LogicMonitor Partners with Operational Resilience Solutions Provider Gieom

LogicMonitor Partners with Operational Resilience Solutions Provider Gieom
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, GIEOM Business Solutions
  • LogicMonitor announced a partnership with operational resilience solutions provider Gieom.
  • The collaboration will enable the two companies to help financial institutions prepare for emerging regulations governing operational resilience.
  • India-based Gieom made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2016 in Hong Kong.

SaaS-based hybrid observability platform LogicMonitor has forged a strategic partnership with operational resilience solutions provider Gieom. The combination of Gieom’s Operational Resilience Platform and LogicMonitor’s LM Envision solution will help financial institutions meet emerging regulatory requirements, including both the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the FCA Operational Resilience Requirements.

“At Gieom, we’ve always believed in the importance of holistic operational resilience,” Gieom CTO Bhavana Mallesh said. “Partnering with LogicMonitor allows us to extend our capabilities and offer clients a truly integrated, end-to-end solution. This collaboration ensures financial institutions can meet regulatory demands while optimizing their operations.”

Operational resilience is an increasingly important concern for financial services companies. New regulations, such as DORA, will require these businesses to adopt a more holistic approach to detecting and mitigating risks across systems and in third-party relationships. To this end, the strategic partnership between LogicMonitor and Gieom will enable them to provide financial institutions with proactive compliance by way of real-time monitoring and observability, AI-driven efficiencies including predictive analytics and automation, enhanced visibility via a unified platform, and scalable tools to help manage third-party risks.

“Financial institutions are under immense pressure to modernize and comply with stringent regulations like DORA, and this partnership provides them with the tools to succeed,” LogicMonitor General Manager, EMEA Matt Tuson said. “Together with Gieom, we’re delivering a seamless, AI-powered solution that enhances resilience, reduces risk, and drives value across the industry so institutions can stay ahead of regulatory demands, strengthen operational efficiency, and build trust with customers in an ever-evolving landscape.”

LogicMonitor provides AI-powered, hybrid observability, giving companies operational visibility and predictability across both on-premises and multi-cloud environments. Headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, and founded in 2007, the company raised $800 million in strategic funding late last year at a valuation of $2.4 billion. Christina Kosmowski is the company’s CEO.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Bangalore, India, Gieom made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2016 in Hong Kong. The company builds software that empowers companies to better manage their policies and standard operating procedures, streamline digital identity verification processes, manage risk, and adopt an operational resilience framework. Gieom’s technology is used by more than 90 banks around the world, including World Bank, Bank of England, and the State Bank of India.

Most recently, Gieom announced a partnership with Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait (ABK) to create a centralized platform for the digital management of policies and procedures that govern the bank’s operations. At the same time, Gieom teamed up with Kuwait Finance House (KFH) to help the institution similarly centralize and streamline its policy and procedure management.

“KFH is setting a benchmark for the region, leveraging technology to enhance compliance, governance, and customer service,” Gieom CEO John Santhosh said when the partnership was announced last fall. “This collaboration will contribute to KFH’s operational resilience and customer-centric approach.”

Photo by Umar Andrabi

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First Demos Announced for FinovateEurope 2025

First Demos Announced for FinovateEurope 2025
By Heather Stowell Posted on
Categories: Finovate Marketing, FinovateEurope 2025

FinovateEurope 2025 takes place in London on February 25 and 26. Register to attend and save up to £400.

FinovateEurope is back in London this February. Join us for this unmissable showcase of fintech innovation! 

Over 30 trailblazing companies will take the stage. With just 7 minutes each, they’ll unveil the cutting-edge technology that is shaping 2025 – and beyond.

This year’s carefully curated demo lineup dives into technology trends shaping 2025:

  • Secure experimentation with generative AI
  • Enhanced compliance workflows that scale
  • Cross-border lending powered by alternative data
  • Streamlined KYB through automated document collection
  • Production-ready solutions for LLM-driven apps
  • . . . and much more!

Stay tuned as we announce the next wave of innovators in a few weeks!

Demo applications are still open to those driving innovation in financial services — whether they are a startup, bank, public entity, or established leader, all organizations can demo.

With main stage speaking, a plug-and-play expo stand, speaker passes, lead generation reports, coaching calls with Finovate’s host and resident expert, and marketing and media exposure, this is unparalleled exposure with a high ROI. Apply now.

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doxo Launches doxoBILLS to Further Facilitate Consumer Billpay

doxo Launches doxoBILLS to Further Facilitate Consumer Billpay
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Doxo
  • doxo launched doxoBILLS, a new platform that combines six key features to help consumers manage household finances more effectively.
  • Among the new tools are all-in-one bill pay, real-time bank balance insights, credit score protection, $1 million in identity theft protection, and utility usage tracking.
  • While doxoBILLS offers standard features for free, premium options like identity theft protection and overdraft safeguards are available through the doxoPLUS subscription, priced at $5.99 per month.

Online billpay fintech doxo released its latest tool to help consumers stay on top of their household finances. The Seattle-based company launched doxoBILLS today, a single platform that offers six key features that aim to give consumers insight into and control of all of their household bills in a single place.

“We’re proud to introduce doxoBILLS, the next generation of our all-in-one bill pay product. doxoBILLS is the first and only solution to incorporate all six essential elements of paying bills into one simple and safe platform,” said doxo CEO and Co-Founder Steve Shivers. “This is a huge step for our continued mission to empower consumers in organizing and paying their household bills, which represent the most fundamental financial obligations of every American household. Legacy bill pay systems are fragmented – almost always organized around individual billers or individual financial institutions – but doxoBILLS puts the consumer in the driver’s seat, enabling a simple view of all bills and due dates, the ability to pay any bill with any financial institution, and integrates essential financial protections to improve credit, help reduce late fees and overdraft fees, and protect online security.”

doxoBILLS is built on doxo’s Bill Pay Operating System (Bill Pay OS), the company’s flagship service that enables payment management. doxoBILLS adds to this capability by bringing together not only all-in-one billpay, but also a wallet that keeps customers’ payment credentials hidden from billers, a bank balance feature that helps mitigate bank overdrafts by showing the consumer their current account balance in real time, credit score insight and protection, $1 million in identity theft protection, and utility usage insights.

Users can access doxoBILLS on the doxo mobile app and website. doxo offers its standard benefits for free, including the ability to pay any bill for free with a linked bank account. Users seeking premium features, such as identity theft protection, credit score protection, and overdraft protection, can sign up for a doxoPLUS subscription, which currently costs $5.99 per month (plus tax, where applicable).

Founded in 2008, doxo allows U.S. consumers a single place to pay over 120,000 billers using a standard checkout and secure payment experience. doxo leverages Plaid to securely access the consumer’s bank account, a feature that allows users to keep their account data secure. To date, 10 million people have used doxo’s billpay experience.

The new doxoBILLS product creates a recurring revenue stream for the company while also giving users more reasons to engage with their accounts. Features like identity protection and credit score monitoring will encourage existing users to log in more often and attract new users to the platform.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov

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Tales from the Crypto: Stablecoin vs Stablecoin , El Salvador vs the IMF on BTC, and More!

Tales from the Crypto: Stablecoin vs Stablecoin , El Salvador vs the IMF on BTC, and More!
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, List series

This week’s edition of Tales from the Crypto features an update on Ripple’s newly launched stablecoin RLUSD, El Salvador’s negotiated commitment to Bitcoin, as well as an acquisition and a new partnership.

Ripple’s RLUSD challenges PayPal’s PYUSD, Circle’s EURC

With a self-reported market cap of more than $53 million, Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD recently surged past rival coins from PayPal (PYUSD) and Circle (EURC) in 24-hour trading volume. The volume, which topped $607 million, is all the more impressive given RLUSD’s relatively smaller market capitalization. PYUSD has a market cap of more than $491 million. EURC has a market cap of more than $82 million.

“As the U.S. moves toward clearer regulations, we expect to see greater adoption of stablecoins like RLUSD, which offer real utility and are backed by years of trust and expertise in the industry,” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in December when RLUSD was launched.

RLUSD is an enterprise-grade, USD-denominated stablecoin. Each RLUSD token is fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits, U.S. government bonds, and cash equivalents to ensure stability, reliability, and liquidity. Ripple will use RLUSD to facilitate global payments for its enterprise customers via its Ripple Payments division. There has been some curiosity over Ripple’s decision to limit RLUSD circulation. At least one analyst has suggested the move may be an effort to keep the price of RLUSD relatively stable — and less vulnerable to a rapid decline in value.

Ripple’s RLUSD news comes as the company is announcing that it has adopted the Chainlink standard for verifiable data on the Ethereum blockchain. The move will boost the utility of RLUSD throughout the “on-chain economy,” the company noted in a statement this week. Also recently, Ripple reported that its CEO along with Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty, met with President-elect Donald Trump.

“Great dinner last night with Donald Trump & Stuart Alderoty,” Garlinghouse wrote on X, “Strong start to 2025!”

El Salvador forges ahead in its Bitcoin acquisition

How has recent strength and interest in Bitcoin impacted El Salvador, which embraced the cryptocurrency like no other country when it elected to allow Bitcoin to be used as legal tender in 2021?

On the one hand, the value of Bitcoin has soared in recent years. In June 2021, when El Salvador enacted the new policy, BTC was roughly $35,000. Today, the cryptocurrency is valued at more than $94,000, after topping the $100,000 mark in mid-December.

On the other hand, the windfall has reached relatively few individual Salvadoreans. While the government tried to incentivize Bitcoin ownership with $30 in BTC for those who signed up for digital wallets, it turns out that many who received the $30 in Bitcoin quickly cashed out their holdings. Additionally, as the country’s former Central Bank president Carlos Acevedo noted, any BTC gains remain unrealized until sold.

Further, El Salvador is in some ways still wrestling with the International Monetary Fund over the Fund’s preference that the country reduce, or at least limit, its exposure to cryptocurrencies in exchange for financial support. A recent financing deal valued at $1.4 billion (£1.1 billion) was secured between the two parties, but the extent to which El Salvador will curtail its Bitcoin policies remains a bit unclear. While the deal specifies that tax payments will be made in the U.S. dollar, for example, which is El Salvador’s other official currency, the government has insisted that it will continue to buy BTC.

Backpack acquires FTX EU to expand in the European crypto market

International cryptocurrency exchange Backpack has acquired FTX EU, the former European arm of FTX. The transaction was approved by the FTX bankruptcy court as well as the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) and will enable Backpack’s EU division to offer a full suite of crypto derivatives throughout the EU.

The fact that FTX EU was a MiFID II-licensed institution played a significant role in Backpack’s acquisition decision. “As many international exchanges exit the European Union, becoming a MiFID II-licensed entity demonstrates our dedication to meeting the highest regulatory standards and is a significant step to bringing transparent, secure, and regulated crypto trading to an underserved European market,” Backpack Exchange Founder and CEO Armani Ferrante said.

Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Singapore, Backpack Exchange serves cryptocurrency customers in more than 150 countries and regions. With more than $60 billion in trading volume, Backpack Exchange offers a range of products and services including its noncustodial Backpack Wallet, Backpack Exchange, and Solana-based NFT community Mad Lads.

As part of the acquisition, Backpack EU will be responsible for distributing previously court-approved FTX bankruptcy claims to FTX EU customers. Ferrante underscored this in a statement, adding that “customer restitution is a crucial step to rebuild trust and confidence in the industry, and Backpack is committed to returning FTX EU customers’ funds as fast and as safely as possible.”

Trillium Surveyor partners with Kaiko

Trade surveillance and best execution software provider Trillium Surveyor has forged a strategic partnership with cryptocurrency market data provider Kaiko. The goal of the partnership will be to deliver “best-in-class solutions” to financial institutions and exchanges involved in cryptocurrency trading. The two companies will provide an integrated solution that blends Trillium’s trade surveillance technology with Kaiko’s crypto market data in order to help financial institutions quickly, accurately, and efficiently identify and stop inappropriate trading activity.

“A robust, easily configurable trade surveillance tool is essential to support institutions as they navigate the rapidly changing crypto regulatory environment,” Kaiko CEO Ambre Soubiran said. “This partnership with Trillium Surveyor underscores our commitment to providing the critical data needed for transparency and trust in the crypto ecosystem.”

Founded in 2014 and maintaining offices in New York, London, Singapore, and Paris, Kaiko is a leading provider of cryptocurrency market data, analytics, and indices, ensuring businesses have access to institutional-grade, regulatory-compliant solutions. With global connectivity to real-time and historical data feeds across the top exchanges in the world, Kaiko recently announced an enhancement to its market data platform courtesy of an integration with leading European cryptocurrency exchange Bitvavo.

Trillium Surveyor helps capital markets firms save time and money — and remain compliant — with a trade surveillance platform that balances power with ease of use. The company’s technology enables companies to monitor their trading health, learn about key new events, access and analyze relevant data surrounding these events, and then act on that data with built-in workflow tools. Featuring actionable insights across equities, derivatives, fixed income, and cryptocurrency markets, Trillium Surveyor helps its customers build compliance programs that are both efficient and cost-effective. Headquartered in New York, Trillium Surveyor was launched in 2014.

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Lumin Digital Teams Up with FINBOA to Enhance Dispute Management

Lumin Digital Teams Up with FINBOA to Enhance Dispute Management
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, FINBOA
  • Digital banking provider Lumin Digital has turned to process automation provider FINBOA for enhanced dispute management.
  • FINBOA’s technology has produced up to a 90% reduction in dispute intake effort and up to an 80% reduction in audit prep time.
  • Headquartered in Houston, Texas, FINBOA made its Finovate debut at our all-digital conference in the spring of 2021.

Process automation provider FINBOA has teamed up with digital banking provider Lumin Digital to enhance the company’s dispute management operations. This will give Lumin Digital’s financial institution clients the ability to expedite their payment disputes and facilitate faster resolutions.

“As a company dedicated to enhancing the digital banking experience for financial institutions and their customers, we are thrilled to be partnering with the FINBOA team, which is actively solving the painful process of manual dispute resolution,” Lumin Digital Chief Product Officer Sean Weadock said. “This partnership is an exciting step that adds another innovative integration and showcases the flexibility of the Lumin Digital platform.”

Lumin Digital offers digital solutions for retail banking, commercial banking, and account opening to help financial institutions better maximize efficiency and engage customers and members. The company’s platform combines native microservices with cloud technology to give banks and credit unions the ability to deploy new solutions that scale independently and enable them to grow and evolve as volume grows. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Ramon, California, Lumin ended last year with $160 million in growth equity financing in a round co-led by NewView Capital, Light Street Capital, and Partners Group.

The alliance between Lumin Digital and FINBOA comes as growing payment dispute volumes are putting a strain on manual, paper-based dispute resolution processes, as well as on non-integrated systems. This potentially leads to more errors, greater risk, and even missed compliance deadlines. To this end, FINBOA’s technology digitizes and automates compliance and decision processes to provide better account holder servicing and lower regulatory risk. The company notes that institutions using its technology have enjoyed a reduction in dispute intake effort of up to 90%, a reduction in audit prep time of 80%, and an average 25% reduction in claim-related write-offs and losses.

“The partnership with Lumin Digital is a win-win for our mutual financial institutions as they face increasing volumes of payment disputes and stringent requirements with tight response timelines,” FINBOA Founder and CEO Raj Singal said. “We are delighted to offer a paperless payment dispute process integrated with Lumin Digital’s online banking services.”

Founded in 2016 and based in Houston, Texas, FINBOA made its Finovate debut at our all-digital conference in the spring of 2021. At the event, FINBOA demonstrated its Workplace Compliance Automation Platform, which provides centralized data management, automated timeline notifications, customized letters, digital signatures, workflow configuration, GL integrations with core, robotic automations, and compliance rules. A 2024 Finovate Award finalist in the “Best Back-Office/Core Services Solution” category, and a member of the 2024 Inc. 5000, FINBOA counts more than 200 banks and credit unions among its customers.

Photo by Nate Hovee

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TransUnion to Buy Credit Eligibility and Distribution Platform Monevo

TransUnion to Buy Credit Eligibility and Distribution Platform Monevo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, TransUnion
  • TransUnion will acquire credit eligibility and distribution platform Monevo, expanding its capabilities in credit prequalification and personalized credit offers.
  • Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
  • TransUnion originally acquired a 30% stake in Monevo in 2021 and will acquire the remaining ownership position from Monevo’s majority stakeholder, Quint Group Limited.

Credit protection platform TransUnion announced it will acquire credit eligibility and distribution platform Monevo. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close by the second quarter of this year, were not disclosed.

U.K.-based Monevo was founded in 2008 to help comparison websites and online publishers embed personalized credit offers into their websites. It also works with more than 150 banks and credit providers worldwide, using centralized technology to connect lenders with publishers. This lets consumers see their chances of being approved for credit products before applying, which helps them save time and protect their credit scores from unnecessary checks.

“I founded Monevo to improve access to credit for consumers through technology, and today it is powering credit distribution for some of the world’s largest banks and lenders,” said Quint Group and Monevo CEO Greg Cox. “This acquisition is the natural next step in Monevo’s future growth and success, and would unlock new opportunities to innovate by uniting these two complementary businesses, whose values are already strongly aligned.”

In October 2021, TransUnion formed a strategic partnership with Monevo, acquiring a 30% stake in the company. Today, TransUnion has agreed to acquire the remaining ownership position from Monevo’s majority stakeholder, Quint Group Limited.

“Over the last three years, our partnership with Monevo has helped address gaps in the consumer experience. Together, we plan to deliver high-quality offers at scale with minimal support needed from our partners,” said TransUnion President, U.S. Markets Steve Chaouki. “Additionally, we continue to make good progress on broadening our value proposition and go-to-market strategy in the direct-to-consumer business and expect to have more to share in the coming quarters.”

Today’s acquisition enables TransUnion to enhance its credit prequalification and distribution capabilities. By integrating Monevo’s technology, TransUnion will connect its lender clients with consumers through more personalized credit offers. This partnership strengthens TransUnion’s ability to serve both lenders and consumers, streamline customer acquisition for financial institutions, and empower consumers to make informed borrowing decisions with minimal impact on their credit scores.

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Earnix Teams Up with Tokio Marine North America Services

Earnix Teams Up with Tokio Marine North America Services
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Earnix
  • Customer analytics software solution provider for financial services companies Earnix announced a partnership with Tokio Marine North America Services (TMNAS).
  • Headquartered in Pennsylvania, Tokio Marine North America Services is a division of Tokyo, Japan-based Tokio Marine Group.
  • Earnix made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016 in San Jose, California.

Here’s some news from a Finovate alum we haven’t heard from in a little while: customer analytics solution provider Earnix has teamed up with Tokio Marine North America Services (TMNAS). Earnix will help the company — a division of Tokyo, Japan’s Tokio Marine Group — develop a centralized rate repository with access to sophisticated pricing and rating strategies. This will provide Tokio — one of the leading commercial insurance providers in the U.S. — with a single source of truth for pricing, rating, and filing, helping reduce errors and better manage risk, and enabling fast time-to-market for the business TMNAS does on behalf of its clients.

“Insurers want to — and must — innovate. The key when choosing new solutions is to select those that address the operation as a whole,” TMNAS EVP and CIO Robert Pick said. “Earnix integrates seamlessly across the entire tech stack and provides the agility to futureproof our businesses regardless of market or regulatory changes.”

Founded in 2001 and maintaining headquarters in both Tel Aviv, Israel, and Westport, Connecticut, Earnix made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016 in San Jose, California. In the years since then, Earnix has grown into a major provider of cloud-based, intelligent solutions for pricing, rating, underwriting, and product personalization in financial services. With customers in more than 35 countries across six continents, Earnix helps insurers and banks around the world achieve “ultra-fast” ROI and unlock value across their operations.

In addition to its partnership news with Tokio, Earnix also announced in December that it would work with Kingstone Insurance to enhance the property and casualty insurance holding company’s pricing capabilities and support its strategic growth. This week, Earnix reported that it had joined the Managing General Agents’ Association (MGAA) as a Supplier Member. MGAA represents more than 400 Managing General Agents (MGAs) in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland.

“MGAs are key players in the insurance industry, and they require robust, reliable, and compliant technology solutions to succeed in an increasingly complex market,” Earnix CEO Robin Gilthorpe said. “Earnix looks forward to contributing to the MGA community by offering solutions that empower MGAs to drive smarter, data-driven decisions and thrive in an increasingly digital-first insurance ecosystem.”

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric

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Eltropy Acquires Collections Technology Provider Lexop

Eltropy Acquires Collections Technology Provider Lexop
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Eltropy, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Eltropy has acquired collections technology provider Lexop for an undisclosed amount.
  • Eltropy will integrate its AI-powered communication solution with Lexop’s compassionate debt resolution technology to help community financial institutions streamline collections, reduce delinquencies, and improve borrower experiences.
  • The combination of Lexop’s self-service payment portal and Eltropy’s communication platform will allow borrowers to easily make payments while enabling lenders to recover debts faster.

Unified conversations platform Eltropy unveiled yesterday that it has acquired collections technology provider Lexop. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Eltropy envisions that by combining Lexop’s collections technology with its own AI-powered communications platform, it can help to modernize debt repayment and collections processes. Ultimately, bringing the two technologies together will help community financial institutions (CFIs) reduce and prevent delinquencies, collect faster, and enhance the user experience for borrowers.

“The world needs a better way for people to pay their debt obligations. Today’s phone-call-driven experiences are extremely inconvenient for the borrower, making it difficult for CFIs to collect debt payments on time,” said Eltropy CEO and Co-Founder Ashish Garg. “By combining Lexop’s people-first collections technology with our AI-driven communications platform, we’re delivering an offering that increases effectiveness with empathy.”

Canada-based Lexop was founded in 2016 to offer a compassionate debt resolution platform for credit unions. The technology automates text, email, and voice payment reminders that meet members in their preferred digital channels. With the collections platform, lenders can allow their members to make payments through a self-service payment portal that is integrated into the lender’s existing website and available 24/7. Eltropy will leverage this self-serve solution to allow its CFI clients to easily make payments with two clicks, helping to prevent avoidable delinquency.

“We built Lexop to create a better past-due member experience,” said Lexop CEO and Co-founder Amir Tajkarimi. “By joining Eltropy, we are reinventing loan repayment and collections, helping credit unions and community banks improve recovery rates while preserving relationships with their members. We have been watching Eltropy take the CFI world by storm and could not be more excited to join hands.”

Today’s deal marks Eltropy’s third acquisition after purchasing POPi/o and Marsview.ai in 2022. Logistically, Eltropy will continue to operate out of its headquarters in Santa Clara, California and Lexop will continue its operations in its headquarters location of Montreal, Quebec.

Eltropy serves over 650 credit unions and community banks in North America with communications solutions that aim to help firms mitigate fraud, grow deposits, facilitate payment reminders, streamline mergers and acquisitions, and more. Since launching in 2013, Eltropy has helped power more than 200 million conversations. The company demoed Eltropy One, its all-in-one omni-channel communication solution, at FinovateFall 2022.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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Axway to Bring Open Banking to Regions Bank

Axway to Bring Open Banking to Regions Bank
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Axway
  • Regions Bank has selected Axway to implement open banking.
  • Regions will use Axway’s Amplify Open Banking solution to enable secure, API-based data sharing for its consumer, corporate, and wealth management clients.
  • With the CFPB’s 1033 rule on the horizon, Regions is getting a head start on compliance, emphasizing customer education and consent management.

Enterprise data integration company Axway announced it is sharing its “open everything” mentality with Regions Bank. The Alabama-based bank has selected Axway to bring open banking capabilities to Regions’ consumer banking, corporate banking, and wealth management customers.

Regions will be using Axway’s Amplify Open Banking solution. Built on Amplify’s API Management Platform, the Amplify Open Banking solution helps firms simplify compliance and integration with its low-code/no-code capabilities that speed up time to deployment.

When the implementation is finalized, Regions will allow its corporate banking clients to leverage Amplify’s Marketplace feature to connect their Regions financial data via APIs. Additionally, the bank’s consumer banking and wealth management clients will be able to select which third parties they’d like to share their financial data with in a process that will remove the need for third-party platforms to save their banking credentials on their own systems. Ultimately, Regions will benefit from a more secure connection between the customer’s bank account and third party platforms.

“At Regions, our focus is on serving customers when and where they want,” said Regions Bank Emerging and Digital Payments Group Manager Tim Mills. “As customers continue to grant access to their financial data to third party applications, this new solution will help capture customer consent, remove the need for credential sharing to third parties, and provide another layer of security to protect customer data. Open banking is the future, and we are pleased to work with Axway to make banking easy for customers who turn to Regions time and again for their banking needs.”

Open banking has become a hot topic in the U.S., now that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has formally issued its 1033 rule that will mandate banks to participate in open banking. Partnering with Axway will offer Regions a head start on the bank’s required adoption date of April 1, 2027. Select smaller firms have until 2030 to comply.

Through Amplify, which is projected to launch in the coming years, Regions customers will receive a one-time prompt from the third-party platforms they use that will reenter information on their accounts.

“We are excited to extend our work with Regions to help provide secure, standardized access to data,” said Axway Vice President for Financial Services and Open Banking Tom Hogan. “This allows their customers to benefit more from the expanding ecosystem of next generation fintechs and third-party data providers.”

Regions also mentioned in today’s release that it will provide educational materials through multiple channels in order to inform customers on the launch. Given that one of the biggest hurdles in open banking adoption is consumer trust, Regions’ proactive approach to educating its customers and offering a consent management portal demonstrates that the bank understands this challenge. By empowering customers with tools to manage their data access, Regions is not only ensuring compliance but is also building the trust necessary for open banking to thrive.

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Streamly Snapshot: Balancing High-Tech and High-Touch Strategies in Digital Banking

Streamly Snapshot: Balancing High-Tech and High-Touch Strategies in Digital Banking
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Streamly

Since the dawn of fintech, financial services companies have struggled to find the sweet spot of “high tech” vs. “high touch.” However, in today’s technology saturated environment, finding the perfect balance between automation and personal interaction is crucial. While technology enables scalability and efficiency, customers still value connecting with a human for complex financial decisions. This balance — where high tech meets high touch — is shaping the future of digital banking.

In the following Streamly video, Finovate Research Analyst David Penn speaks with Christopher Hollins, Head of Solution Sales and Delivery at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), who highlights the transformation of B2B client expectations through digital channels and how SVB’s approach combines high-touch and high-tech strategies.

We spend a lot of time from a design perspective recognizing the user trends both on the consumer side, as well as the business side, and figuring out what’s the most logical thing we can do to avoid obstacles and make things very simple and straightforward. We always say that we want people to feel comfortable doing banking at 4:17 pm and 4:17 am, which means that your digital capabilities must be up to snuff and that you must be able to create an experience that they feel comfortable working with you any time of day,” said Hollins.

SVB is a division of First Citizens Bank that provides commercial and private banking services to individuals and companies. Originally founded in 1983, SVB focuses on investing in high-growth companies that tend to be on the cutting edge of innovation. In fact, 50% of U.S. VC-backed tech companies with IPOs in 2024 are SVB clients.

Hollins sits at the helm of SVB’s Global Solution Sales and Delivery, where he drives business growth and fosters team motivation. With a focus on sales strategy, design integration, and product marketing, Hollins’ team has successfully executed strategies that resonate with the unique demands of the fintech industry and the innovation economy.

For more video interviews, be sure to check out Finovate’s other Streamly content.

Photo by Leonardo Iheme on Unsplash

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New Year, New Leadership as Curinos and Finastra Introduce New CEOs

New Year, New Leadership as Curinos and Finastra Introduce New CEOs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Curinos, Finastra
  • Two Finovate alums — Curinos and Finastra — are introducing new CEOs this week.
  • Data, technology, and insights provider for financial institutions Curinos has appointed Jeff Hack as CEO.
  • Financial services software application provider Finastra announced that Chris Walters will replace Simon Paris as CEO.

The new year is bringing new leadership to a pair of Finovate alums: Curinos and Finastra. Both firms introduced new Chief Executive Officers to start 2025.

Curinos, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2023, has appointed Jeff Hack as CEO and member of the company’s Board of Directors. Hack succeeds Craig Woodward, who has led Curinos since 2021. Hack was most recently CEO of software and integrated payments provider Paya and, before that, was Executive Vice President and a member of the Management Committee at First Data (now Fiserv).

“I am excited to be joining the talented team at Curinos,” Hack said in a statement. “Curinos offers market-leading solutions and world-class support to help drive the growth of our financial institution clients. We will build on our strong market position with further investments in technology and talent to provide even more value to our clients.”

Headquartered in New York, Curinos provides data, technologies, and insights to enable financial institutions to make better, faster, and more profitable, data-driven decisions. The company was formed in 2021 via the combination of Novantas and Informa’s FBX business. Today, Curinos is the chosen provider for more than 800 credit union and community banks across the U.S., 42 of the top 50 mortgage lenders, as well as Canada’s “Big Six” banks.

Hack takes the helm at Curinos in the wake of a year in which the company has partnered with Bankrate, earned a spot on the 2024 IDC FinTech Rankings, and entered into an agreement with Databricks Marketplace to make a subset of its data assets on deposits and lending rates available to Databricks Marketplace customers. Also in 2024, Curinos announced a collaboration with fellow Finovate alum FIS and introduced a new AI-powered creative management workflow capability for its Amplero Personalization Optimizer solution.

Financial services software applications provider Finastra has appointed Chris Walters as its new Chief Executive Officer. Walters will replace Simon Paris, who has served as Finastra CEO since 2018, a year after the company was formed.

“I’m excited to join Finastra at this pivotal moment in its journey and am impressed by the significant progress that has been made during Simon’s leadership,” Walters said. “I look forward to working with the talented team to drive sustainable growth and continue to deliver more value to our customers, team members, and investors.”

Finastra was formed via a merger between D+H and Finovate alum Misys in 2017. Walters comes to the company after serving as CEO of technology workforce development company Pluralsight and previously as CEO of Avantax (formerly Blucora Inc.), a tax-focused wealth management solution provider for financial professionals.

Walters has also served in leadership roles including Partner at McKinsey & Company and COO of Bloomberg Industry Verticals Group.

Serving more than 8,000 financial institutions — including 45 of the world’s top 50 banks — Finastra provides financial services software applications across capital markets, lending, payments, universal banking (including retail and digital), as well as treasury. A leader in Open Finance, Finastra has partnered in recent months with DXC Luxoft and RightClick to enhance delivery of managed services, with Vietnam’s Joint Stock Commercial bank (LPBank) to modernize treasury management operations, and with Sonali Bangladesh UK (SBUK) to provide digital banking — including enhanced Shariah-compliant services.

Photo by Anna Tarazevich

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Thomson Reuters Acquires Tax Technology Provider SafeSend

Thomson Reuters Acquires Tax Technology Provider SafeSend
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Thomson Reuters
  • Thomson Reuters has agreed to acquire SafeSend in a $600 million deal.
  • Thomson Reuters will integrate SafeSend’s tax automation solutions to help tax professionals improve efficiency, particularly as the U.S. faces a shortage of tax professionals.
  • Thomson Reuters will preserve the SafeSend brand and continue to offer it as a publicly available solution.

In the U.S., many savvy taxpayers will start working on their 2024 taxes now that the new year has arrived. That might be what content and technology company Thomson Reuters had in mind when it agreed this week to acquire tax technology company SafeSend for $600 million in cash.

Founded in 2008, SafeSend helps accountants and bookkeepers automate aspects of their clients’ tax returns, including assembly, review, taxpayer e-signature, and delivery. The company’s software is used by 70% of the top 500 accounting firms in the U.S. The Michigan-based company is expected to generate approximately $60 million of revenue in 2025 and grow more than 25% annually in the next few years.

“The needs of our customers and their clients drive every decision we make at Thomson Reuters. This acquisition underscores our commitment to addressing the evolving challenges faced by tax professionals and taxpayers alike,” said Thomson Reuters President of Tax, Audit and Accounting Professionals Elizabeth Beastrom. “By integrating SafeSend’s innovative technology with our existing solutions, we’re simplifying tax preparation workflows, and meeting the dynamic demands of businesses we serve to help them thrive in an increasingly complex tax landscape.”

Thomson Reuters expects the acquisition will add to its services catering to tax and accounting professionals. SafeSend’s wide range of solutions will help tax preparers and their teams create more efficient workflows fueled by online file transfer tools, e-signature solutions, client communication products, and more.

Going forward, Thomson Reuters will preserve the SafeSend brand and continue to offer it as a publicly available solution. This decision to preserve the SafeSend brand and offer it as a standalone solution suggests that the SafeSend brand and its reputation carry value. For SafeSend, being backed by Thomson Reuters opens up new opportunities for launching new technologies, scaling, and reaching a wider audience.

“Today marks an exciting new chapter for SafeSend customers,” said SafeSend Co-founder Steve Dusablon. “Becoming a part of Thomson Reuters will enable us to accelerate product development efforts and realize our shared vision of an end-to-end tax workflow solution.”

Thomson Reuters, which has demoed at two Finovate events, offers legal, tax, risk, supply chain, and other solutions in addition to its media business. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TRI and currently has a market capitalization of $72.9 billion.

Thomson Reuters’ acquisition of SafeSend comes at a time when the U.S. is seeing a decrease in the number of tax professionals. SafeSend’s technology will help tax professionals and firms streamline their operations amid growing regulatory complexity and heightened client expectations.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich

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