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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Everyone in our industry sits in a unique place. Because of this, there is immense value in taking the time to listen to others’ perspectives. At our FinovateSpring conference earlier this year, we spoke with Akita Somani, SVP of BNPL and Lending at U.S. Bank, and Bhavana Prathipati, Managing Director, Payments Product Manager at Silicon Valley Bank.
Both experts offered their insights on two key themes in the payments world. Somani discussed how U.S. Bank’s own buy now, pay later point of sale lending solution can help consumers pay for essentials such as home repairs. “It’s all about providing options, and therefore opportunities,” she said. Somani also highlighted regulatory issues in the BNPL arena.
On the opposite side of the traditional bank space, where U.S. Bank sits, Prathipati has a wide view of the fintech payments scene. In her interview, Prathipati discusses how real time payments has changed the lives of consumers by, for example, making real-time insurance claim payouts possible. She also touches on some of the challenges and risks involved in real-time payments.
Revolut has received its banking license from the U.K. Prudential Regulation Authority.
The license comes three years after Revolut initially applied for a license in 2021.
Revolut currently holds a E.U. banking license, as well as a banking license in Mexico.
International challenger bank Revolut has now received its official banking license in the U.K. The London-based company first applied for the banking license in 2021, and today, after three years of patiently waiting, the U.K. Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) granted the license.
With its new banking license, Revolut can now take and hold deposits for its 9 million U.K. customers. It can also sell financial products such as loans, credit cards, overdraft protection, and savings accounts to U.K. consumers. The PRA has set initial restrictions on the license, however. Revolut is currently in what the regulator calls a mobilization period. During this period, the fintech cannot hold more than £50,000 in customer deposits. This limit will allow Revolut to test its systems and flag any issues before it begins to scale.
“Today’s announcement is a significant step forward for Revolut and for our customers. It is a tremendous responsibility to be a bank in the UK and we will work relentlessly to offer products and services that improve the financial lives of everyone who uses Revolut,” Revolut’s UK CEO Francesca Carlesi said in a statement.
Revolut’s end consumers will not see much will change. They will, however, benefit from having $109,500 (£85,000) in deposit insurance if the bank fails.
Revolut initially launched in 2014 and has since been operating as an e-money payments company in the U.K. The company received its E.U. banking license in Lithuania in December 2018 and since then has begun expanding its banking services across Central Europe. The company also has a banking license in Mexico. In other regions where Revolut operates, it relies on partner banks to hold customer deposits.
According to CNBC, one reason why it has taken Revolt three years to obtain the license is that Revolut’s share structure did not align with the PRA’s rules. Revolut had six classes of shares and ended up having to leverage SoftBank last October to restructure its ownership into ordinary shares. Another source, Banking Dive, said that faulty IT controls were to blame for the delay.
From a competitive standpoint, this is a big deal for Revolut. With its 45 million customers across the globe, the company joins fellow London-based competitors Monzo, N26, and Starling, which all have U.K. banking licenses. Other competitors Wise and Monese still do not have their banking licenses.
“We are incredibly proud to reach this important milestone in the journey of the company and we will ensure we deliver on making Revolut the bank of choice for UK customers,” said Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky.
Online investing and savings service Wealthify introduces its new Chief Executive Officer Richard Ambrose.
Ambrose will succeed Andy Russell, who has served as CEO of the company for the past four years.
Wealthify made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in London in 2017.
U.K.-based online investing and saving platform Wealthify has appointed Richard Ambrose as its new Chief Executive Officer. Ambrose replaces Andy Russell, who had served as CEO of the company since the summer of 2020.
“It’s been a privilege to lead Wealthify over the last four years,” outgoing CEO Andy Russell said. “I am very proud of our purpose-driven strategy, our culture of accessibility and quality, and the resulting growth we’ve achieved during this time.”
Most recently General Manager (GM) of Payments at Papaya Global, Richard Ambrose worked as CEO of Azimo for more than three years from 2019 to 2023. Before his appointment as Azimo CEO, Ambrose had been the company’s Chief Operating Officer for two years. He also held numerous roles during his nearly six-year tenure at PayPal, joining the company as Marketing Director for the U.K. in 2011 and eventually becoming Senior Director, Chief of Staff, EMEA.
“I am thrilled to join Wealthify as CEO,” Ambrose said in a statement. “Its mission to make investing more affordable and accessible for everyone is in the best traditions of fintech. Wealthify has built some great technology, and I’m proud to be joining its brilliant team.”
Wealthify is dedicated to using technology to democratize investing. The company offers a range of investment and savings solutions, from ISAs, GIAs, and SIPPs to an instant access savings account. Customers can open investing accounts for as little as £1 (£50 for pensions), and manage their funds via the Wealthify app or website. Wealthify uses passive investment vehicles such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to build different investment plans based on the investor’s risk tolerance. Ranging from “Cautious” to “Ambitious,” Wealthify also offers “Ethical” versions of each plan that use negative screening to exclude companies from industries such as tobacco, weapons, and gambling, as well as positive screening to include businesses that have demonstrated a commitment to corporate ethics, social justice, and/or sustainability.
Founded in 2014, Wealthify made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateEurope in London. Wealthify began this year partnering with ClearBank, which now serves as the embedded banking partner for the company’s savings product.
We’re more than halfway through 2024 so there’s no better time for a trends temperature check to determine what we should be paying attention to throughout the second half of the year. Learning about the newest trends is crucial to understanding how your firm can better compete and ultimately succeed in the crowded fintech and banking arena.
Funding
Late last year, we were still in the metaphorical trenches of funding. As of mid-2024, fintech funding trends are mixed. For the most part, venture capital investment is still quite slow because of high interest rates and economic uncertainty. We may see a more positive shift after the U.S. election, as many investors have cited political uncertainty as a factor in delaying major strategic and investment initiatives.
There is, however, another aspect of the current funding scene. Startups in targeted subsectors that are leveraging generative AI in unique ways are still garnering attention and funding from investors, though not quite at the high levels we saw in 2021 and early 2022. These shifts have caused companies to focus on sustainable growth and profitability, rather than the aggressive growth-at-all-costs mentality that was common from 2010 to 2019.
Regulation
As expected, the regulatory landscape has tightened significantly so far this year. Regulators have intensified their scrutiny not only of financial institutions, but also of specific issues. In the U.K., the Basel III framework brought forth new regulations focusing on capital adequacy, liquidity, and operational risk. In the U.S., there has been increased scrutiny of banking-as-a-service partnerships. This has brought a pulse of new consent orders on a regular basis. On top of all of this, we’ve seen the CFPB take measures to further consumer protection, such as last week’s proposed interpretive ruling stating that some earned wage access tools should be considered loans.
Embedded finance and open banking
Predictably, the conversation around embedded finance and open banking has escalated in 2024 as consumers continue to seek digital experiences that offer seamless financial integration. Banks’ open banking initiatives have expanded, which is crucial given that the CFPB is expected to release the final ruling of Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, which will stipulate rules surrounding rules governing personal financial data rights.
Generative AI
It will not come as a surprise that both the use and mentions of generative AI technology in fintech and banking has increased. The use of the technology experienced major expansion after the general release of ChatGPT in late 2022. Now that both banks and fintechs have been able to see and experience first-hand the potential of generative AI, there has been a large spike in demand for integrating the technology into existing operations to help improve efficiency, personalize customer interactions, and enhance risk management.
U.S. Bank launched its Accounts Receivables platform, U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables, in partnership with Billtrust.
U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables will help businesses keep costs low and benefit from real-time visibility into cash flow and financial position.
U.S. Bank most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2021 in New York.
Courtesy of a partnership with Billtrust, U.S. Bank has launched its new comprehensive accounts receivable (AR) platform. U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables will help suppliers accelerate cash flow, lower costs via automation, and provide better payment experiences.
“Suppliers face many challenges from the time they receive an order until the cash is in their account. This includes numerous manual and paper-based steps, a cumbersome credit process, billing errors, and payment delays,” U.S. Bank Global Treasury Management Head of Product Alberto Casas explained. “With U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables, businesses can transform their entire receivables process to drive down costs and gain real-time visibility into their financial position and cash flow.”
U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables combines U.S. Bank’s payment and risk management capabilities with Billtrust’s AR technology. The new offering is comprised of five core solutions – invoicing, payments, cash application, collections, and credit – each of which enhances the B2B receivables process. U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables builds on the bank’s complementary digital payment solutions, such as U.S. Bank AP Optimizer, which automates accounts payable operations from invoice receipt to payment disbursement. Together the two offerings enable companies to digitize and automate their end-to-end payment processes.
With $680 billion in assets, U.S. Bancorp is the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the firm serves millions of customers locally, nationally, and around the world with services including consumer banking, business banking, commercial banking, institutional banking, payments, and wealth management. Billtrust, which partnered with U.S. Bank to launch the bank’s new AR offering, is an integrated AR solutions provider whose technology is used by more than 2,400 companies worldwide. These clients range from Coca-Cola and FedEx to Staples and United Rentals.
Earlier this month, Billtrust announced that it had extended its collaboration with Visa to support its Business Payments Network (BPN). Introduced in partnership with Visa in 2018, BPN links suppliers to buyers via connectivity to their preferred bank and payables providers. Headquartered in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, and founded in 2001, Billtrust was acquired by EQT Private Equity for $1.7 billion in 2022.
U.S. Bank most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall in 2021. At the conference, the bank demoed its U.S. Bank Card as a Service (CaaS) solution. The technology enables fintechs and other businesses to extend corporate credit digitally, and to create a custom virtual payment experience for customers via API integration.
Financial services company Rabobank has turned to Zafin to optimize its pricing, billing, and invoicing capabilities.
The partnership will help Rabobank fulfill its mandate of becoming a 100% digital institution.
Zafin made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017. The company was acquired by Nordic Capital earlier this year.
Multi-national banking and financial services company Rabobank has tapped SaaS core modernization solutions provider Zafin to optimize its pricing, billing, and invoicing capabilities.
“Innovation lies at the heart of Rabobank’s digital transformation journey,” Rabobank Manager (Payments) Paul Wolda said. “It supports our mission of ‘growing a better world together’ and our goal to improve the everyday life of our customers.” Wolda praised Zafin’s reputation around the world and said that the partnership “reinforces our commitment to invest in innovative technologies that modernize our legacy applications, drive operational efficiencies, lower costs, and offer our clients a more personalized and sophisticated banking experience.”
The partnership comes as Rabobank pursues its mandate to become 100% digital. The firm will deploy Zafin’s platform, replacing its current pricing tools, and lowering the cost of creating, changing, and launching customized product propositions and pricing to its clients. Rabobank will leverage the platform to access a consistent view of product, billing, and invoicing data across channels. This will reduce revenue leakage and deliver real-time insights into preferences and needs of Rabobank’s diverse retail and corporate customer base.
“Our partnership with Rabobank is a significant milestone in our mission to deliver core modernization solutions for the banking industry,” Zafin SVP of EMEA Sales Hali Khan said. “For decades, Rabobank has maintained leadership in sustainability-oriented banking, and we are excited to help transform its pricing and billing capabilities in the Netherlands.”
Active in 37 countries, Rabobank is an international financial services provider offering retail banking, wholesale banking, private banking, leasing, and real estate services. Headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands, Rabobank was first established in 1895 as a local credit cooperative for farmers and even today maintains a market share of more than 85% in the country’s agrarian sector. Rabobank launched its first internet only savings bank, Rabobank.be, in 2002.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Zafin demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2017. The company was acquired by Nordic Capital in February of this year. In May, Zafin co-founder Al Karim Somji announced that he would step down from the role of CEO after more than two decades in leadership.
SavvyMoney unveiled Get My Rate, a personalized credit offer automation tool for financial institutions.
Get My Rate automatically presents the end consumer with ongoing, pre-qualified loan options that align with their credit profile.
The tool also provides prospective borrowers with continuous credit monitoring and financial wellness tools to help improve their financial standing.
Credit score solutions company SavvyMoneyannounced its latest launch this week. The California-based company is introducing Get My Rate, a personalized credit offer automation tool for banks and financial institutions.
The new tool aims to help banks interact with clients and prospective clients by offering a convenient, tailored experience while enhancing market reach. Get My Rate brings consumers into a bank’s marketing efforts to present them with ongoing offers. If a prospective borrower’s credit improves or if the rate on a loan is lower, the technology automatically presents the end consumer with pre-qualified loan options that align with their credit profile.
Get My Rate allows users to become pre-qualified for multiple offers at the same time and will send the consumer alerts when rates change in their favor. Further enhancing the user experience, borrowers and prospective borrowers receive continuous credit monitoring and financial wellness tools to help improve their financial standing.
“SavvyMoney is thrilled to introduce Get My Rate — the first tool of its kind — marking a new era of convenience, empowerment, and expansion,” said SavvyMoney President and CEO JB Orecchia. “Given credit criteria and rates change all [the] time. This solution provides a personalized solution that alerts consumers when the product or rate meets their needs. In an industry that’s rapidly evolving with digital transformation and increasing consumer expectations, it truly exemplifies our commitment to reshaping the lending landscape, putting the power of personalization in the hands of consumers while driving continued growth for financial institutions.”
Because Get My Rate maintains a connection with the consumers via alerts and ongoing credit monitoring, it can serve as a useful tool to help financial institutions build longer term relationships with both current and prospective customers.
“In today’s fast-paced financial landscape, consumers expect personalized, convenient experiences. Our new offer automation tool meets this demand head-on, revolutionizing how financial institutions connect with both members and potential customers,” said SavvyMoney Chief Product Officer David Dowhan. “By providing tailored loan options based on real-time credit profiles, we’re not just streamlining the lending process – we’re creating a more transparent, empowering financial journey for consumers while driving growth for our partners.”
SavvyMoney was founded in 2008 as DebtGoal, when it operated as a direct-to-consumer subscription service to help consumers get out of debt faster. Today, as a credit score solutions company, SavvyMoney serves over 1,300 banks, credit unions, and fintechs nationwide. The company’s solutions integrate with over 40 U.S. online banking platforms, combining real-time data with digital personalization tools.
“OrboGraph’s expertise in check fraud detection perfectly complements our expertise and, together, we can offer a powerful tool that seamlessly integrates check image display functionality and common check risk data sources,” Featurespace President of Americas Carolyn Homberger said.
Many consumers, especially younger consumers, have abandoned paper checks. In fact, some analysis suggests that paper checks represent less than 5% of transactions in the U.S. as of 2022 (compared to 17% for cash and more than 31% for credit and charge cards). At the same time, that relatively modest amount of paper check writing still amounts to $27 trillion in value. It is also worth noting that while paper checks have become less common in consumer transactions, paper checks are still used in nearly half of all B2B payments according to Paystand.
This means that there is an ample opportunity for fraudsters. In fact, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has reported that check fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent and, as of 2023, represents more than a third of all fraud at depository institutions.
To this end, the integration of Featurespace’s financial crime prevention technology with OrboGraph’s check processing automation and fraud detection software and services will enhance detection of fraudulent checks and reduce the number of false positives for banks and financial institutions in the U.K.
“Check fraud is a growing and concerning area of financial crime – we know banks and financial institutions are experiencing a rise in reports and are in need of more advanced tools that can tackle the issue,” OrboGraph CEO Barry Cohen said. “Combining our expertise with Featurespace will enable us to deliver a more robust and comprehensive fraud detection solution, helping financial institutions to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated check fraud schemes.”
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Cambridge, U.K., Featurespace made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2016. The company returned to the Finovate stage later that year to demo its technology at FinovateFall in New York. Today, the company processes more than 50 billion events a year, and protects 500 million customers in 180+ countries from fraud risk. Featurespace’s signature solution, its ARIC Risk Hub, leverages Adaptive Behavioral Analytics and Automated Deep Behavioral Networks to model and predict individual behavior in real-time to enhance fraud prevention and anti-money laundering efforts.
This spring, Featurespace forged a partnership with The Knoble, an alliance of financial services professionals, regulators, and law enforcement that focuses on crimes such as human trafficking and elder financial exploitation. In May, the company announced the results of a pilot project with Pay.UK designed to defend consumers from Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud. Featurespace’s proof of concept detected more than $178 million (£138 million) in fraud with a 5:1 false positive ratio. Applying its Generative AI solution TalllierLTM enabled Featurespace to boost its fraud detection rates to 56%, identifying an additional $51 million (£40 million) in fraud.
“Fraud is the single largest crime in the U.K. It accounts for 40% of all crime and contributes to £2.3 billion in losses annually,” Featurespace CEO Martina King said. “But the UK is leading the charge to tackle this issue and the game-changing pilot with Pay.UK is one that the world has been watching. It shows the immense power of collaboration and technology, and the scale of positive change that is possible when the payments industry works together to tackle fraudulent activity.”
Featurespace has raised more than $108 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company’s investors include Chrysalis Investments, MissionOG, and Insight Partners.
Card payment for fleet management company Coast raised $40 million.
The round was led by ICONIQ Growth and included a strategic investment from Synchrony.
Today’s Series B round boosts Coast’s total funding to $165 million.
Card payment platform for truck driver fleet management, Coast, raised $40 million this week. The investment brings the New York-based company’s total equity financing to just under $100 million.
Today’s announcement comes four months after it announced its previous round of $92 million in debt and equity, and brings the company’s total funding to $165 million.
The round was led by ICONIQ Growth. Existing investors, including Accel, Insight Partners, Vesey Ventures, and Avid Ventures, also participated in the round, as well as new investor Thomvest. Consumer financial services company Synchrony joined the round as a strategic investor. The fintech said that investing in Coast aligns with its presence in the aftermarket auto segment. Synchrony partners with multiple tire, petrol, auto parts, and maintenance retailers like Discount Tire and Pep Boys.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with ICONIQ Growth, a legendary investor in fintech, and fleet and field services,” said Coast founder and CEO Daniel Simon. “ICONIQ brings to bear not just their deep capital base but also their rich experience in Coast’s domains and expansive community, which can drive partnerships and accelerate expansion for Coast’s fleet product.”
Coast facilitates fleet payments by leveraging vehicle data and telematics. The company’s technology aims to help the nearly one million U.S. field service businesses that collectively operate around 40 million vehicles in their commercial fleets. Coast’s payment technology is not just for long-haul trucking, but also can help businesses like HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, pest control, and construction, or any business that needs to operate and maintain a fleet of vehicles.
With thousands of users, including BuildOps, Sheetz, and 7-Eleven, Coast has grown its revenue over ten times in the last 18 months. Earlier this month, the company launched a mobile app to facilitate the collection and verification of transaction data for fleet payments, such as receipts, memos, and job codes.
ICONIQ Growth General Partner Yoonkee Sull has joined Coast’s board of directors. “Companies like Coast do not come along every day. We are incredibly impressed with Coast’s proven traction, leadership, and deep expertise in fintech,” said Sull. “We believe Daniel and team are using exceptional software to challenge incumbents in a massive market and making a difference in hundreds of thousands of American businesses. We are thrilled to partner with them on their mission to simplify the day-to-day management of thousands of fleets.”
CrowdStrike’s update to its flagship cybersecurity product, Falcon Sensor, late last week caused an impressive amount of panic across a wide swath of industries. Many computers running Microsoft were stuck on the “blue screen of death” (BSoD), which would not allow users’ computers to load.
Immediately, the update caused flight cancellations, train delays, broadcasting problems, hospital issues, and disruptions at businesses across all sectors that could not log into their computers for the day. But aside from these fleeting, yet major, problems the botched software update will have lasting implications.
Opportunity for competitors
Impacting the cybersecurity industry as a whole, many organizations will see last week’s update failure as an opportunity to market their own fraud fighting technology to organizations big and small that were impacted by last Friday’s events. We may even see a slight increase in new cybersecurity company launches. According to TechCrunch, as of last year, CrowdStrike enjoyed a 14.7% share of global revenue from security software sales. This may decrease as some clients seek alternative technologies. It is unlikely, however, that we will see a mass exodus from CrowdStrike.
Information for hackers
Perhaps one of the biggest concerns for CrowdStrike clients is that the update failure offered hackers all over the globe a visual of which companies use CrowdStrike as a vendor to fight fraud. Cybersecurity companies rarely disclose client names, especially in banking and finance, and for good reason. When hackers know which security software vendors a firm is using, they are able to gather a lot of information they can use to try to circumvent the software for nefarious purposes.
In addition to offering visibility into which banks are working with CrowdStrike as a security vendor, the fallout of the update also offers fraudsters an open door to send consumers phishing emails and phone calls to exploit the situation by asking consumers to divulge passwords and sensitive codes.
Loss of consumer trust
End consumers, especially in the banking and airline industries, will likely lose some amount of trust in the security of online businesses. Many saw firsthand how far reaching and potentially catastrophic software disruptions can be, and unfortunately, many consumers incorrectly assumed that the BSoD was the result of a cyberattack rather than an update glitch. As a result, consumers may be more wary of sharing their sensitive details online and may be less willing to trust the security of their financial institution, even if it was not impacted by Friday’s events.
Heightened regulatory concern
Regulators are consistently being challenged by today’s fast-moving technological environment. Now, they have a new worry to add to their list. Regulators have a responsibility to ensure that they are not only retroactively responding to IT outages, but also actively working to help prevent them from occurring in the first place. This will likely lead to more stringent regulatory guidelines for cybersecurity measures, mandatory incident response protocols, and regular stress testing of critical IT systems to ensure their resilience.
A nearly ten-year old acquisition may turn out to be Klarna’s secret weapon to improve security during the checkout process.
The Swedish payments company announced this week that it has integrated a new payment service into its Klarna PayNow product suite. The integration is designed to improve checkout security and has been made possible thanks in large part to Klarna’s acquisition of Germany-based Sofort in 2014.
“We are integrating Sofortüberweisung into the Klarna environment to offer consumers and merchants the best of both worlds: the familiar Sofort payment process combined with the smoother, more secure payment experience and global reach of Klarna,” Klarna Chief Commercial Officer David Sykes said. “The combined product is better for merchants and consumers, and (is) also a platform for Klarna to expand the functionality of Sofortüberweisung globally.”
Sofortüberweisung is a bank-to-bank payment service that Klarna gained access to by acquiring Sofort GmbH in 2014. Klarna has been incorporating Sofort’s technology into its solutions since 2017, and has launched the service in some of its other markets around the world, including the U.K. With this week’s integration, consumers will be able to track their Sofortüberweisung payments from within the Klarna app, as well as make payments without having to re-enter their payment information. This, combined with Klarna’s two-factor authentication, facilitates both greater convenience and increased security.
To that point, customers will need a Klarna account in order to take advantage of the Sofortüberweisung integration, and the company notes 95% of Sofort customers already have one. Klarna also reports that the “improved user-friendliness” of the integration has produced a 5% increase in conversion rates for consumers who use it.
Founded in 2005, Klarna made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2012. In the decade-plus since then, the company has grown into a major e-commerce and payments business with 150 million total active customers in its network – including 34 million in the U.S. With more than 500,000 total merchants using its technology, Klarna facilitates two million transactions per day.
The company also recently made headlines with word that it is preparing for an initial public offering in the U.S. as early as the first half of 2025. Also this month, Klarna announced that it had partnered with Adobe Commerce to make it easier for merchants on the platform to implement Klarna’s Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services.
“Consumers are embracing the flexibility that Buy Now Pay Later services can provide, with Adobe Analytics data showing over 11 percent growth this year,” Jason Knell, Adobe Sr. Director, Content & Commerce Partners, said. “Klarna’s global footprint enables Adobe Commerce merchants to meet the changing needs of their customers and stay competitive in today’s digital economy.”
Klarna is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Sebastian Siemiakowski is Klarna’s CEO.
