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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
With all of the drama around TikTok these days, you may have forgotten about Snap. Formerly known as Snapchat, the photo messaging app allows users to send and receive ephemeral messages complete with fun filters, animation, and augmented reality.
It appears that Snap may be on the verge of change, as the company reportedly acquired Voca.ai, a smart voice assistant that helps replace customer service agents in call centers. The acquisition, which was first reported by Globes and later picked up by TechCrunch, is estimated to be around $70 million.
While one of the main use cases for Voca.ai’s technology is phone-based debt collection, it can also be used for surveys, customer service, appointment scheduling, and lead qualification. As the name suggests, Voca.ai leverages AI to imitate human representatives’ responses. To create a convincing, human-sounding cadence the technology adds pauses and filler words such as “um.”
Snap may intend to leverage Voca.ai to build out a new voice command feature. According to Globes, “This range of abilities in identifying speech and producing artificial speech have attracted Snapchat, which in June launched a voice command function for users to request filters, which can alter their appearance. For example, the user can ask for their hair to turn pink, and the voice command function ensures that the operation is completed.”
Voca.ai was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Herzliya, Israel. The company has raised $6 million across two rounds of funding. Voca.ai won a Best of Show award at FinovateSpring last year after company CEO Einav Itamar demonstrated how a bank used the AI voice agent to follow up on a loan inquiry.
Progress Bank, a $1.4 billion asset financial institution that serves businesses in Alabama and the Florida panhandle, has teamed up with Sensibill to offer its digital receipt management solution to its business customers. Sensibill leverages AI and machine learning to provide SKU-level transaction data to help businesses better manage their finances and enable banks to better customize offerings to their business customers.
“We have long been dedicated to providing a seamless, convenient experience for our busy business customers, and partnering with Sensibill directly supports that strategy,” Progress Bank SVP of Operations, Finance, and Technology Randy Tidwell said. “With Sensibill, we are modernizing and digitizing receipt and expense management, a traditionally cumbersome and time-consuming process. This ultimately helps our customers save time, reduce stress, and manage their personal and business finances more easily. As businesses look to navigate the pandemic’s lasting impacts, digital tools like these become even more critical to provide meaningful support.”
Progress Bank sees the addition of Sensibill’s technology as a way to reach out to businesses that cannot or prefer not to visit a branch. Progress Bank will run Sensibill’s solution via its FIS Digital One platform, enabling its business customers to capture and store receipts on their digital banking apps. Once digitized, receipt data can be readily analyzed to track spending and better manage overall finances.
“Relationship-focused institutions like Progress Bank understand the importance of providing customers with quick and intuitive digital tools to help them better manage everyday spend,” Sensibill CEO and co-founder Corey Gross said. “By leveraging our technology, the bank’s customers eliminate the time and hassle of keeping up with and analyzing paper receipts, leading to easier tax seasons and expense management.”
Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Sensibill earned a Best of Show award in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017. The company returned to the Finovate stage a year later for a demonstration in partnership with NatWest. Since then, Sensibill has partnered with JPMorgan to have its technology integrated into the Chase mobile banking app. The firm has also collaborated with Metro Bank, which went live with Sensibill’s digital receipt management solution over the summer. More recently, Sensibill earned a spot on The Globe and Mail’s Top Growing Companies in Canada list for 2020.
Founded in 2013, Sensibill has raised more than $55 million in funding from investors including Radical Ventures, Information Venture Partners, and First Ascent Ventures.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring Digital on May 10 through 13, 2021. Register today and save your spot.
Facepoint‘s Biometric ID is used for the special case of sanctions, high risk, and anti-money laundering.
Features
Drastically cuts false positives, speeding onboarding and saving money
Overcomes false identification, lowering risk to the bank
Identifies unnamed sanctioned criminals
Why it’s great While traditional KYC methods create 99% false positives, Biometric ID resolves most of these instantly and with near-100% certainty.
Presenters
James Barringer, Regional Director of North America A former US Navy Officer, Barringer is a 25-year veteran of financial data and a 10-year veteran of AML/KYC/CDD. Jim represents Facepoint to financial institutions in the Americas. LinkedIn
John Lloyd, Senior Consultant SME AML/CTF Systems A former US Army Officer, Lloyd did a full career in the NYPD as a financial crime detective and identity technologist. John represents Facepoint to law enforcement, intelligence, and government. LinkedIn
It’s Veterans Day in the U.S., a day dedicated to honoring the service of the country’s military veterans.
Given the long-running military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Veterans Day holiday has taken on a special significance for Americans in recent years. And it could be argued that more military veterans have been “thanked for their service” in the past decade and a half than in the previous several put together. But beyond expressions of gratitude, what can financial services companies, financial institutions, and fintechs do to really show their appreciation for veterans? Here are five ideas:
Hire Them
The economic fallout from the global health crisis has had its impact on veterans as it has on everyone else. While the unemployment rate for veterans is better than the national rate – 5.5% for veterans compared to 6.9% for the U.S. population overall – some veterans still face unique challenges when it comes to returning to the civilian workforce.
One study published this week by the San Diego Workforce Partnership showed that many veterans lack the kind of business networks and networking opportunities that their non-veteran counterparts access. Respondents also felt they were unable to impress upon employers the value of skills they developed while serving in the military – such as discipline and reliability.
U.S. Veterans Magazine published a valuable primer in this regard last summer. For more on how to bring more veterans to your workforce – and how to make the most out of veterans you already have working for you, check out their 12 Tips for Effectively Managing Veterans in the Workplace.
Lend to Them
While there are many financial institutions and even insurers that make a point of serving veterans and their families, helping veterans buy first homes and fund small businesses is one of the best ways that fintechs can support the veteran community.
One fintech that has done much to help ensure veterans and veteran-run small businesses get the financial help they need is StreetShares. Founded in 2013 by U.S. Air Force veteran Mark Rockefeller and headquartered in Reston, Virginia, StreetShares offers a lending-as-a-service platform that enables banks, credit unions, and other organizations to offer small business loans. The company began, however, with a “first affinity” for providing financing for military veteran business owners who, the company noted in its Finovate debut in 2015, make up one in nine of all small businesses in the U.S.
Partner with Them
A growing number of companies are helping further the cause of diversity by seeking out partnerships with businesses run by women and members of underrepresented ethnic groups. For those interested in supporting veteran entrepreneurs and veteran-owned businesses, approaching veteran communities with the same enthusiasm and similar opportunities is a sound strategy.
Whether it’s via something as simple and straightforward as Veterans Day sponsorships or, ideally, a more enduring effort to seek out veteran business owners to discuss innovative collaborations, fintechs and financial institutions have as much to gain from the diversity of veteran-run businesses as these small businesses do.
Work for Them
As noted above, many veterans seeking work lack the networking opportunities many non-veterans have that can make the difference between a merely challenging job search and a brutally frustrating one. Similarly, not every veteran small business owner or entrepreneur has a Rolodex – or a LinkedIn account – full of talented and qualified potential employees. At the same time, some non-veterans may harbor negative stereotypes against veteran employers, and express some concern about working for them.
Understanding that the civilian workplace is different from the military workplace is a good place to start for everyone, including prospective employees of a veteran boss. In the same way that we correctly seek out diversity among those we live and work with to enhance our lives, improve our work, and support our communities, appreciating and learning from the life experience of military veterans can be similarly valuable for all involved.
And if you are a veteran, seeking out another veteran-run business is not only a way to support the veteran community, but also it might present a unique opportunity in which the veteran has a leg up over the non-veteran applying for the same job. It may be that many life-long civilians will not appreciate fully the “soft skills” developed through years of military service. But you can bet your bottom dollar that your veteran employer gets it.
Listen to Them
It is a cliche to say that many veterans bring valuable leadership skills to the private sector. But it is a cliche that endures for a reason: whether serving in peacetime or in conflict, the veterans of our armed forces have lessons and life experiences that not only have shaped them, but also can help guide us, as well. It is no surprise that, when surveyed, the U.S. military ranks consistently among the most trusted public institution. When respondents are asked why, the “competence with which they do their job” and “selflessness, bravery, and discipline,” were among the reasons.
And with more than a million men and women currently on active duty in the U.S. military, many of whom will become veterans in the next few years, “selflessness, bravery, and discipline” sound like a few good reasons to start adding more military veterans to your business network.
News first broke of Zopa’s plans to launch a bank in November of 2016. During the four-year-period since then, the U.K.-based P2P lender has been slowly progressing toward becoming a fully fledged challenger bank.
Today, Zopa took this initiative a step further, launching a credit card offering. Zopa said that the card is specifically designed to help users stay in control of their money and their debt.
The card has two tools that help users manage their money. The first is called Safety Net. The Safety Net feature allows users to lock up some of their available credit balance to use for small, unexpected expenses. Customers decide how much of their available credit to lock away and can easily unlock access to the credit via the mobile app.
The card, in combination with the mobile app, also offers real time balance updates. The feature enables users to see how much credit they have available in real time, without needing to wait for the transaction to show up in their balance statement.
“The credit card market hasn’t caught up with the standard of other digital products and customers have been waiting too long for a better experience,” said Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana. “At Zopa, we believe that credit cards need to be revolutionized so we have built a card designed around putting the customer in control. Industry firsts such as our Safety Net feature and handy tools like real time credit balance updates help customers manage their money effectively, enabling them to build a good credit profile.
Zopa’s credit card also offers users the ability to view spending categories, instantly freeze and unfreeze the card, turn on/off certain spending categories such as gambling and cash withdrawals, and make contactless payments.
The Safety Net tool is just the latest example of Zopa launching customer-first products for the underbanked population. In October of last year the company launchedBorrowing Power, a tool that leverages AI to show users what makes up their personal borrowing power and guide them toward actions to help improve it.
Small business financing and payment solution provider Behalf will partner with online, tech-based retailer NeweggBusiness to offer the firm’s business customers flexible, extended financing. NeweggBusiness gives its users access to a range of IT products – from laptops and desktops to servers and data storage solutions – at competitive prices. NeweggBusiness also supports smart purchasing by providing peer reviews, expert opinion, product tutorials, and the ability to network with other members of the NeweggBusiness community.
“Behalf is a great addition to our offering, as it gives NeweggBusiness customers greater flexibility in how they purchase and pay for the equipment that’s essential to their everyday operation,” VP of Business Development for NeweggBusiness Greg Fischer said. “Our commitment to deliver business-friendly solutions to our customers runs deep, not only in the products we offer, but also in the financing options that make those products more accessible to all business customers.”
Courtesy of the new partnership with Behalf, NeweggBusiness customers will be able to apply for a Behalf account directly from the NeweggBusiness website, and use Behalf’s financing for their NeweggBusiness purchases. Behalf offers an omni-channel digital payment platform that enables businesses to extend net terms and financing to their business customers. Once businesses sign up for net terms/financing with Behalf, they send their payments directly to Behalf who, in turn, pays the SME’s vendor by the next business day after the transaction is approved. Behalf helps accelerate receivables, boost inventory turnover, and gives small businesses greater control over their cashflow and access to more buying power.
“Financing has always been a challenge for small- and medium-sized businesses, and that is especially the case today due to COVID,” said Behalf CEO Rob Rosenblatt. “Access to capital is critical to the success of these businesses and Newegg is addressing the problem head on for its customers with Behalf.” Rosenblatt joined Behalf as CEO in August, replacing company co-founder Benji Feinberg.
Founded in 2011 and demonstrating its technology at FinovateFall three years later, Behalf announced a partnership in September with Georgia-based Priority Payments Systems and Priority Commercial Payments to offer flexible cashflow solutions for SMEs. The company has raised $310 million in funding from investors including Soros Fund Management, Viola Growth, MissionOG, and Spark Capital.
It looks like the Biden transition team aren’t the only ones being told to slow their roll by the Trump administration: the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block Visa’s ability to acquire innovative fintech – and Finovate alum – Plaid.
“American consumers and business owners increasingly buy and sell goods and services online, and Visa – a monopolist in online debit services – has extracted billions of dollars from those transactions,” Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division said. “Now, Visa is attempting to acquire Plaid, a nascent competitor developing a disruptive, lower-cost option for online debit payments. If allowed to proceed, the acquisition would deprive American merchants and consumers of this innovative alternative to Visa and increase entry barriers for future innovators.”
The move by the Justice Department was anticipated. An investigation into the acquisition was launched in late October, after the department spent a year examining how the deal would impact the financial services market more broadly. And in its statement, the Department has concluded not only that the impact would not be good, but also that Visa’s motives for the acquisition are problematic, as well. DOJ accuses Visa of purchasing the fintech company as an “insurance policy” to defend its U.S. debit business. The statement indicates that Visa feared that, either by itself or in partnership with a competitor, failure to deal with the “threat” of Plaid could result in “potential downside risks of $300 million to $500 million” in its debit business.
Visa’s criticism of the lawsuit mirrors somewhat the broader critique that we often hear when politicians get involved in technology; namely, you just don’t get it. Specifically, Visa accused the government of not “understanding Plaid’s business and the highly competitive payments landscape in which Visa operates.” The company, which has 70% of the online debit transactions market compared to rival Mastercard with 25% share, added that rather than a competitor, it sees Plaid simply as a firm with complementary capabilities.
“Visa’s business faces intense competition from a variety of players,” the company’s statement read, “but Plaid is not one of them.” For its part, Plaid has not commented on the lawsuit at this point.
What are the odds of the Visa-Plaid acquisition emerging successfully from this legal challenge? While it is difficult to predict an outcome, what is catching the eye of some observers is the possibility that DOJ’s interest in Visa’s Plaid acquisition could be just the beginning. Citing language in the lawsuit that refers to Visa’s “long history” of aggressive action toward fintechs like PayPal, Bloomberg Law quoted former DOJ antitrust division attorney John Newman who said a “monopolization case” could be in the offing against Visa – even if the current case is limited to blocking the acquisition of Plaid.
BBVA USA announced a new digital HELOC offering today for customers in select states. The tool, which is available through BBVA’s website, is powered by P2P lender Prosper.
The digital HELOC tool aims to simplify the application process for users to obtain a HELOC, and early results of the new product indicate its effectiveness. BBVA is already seeing HELOCs close an average of 14 days faster when compared to its own turnaround times on applications submitted in other channels.
“Customers’ expectations are continuously being shaped by faster delivery and more convenience like they experience in other industries, so naturally they demand the same from financial services,” said BBVA USA Head of Mortgage Banking Murat Kalkan. “This partnership is well aligned with the core of our strategy, which aims to meet rapidly evolving customer expectations. Now, more than ever, customers can quickly and efficiently tap into the equity they have in their homes, which can provide much needed peace-of-mind, knowing they have access to the money they may need for home improvements, debt consolidation, or other major financial needs.”
Prosper and BBVA have been working together for over a year, enabling customers in Alabama, Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona to use the digital application through Prosper’s website. With today’s arrangement, BBVA becomes the first bank partner to integrate Prosper’s technology into its own website.
Differentiating factors of Prosper’s fully digital HELOC platform include a fast application that instantly returns offers and information about rate and prequalification status, access to a dedicated client services team, and electronic documentation uploads and delivery.
“Since our Prosper powered HELOC application launched in early September, we’ve seen a significant improvement in the number of customers who complete the online application, underscoring the power of technology to improve the customer experience,” Kalkan said. “And in a time where banks are increasingly pulling back on their HELOC offerings, for us to come together and make it available more broadly, more conveniently and more efficiently says something about our commitment to customers and their needs.”
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Prosper has originated over $17 billion in loans via its peer-to-peer lending marketplace. The company launched its HELOC product in 2019.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring Digital on May 10 through 13, 2021. Register today and save your spot.
Mall IQ is a privacy-first location intelligence and AI platform, empowering financial institutions to deliver real-time, personalized mobile engagements for improving share-of-wallet, frequency of usage, and retention.
Features
Store-level accurate location data to engage customers in real-time
Segment customers based on unique store-visit and purchase data
Use customer behavior (visit and click and purchase) to optimize
Why it’s great Proprietary technology to discover where customers shop, what they want to buy, when they are about to pay even before the purchase, predicting the next purchase decision with real-time data.
Presenter
Batu Sat, CEO & Co-Founder Sat earned his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an expert in machine learning and AI, and worked at Cisco and Microsoft in Silicon Valley. LinkedIn
Payments network Ripple, in conjunction with research and advisory firm Celent, recently released their 2020 Blockchain in Payments report. The two conducted a survey to better understand adoption of blockchain-based payments across retail and digital banking, payment aggregators, and money transmitters.
The findings of the study illustrate how far the banking industry has come with regards to blockchain adoption for payments and what challenges lay ahead. In the end, Ripple offers suggestions for helping the blockchain reach mainstream adoption in payments.
The study surveyed 854 respondents across 22 countries who are directly involved with payment services at their organization and found:
59% of respondents are in production or near production for payments-related use cases.
44% of respondents leveraging the blockchain recorded strong business growth in the past 12 months.
98% of respondents working with the blockchain for payments have also deployed the technology for non-payments use cases.
99% of respondents’ organizations would consider using a digital asset as a currency or as a means to instantly process cross-border payments.
Overall, Ripple found that businesses that have leveraged blockchain technology for cross-border payments cite four benefits: improved data quality, increased data security, cost savings, and business growth. Interestingly, the company noted that COVID-19 has had a net positive impact on the use of the blockchain in payments. Both the pandemic and the economic downturn have increased demand for payments services.
However, there are challenges ahead for the emerging technology. Specifically, Ripple noted difficulties in expediting implementation for financial institutions and securing regulatory clarity as two outstanding issues holding back more prolific use of the blockchain for payments.
With this in mind, Ripple issued three recommendations to help firms fully harness the blockchain for growth. First, governments must increase regulatory clarity. “Without clarity, mature markets will fall behind and be challenged to catch up,” the report notes. Second, integration costs must be lowered. Fortunately, standard APIs and cloud-based services are already helping to bring down costs. Finally, security must be addressed. Though blockchain networks are inherently secure, they must vet participants and prevent bad actors from gaining access.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring Digital on May 10 through 13, 2021. Register today and save your spot.
Ninth Wave enables secure data connectivity between financial institutions and fintech apps, aggregators, ERP and accounting solutions, investment and wealth portals, tax prep software, and more.
Features
Connect accounts and access data via 3rd-party and fintech mobile apps
Originate transfers, payments, and requests globally
Integrate with unique customer identifiers for secure, encrypted credentialing
Why it’s great Ninth Wave empowers financial institutions with an accelerated path to unparalleled digital customer experiences through our highly intuitive and innovative suite of products.
Presenters
George Anderson, CEO & Founder Anderson served as CEO of Enterprise Engineering, Inc. (EEI) for 25+ years and has significant technology and data consulting experience with wealth managers. LinkedIn
Gotce Peev, VP Platform Lead Peev is Ninth Wave’s VP Platform Lead. With his extensive experience in a wide range of technologies and development methods, Peev oversees all phases of the software development lifecycle. LinkedIn
FISPAN, Lendio, and Subaio are three of the ten fintech startups selected to participate in Mastercard’s upcoming Start Path accelerator program. The six-month accelerator will give startups the opportunity to collaborate with Mastercard on their solutions, as well as connect and network with members of Mastercard global ecosystem of banks, merchants, and technology companies.
“We all thrive when fintechs have access to the technology they need to reach scale and democratize finances,” Mastercard Chief Innovation Officer Ken Moore said. “We are partnering with the newest fintechs joining Start Path to drive inclusion, innovation, and trust with alternative ways to pay and authenticate, powerful solutions for small businesses, new ways to create efficiency for business payments, as well as address the wealth gap.”
Also participating in the program’s upcoming cohort are:
Carry1st
LISNR
Mocafi
Mo Technologies
Panda Remit
Paycode
Fanbank/Plink
All three Finovate alums shared the news Monday morning, either via social media or, in the case of Subaio, the company blog. “FISPAN is very proud and excited to work with Mastercard Start Path and start co-innovating,” the company announced on Twitter. “We’re excited to announce that Lendio is joining the Mastercard Start Path global network of fintech innovators!” tweeted Lendio.
FISPAN most recently demonstrated its cloud-based, API services management platform at FinovateFall last year. The Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based company was featured in our look at top Canadian fintechs over the summer. Look out for an upcoming Finovate interview with FISPAN Chief Technology Officer Clayton Weir on the company’s efforts to leverage open banking to help financial services companies better manage the economic fallout from the global health crisis.
A Finovate alum since 2011, Lendio has more than 75 lenders in its network who have facilitated more than 216,000 small business loans valued at more than $10 billion. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and founded in 2005, Lendio announced last month that it has processed more than $500,000 in microloans to women-owned businesses around the world. The initiative was launched via its Lendio Gives employee-contribution program, in partnership with international non-profit Kiva.
For its part, Denmark-based Subaio’s CEO Thomas Laursen added that joining Start Path would be a “huge opportunity to work together with Mastercard and validate(d) the potential within the subscription management service.” One of Finovate’s newest alums, demoing its technology at FinovateEurope in Berlin in February, Subaio offers a subscription management service that gives bank customers the ability to track and manage subscriptions and recurring payments. The company has eight partners in Europe and has processed more than five billion transactions since inception.
Founded in 2014, the Mastercard Start Path program has worked with more than 250 startups since inception. These companies have raised $2.9 billion in investments after leaving the program.
