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London’s B-Social Raises $10 Million in Seed Funding Ahead of Bank Rebrand

By David Penn Posted on February 26, 2020
Categories: Daily news, Funding

Continental challenger banks like N26 may be pulling away from the U.K. market. But that is only creating room for newcomers like London’s social payments app B-Social which has raised $10 million (£7.8 million) en route to its transformation into Kroo, a fully-licensed bank.

The funding, part of a seed round, brings the company’s total capital to more than $17.8 million (£13.25 million). Participating in the round was Karlani Capital’s Rudy Karsan, along with additional undisclosed investors.

“Our seed 2 funding round is another key milestone towards building the greatest social bank on the planet and changing the relationship people have with money for good,” B-Social CEO Nazim Valimahomed wrote on the company’s blog. He noted that B-Social has signed up more than 9,000 users and will soon introduce functionality to enable account funding via bank transfer. Valimahomed also added that the company plans to double the size of its team at its headquarters in Holborn.

Most significantly, the investment will help B-Social as it transitions into becoming a bank, to be called Kroo. Valimahomed said that the company is currently in the final, pre-application phase for obtaining a U.K. banking license and hopes to finish the application process “in the very near future.” He referred to the rebrand as a change to an “exciting new brand that fully embodies who we are – intuitive, talented, empowering, social, and collaborative.”

Founded in 2016, B-Social helps users manage shared expenses. The company’s app, available in both iOS and Android, supports bill splitting and group expense tracking, and instant payments between B-Social account holders. The solution also comes with a contactless debit Mastercard that can be used, fee free, both at home and abroad wherever Mastercard is accepted.

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Revolut’s $500 Million Round Boosts Valuation to $5.5 Billion

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 25, 2020
Categories: Daily news, Funding, Revolut

Global financial platform Revolut has secured its place as the U.K.’s most valuable fintech. The London-based company secured a $500 million investment, bringing its total funding to $836 million.

With this, Revolut’s valuation tripled, escalating to $5.5 billion. As a comparison, digital bank Monzo was valued at $2.6 billion last year. Revolut’s funding was led by U.S. investor Technology Crossover Ventures while a handful of undisclosed existing investors also contributed.

The funding will be used to enhance Revolut’s customer experience, grow its workforce, and create new products that entice users to log into their accounts more frequently. As a part of this, Revolut will use the funds to enhance Premium and Metal subscription account offerings. These paid products are not only a significant part of Revolut’s business model, they also show huge promise, growing by 154% last year alone.

“We’re on a mission to build a global financial platform – a single app where our customers can manage all of their daily finances, and this investment demonstrates investor confidence in our business model,” said Revolut CEO and founder Nik Storonsky. “Going forward, our focus is on rolling-out banking operations in Europe, increasing the number of people who use Revolut as their daily account, and striving towards profitability.”

Revolut employs 2,000 people across 23 global offices. The company counts more than 10 million customers and has processed one billion transactions worth $130 billion since it was founded in 2013.

The company has seen significant success since its early days. Just last year Revolut increased customer growth by 169%, boosted the number of daily active customers by 380%, and saw year-over-year financial revenues grow by 354%. The company aims to continue this growth by launching lending services for retail and business customers, extending high interest savings accounts beyond the U.K., improving customer service, and rolling out banking operations across Europe.

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Meet Sonect: Cash Network Builder, Finovate Newcomer, Best of Show Winner

By David Penn Posted on February 25, 2020
Categories: Alumni profile, Best of Show, Sonect

Photo by Alexander Mils from Pexels

What’s better than having a large pizza with all your favorite toppings delivered to your front door?

How about a side order of cash, saving you a trip to the ATM or bank branch?

Sonect, which won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in Berlin earlier this month, leverages what it calls a social network for cash to help people get the cash they need wherever they are. Based in Zurich, Switzerland and founded in 2016 by CEO Sandipan Chakraborty, the company enables merchants ranging from cafes and coffee shops to pharmacies and bodegas to benefit from the additional customer traffic of Sonect customers.

At the same time, banks can extend their ATM networks with Sonect, avoiding the expense of purchasing and maintaining additional cash distribution hardware.

The solution works simply for the user. After downloading the Sonect iOS or Android app, the user creates a Sonect account. They then select their preferred shop or merchant and the amount of cash they wish to withdraw. The merchant will scan the barcode in the user’s Sonect app, and the funds will automatically be deducted from your account as soon as the transaction is confirmed. The user then receives their cash.

Both banking accounts as well as credit card accounts can be used with Sonect (both Visa and Mastercard are currently accepted.) The solution is free of charge for both users and shops.

Sonect IT Project Manager Thai Nguyen and CEO Sandipan Chakraborty demonstrating the company’s virtual ATM network at FinovateEurope 2020.

Sonect was inspired in part by observing the slow rate of adoption of new technologies like Apple Pay. A self-described “strong believer of (the) death of cash (at) the hand of mobile payments,” Chakraborty nevertheless saw an opportunity to help bridge the gap between the custom and convenience of cash and the opportunities of digital alternatives that have yet to be fully embraced by banks, consumers, and merchants. It’s also worth noting that Switzerland is a country where cash is still very much king; the Swiss National Bank reports that 70% of all transactions in the country are still in cash.

Chakraborty credits enabling technologies like blockchain and open banking APIs for making Sonect possible. An IT Project/Program Delivery Manager with Credit Suisse for more than 12 years, he likens Sonect to a platform similar to Uber and Airbnb that is able to create a vast, service network – in transportation, accommodations, or, in Sonect’s case, for cash withdrawal – without having to bear the burden of building and maintaining a vast physical infrastructure to go along with it.

The Sonect team picks up a Best of Show award in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope.

Currently available only in Switzerland, there are more than 2,500 shops partnered with Sonect. That said, Chakraborty noted, “We are in a phase where we are expanding within Europe,” adding that because of the company’s Best of Show award, he believes “the word (about Sonect) will spread quicker than we anticipated,” Chakraborty also said that the company has been in conversations with banks “across Europe, across the continent” about potential partnerships.

Sonect has raised more than $8.7 million (CHF 8.5 million) in funding from investors including SixThirty and Loomis AB. The company has 25 employees in its offices in Zurich; Vilnius, Lithuania; and Mexico City, Mexico.

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Envestnet | Yodlee Acquires Indian Data Aggregator FinBit.io

By David Penn Posted on February 25, 2020
Categories: Envestnet, FinBit.io, Mergers & Acquisitions, Yodlee

Photo by **Yogendra Singh** from **Pexels**

Envestnet | Yodlee has acquired another asset in its strategy to further grow and develop its data aggregation and analytics business.

The company has purchased India-based FinBit.io, a data analytics platform that offers a scoring solution, BankScore, designed to help people who struggle to obtain credit due to a poor or insufficient credit history. Both companies are Finovate alums: Envestnet | Yodlee made its last Finovate appearance at FinovateFall in New York back in September; FinBit.io made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia last fall in Singapore.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The deal was completed on February 18th.

Envestnet sees the acquisition as accelerating innovation within the company, fueling the ability of the firm to market compliant solutions to new and existing customers in the region. As part of the deal, FinBit.io founder and CEO Prashant Paliwal will lead Yodlee FinSoft, an Envestnet | Yodlee subsidiary focused on the account aggregation business in India and Asia.

Envestnet | Yodlee Chief Executive for Data and Analytics Stuart DePina called India and Asia strategically important to the company, and highlighted the account aggregator ecosystem in India as one of the more vibrant developments in fintech. “We are delighted to empower millions of consumers in India with state-of-the-art Account Aggregator technology and superior user experiences that will allow them to share consented data seamlessly across platforms enabling speedy solutions such as the real-time processing of personal loan applications,” DePina explained.

“Our vision is to empower consumers with the ability to permit the aggregation of their financial data so that holistic analytics can be made available to valuable services like affordable credit, personal finance management, and even accounting,” FinBit.io’s Paliwal said. Paliwal, who founded the Bangalore-based company in 2017, said the acquisition would enable FinBit.io to expand its product portfolio and scale its offerings. Paliwal is a Yodlee veteran, running the company’s APAC fintech business before launching FinBit.io.

Envestnet acquired multiple Finovate Best of Show winning Yodlee in 2015 for $660 million. Founded in 1999, the company has more than 25 million users around the world and 1,200+ financial institution partners including 15 of the top 20 U.S. banks. The publicly-traded firm, ENV on the New York Stock Exchange, has a market capitalization of $4 billion.

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Dealing with Deepfakes in Fintech

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 24, 2020
Categories: Report series

Deepfakes, or synthetic media that uses AI to distort a person’s likeness to imitate another’s, can be entertaining. After all, watching Ross Marquand evolve into 11 different actors in 3 minutes is impressive!

However, as most are aware, there is a dark side to deepfakes when videos threaten democracy by manipulating the public for political gain, or ruin reputations with revenge porn, or spread damaging misinformation. In general, there are two issues with malicious deepfakes. First, deepfakes have the potential to allow a person to pose as someone they are not. Second, they allow criminals to deny a wrongdoing by claiming a genuine video is fake.

Unfortunately, the fintech industry is not insulated from deepfake headaches of its own.

The problem

There are two different types of deepfakes– audio and video. Both media types can manifest multiple issues within financial services. Here is a list of weak spots that deepfakes threaten:

Fraudulent onboarding, such as a criminal posing as someone else or creating a new, synthetic identity
Fraudulent payment authorizations and transfers
Impersonation of business leaders for insider trading scams or tricking employees into taking nefarious actions

These examples aren’t just potential threats. Last March, a voice-based deepfake was used to impersonate the CEO of a U.K.-based energy firm. The fraudster called one of the CEO’s employees, convincing him to transfer $243,000 to a supplier based in Hungary. The money was then moved to a bank account in Mexico and the thief still has not been caught.

Given the wide variety of fraud opportunities, identity verification company iProov recently surveyed 105 cybersecurity decision-makers at U.K.-based financial institutions. The company, which won Best of Show at FinovateEurope earlier this month, detailed the results in a report.

According to the findings, 13% of firms surveyed had never even heard of the term “deepfake.” And while 31% of respondents had no plans to combat deepfakes or were not sure if their organizations had protective measures in place, 28% had already implemented such measures. The survey also reported that 4% of organizations said that deepfakes pose no threat whatsoever to their company. However, the majority of respondents, 40%, said that deepfakes pose a “slight threat.”

The solution

The fintech industry is ripe with security firms, such as iProov, that use AI to combat both video and audio deepfakes with anti-spoofing technologies. Many security companies also offers liveness detection to detect artificial representations of actual clients. Liveness detection plays a major role in detecting identity spoofing during new client onboarding, when cybercriminals may attempt to use a stolen drivers license along with a mask created from a photo of the person in order to set up a fraudulent account. Financial services organizations can also use liveness detection to thwart fraudulent login attempts for technology that uses facial recognition.

Fraudsters, by definition, show complete disregard to regulations. Nevertheless, lawmakers are making efforts to crack down on the technology. In June New York congresswoman Yevette Clark introduced the Deepfakes Accountability Act in the house. that would require video creators to disclose if a video was altered and allow victims to sue. As TechCrunch points out, the act would be difficult to enforce, but at least it’s a start.

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Avanti Aims to Launch U.S. Bank to Serve Digital Asset Industry

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 24, 2020
Categories: Daily news

There is not much fintech to come out of the state of Wyoming (a quick search on Crunchbase yields 28 results). Today, however, one more startup is added to that mix.

That’s because Avanti Financial, headquartered in Cheyenne, Wyoming, announced plans to launch a bank to serve the digital asset industry. The company recently applied to obtain a bank charter from the Wyoming Division of Banking under the Cowboy State’s special-purpose depository institution (SPDI) law.

If Avanti’s application is approved by the state of Wyoming, the startup will begin operations in early 2021.

Avanti seeks to fill the gap where traditional U.S. financial institutions fall short. In many cases, institutional customers that use digital assets lack a place to engage in payment, custody, securities, and commodities activities.

Founder and CEO Caitlin Long said, “A crucial step in the digital asset industry’s evolution is the formation of a new bank dedicated to bridging digital assets with the U.S. dollar payments system in a compliant manner, and the provision of custodial services that meet the strictest institutional standards.” Long added that Avanti’s launch will “unlock many new products and services around digital assets that only a regulated U.S. bank can provide directly.”

Avanti, which recently landed an undisclosed amount of seed funding, is partnering with Blockstream, a Canada-based group that creates “products and networks that make financial markets more efficient.”

Dr. Adam Back, Blockstream CEO and co-founder, said, “This partnership combines the best in Bitcoin applications with the optimal regulatory vehicle for delivering products and services to institutional customers that require regulated providers. Blockstream’s platforms fit well with Wyoming’s property-rights centric digital asset laws, which will enable Avanti to introduce products into U.S. dollar markets that do not exist today.”

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Self Raises $20 Million to Help Americans Improve Their Credit

By David Penn Posted on February 24, 2020
Categories: Daily news, Funding

For consumers with credit scores below 600, options for securing financing can be a major challenge. A new company on the scene, Self, has locked in $20 million in new funding to help make those financial hurdles a little easier for Americans with poor credit histories to overcome.

In a Series C round led by Altos Ventures and Conductive Ventures, Self has added $20 million to its total capital, which now stands at $37 million. The Austin, Texas-based company, founded in 2015, offers a Credit Builder Account in which borrowers apply for a modest loan with a Self bank partner that is held on a certificate of deposit. Borrowers make monthly payments, which are reported to the major credit agencies to help establish a credit history. Once the term is complete, the CD matures and the principal amount comes back to the customer.

“Our goal from the beginning was to create a mission-driven company that gives the power back to consumers and helps them achieve their financial goals,” company founder and CEO James Garvey said.

Since inception, Self has worked with 500,000+ customers and provided $400 million in CD-secured loan originations. The company recently launched its Self Visa Credit Card, a secured card that does not require a credit check. The card allows holders to build their security deposit in installments rather than with one large deposit upfront. The card has an annual fee of $25, average for secured cards, but features a higher than average minimum APR for secured cards at 23.74% based on a review by U.S. News.

Named one of the best fintech places to work in 2020 by Ariznet Brands – publishers of American Banker – Self rebranded itself from Self Lender last August and reincorporated as Self Financial. The fintech has partnered with firms including Atlantic Capital Bank, an Atlanta, Georgia-based bank holding company with assets of $2.9 billion, income optimization platform Steady, and nonprofit social enterprise Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners.

“Self inspires us with their dedication to helping consumers take control of their financial future,” Conductive Ventures’ Paul Yeh said. “Today, it’s imperative to be aligned with partners with a shared vision that is meaningful and delivers change for the greater good.”

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Intuit’s $7 Billion Bid for Credit Karma; FinovateEurope Salutes its Best of Show

By David Penn Posted on February 23, 2020
Categories: Access Softek, Aire, Backbase, Baker Hill, Coinbase, Credit Karma, Daily news, Digital Onboarding, Dorsum, Enveil, Glia, Horizn, InComm, Intuit, iProov, ISARA, Kinetica, Larky, Meniga, OurCrowd, PaySend, Sonect, StrategyCorps, Tradeshift, Trulioo, ValidSoft, W.UP

Photo by **Tirachard Kumtanom** from **Pexels**

How’s $7 billion for good karma? One of Finovate’s earliest alums Credit Karma is reportedly the target of what would be Intuit’s biggest acquisition to date. According to The Wall Street Journal, the cash and stock deal could be announced as early as Monday.

Credit Karma will continue to function as an independent company with founder and CEO Kenneth Lin at the helm. The acquisition gives Intuit, maker of online tax filing service TurboTax, another contact point with the online personal finance world. Credit Karma provides its members with access to their credit scores and borrowing histories, helps them monitor their accounts for security breaches and, perhaps most relevantly, has offered a free online tax preparation service since 2017.

If the deal holds up, Intuit will be paying a significant premium for Credit Karma. The personal financial wellness company was last valued at $4 billion, based on a 2018 private market transaction.

With another Finovate conference in the books, our Finovate Best of Show ranks has a new set of members. Congratulations to Dorsum, Glia, Horizn, iProov, Sonect, and W.UP for taking home top honors earlier this month at FinovateEurope!

The victory may have been especially sweet for Sonect, whose Best of Show award-winning demo was also the company’s Finovate debut. The Switzerland-based start-up offers what it calls “the world’s first social cash network” that enables consumers to access cash without having to visit a bank branch or ATM. Sonect offers merchants the ability to grow their business via increased traffic and gives financial institutions a way to extend their ATM networks without the cost of additional hardware.

The Best of Show win was also a first for Horizn. The company, which made its Finovate debut three years ago at FinovateEurope, offers a platform that helps employees and customers maximize the opportunities of digitized financial services. Horizn uses simulator microlearning, as well as gamification and advanced analytics, to promote digital adoption across channels.

And last but not least, a special tip of the hat to Dorsum, Glia, iProov, and W.UP, all of whom won Best of Show honors at FinovateEurope for a second year in a row.

Here’s a round up of recent news from our Finovate alumni.

Larky enters reseller agreement with Access Softek.
Bison Bank in Lisbon, Portugal selects PSD2-ready software from ndigit.
Techround interviews Tradeshift co-founder Mikkel Hippe Brun.
Bremer Bank leverages Backbase’s digital-first banking platform to fuel digital transformation.
Paysend’s multi-currency global account launches in Europe.
Kinetica launches Kinetica Cloud.
Futurex taps ISARA to bring quantum-safe cryptography and crypto-agility into its Key Management Enterprise Server (KMES) Series 3.
With new FCA license, Meniga seeks to expand product offering.
StrategyCorps and Digital Onboarding partner to help banks grow checking account relationships.
Baker Hill renews partnership with Washington Trust Bank to streamline loan origination and portfolio risk management.
Aire launches Credit Insight Suite to improve access to credit.
Coinbase becomes Visa principal to offer more feature for Coinbase Card customers.
InComm partners with Eezi to launch Poundland’s gift card program.
Enveil secures $10 million in Series A funding for secure data collaboration.
Trulioo adds image capture SDK to Trulioo GlobalGateway.
Amaiz taps ValidSoft for voice authentication.
OurCrowd expands focus on growing early stage tech companies.

Finovate Alum Features and Profiles

eToro’s Evolution – Social trading and investment platform eToro has never been one to stand still for very long. The company’s development cycle is fast enough to make even the most sprightly fintech jealous.

Lending Club Snaps Up Radius Bank for $185 Million – When Lending Club was founded in 2007, the startup aimed to serve as a place to help borrowers avoid dealing with banks. In a somewhat ironic move today, that same startup is becoming a bank itself.

Breach Clarity’s New Offering Provides Consumers Personalized Protection – Fraud detection and prevention company Breach Clarity announced this week it has developed a new platform to help financial service providers offer personalized protection for their customers.

New SumUp Card Empowers SMEs as Business Payment Makers and Takers – The company that has helped bring fintech innovation to e-commerce with its mobile point-of-sale (mPOS), card reading solutions now offers merchants a card of their own.

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OTB Ventures Goes Big on CEE Startups; Analysts Share Insights on Indian Fintech

By David Penn Posted on February 21, 2020
Categories: Finovate Global, FIS, Infosys, Plaid

With a commitment of $100 million (€92.4 million), Poland-based OTB Ventures will spend the next few years helping back some of the most innovative tech startups in Central and Eastern Europe.

The investor, whose funding is backed by the European Investment Fund (EIF) will target “post-product startups” developing solutions for fintech, cybersecurity, AI, Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics and other advanced technologies. Known as the biggest venture capital fund in the CEE region, OTB Ventures said it wants companies with “unique intellectual property” and “disruptive ideas.”

“CEE is a cradle of talented engineers and IT specialists, pioneering innovative companies,” OTB managing partner and co-founder Marcin Hejka explained. We see a huge investment potential in these companies with up-and-running products and initial business traction in international markets. The purpose of our fund is to discover, develop, and realize this potential on a global scale.”

OTB Ventures includes AI and consumer analytics firm Cosmose, regtech innovator Silent Eight, and digital transformation solution provider – and Finovate alum – FintechOS – among its more recent investments. With its new fund, OTB plans to commit approximately $15 million to 16 companies, taking stakes of 10% to 15%. OTB’s largest investment in a single company to date was the $10 million in company invested in micro-satellite company Iceye in 2018.

Report Season for Indian Fintech: A number of analyst organizations have picked the second half of February to release their latest insights on fintech in India. In addition to the report from IBS Intelligence noted below, content marketing platform SEMrush released its Top Insights into Fintech Industry of India report this week.

Among the interesting top level takeaways from both reports is the importance of making sure that security and financial education keep pace with the growth of financial inclusion. As more people in frontier and periphery markets become comfortable with sharing their personal details and newly-forged financial identities online, the dangers of criminal exploitation and even simple misuse (poor password management habits, for example) grows, as well.

Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Aafaq Islamic Finance to deploy core banking, Islamic banking, and payments solutions from Infosys.
Bahrain-based GFH Financial Group acquires 70% stake in pan-MENA payments technology company, Marshal.
National Bank of Yemen goes live with the ICS Banks Universal Banking Platform from ICSFS.

Central and Southern Asia

Pakistan-based mobile wallet Sadapay readies for launch.
Entrepreneur features fintechs apps that are helping SMEs in India go digital.
IBS Intelligence unveils its India fintech report.

Photo by **Vikas Sawant** from **Pexels**

Latin America and the Caribbean

The Central Bank of Brazil to enter the payments business with the launch of its new app, PIX, later this year. PIX will provide immediate settlement for all transactions.
TechCrunch profiles fintech startup Belvo and its aspiration to become the Plaid of Latin America.
Bank Innovation features Mexico City, Mexico-based digital bank Stori.

Asia-Pacific

Singapore-based, installment payment startup Hoolah expands to Malaysia.
Indonesian online lender UangTeman raises $10 million in new funding.
Get, a digital commerce platform based in Myanmar, acquires local lender Daung Capital.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Nigeria’s LAPO Microfinance Bank, the largest microfinance institution in the country, to deploy core banking, payments, and digital experience solutions from Oracle Financial.
African Banker examines the balance between financial inclusion and consumer protection as Kenya’s fintech boom expands.
Nigerian consumer lending platform Carbon announces $100,000 fund to support startups in insurance, health, and education.

Central and Eastern Europe

Poland-based OTB Ventures raises $100 million to back tech startups in the CEE region.
Wirecard partners with Raiffeisen Bank International to bring digital payments solutions to markets in 13 Eastern European countries.
Germany’s Opel Bank chooses FIS’ cloud-native, Modern Banking Platform. This marks the solution’s first deployment in Europe.

Top image designed by Freepik

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BBVA and Anthemis Back the Gig Economy with Seed Round for Wollit

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 21, 2020
Categories: BBVA, Daily news

Banking giant BBVA and VC firm Anthemis have backed U.K.-based Wollit in a $1.3 million (£1 million) Seed round.

Founded last year, Wollit aims to support the 43% of U.K. residents who lack a stable income by helping gig economy workers and independent contractors smooth out their cashflow.

Wollit will use the funds to fuel its flagship product, the Wollit Income Promise. According to Wollit CEO Liad Shababo, the new tool “offers a financial safety net for the 14 million U.K. workers whose income fluctuates from month to month.”

The Wollit Income Promise is different from credit cards and loans because it personalizes financing to each user’s individual financial situation. When workers earn less than usual, Wollit provides interest-free top-ups that the user repays once they start earning more.

“With this, we set to end [gig workers’] monthly gamble of feast or famine and provide a safer, more sustainable option than the short-term, risky alternatives,” said Shababo. “Wollit is here to establish a new status quo in financial services. We want to make sure everyone has access to financial wellbeing.”

The investment is one of the first from the BBVA & Anthemis Venture Creation Partnership, which was formed in 2018. “The BBVA & Anthemis Venture Creation Partnership identifies early-stage fintech companies who are looking for both financial and strategic support to accelerate the growth of their business,” said Farhan Lalji, Principal at Anthemis. “This means Wollit now has access to mentors and resources inside the Anthemis and BBVA ecosystems beyond pure capital – including product development, data science, business development, and talent resources – as they grow their business.”

Startups such as Wollit underscore society’s need for financial services geared toward the gig economy. Banks have historically failed to serve consumers with unpredictable income. As Ron Shevlin points out in his piece Gig Economy Banking Is Booming (And Banks Are Missing The Boat), fintechs and challenger banks have been the first to take a chance on this growing consumer segment by serving them with unique products and services that cater to their fluctuating income.

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Grab to Get $700m from MUFG to Offer Insurance, Lending by Smartphone App

By David Penn Posted on February 21, 2020
Categories: Daily news

Grab, the Singapore-based ride-hailing company well en route to becoming a full-fledged fintech, as well, will get $700 million in new funding from MUFG Bank according to the Nikkei. The investment will be part of a collaboration designed to bring services like lending and insurance to markets in Southeast Asia via smartphone apps. MUFG Bank is a subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

The Nikkei report has not been confirmed by MUFG or Grab, but Bloomberg notes in its coverage that the firms “intend to announce their alliance soon.” The partnership allegedly will consist of MUFG Bank overseeing lending and insurance operations, while Grab will leverage its AI and data analysis technology to analyze customer data to help MUFG match the right insurance and financing offerings with the right customers.

Grab is one of the top examples of a company leveraging its analytics and networking technology to expand beyond its original offering. Founded as a ride-hailing service in 2012, Grab is now developing a regional super app that combines a variety of services – including payments and financial services – along with rides. With a reported 166 million downloads in the region, the company operates in eight Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia and Thailand. Grab has an estimated valuation of $14 billion, and includes SoftBank Group among its investors.

Ratna Sita Handayani, Senior Research Manager with Euromonitor International discussed the rise of the super app during her presentation at FinovateEurope earlier this month. Other examples of super apps in Asia include Tencent’s WeChat and Alibaba’s Alipay. Like Grab, Indonesia super app Gojek leverages its role in the everyday transportation lives of its consumers to expand its offerings – in Gojek’s case, for food delivery, hiring cleaning help, and billpay.

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Improving Payable Processes: An Implementation Primer

By charlotteburgess Posted on February 20, 2020
Categories: Accusoft, Sponsored

This is a sponsored post by Accusoft. For more information on sponsored contributions please email sponsor@finovate.com.

Accounts payable (AP) processes remain a sticking point for many organizations. Caught between the efficiency issues of paper-based solutions and the potential complexity of adopting technology-driven services, stagnation often results. Accusoft explores its top five tips to smooth out your system and reap the rewards.

Businesses now recognize the necessity of change, but many aren’t sure where to start. When it comes to new permutations of payable processes, a roadmap is invaluable. Here’s a look at five key forms completion and invoice processing improvements to help companies account for evolving AP expectations.

Identifying errors

Staff remain the biggest source of AP errors. There’s no malice here; humans simply aren’t the ideal candidates for repetitive data entry. In this case, effective implementation of new processes depends on customizable software tools capable of accurately capturing forms data and learning over time to better identify and avoid common errors. The benefit? Staff are free to work on time-sensitive AP approval and reviews rather than double-checking basic forms data.

2. Improving invoice routes

Invoice routing is time-consuming and often confusing for AP staff. To avoid potential oversights, most companies use two to three approvers per invoice, creating multiple approval workflows. While the process reduces total error rates, it also introduces new complexity. What happens if invoice versions don’t match or approvers don’t agree on their figures? In the best-case scenario, your company needs extra time to process every invoice. Worst case? Double payment of AP invoices or payments result in missed critical deadlines. Here, a single-application approach to invoice processing helps improve invoice routes and reduce redundant approval steps.

3. Integrating data location

Where is your accounts payable data located? For many companies, there’s no easy answer; some invoices are paper, others are digitally stored on secure servers, and there are still more trapped in emails and messages across your organization. Instead of chasing down AP data, implement an invoice rehoming process. Solutions like Accusoft’s FormSuite for Invoices support thousands of invoice formats and keep them all in the same place.

4. Innovating at speed and scale

Complexity holds back many accounts payable programs. If new technologies complicate existing processes, employee error rates will go up and there’s a chance they’ll avoid digital deployments altogether in favor of familiar paper alternatives. In this case, automation is the key to implementation; speedy solutions capable of scanning paper forms, identifying key data, and then digitally converting this information at scale.

5. Increasing visibility

You can’t fix what you can’t see. Paper-based invoice processing naturally frustrates visibility by making it difficult to find key documents and assess total financial liabilities. Integrated APIs that work with your existing accounts payable applications can help improve inherent visibility by creating a single source of AP data under the secure umbrella of your corporate IT infrastructure.

Want to learn more about the potential pathways available for companies to improve their AP processes and reduce total complexity? Check out Volume 1 of our Accounts Payable eGuide series, No Pain, No Gain?

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