Secure Document Exchange Platform FutureVault Teams up with Envestnet | Yodlee

Secure Document Exchange Platform FutureVault Teams up with Envestnet | Yodlee
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Envestnet, FutureVault, Yodlee
  • Secure document exchange and digital vault platform FutureVault announced a partnership with Envestnet | Yodlee.
  • FutureVault made its Finovate debut in 2016 at FinovateFall in New York.
  • FutureVault CEO Daniel Kenny took the helm of the Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based company in January.

Last week we announced that Envestnet | Yodlee had partnered with fellow Finovate alum Backbase to bring new data aggregation, account verification, and enriched transaction data insights to banks. This week we report that Envestnet | Yodlee has forged a collaboration with another Finovate alum, FutureVault.

The partnership will enable FutureVault to leverage Envestnet | Yodlee’s data aggregation and analytics platform to enhance its ability to serve its financial services and advisor clients with advanced document exchange solutions. FutureVault’s platform supports front, middle, and back-office teams with the tools they need to securely access, share, and manage sensitive information and documents. These tools give organizations the ability to aggregate and centralized financial documents and data from multiple institutions into FutureVault’s secure digital vault, provides financial planning professionals with a holistic view of client finances, and enables trusted advisors to build better relationships with their customers.

“The integration with Envestment | Yodlee is another milestone in our aggressive 2022 technology roadmap,” FutureVault CEO Daniel Kenny said. “This integration is driven by our plan to continue building the most comprehensive digital vault solution and will contribute toward our strategic platform vision that brings together Documents, Data, and Digital Assets.”

FutureVault put the partnership in the context of the company’s Personal Life Management initiative. This thesis is based on aggregating financial documents and data in a secure location while giving financial planners and advisors the ability to leverage FutureVault’s technology to provide a “family office” type of service.

“This integration with Envestnet | Yodlee is not only driven by improving the relationship advisors will have with their clients,” FutureVault co-founder and Executive Chairman G. Scott Paterson said. “It is about ultimately providing clients with access to the best tools to manage their financial lives that extend beyond the advisor.”

FutureVault made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2016 in New York. Recently, the company has partnered with companies like PureFacts to facilitate secure and automatic delivery of financial statements, and with enterprise wealth management platform d1g1t. With this collaboration, FutureVault’s secure document exchange technology will help the d1g1t better manage its compliance, document retention, and document sharing responsibilities.

“We know that there is a significant need across the industry for all-encompassing solutions,” Kenny said when the strategic partnership with d1g1t was announced in late March. “By partnering with the exceptional team at d1g1t, we can bring that type of integrated solution to the market that addresses the many workflow challenges firms and advisors face, while elevating the experience for both clients and advisors.”

Founded in 2014, FutureVault has raised $2.3 million in funding. Current CEO Daniel Kenny was appointed to the position in January of this year after serving briefly as the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Previously, Kenny was an executive at HSBC for more than 22 years.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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Qred Launches New B2B Payments Platform, Raises $11 Million

Qred Launches New B2B Payments Platform, Raises $11 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Swedish B2B financing company Qred launched a B2B payments platform for its business users.
  • The new tool enables users to pay invoices using their Qred Visa credit card from within the Qred mobile app.
  • Helping to fuel this new tool is $11 million (€10 million) in funding from existing investor Nordic Capital. The investment brings Qred’s total funding to $70.7 million.

Small business financing company Qred is making its platform a bit more powerful for its small business clients this week. The Sweden-based company unveiled a new B2B payments platform that will enable business users to pay any invoice using their Qred Visa card from within the Qred app, benefitting from Qred’s 45-day interest-free liquidity.

Founded in 2015, Qred offers an alternative lending platform for small businesses that makes the funding process simple, digital, and fast. The company helps businesses receive the working capital they need within 24 hours of applying.

The Qred Visa credit card is free for small business users and offers 1% cash back with every purchase. Businesses can use the Qred card and mobile app to pay invoices from billers that use Sweden’s clearing system, Bankgiro, even if the biller doesn’t accept card payments. And users can postpone their payment, interest-free for up to 45 days.

For now, Qred’s invoice payment tool is free for businesses when they use their Qred Visa card. However, starting in August of this year, there will be a 2.5% transaction fee.

“Tens of billions of dollars worth of invoices are issued each year and for most businesses the only way to pay them is to use cash directly from their account since most suppliers or vendors don’t accept card payments,” said Qred CEO Emil Sunvisson. “With our new payment platform, small businesses can use their Qred Visa to pay any invoice they have with much more flexible payment terms. This frees up much needed, short-term cash which is the life blood of most entrepreneurs.”

Qred also announced today it has received $11 million (€10 million) from existing investor Nordic Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $70.7 million. The company will use the investment to “continue to deliver innovative products and services to small businesses throughout Northern Europe.”

Photo by Piya Nimityongskul

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TD Bank Helps Auto Dealers Send Real-Time Payments

TD Bank Helps Auto Dealers Send Real-Time Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, TD Bank
  • TD Auto Finance is enabling real-time payments for its network of auto dealers.
  • The move will fund dealers throughout the day as new contracts are booked.
  • TD Auto Finance is leveraging The Clearing House’s Real Time Payments (RTP) network to fund dealers in real time.

TD Bank announced its TD Auto Finance division has enabled real-time payments for its network of auto dealers this week.

To facilitate the flow of real-time payments, TD Auto Finance will no longer send ACH batch payments overnight. Instead, the finance arm is funding dealers throughout the day as contracts are booked. As a result, dealers will have better visibility into their finances and will see improved cash flow management.

“Our goal with real-time payments is to make life easier for dealers by eliminating the need to wait for payments overnight and giving them maximum confidence in their cash position and ability to operate their business,” said Andrew Stuart, President and CEO of TD Auto Finance.

The move makes TD Auto Finance the first indirect auto lender to offer the ability to send real-time payments nationwide. We’re proud to be the first major auto lender to introduce this capability for dealers and we believe our focus on driving payments innovation is critical to deepening our dealer relationships,” added Stuart.

To help auto dealers make payments in real time, TD is leveraging The Clearing House’s Real Time Payments (RTP) network, which it first connected to in November of 2019. Since that time, TD has seen increased interest for real-time payments. To meet this demand, TD said it will “continue to invest in this capability.”

TD Auto Finance piloted this move last October with a small group of car dealers. Today’s real-time payments capabilities will be available in phases over the coming weeks to dealers whose banks use The Clearing House’s RTP network.

Photo by Isak Pettersson on Unsplash

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EU Toughens Crypto AML Rules; ADGM Academy and Singapore University Promote Fintech Literacy

EU Toughens Crypto AML Rules; ADGM Academy and Singapore University Promote Fintech Literacy
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finastra, Finovate Global, Mambu, ThetaRay

One of the many fascinating conversations I enjoyed at FinovateEurope last week was my chat with Trulioo Chief Technology Officer Hal Lonas. Among the topics we discussed was the way evolving regulations were impacting the business of keeping financial services companies compliant with regard to KYC and AML requirements.

This week we learned that the European parliament is moving closer to embracing another measure to tighten rules with regard to financial services – in this case, cryptocurrency transactions. Members of two parliamentary committees this week approved new rules to ban anonymous cryptocurrency transactions as part of an overall European Union-wide anti-money laundering campaign.

The new regulations will require all transfers of cryptocurrencies, regardless of size, to include information on the source and the beneficiary of the assets involved. This information, which will be made available to regulators, would cover transactions from wallet addresses that are held by private users (“unhosted wallets”). The new requirements, however, would not apply to P2P transfers made without an intervening provider.

“Illicit flows in crypto assets move largely undetected across Europe and the world,” Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs co-rapporteur Ernest Urtasun explained. “(This) makes them an ideal instrument for ensuring anonymity.”

The new policy has its critics. Supporters such as Urtasun have pointed to the disclosures of the Panama and Pandora Papers as good reasons for bringing additional scrutiny to cryptocurrency transactions. But critics such as Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer with Coinbase, suggest that the new regulations are based on a false premise: that cryptocurrencies represent a significant vehicle for illegal activity.

“The truth is that digital assets are in generally a markedly inferior way for criminals to hide their illicit financial activity,” Grewal wrote in a blog post earlier this week. “That’s why, according to the best research available, by far the most popular way to hide illicit financial activity remains cash.”

By contrast, Grewal noted “digital assets and the immutable nature of their blockchain technology actually enhances the ability to detect and deter illicit activity.”

The proposed legislation will now be voted on by the full parliament and national ministers.

April is Financial Literacy Month. Be sure to check out our themed coverage of financial literacy both on the Finovate blog in general and here in Finovate Global in specific all month long.

To this end, we found news of the Memorandum of Understanding recently signed by the Abu Dhabi Global Market Academy (ADGMA) and the National University of Singapore’s Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF) to be especially noteworthy.

The goal of the pact is to help bring thought leadership to the fintech community and bolster the fintech ecosystem in Abu Dhabi “and beyond.” There are three main pillars to the agreement: research and publication, technology development, and knowledge dissemination – each of which contributes differently toward the goal of facilitating knowledge exchange across regions and encouraging research collaboration.

What’s interesting about this initiative is the way it supports financial literacy and education among professionals already in the field of financial services. “We, at AIDF, look forward to the close collaborations with ADGMA in research advancements, the education of skilled professionals, and nurturing of FinTech entrepreneurs,” Duan Jin-Chuan, Executive Director of the Asian Institute of Digital Finance at the National University of Singapore, said. “We see these activities as a vital component in pursing a better future for our countries.”

The ADGM Academy, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE, was established in 2018 to build expertise, financial education, and literacy in the region. The Academy is part of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), an international financial center, and features coursework areas including banking and finance, digital and fintech, and entrepreneurship, as well as national, personal, and professional development.

FinovateEurope ended just a few days ago. Of all our events, our London conference often provides the best showcase for international fintech innovation – especially from developing economies and parts of the world not always considered to be fintech hubs in spite of their economies.

Below is a quick run-down of companies in this category that demoed their latest solutions at FinovateEurope last month.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by ArtHouse Studio

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Conversations from FinovateEurope: Embedded Finance and Banking with Celent’s Zilvinas Bareisis

Conversations from FinovateEurope: Embedded Finance and Banking with Celent’s Zilvinas Bareisis
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2022, Interview, Speaker series

Zilvinas Bareisis is Head of Retail Banking at Celent. Based in London, Bareisis specializes in consumer and card-based payments, as well as identity and authentication. He is especially interested in payments innovation, and what he calls “the perfect storm” of competitive, regulatory, and technology developments that are shaping the present and future of consumer payments.

We sat down with him at FinovateEurope in London to discuss his thoughts on current fintech trends and what we should expect in the “new normal” of banking in 2022.

On banking priorities for 2022

Embracing the open ecosystem is a really big topic right now – from open banking to embedded finance. How do you innovate around products and how do you differentiate yourself? Banks are starting to talk about their purpose, how they embrace different communities they may be serving, and how they tailor their products to those communities. Even things like crypto (are important). Twelve months ago I didn’t think retail banks should be interested in crypto, and here we are talking about that now.

On the role of enabling technologies in financial services

You really need to have the right set of technology tools – and those tools are diversifying. It’s easier now to have composable building blocks that might be coming from different parties, platforms like low code and no code that do not require much IT capability so that business users can start developing applications and, of course, the cloud. A lot of our clients are looking into how to migrate to the cloud and how fast.

On the promise and potential of embedded finance

At the heart of embedded finance is the idea that customers are out there, doing their own things and, as they do those things, they realize that there might be a need for a financial services product, which is something they can acquire right there and then. The idea itself is not new; you and I have probably bought car insurance at the same time we bought our car at the dealership. What’s changing is that there are nice, big, sophisticated digital experiences, first of all, and it’s easier now for financial services to plug into those experiences because now the technology is catching up.

Check out the rest of our conversation with Zilvinas Bareisis from FinovateEurope 2022 on what’s next in the “new normal” in fintech and financial services.

Photo by Max Vakhtbovych

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Blockchain.com Raises Series D Funding at $14 Billion Valuation

Blockchain.com Raises Series D Funding at $14 Billion Valuation
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Blockchain, Daily news, Funding
  • Cryptocurrency platform Blockchain.com is now valued at $14 billion.
  • The updated valuation, which is almost 3x higher than its valuation a year ago, comes after Blockchain.com closed a Series D funding round.
  • Blockchain.com’s 37 million users have opened 82 million crypto wallets and have made transactions worth over $1 trillion to-date.

According to its most recent valuation, cryptocurrency platform Blockchain.com is now worth $14 billion. This updated value comes after the U.K.-based company closed a Series D funding round this week. The amount of the new round, which was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, was undisclosed. Blockchain.com’s funding now totals $490 million.

The new $14 billion valuation is up almost 3x from $5.2 billion, the valuation Blockchain received at its Series C financing round of $300 million in March of last year. As far as valuations in the crypto space, $14 billion is a lot, but it doesn’t place Blockchain.com at the top. Competitors Coinbase and Revolut are valued at $56 billion and $33 billion, respectively.

Blockchain.com was founded in 2011 and serves as a platform for users to buy, sell, hold, and trade cryptocurrencies. With 82 million crypto wallets, the company’s 37 million users have made transactions worth over $1 trillion to-date.

Blockchain.com has five acquisitions under its belt, including ZeroBlock, RTBTC.com, AiX, SeSocio.com, and Altonomy. The most recent buy was the OTC trading and executions business of Singapore-based Altonomy. Blockchain.com anticipates the purchase will spur the growth of its institutional business.

As for what’s next for Blockchain.com, the company is currently exploring the launch of its own NFT marketplace. The new platform, which is currently in beta, will enable users to browse, buy, sell, and store NFTs without leaving their Blockchain.com wallet.

Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

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Mitek Agrees to Acquire UK-Based KYC Technology Innovator HooYu

Mitek Agrees to Acquire UK-Based KYC Technology Innovator HooYu
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: HooYu, Mergers & Acquisitions, Mitek
  • Digital identity verification and fraud prevention innovator Mitek has agreed to acquire KYC technology company HooYu.
  • Mitek will pay $129 million (£98 million) for the U.K.-based company.
  • Both firms are Finovate alums. Mitek made its most recent appearance at FinovateFall 2017. HooYu demoed its technology on the Finovate stage most recently at FinovateEurope 2018.

Mitek’s agreement to acquire KYC technology specialist HooYu will help businesses verify their customer’s identity via a combination of biometric verification and real-time bureau and sanction database checks. Enabling institutions to leverage biometrics, ID document validation, geolocation, and identity confidence scoring with bureau checks and sanction list reviews will help them secure a more complete picture of their consumers.

HooYu’s ability to coordinate these features will not only enhance the identity verification process for Mitek’s customers, the technology will also enable them to optimize workflows and empower companies to deploy identity solutions across channels faster.

“Having a single platform that easily orchestrates and configures a KYC journey to manage identities and identify bad actors is becoming a prerequisite for any business transacting digitally,” HooYu CEO Keith Marsden said. “Bringing together Mitek’s lead in identity, liveness, and biometrics, with our orchestration, configuration, and journey services simplifies identity management for financial institutions.”

Mitek’s acquisition of HooYu comes in the context of a global digital identity solutions market that is expected to grow from $23.3 billion in 2021 to $49.5 billion by 2026, a compound annual growth rate of 16.2%. MarketsandMarkets, whose digital identity solutions report was cited by Mitek in this week’s acquisition announcement, credited the rise in both identity-related fraud and data breaches, as well as the need to keep pace with new regulations, for the growth in this market.

Additionally, the rise of the cryptocurrency and NFT (non-fungible token) markets – and the new regulatory regime that will accompany them – puts a further strain on the compliance requirements of businesses. For all the legitimate activity in crypto and NFTs, there is no doubt that these growing markets also represent new opportunities for illicit and criminal behavior.

“Our current geopolitical, commercial, and technological environment represents a perfect storm for bad actors,” Mitek CEO Max Carnecchia said. “Mitek is leading the fight against fraud by providing the technology that businesses need to stamp out digital money launderers and sanctioned individuals.”

In 2018, HooYu demoed its verification technology at FinovateEurope in London. The year before, Mitek demoed its Mobile Verify technology at FinovateFall in New York.

Photo by Ann H

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The DNA of an Adaptive Enterprise: Opportunity in a Digital Economy

The DNA of an Adaptive Enterprise: Opportunity in a Digital Economy
By Charlie Burgess Posted on
Categories: Sponsored

This is a sponsored post by Stripe, Gold sponsors of FinovateEurope 2022.

Over the past two years, enterprise leaders around the world have had to respond to disruption, unpredictability, and unprecedented challenges. The way the world interacts and transacts has changed, and across millions of businesses using Stripe, we’ve noticed that the capacity for businesses to adapt has been a major determinant of resilience and growth.

An adaptive business initiates change; an agile business reacts to it. The next generation of industry leaders will be companies that anticipate and take action to capture emergent opportunities, using their flexibility as a competitive advantage. They execute on strategies to find new revenue streams, pursue global expansion, and partner to scale faster. According to a recent study from Forrester, adaptive businesses grow at more than three times the industry average.

Stripe worked with The Economist Impact (formerly known as The Economist Intelligence Unit) on a research study that takes a deeper look into the core characteristics that make enterprises adaptive, the strategies leaders are pursuing as online commerce expands, and how the ability to navigate change is an enduring competitive advantage.

Report overview

The analysis in the report is based on a survey of 600 C-level executives, and around a third of the respondents (34%) are based in Europe, with another third (33%) in North America, and the balance in Asia-Pacific. Their companies are distributed across a wide range of industries, with the largest representation from the financial services (15%), technology (15%) and retail (11%) sectors. Just over half (53%) of the respondents work in companies earning annual revenue of over US$500m, with the rest earning between US$100m and US$500m. Most of the companies represented (83%) are no older than 20 years, and 44% have existed for fewer than ten years.

Executive summary

The Covid-19 pandemic brought about profound change, affecting long- standing consumer behaviours and preferences, and in some cases permanently changing competitive landscapes. Businesses had to make consequential decisions in short order—rapidly modifying business models, accelerating digital transformation, seeking out new revenue streams, moving or re-thinking supply chains, entering new product or geographic markets, and improving online customer experiences.

The past two years have created an inflection point for enterprises—one that is likely to define business success for the next decade. Risks to business are considerable, yet organizations that are able to successfully navigate disruption while positioning themselves for growth can be a competitive advantage in today’s global economy. The findings in this report detail characteristics of an adaptive enterprise.

Key findings from the study

Adaptability is decisive. Businesses able to maintain or grow revenue under the difficult conditions of the pandemic appear to have made proactive choices in adapting to widespread change. When asked about chief factors enabling success, CxOs point to their firms’ ability to change or adopt new business models, serve customers online, and scale in short order to shifts in customer behavior and demand. Companies suffering revenue declines, by contrast, highlighted struggles with some of these same areas.

Going for growth. The pandemic has not slowed, but instead seemingly accelerated businesses’ pursuit of growth or new revenue streams. Survey respondents indicate a strong intention to boost investment in technology and show little support for cost-cutting. Rather than contract their businesses, a majority of CxO respondents—80%—believe global expansion is central to their business viability. Over half—52%—plan to increase the number of countries they trade in over the next year. Only 13% said they would decrease.

Digital is integral. The flight of consumers to digital channels was dramatic in 2020, and CxOs in the survey expect the consumer trends that accelerated during the crisis to gain additional momentum. Among the surveyed companies, 28% say half or more of their company sales came via online channels before the pandemic, 46% indicate the same was true during the pandemic (as at October 2020), while 54% anticipated half of their revenue to come from online channels by the end of 2021. A majority—82%—believe that their customer’s shift to online purchasing during the crisis will continue, even after the pandemic is over.

Anticipation is key. Far from all companies were ready for a digital acceleration: 69% of CxOs say their firms under-invested in online strategies before the pandemic. A majority—53%—say they now plan to boost investment in digital transformation over the next 12 months, aiming to improve processes or operations, innovation and customer experiences. The maintained or increasing digital budgets imply a CxO outlook that it’s never too late to adapt.

Check out the full version of the report to gain more insights.

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—including financial organisations like Hargreaves Lansdown, Klarna, and AJ Bell—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Headquartered in San Francisco and Dublin, the company aims to increase the GDP of the internet. Check out Stripe’s website to learn more, and contact sales when you’re ready to have a conversation.

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Goldman Sachs to Acquire NextCapital

Goldman Sachs to Acquire NextCapital
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Goldman Sachs Asset Management is buying retirement planning and digital advice company NextCapital.
  • Goldman Sachs will integrate NextCapital’s platform into its Multi-Asset Solutions business, a group that offers custom, multi-asset portfolios.
  • Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the latter half of this year, were not disclosed.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management has agreed to acquire retirement planning and digital advice company NextCapital in a transaction that is expected to close in the second half of this year.

Terms of the deal, which ranks among the top five asset management deals Goldman Sachs has ever done, were not disclosed.

Chicago-based NextCapital offers automated, digital retirement advice to help banks deliver personalized, customizable retirement planning and managed accounts through their clients’ workplace retirement plans and IRAs. Goldman Sachs, which already leverages NextCapital’s managed account platform to power its retirement program for SMBs, anticipates the purchase will expand its services by adding personalized, managed accounts, and digital advice.

By combining the two companies, Goldman Sachs will be able to provide services to large retirement plans while working with platform clients. As Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon explained, “This acquisition furthers our strategic objective of building compelling client solutions in asset management and accelerating our investment in technology to serve the growing defined contribution market.”

After the deal closes, Goldman Sachs will integrate NextCapital’s platform into its Multi-Asset Solutions business, a group with approximately $220 billion in assets under supervision that offers custom, multi-asset portfolios. The NextCapital team will continue to operate from offices in Chicago.

Founded in 2014, NextCapital has raised $82 million. “Our vision for the future of the retirement savings market is aligned with the team at Goldman Sachs: technology that can create a differentiated experience combined with a strong culture and focus on clients forms a powerful offering for our clients and the individuals they serve,” said NextCapital CEO John Patterson. “We can leverage the resources of a global financial services firm to continue to scale our platform and offer it to new third party institutional clients and Goldman Sachs’ broader wealth management organization.”

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

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FinovateEurope: What’s Hot, What’s Not, and Where to Invest

FinovateEurope: What’s Hot, What’s Not, and Where to Invest
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: List series

Have you ever played a game called Fintech Hot or Not? There are no right or wrong answers, you just yell out, “hot” or “not” in response to a fintech trend. The game works best when played with a captive, diverse audience, so I used the participants in my recent FinovateEurope Future of Fintech panel to gather their thoughts on a range of fintech trends.

Included in the panel were Radboud Vlaar, Founder and managing Partner at Finch Capital; Oliwia Berdak, VP & Research Director of Financial Services at Forrester; and Sam Kilmer, Managing Director of Fintech Advisory at Cornerstone Advisors. Ronit Ghose, Global Head of Banking, Fintech, and Digital Assets at Citi Global Insights was also in the panel discussion, but was not able to participate in the game for legal reasons.

In this version of the game, I asked the panel members if a trend was hot (or not) and I also asked if they would invest (or not) in a startup specializing in that trend. That’s because not only are some of the hottest trends not worth backing, but also some of the least popular themes in fintech may turn out to be the most profitable.

Below is the summary of the panel’s thoughts on what’s hot, what’s not, and what’s worth investing in.

Hot or not

Hot

  • Web3
  • DeFi
  • Stablecoins
  • Quantum computing
  • Edge computing
  • Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)
  • Buy now, pay later (BNPL)
  • NFTs
  • Digital Identity

Not Hot

  • Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs)
  • Retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)

Mixed

  • Metaverse
  • Super apps
  • Voice banking
  • QR code payments

I expected more mixed reactions on BNPL, simply because there are so many companies leveraging this technology, and many are facing scrutiny for evading laws and encouraging consumers to take on too much debt.

Additionally, I was surprised at the very clear split between retail and wholesale CBDCs. Retail CBDCs, those designed to be available to the general public, were very clearly “not hot.” Instead, panelists were in favor of wholesale CBDCs, which are designed to be used among financial intermediaries.

As for trends in the “mixed” category, I would have expected both the metaverse and super apps to be labeled as “hot.”

Invest or not

Invest

  • Edge computing
  • BNPL
  • Digital identity

Not Invest

  • Metaverse
  • Super apps

Mixed

  • Web3
  • DeFi
  • Stablecoins
  • Quantum computing
  • SPACs
  • Voice banking
  • QR Code payments
  • NFTs

To be clear, the panelists were not putting down any money, but they were still cautious when deciding whether or not a trend was worth investing in. Each panelist was decisively not interested in the metaverse, web3, or super apps. They did, however, choose edge computing over quantum computing. And to my surprise, they were mixed on whether or not DeFi was worth the investment.

If you attended FinovateEurope, you can watch the full panel discussion in the on demand content section of the FinovateEurope ConnectMe platform for a limited time.

Photo by Fabio Ballasina on Unsplash

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Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee Partner to Bring Data Aggregation, Account Verification, and Enriched Transaction Data to Banks

Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee Partner to Bring Data Aggregation, Account Verification, and Enriched Transaction Data to Banks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Backbase, Envestnet, Yodlee
  • Two Finovate alums, Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee are teaming up to help financial institutions better serve their customers.
  • The collaboration will offer pre-built integrations with Envestnet | Yodlee’s Data Aggregation, Account Verification, and Transaction Data Enrichment solutions.
  • Both Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee made their most recent Finovate appearances at FinovateFall in New York in September.

A newly announced partnership between Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee will enable financial institutions to offer their customers a holistic view of their finances, as well as an improved customer experience. Specifically, the partnership will bring account data aggregation, account verification, and transaction data enrichment from Envestnet | Yodlee to the Backbase Engagement Banking platform. The move enhances Backbase’s financial wellness capabilities and intuitive customer journeys, and supports the company’s goal of becoming a category leader in the engagement banking platform space.

Backbase CPO Karan Oberoi called the collaboration a “major milestone” in the company’s efforts to “bring value to every step of the full customer lifecycle on a single, unified platform.” Oberoi highlighted the ability of the Backbase Engagement Banking platform to help financial institutions leverage technologies from innovative fintechs like Envestnet | Yodlee “while limiting implementation, procurement, and risk assessment time.”

Adding Account Data Aggregation to the platform will enable customers to combine and maintain all of their financial accounts in a single application. In addition to making it easier for customers to better understand their financial status, the feature also increases stickiness – as well as the potential for cross-selling opportunities – as customers spend more time on the bank’s app. Account Verification allows customers to add and verify their financial accounts in a single app without requiring the use of micro-deposits. Both KYC and AML compliance are also enhanced by the addition of the account verification capability. Lastly, by providing transaction data enrichment, the platform will lower the cost- of-serve for financial institutions and improve customer engagement.

“Entering into this strategic partnership with Backbase is another proof point on how industry leaders are relying on quality data, comprehensive coverage, and intelligent insights from Envestnet | Yodlee to meet fast-growing banking demands,” Envestnet Data and Analytics Group Head Farouk Ferchichi said.

Both multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winners, Backbase and Envestnet | Yodlee made their most recent appearances on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall in New York last September. Backbase demoed a customer onboarding solution that consolidates customer finances via direct deposit, billpay auto linking, and debit card account opening. Envestnet | Yodlee showed how Conversational AI technology can be deployed to deliver hyper-personalized financial insights and goals-based micro-savings applications.

Photo by Essow

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HR and Payroll Company Papaya Global Buys Azimo

HR and Payroll Company Papaya Global Buys Azimo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Azimo, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • HR and payroll platform Papaya Global has acquired global money transfer company Azimo.
  • The deal will allow Papaya Global to offer payments in hours instead of days.
  • Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Global money transfer company Azimo has agreed to be acquired by HR and payroll platform Papaya Global. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but TechCrunch is reporting a purchase price of somewhere between $150 million and $200 million.

The Israeli payroll company will leverage Azimo’s payment platform to offer clients a payroll solution that makes immediate payouts across the globe. “We will build an innovative new payments and finance offering for clients in cash advance and credit-related products, and in cryptocurrency,” the company said in a blog post. The purchase will also enable Papaya Global to add remittance services to its lineup.

Founded by Michael Kent in 2012, Azimo offers a low-priced way for individuals and businesses to send money across the globe. The U.K.-based company charges a fee as low as $0.77 (£0.59) and boasts a more favorable exchange rate, as well. Azimo counts more than two million customers of its digital money transfer platform, which allows users to send money from 25 countries to more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

In addition to its payment network, Azimo has something Papaya Global may consider quite valuable– payment licenses in the U.K., the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong. “Azimo’s global digital payment network, multiple payment licenses, and deep fintech expertise strengthens our ability to help companies manage and pay their remote teams,” said Papaya Global CEO Eynat Guez.

Azimo has raised $88.1 million in combined debt and equity. Financial terms of the deal, which will bring all of Azimo’s employees over to the Papaya Global team, were undisclosed.

Photo by Kaboompics .com

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