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,…

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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…

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Featurespace Secures Funding to Develop AI-Powered AML Prototype

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Featurespace
U.K.-based fraud and financial crime prevention company Featurespace secured funding to help build an AI-powered prototype to fight money laundering and other financial crimes.The funding comes from both the U.S. and U.K. governments, and is part of an initiative supported by Innovate UK, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and messaging network SWIFT.Featurespace made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2016. Fraud and financial crime prevention specialist Featurespace has secured funding from both the U.S. and U.K. governments to build an AI-powered technology to help financial services institutions - including banks and payment service providers (PSPs) - to detect and stop financial crime. The goal specifically is to enhance the ability of financial institutions to combat cross-border money laundering, application fraud, and APP fraud, in particular. The U.K.-based company, headquartered in Cambridge, will build a prototype, leveraging AI, that will be trained on "sensitive private payments data." Featurespace will apply federated…

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Core Banking Software Company Finxact Forges Strategic Partnership with KPMG

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news
Finxact forged a strategic partnership with KPMG this week.The alliance will combine KPMG's design and systems integration capabilities with Finxact's core bnking platform.Finxact was acquired by Finovate alum Fiserv this spring. Finxact, the core banking software company acquired by Fiserv earlier this year, announced a strategic partnership this week. The firm is teaming up with KPMG who will advise and help digitally transform clients on the Finxact platform. David Ortiz, Head of Partnerships at Finxact, explained the role that KPMG will play in helping Finxact clients embrace modernization. "KPMG understands the way this manifests uniquely for different banking business models," Ortiz said. "Together we're combining technology and expert guidance to help our clients adapt and thrive." The alliance between Finxact and KPMG will blend the latter's innovation, digital design, and systems integration capabilities with the former's next generation core banking platform. The partnership will enable financial institutions to offer more…

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The Conversation Continues: Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast with Debbie, Stratyfy, Lemonade, and Deciens Capital

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Debbie, LemonadeLXP, Podcasting, Stratyfy
Interviews with Best of Show winners and an update from the venture capital world were the conversations Finovate VP Greg Palmer shared with listeners of the Finovate podcast during the month of October. Palmer interviewed CEOs from three FinovateFall's Best of Show winners - Debbie, Stratyfy, and Lemonade LXP last month - and checked in with Decien Capital's Dan Kimerling on the state of fintech funding. Find the Finovate podcast at Soundcloud and follow Greg Palmer on Twitter for the latest in programming news and updates. Frida Liebowitz, CEO and Co-Founder, Debbie Finovate VP Greg Palmer talks with Debbie CEO Frida Liebowitz on the importance of offering a more effective, human-centric debt recovery solution. Episode 151. Our mission with Debbie is to help people break the behavioral cycle of debt for good. We are building the first rewards platform for debt payoff that is entirely behavioral driven. We reward people for building up better…

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Quadient Teams Up with Esker to Help French Businesses Manage New Tax Landscape

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Quadient
Business software company Quadient and process automation solutions company Esker have partnered with the French government via a joint subsidiary NCS.The partnership is designed to help businesses comply with new regulations governing the issuance and receipt of invoices between VAT taxpayers.Quadient most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2018 in London. Business software company Quadient and process automation solutions company Esker have announced a new partnership with the French government. Via their joint subsidiary NCS, Quadient and Esker will help ensure that businesses are able to comply with upcoming French tax regulations, specifically with regard to electronic invoice receipt and transmission. The new legislation applies to invoices exchanged between VAT taxpayers, mandating that these invoices must be transmitted in either a structured data format (UBL, UNCEFACT CII) or hybrid format (Factur-X). Rollout of the new regulations begins in the summer of 2024 and continues through January 1, 2026. At that…

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The State of Play in the Fraudtech Industry

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: David's column
According to LexisNexis' recent True Cost of Fraud Study, which looks at fraud trends in the financial services and lending sectors of the U.S. and Canada, the cost of fraud has grown significantly as the global pandemic has ebbed. The report noted that every dollar of fraud currently costs financial services companies in the U.S. $4.00, up from $3.25 in 2019 and $3.64 in 2020. The picture for lenders is even worse. In fact, the report notes that fraudsters have been especially aggressive in the mortgage lending business, sending mortgage lending fraud costs up by more than 23% since 2020. The report also highlights the problem of identity: the challenge financial institutions have when it comes to identity verification and the rise of identity fraud as "a significant percent of fraud losses at the point of funds distribution." Both banks and mortgage lenders surveyed also noted the difficult tasks of…

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Finovate Global VC Edition: Quona Capital Backs Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets with New Fund

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entrust Datacard, Finastra, Finovate Global, Mambu, MasterCard, Temenos, VISA
Good news for fintech startups in developing markets! Quona Capital recently announced that it has closed its latest fintech fund, its third, at $332 million. The venture capital firm, which specializes in emerging markets, noted that the amount raised topped its target of $250 million. The new fund, Fund III, will be focused on companies that are developing technologies that expand access to financial services for consumers and businesses in regions ranging from Latin America and India to Southeast Asia, MENA, and Africa. "Since our earliest days, Quona has been dedicated to expanding the frontiers of financial inclusion - investing with conviction in markets and technology-enabled models improving access and quality of financial services for the masses," Quona co-founding managing partner Monica Brand Engel said in a statement. "Our prior fund performance, robust pipeline of inclusive fintechs, and growing LP interest in our offerings are ringing endorsements of our view…

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Varo Bank Adds Zelle, Bringing Safe and Secure Money Transfers to its Mobile Banking App

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news
San Francisco, California-based digital bank Varo has added popular money transfer solution Zelle to its mobile banking app.The integration will bring safe and secure money transfer capabilities to Varo's more than six million accountholders.Founded in 2015, Varo Bank is the first neobank to offer Zelle to its customers. All-digital Varo Bank announced this week that it will offer money transfer solution Zelle in its mobile banking app. Varo is the first financial institution of its kind to offer Zelle in its app without having to partner with a bank. A safe way to send and receive money from friends, family, and trusted small businesses, Zelle has more than 150 million current users who access the technology via their banking apps. "Adding Zelle to our product lineup is our bank charter in action," Varo Bank founder and CEO Colin Walsh said. "We are excited to welcome millions of Americans to access…

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Finance in the Metaverse Era Should be Green and Sustainable by Default

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Finastra, Sponsored
The following is a sponsored blog post from Finastra. Post-pandemic recoveries stalled by rocketing energy prices are leading to calls for stalling a green transition that has already begun. But the costs to businesses due to climate-related weather events within the next four years will be over $1 trillion. Investors and financial institutions are increasingly applying non-financial factors (Environmental, Social, and Governance) as part of their analysis process to identify material risks and growth opportunities. Also, there is a high interest coming from consumers in the sustainability of businesses and how they impact the environment. But because of the broad range of indicators coupled with the lack of standards, transparency, and unified reporting makes it a challenge to assess and measure true, impactful ESG credentials and the sustainability of a business. At the same time, many banks have started to embrace/experiment in the Metaverse including DBS Bank in partnership with…

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Elevating the Banking Experience for All: Our Conversation with Sarah Murray of Compliance Systems

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Interview, Speaker series, Women in Fintech
One of the areas of fintech that has benefitted significantly from the rise of enabling technologies like AI and machine learning is compliance. From reducing the role of manual labor via automation to streamlining complex processes to make rules easier for companies to follow, both regtech firms and compliance teams alike play a major role in ensuring the fintech innovations we enjoy are safe, do what they say they'll do, and are as available to as many eligible consumers as possible. We caught up with Sarah Murray, who leads the Deposit Product Team at Compliance Systems. She talked about the impact technology is having on the field of compliance, and discussed the key challenges that Compliance Systems is helping its 1,800 financial institution clients overcome. How did you get started in fintech? What has led you to where you are today in your career? Sarah Murray: Before fintech, I was…

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Wells Fargo Launches Small Dollar Digital Financing Solution, Flex Loan

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo launched a new small dollar digital financial solution called Flex Loan this week.The new offering provides loans of $250 and $500, with a flat fee of $12 and $20, respectively.Available in selected markets now, Flex Loan will be available nationwide by the end of the year. Certainty, simplicity, and clarity are among the virtues of Wells Fargo's new small dollar digital financing solution, Flex Loan. The new product is a digital, small dollar loan of either $250 or $500 with a flat fee of $12 or $20, respectively. Available only in select markets now, Flex Loans will be introduced across the U.S. by year's end. Wells Fargo indicated that Flex Loan is part of the financial services company's efforts to help customers meet short-term cash needs and avoid potential overdrafts. "What makes Flex Loan different from other payment options is its certainty of approval for eligible customers, the…

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