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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to unfold, loan servicers are experiencing unprecedented call center and default volumes as customers struggle to stay above water. With a looming global recession in 2020, financial institutions are reevaluating their loan servicing operations across the board (mortgage, auto, commercial, and personal).
During the last financial crisis in 2008, the rate of foreclosures in the United States more than quadrupled over five years, reaching a high of 1.18 million homes as falling valuations and high unemployment pushed people into default. At the same time, 3.7 million homes were in serious delinquency.
Watch the DXC Technology discussion on what lessons can be drawn from previous downturns and how institutions can better prepare their operations, technologies, and customers for what’s ahead. Topics included:
Scalability How to rapidly scale capacity and quickly train internal resources and customers while maintaining customer satisfaction.
Self-service and a single source of truth How to give customers more control over the process
Speed to change How to proactively react in a matter of days– not weeks or months– in a dynamically changing environment.
Auditing How to maintain a consistent audit trail throughout the process
Featuring Bart Bailey, Head of Global Lending Product Management, DXC Technology and David Penn, Research Analyst, Finovate.
Foreign exchange platform Azimoannounced today that it will facilitate payments on behalf of Thailand’s largest commercial bank, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB).
SCB clients will benefit from Azimo’s digital money transfer program that uses RippleNet, a blockchain-based money transfer service. Using RippleNet, Azimo will be able to instantly deliver payments from Europe to SCB client accounts.
The partnership leverages a program called PromptPay, which offers Thailand residents a PromptPay ID to serve as a proxy for their bank account number. PromptPay was launched in 2017 as part of the Bank of Thailand’s E-Payment initiative.
According to Azimo CEO Richard Ambrose, “Transfers can be set up in minutes from a smartphone. The fees are low and the rates are great, so our customers will be spared the extortionate charges levied by many competitors.”
Azimo counts more than one million customers of its digital money transfer platform, which allows users to send money from 25 countries to more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.
Last year, the company increased its transfer volume by 60% year-over-year. Today’s move with SCB should boost that growth even further; Thailand is one of the top destinations for remittances. The country receives $6.7 billion from around the globe each year.
Headquartered in London, U.K., Azimo was founded in 2012. The FinovateEurope alum brought in $21.7 million (€20 million) in debt financing last month, bringing its total combined debt and equity funding to $88 million.
Automated workflow and portfolio management solutions provider Teslar Software is partnering with Liberty National Bank. The Oklahoma-based bank will use Teslar’s technology to boost productivity, increase transparency, and streamline its commercial lending process.
“By leveraging our advanced portfolio management tools,” Teslar CEO and founder Joe Ehrhardt said, “Liberty National Bank will benefit from stronger data and increased visibility in the commercial lending process, helping them carry out their growth plans with confidence.”
Specifically, the bank will use Teslar’s technology to enhance its exceptions tracking, reporting, and portfolio management. This will give Liberty National Bank’s loan officers better access to more customer information, enabling them to both better engage customers as well as take advantage of potential cross-selling opportunities.
“We’re confident that through our partnership with Teslar, we’ll be able to boost efficiencies, improve accuracy of information, and provide better customer service, ultimately helping us rise above the competition,” Liberty National Bank Chief Credit Officer Michael Bucher said. “Our bank appreciates that Teslar’s platform is built by former bankers who understand our unique challenges and goals.”
With seven branches in five counties in Oklahoma, and a new loan production office in Oklahoma City, Liberty National Bank has nearly doubled its asset size over the past ten years. Founded in 1902 as the Bank of Elgin before Oklahoma had been granted statehood, the institution became Liberty National Bank in 2002. Currently serving customers in Oklahoma and North Texas, the bank has assets of $456 million as of last summer.
Teslar provides community banks and credit unions with a lending and credit management SaaS solution that enables them to manage all stages of the loan lifecycle, from pipeline and call activity to loan review. The company behind the technology, 3E Software, was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas. Teslar has been a Finovate alum since 2015.
In order to reflect the new timeline of the event, we have changed the name from FinovateSpring 2020 to FinovateWest 2020. The show will take place November 23 through 24 at the Hilton in San Francisco’s Union Square. Registration is now open (if you were already registered for the event our team has been in contact with you via email).
Over the past 12 years, many of you have come to feel like family to us, and we hope you are all doing what is needed to keep yourselves and your family safe.
As part of an effort to keep everyone safe, and to comply with current governmental recommendations surrounding COVID-19, we have rescheduled FinovateWest 2020 to take place November 23 through 24.
The venue will remain the same at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square. Attendees who have booked as part of Finovate’s room block will not incur any cancellation fees from the hotel. The hotel is in the process of moving attendees in our block to the new dates and attendees will receive a confirmation when the move has been completed. If you need to change your new reservation, please contact the hotel directly.
We will be in touch with respective parties – speakers, sponsors, and demo companies – with more detailed information about arrangements for the new dates. If you have any questions please contact us to discuss further.
We remain grateful for your continued support and understanding and very much look forward to welcoming you in November.
In the meantime, please let us know if there is anything we can do to foster innovation and community in the fintech sector. Our industry was created to fulfill unmet needs of society. We know that in these crucial months ahead, innovators in this space will continue to do so.
We’re all in this together, and we each have a role in continuing the heartbeat of fintech across the globe.
There are two things that the COVID-19 crisis is teaching us. Be careful of what you touch. And be careful of who you are near.
Neither one is a good message for the future of cash nor the bank branch, two staples of 20th century financial life whose demise analysts and prognosticators have been anticipating for decades.
Could a global pandemic that forces society into “social distancing” prove to be the final straw that breaks the back of both our commitment to cash and what’s left of the bank branch?
Cash: The Irresistible Force
For all the innovations in digital payments, and the increasing adoption of these technologies by younger generations, the persistence of cash in modern economies has been impressive. In part, this is because technology has not yet been able to outperform cash where it performs best: convertibility, convenience, and anonymity.
Of late, however, one of cash’s biggest – and probably least considered – downsides has become impossible to ignore: cash is dirty. At the end of the day, regardless of whatever hero, politician, or artistic talent adorns it, cash is a slip of cotton paper passed from hand to hand, over and over again. In a article published in Scientific American three years ago, Dina Fine Maron noted:
The fibrous surfaces of U.S. currency provide ample crevices for bacteria to make themselves at home. And the longer any of that money stays in circulation, the more opportunity it has to become contaminated.
And bad news for those who limit their cash exposure to a “just couple of bucks” for tips and tiny purchases.
Lower-denomination bills are used more often, so studies suggest our ones, fives and tens are more likely to be teeming with disease-causing bacteria. Some of these pathogens are known to survive for months …
Countries around the world have already begun a coronavirus-induced assault on cash, with South Korea’s central bank both quarantining and even burning bank notes, as well as resorting to a “high-heat laundering process” to help stem the spread of the virus. Paper money has faced a similar fate in China, and even the U.S. Federal Reserve is getting into the act (albeit with currency imported from China).
Not everyone believes that COVID-19 will herald the beginning of the end of cash. Maybe it is because of doubts that, as dirty as cash is, paper money may not be a reliable transmitter of viral infection. Possibly, like young revelers at beaches in Florida well into last month, we are just too accustomed to our habits to change.
But again, the emphasis on which “we” is being discussed is probably what matters. While there is a tendency to equate people’s willingness to use digital payments as one of many options with a desire to use digital payment method exclusively, the generational trends away from cash are clear. For those who grow up in a world in which cash is increasingly under assault from one source or another, it may simply be the passage of time that ends up accomplishing what neither global pandemic nor technological innovation – combined – could not.
Branches: The Immovable Object
As thousands of traditionally on-premises employees find themselves working from home, businesses all over the world are seeing a version of themselves that is far less dependent on a brick and mortar presence – let alone multiple ones. In banking, where the value of the local branch office with lobby, tellers, and loan officers is hotly debated, it seems like the COVID-19 crisis will make the case for branches that much more of a challenge to make.
Although essential businesses that are allowed to remain open in most instances during the pandemic, banks have dramatically cut back on access to their physical locations. Often, as is the case with my bank, access is limited to a drive-through window – complete with gloved and masked teller who has you to sign your withdrawal receipt with a branded pen she asks you not to give back.
As someone who still regularly visits his bank branch – and has for decades – I actually found the experience no less impersonal than the ATMs I’ve avoided for years. Could our social distancing response to the coronavirus pandemic encourage a long-time branch-lover like me to stay away? Asked whether the COVID crisis will accelerate the trend toward fewer bank branches, KeyBank EVP and head of digital banking Jamie Warder told The Financial Brand’s Jim Marous that more “thoughtful consolidation” wouldn’t surprise him. But Warder suggested that the world still had a need for the branch, even as it “continue(d) to morph and become more digitized.”
Many innovations in the branch designed to accommodate a more digitally-savvy customer, for example, could survive the demise of the branch. Self-service kiosks that enable bank customers to perform a number of routine banking tasks without the intervention of a human teller could find homes in locations ranging from fitness centers to restaurants and other recreation hubs. The ubiquitous bank branch in any U.S. supermarket of even middling size is a reminder of how compatible these banking kiosks could be with a wide number of environments.
Unfortunately, those innovations that are geared toward making the branch itself a more enjoyable place to spend your time may struggle in the current public health climate. More luxurious accommodations – including addition of full-service cafes – could be a weak draw in a world in which we are conditioned to keep our distance.
The strain between distancing and the branch will be most acute for those who live in communities where the bank branch serves as the center of everyday financial activity. Often this consists of bill payments, check cashing, money transfers, but notably does not include short-term personal loans, a major source of financial activity in many of these communities. While a great deal of time is spent envisioning a Branch 2.0 that would appeal to the digitally-savvy and already well-banked, it may be the case that the future of the branch – to the extent that there is one – is best geared to the real needs of these communities above all others.
Digital identity company IdentityMind Global has agreed to be acquired by identity verification company Acuant five months after the two initially formed a partnership. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The deal offers Acuant access to IdentityMind’s digital identity product, a SaaS platform that builds, maintains, and analyzes digital identities and helps companies perform risk-based authentication, regulatory identification, and detect and prevent synthetic and stolen identities.
While digital identity was a hot topic at the beginning of the year, it is even more so now that much of consumer interaction is being pushed from in-person to online channels.
“Never before has identity been so critical to building and maintaining a stable and productive economy,” said Acuant CEO Yossi Zekri. “Businesses must rely on trusted identities to successfully transact, fight fraud and stay compliant. Our Trusted Identity Platform, now with IdentityMind’s orchestration layer, creates a new standard in identity verification.”
Acuant has offered identity verification solutions for 20 years. Since then, the California-based company has completed more than one billion trusted transactions in over 196 countries. Today’s deal is Acuant’s second acquisition after purchasing AssureTec Technologies in 2016.
IdentityMind was founded in 2013 and has raised $21.5 million across three rounds of funding. The company most recently demoed at FinovateSpring 2018, showcasing its GDPR compliant KYC plug-in.
Merchant acquirer EVO Payments, the parent company of EVO Snap, has secured $150 million in cash to help fortify the company’s balance sheet, retire debt, and provide funding for future investment opportunities during the COVID-19 crisis. Private equity firm Madison Dearborn, a major shareholder in the company, led the investment.
“While EVO’s global portfolio represents a diversified mix of merchants across Europe and North America,” the company explained in a statement, “many of these merchants operate in markets that are subject to broad governmental restrictions on movement and commerce, resulting in substantial reductions in merchant transaction count and volumes.”
In addition to the funding, EVO Payments has launched initiatives to lower fixed costs and capital expenditures over the balance of fiscal 2020. The company’s CEO James G. Kelly said that the “long-term fundamentals of EVO’s business remain strong” and that the current strategies will enable the company to continue to grow.
Founded in 1989 and currently active in 50 markets around the world, EVO Payments acquired the technology that powers the EVO Snap development platform in 2013. EVO Snap makes it easy for developers, independent software vendors, and merchants to develop omni-channel and cross-border payment solutions. The company participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, offering a presentation and workshop on building customized loyalty programs, card-linked offers, and real-time POS rewards.
EVO Payments is publicly-traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker EVOP. The company, headquartered in McLean, Virginia near Washington, D.C., has a market capitalization of $1 billion. EVO services more than 500,000 merchants in North America and Europe, processing 900+ million transactions in the former and 1.7 billion transactions in the latter each year.
Vymo, the company whose intelligent sales assistant makes life easier for on-the-go sales pros, has unveiled a new enhancement to help sales teams at this time when customer engagement is even more challenging. The company has introduced a new Work From Home enhancement to its sales assistant solution which enables secure, 24/7 access to critical data via an app instead of requiring a desktop or on-premises hardware.
“Considering Vymo supports over 100,000 remote users already, this is a logical extension,” Vymo CEO Yamini Bhat explained. “We are seeing very encouraging signs in several of the deployments that have gone live over the past week. This social and economic situation is unlike anything we have seen before, and so our team at Vymo is committed to helping organizations adapt to this new paradigm.”
Available as an upgrade to the Vymo app, the new offering is a way for organizations to maintain business continuity during the Covid-19 crisis, and to ensure accurate communication with customers. The solution features secure calling and video conferencing, broadcasts and targeted notifications, and a central hub that provides a comprehensive view of KPIs such as agent adoption and customer coverage.
Sandeep Kumar Mishar, SVP and Head -HDFC Bank Relationship for Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, led the implementation of Vymo’s technology at his firm. He praised the analytics available via Vymo’s platform, and credited them for “enabling me to manage my team’s productivity better and turnaround the WFH (Work From Home) challenges positively.”
An alum of both FinovateAsia and FinovateFall, Vymo was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Bangalore, India. The company has raised $23 million in funding from investors including Sequoia Capital India and Emergence.
One of the brutal facts of the COVID-19 outbreak is that it will be difficult for small businesses to survive. The self-distancing and shelter-in-place orders, while temporary, are taxing for already cash-strapped merchants.
Adding to the hardship, small businesses may find it especially difficult to get a much-needed loan from their local bank or credit union since many have closed physical branches to encourage social distancing. And while banks offer many services online, only 1% are capable of extending a loan digitally.
This is where lending-as-a-service steps in. The technology works like a plug-and-play option that allows financial institutions to launch mobile and web financing applications, exchange documents digitally, and issue funds within a few days. While third party fintechs already offer digital lending services, many banks are years away from being able to develop and integrate their own online lending service.
When banks implement lending-as-a-service, they are in a better position to serve small businesses that need cash flow quickly. It means that instead of turning to unfamiliar third party financing solutions, businesses can maintain their relationship with their primary bank as they get back on their feet after the crisis.
Military veteran-focused small business lending platform StreetShares began selling a lending-as-a-service offering for banks last September after it launched the product at FinovateFall. Using the new service, banks can lend up to $250,000 in funding to small businesses via a process that takes place completely online using the applicant’s web or mobile device.
StreetShares’ lending-as-a-service program offers lenders a 100% digital loan application, instant underwriting, as well as loan servicing and tracking. The program doesn’t require software integration and can go live in under 30 days.
The company’s lending-as-a-service solution has already seen success, having amassed 30 clients, including banks, credit unions, and alternative lenders. Here’s the good news– StreetShares is waiving its software subscription fees through the end of the year for banks who fund small businesses impacted by the coronavirus.
The company is calling this initiative Main Street Heroes. Since banking has transformed to an almost completely digital industry, the new initiative enables lenders to add a completely digital lending tool and serve businesses they otherwise may have had to turn away.
“In the wake of the coronavirus, business owners and regulators are both asking lenders to do more to help Main Street,” said StreetShares CEO Mark Rockefeller. “But most banks and credit unions simply have no ability to make these loans digitally. StreetShares has the needed technology and can power lenders to be the heroes that Main Street needs right now.”
StreetShares was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Mark Rockefeller is CEO.
Further proving that every company is a fintech company, Plaid has formed a partnership with Microsoft.
Plaid will integrate with Microsoft Excel to help give the budget spreadsheet a major upgrade. Launching under the guise of Money in Excel, the new tool will use Plaid to import users’ financial information, bringing an automated approach to financial management.
With access to 11,000 financial institutions across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Plaid is able to import the user’s entire financial picture in real time.
Money in Excel offers budgeting features typical of most PFM applications. Users can see a monthly overview of their spending habits, analyze recurring expenses, and understand their net worth.
Money in Excel is launching as part of the new Microsoft 365 subscription service that will go live on April 21. The subscriptions range from $6.99 per month to $9.99 per month and include real-time editing in Word, advanced PowerPoint layout and speech coaching, and access to creative content.
Plaid works with thousands of third-party fintech apps such as Transferwise, Betterment, and Venmo to connect with their users’ financial institutions. The company made headlines at the beginning of 2020 after it announced it had been acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion.
Updated: 4/3/20: Added Paystand’s $20 million fundraising from February.
Finovate alums raised more than $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2020, matching their best, first quarter performance to date from two years ago. In some ways, this year’s haul is even more impressive in that Q1 of 2020 featured half the horses as Q1 of 2018.
It is hard to not be aware of the shadow that the current coronavirus pandemic is casting over funding prospects for fintech ahead of the second quarter of the year. With regard to Finovate alums in specific, the $1.8 billion in funding they brought in for Q2 2019 would be a hard mark to beat in any year – let alone one with the sort of historic challenges we are facing in 2020.
Far and away, the $500 million raised by Revolut was the biggest fundraising of the quarter by our alums. But the nine-digit investments picked up by Tradeshift, Flywire, and Tink would put these companies at the top of any of our quarterly equity investment lists in recent years, as well. And with only a baker’s dozen of alums getting funding this quarter, it is no surprise that the top ten equity investments shown below comprise the vast majority of the quarter’s total at $1.2 billion or more than 99%.
Top Equity Investments
Revolut: $500 million
Tradeshift: $240 million
Flywire: $120 million
Tink: $100 million
Thought Machine: $83 million
Currencycloud: $80 million
Fenergo: $80 million
Lendio: $55 million
Arkose Labs: $22 million
Trusona: $20 milllion
Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q1 2020.
January: More than $440 million raised by four alums
If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the first quarter of 2020 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at [email protected]. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.
One of the clearest messages from our conversations with fintech analysts and observers this year has been the importance of RegTech. Whether the challenge is financial inclusion, open banking, or simply making ever-more complex business processes less cumbersome, less error-prone, and less expensive, RegTech is increasingly seen as a critical component of financial technology.
We caught up with Nicole Newlin, VP of Solutions for Ocrolus, to talk about how the company leverages artificial intelligence to automate critical business tasks like underwriting for lenders. Via a combination of patttern recognition, crowdsourced data verification, and fraud detection, Ocrolus’ technology brings both transparent analysis and rigorous documentation to the credit decisioning process.
We also thought this would be a great opportunity to revisit and wrap up our celebration of Women’s History Month. To this end, we asked Ms. Newlin about her work with NYC Fintech Women, as well as her thoughts on how women are faring in the world of fintech and financial services.
Finovate: I would be remiss not to ask how Ocrolus is coping with the current global crisis with regard to the COVID-19 outbreak. How has this affected the company and the work it does?
VP of Solutions for Ocrolus Nicole Newlin
Nicole Newlin: The COVID-19 outbreak has caused companies around the world to change the way that they do business, and prepare for the long-term. Planning for the unpredictable is an oxymoron, but we’re certainly seeing the difference between companies built for scalability – those able to flex up/down with demand – and those with a less agile workforce. In volatile times like these, scalability is key to success.
We see digitization and virtualization particularly impacting the financial markets that Ocrolus serves. If we zoom in on the state of lending, it’s a historically low rate, quarantined world, with more than 3,000 borrowers per day seeking mortgages and refinancing online. In parallel, many lenders are more bandwidth-constrained than ever, creating a gap between rising demand and lenders’ ability to meet that demand.
A key factor in lender scalability is the elimination of data entry bottlenecks. Our customers don’t have underwriters keying in borrower information or performing “stare and compare” analysis of income, asset and identification documents. Instead, they are using document digitization services and data aggregators to provide underwriters with actionable data. Replacing manual data entry and review with API-called data connectivity enables our customers to accommodate fluctuating loan volume on-call rather than scrambling to add, subtract, or redeploy human resources.
For these reasons, our customers are better able to flex up/down with the markets.
We’re also seeing new customers expedite their Ocrolus integrations to lessen the gap between demand and their ability to meet demand without needing to bring on additional resources.
Finovate: And if I may ask, how has it affected you as a professional? Have you had to make dramatic changes to the way you work, or the way you work with your team?
Newlin: Moving to a fully remote workforce is a new muscle for most of us. Fortunately, Ocrolus has always embraced a flexible work from home policy, so our team is able to adapt to working remotely with relative ease.
That said, without the built-in face time of being in an office, communication is critical, so we’re relying heavily on Slack and Zoom video calls to ensure ongoing communication. We’re also spending more time clarifying objectives and expectations so that we can continue to work towards our shared goals remotely.
To maintain culture and morale, we’re experimenting with virtual events. Our first-ever Virtual Happy Hour was a big hit!
Finovate: Ocrolus finished 2019 with the introduction of a new extension to its platform. Ocrolus+, which offers advanced document-based data extraction. Can you tell us a little bit about this feature, perhaps by way of introducing the company to our readers?
Newlin: While Ocrolus transforms documents into actionable data with over 99% accuracy, Ocrolus+ is an advanced version of our fintech infrastructure platform for capturing financial information, validating the veracity of data, and performing cash flow analytics. Ocrolus+ is the first turnkey solution for ingesting documents and digital data streams through a single API. The platform enables lenders to corroborate data retrieved from submitted documents with source data from financial institutions through a partnership with Plaid. Moreover, our partnership with SentiLink enhances our fraud capabilities by enabling us to detect use of synthetic identities.
Finovate: What markets does Ocrolus serve primarily?
Newlin: Ocrolus primarily serves a broad array of lending businesses – including small business lenders, consumer lenders, and mortgage lenders – with some analyzing different sets of documents based on application requirements. Regardless of asset class, Ocrolus has become a critical part of the modern lending infrastructure.
Finovate:Ocrolus interestingly has partnered with a number of other Finovate alums like Plaid and BlueVine in recent years. In fact, you spent some time at Plaid/Quovo, if I read correctly. Why are partnerships important in your industry? What makes for a productive relationship between fintechs?
Newlin: We are in an age of partnerships and collaboration. With technology and market conditions changing at such a fast pace, it’s virtually impossible to build everything internally. Competition is growing, and we’ve seen tech behemoths like Google, Amazon, and Apple making moves to break into financial services. Partnerships are key to staying ahead in a competitive market. By partnering with best of breed companies, you can save resources, accelerate time to market, and hijack otherwise steep learning curves. However, it’s important to note that partnerships must be aligned with the company’s strategy and values. And they should benefit both organizations in order to ensure long-term alignment.
Ocrolus Co-founder and CEO Sam Bobley and Director of Business Development Kevin Bailey demonstrating PerfectAudit at FinovateFall 2018.
Finovate: You came to Ocrolus after being a founder and president of a fintech/financial services consultancy. What drew you to Ocrolus? And now that you’re here, can you tell us a little about the work you do for the company as VP of Solutions?
Newlin: I was introduced to Ocrolus via a few current board members that had also supported my previous employer, Quovo (acquired by Plaid). Once I met with the leadership team and learned more about what Ocrolus offered, I was intrigued. The opportunity to work at a company that could cross many verticals with its offering was interesting to me, because that spoke to the flexibility and endless possibilities of staying nimble and being relevant. Of course, that has been proven out even faster than expected with COVID-19 as we see new opportunities in a challenging environment!
When I joined Ocrolus, my primary focus was to build out a strong Solutions team that would support all sales activities via sales engineering/implementation, which includes all aspects of client onboarding and API integrations. As I’ve built out the team and developed those functions, we also work closely with our Product/Operations team in piloting new verticals/services. Lastly, a big focus today is ensuring we promote strong client relationships via our account management and client success teams. In a nutshell, our team is the client-facing division of our firm in the entire customer lifecycle.
Finovate: You’ve recently joined the NYC Fintech Women’s Leadership team. Can you tell us about the organization and its goals? How did you come to the decision to work with them?
Newlin: NYC Fintech Women is a community of women fintech executives, founders, and engineers, who are opening the doors of Wall Street by facilitating access to education, community, and coaching. I want to contribute by supporting and mentoring these women. Additionally, given my path into fintech and the number of talented women transitioning from traditional firms, I feel a strong sense of duty to support their efforts.
Finovate: What are the two or three steps that would do the most good to promote women’s leadership in fintech and financial services in general? And what are the greatest challenges or obstacles to pursuing these steps?
Newlin: I think women have a hard time breaking into financial services because there have never been that many in the space. The reality is that there are still fewer women in tech positions, senior positions, on boards, etc. There isn’t a magic button to press for greater equality – we have to take the initiative to create diversity in the industry.
One of my favorite quotes is, “Ability is of little account without opportunity,” by Lucille Ball. In that spirit, here are three things we can do to promote women’s leadership in financial services:
We must give women the chance to succeed. I look to leadership in all companies of all types to consider how they are offering opportunity across a wide and diverse employee and candidate pool. Look at your organization and consider who is the next to move forward in their career and how leadership must mentor their employees. Don’t let great team members slip away because they see no career path.
Consider how diversity in hiring grows market share, promotes creativity and stimulates fresh ideas.
Finally, think strategically about how you are building teams and providing thoughtful professional development.
Ocrolus was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in New York City. Sam Bobley is CEO and co-founder. With more than $33 million in funding, Ocrolus includes Oak HC/FT, Laconia, and Bullpen Capital among its investors.
