has raised more than $5 million in funding.

Cion Digital demoed its Crypto Dealership Platform at FinovateSpring 2022. In October, the company launched its wealth advisor lending platform, which gives wealth management firms and registered investment advisors (RIAs) curated loan offers and a streamlined application approval process. The platform connects firms and advisors directly to banks and other lenders; the new offering supports not only traditional assets and securities but also crypto assets, as well.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, and founded in 2021, Cion Digital has raised $12 million in funding. The company’s investors include 645 Ventures and Green Visor Capital.

Photo by fauxels

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U.S.-based Neobank Novo Secures $125 Million in Series B Funding

U.S.-based Neobank Novo Secures $125 Million in Series B Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Miami, Florida-based neobank Novo raised $35 million in funding, taking its Series B funding round to $125 million.
  • The Series B raises Novo’s total equity funding to more than $170 million.
  • The latest capital infusion comes from GGV Capital, which manages more than $9 billion in investments across North America, China, Southeast Asia, India, Latin America, and Israel.

An additional $35 million investment brings the total raised by Miami, Florida-based fintech Novo to $125 million. The latest infusion comes courtesy of strategic investor GGV Capital, and brings Novo’s total equity funding to more than $170 million.

In a statement, Novo CEO and co-founder Michael Rangel highlighted the new functionality of the Novo Platform and the “tens of thousand” of small business customers the company has onboarded. Rangel also praised GGV as “instrumental” in helping other technology companies (“from Airbnb to Square”) scale their businesses, and said he believed the support of the firm would help Novo reach “millions more small businesses in the coming years.” Note that GGV Capital Principal Robin Li will join Novo’s board of directors as an observer.

With more than 175,000 small business customers, Novo offers a free business checking account with free ACHs and incoming wires; a Novo Virtual card; no hidden fees; and an application process that can be completed in less than 10 minutes. Novo also provides online small business banking services including the ability to send and track invoices; as set aside funds for taxes, payroll, and more via its Novo Reserves feature. Novo is partnered with Middlesex Federal Savings, which provides FDIC coverage of Novo deposits up to $250,000.

Additionally, as of 2021, the company has offered Novo Apps, a comprehensive apps marketplace to enable SMEs to customize their banking experience; Novo Boost, which gives small businesses same day access to payments received through Stripe; as well as Express ACH that enables same day processing of ACH payments.

GGV Capital Managing Partner Hans Tung underscored Novo’s “ecosystem approach” to providing banking services to small businesses, freelancers, and gig economy workers. “They’ve built a robust, intuitive platform that allows SMBs to connect all of their business and financial applications to their Novo account,” Tung said.

Novo’s latest investment comes as the company announces surpassing $12 billion in lifetime small business transactions. Founded in 2016, Novo was named one of the “Next Billion-Dollar Startups” of 2022 by Forbes earlier this year.

Photo by cottonbro studio

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