This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall on September 14-16, 2020. Register today and save your spot.
ANNA takes care of your banking and accounting while you get on with business.
Features
ANNA’s tax and VAT accounting sorts your self-assessment and VAT returns
Costs only a fraction compared to a dedicated accountant
Why It’s Great ANNA does your invoicing, sort expenses, keep accounts up-to-date and even submits your tax returns, saving you the time and hassle.
Presenters
Vic Casambros, Digital Manager Casambros has previous experience working in the Charities and Public Sector organisations. He specialises in analytics reporting, social media and digital engagement strategies. LinkedIn
Boris Dyakonov, Co-Founder Co-Founder at Tochka.com, knopka.com, and Anna. Dyakonov is an expert on financial services for entrepreneurs. LinkedIn
FinovateEurope is innovative for us in a number of ways. This will be the first time our fintech conference has been held in continental Europe after eight years of hosting our event in London. We are also launching our new Startup Booster program, which is designed to help give fintech startups the information, guidance, and support they need in order to more effectively build, pitch, and market their innovations.
FinovateEurope will also feature the debut of our Women in Fintechstream. Held on the afternoon and early evening of Wednesday, February 12, our Women in Fintech stream consists of presentations, keynotes, a panel discussion, and an end-of-day networking opportunity with refreshments hosted by European Women Payment Network (EWPN).
Here are some of the women who will be speaking as part of our Women in Fintech stream.
Isil Ugurlu
Country Ambassador, Germany, at the European Women Payments Network, Ugurlu is also Head of Payment at Berlin, Germany-based Elumeo group, a firm that produces and sells high-quality gemstone jewelry. She is responsible for the firm’s global payment infrastructure and processes, and the company’s global payment partner relations.
Theodora Lau
Founder at Unconventional Ventures, Lau is a speaker, writer, and innovator. Her focus is on developing and growing an ecosystem of financial institutions, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to respond to the needs of an increasingly diverse consumer. She is a mentor to both fintech and healthtech startups, and supports a growing partnered portfolio.
Juliane Schmitz-Engels
Head of Communications at Mastercard for Germany and Switzerland and a host at Fintech Berlin, Schmitz-Engels is also a host at Fintech Berlin and a curator at FocusCamp. Previous to her work at Mastercard, Schmitz-Engels led communications and public relations at technology and finance companies in Berlin and Frankfurt. She studied at the Universitat Potsdam and the Institute for Law and Finance.
Also scheduled to participate in our Women in Fintech stream are:
Akira Sasaki
Ria Shetty
Sabrina Small
Weina Wang
For more on our FinovateEurope agenda, visit our FinovateEurope page. We’re looking forward to seeing you in Berlin!
Hong Kong’s first digital bank will use payment technology from Fiserv. The firm, ZA Bank, will use the company’s VisionPLUS global payment software, which supports the entire card payment lifecycle from origination and issuance to settlement and customer service. ZA Bank will leverage Fiserv’s suite of APIs to ensure fast and seamless app development and integration.
“We are pleased to partner with Fiserv as we embark on a journey to shift the lifestyle of future banking users,” ZA Bank CEO Rockson Hsu said. “With our companies’ combined knowledge and expertise in banking and technology, we are well-placed to respond fast to the ever-changing market with an agile product development approach.”
Licensed in March of last year, ZA Bank launched as a pilot in December with 2,000 retail customers. The pilot enabled the challenger bank to test services such as remote onboarding, time deposit, and facial recognition. ZA Bank offers 6% interest on three-month deposits of up to $25,000 (HK$200,000). Established by ZhongAn Technologies International Group, ZA Bank emphasizes a “community-driven approach” that seeks to match innovative technologies with the changing lifestyles of its customers.
“Ultimately, we want to offer superb user experiences via a robust and secure platform,” Hsu said. “I am confident that with the support of Fiserv, ZA Bank will be well-positioned to deliver relevant, convenient, and excellent service to our users.”
A long-time Finovate alum, Fiserv demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage most recently at FinovateSpring 2018. The Brookfield, Wisconsin-based company, founded in 1984, acquired fellow Finovate alum First Data last year, and began 2020 with news of a pair of new credit union partnerships.
Speaking for Fiserv on the ZA Bank partnership, company EVP and head of Asia Pacific Ivo Distelbrink, put the collaboration in the broader context of financial innovation taking place in the region. Distelbrink called the launch of ZA Bank “an important milestone” for financial services in Hong Kong, and praised the firm as a “modern banking option aligned to the changing way people want to move and manage money.”
Financial services startup SoFi is partnering with The Bancorp to serve as the company’s backend banking provider and card issuer for SoFi Money.
The company launched SoFi Money last year to serve as an alternative banking product. SoFi’s challenger bank features include spending and budgeting tools, billpay, remote deposit capture, peer-to-peer payments, and a high interest cash management account.
Accountholders also have access to SoFi’s flagship borrowing products such as student loan refinancing, private student loans, personal loans, and home loans. As a competitive edge, SoFi also offers member benefits such as career coaching and VIP access to the SoFi Stadium, courtesy of last month’s partnership with Mastercard.
A rendering of the SoFi Stadium, set to open this summer in Inglewood, CA
The Bancorp is one of the top private-label debit and prepaid card issuers in the U.S. for Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and UnionPay. The company has more than 75 million prepaid cards in distribution and processes 1.1 billion transactions each year.
“As a true pioneer in the fintech space, SoFi has been setting and surpassing industry standards by providing outstanding products and services to its members,” said Damian Kozlowski, President and CEO of The Bancorp. “We are incredibly proud to be selected as a key partner that will support SoFi’s mission to deliver innovative products and services to new and existing members.”
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall on September 14-16, 2020. Register today and save your spot.
Sonect provides the largest ATM network in Switzerland and changes the way interaction happens with cash by allowing cash withdrawals anytime and anywhere with a smartphone.
Features
Easy integration already included in several core banking systems
Offer customers a large network of ATMs
Internationally licensed with e-money institution (EMI)
Why It’s Great Withdraw cash with your smartphone – anytime, anywhere.
Presenters
Sandipan Chakraborty, CEO & Founder Chakraborty is an ex-banker specializing in payments, core banking and regulatory compliance. He believes cash behaviour is changing and Sonect creates a path into the digital future. LinkedIn
Thai Nguyen, IT Project Manager Nguyen assures the high-quality of all IT products (Android, iOS, web) to meet Sonect’s customer expectation in order to make cash easily accessible everywhere! LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall on September 14-16, 2020. Register today and save your spot.
EcoTree is a green investment revolution: in just a few clicks, and for as low as €18, anyone (firms or individuals) can now buy newly-planted trees from our forests in Europe.
Features
Become a real tree-owner
Do the planet a favor by compensating your CO2 footprint
All while building a green asset that will gain financial value over time!
Why It’s Great You too can own trees in a forest with EcoTree!
Presenter
Marten Susebeek, Bus. Dev. Netherlands In his previous role, Susebeek was CEO of a company that gets safe water to 125,000 people in Africa. After his exit, he joined EcoTree and now focuses on developing the Dutch market. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall on September 14-16, 2020. Register today and save your spot.
Lokky is the first Italian digital insurance broker that focuses exclusively on 6 million micro-enterprises, professionals and freelancers that are highly underserved by traditional channels.
Features
Full digital and multi-channel experience
Real-time customer profiling, leveraging on external data enrichment
Real-time product customization for a real 1-to-1 proposition
Why It’s Great Proprietary Algorithms manages high heterogeneity of SMEs in a scalable way, designed for ecosystems, relevant in open banking and open insurance environments.
Presenters
Paolo Tanfoglio, CEO & Co-Founder Tanfoglio earned his MBA at the London Business School and has a background in financial services and M&A consulting in real estate. His entrepreneurial experiences include financial services to SMEs. LinkedIn
Sauro Mostarda, Co-Founder & Exec. Dir. Mostarda earned his MBA at the London Business School. His background includes consulting and investments in solar energy. His experience is in venture capital investments and investing in Italian and foreign startups. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall on September 14-16, 2020. Register today and save your spot.
Quppy is a digital payments solution consolidating bank cards and accounts.
Features
Bank cards consolidation
AI based recurring payments, expenses and investments automatization
Planning solution, aftermarket gift card consolidator and marketplace
Why It’s Great Quppy has gone further than Google Pay and Apple Pay to develop an AI solution that chooses the right payment card to use in any moment.
Presenter
Alina Kornienko, COO & Co-Founder Kornienko is a serial entrepreneur and female pioneer in blockchain technologies, empowering women in business. She also serves as a senior PR specialist and world-known scientist.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall on September 14-16, 2020. Register today and save your spot.
Bambu is building innovative solutions for the digital wealth landscape with focus on customer engagement.
Features
Intuitive user experience to engage end customers
Powerful insights for advisors on their customers
Achieving customer outcomes through goal-based investing
Why It’s Great Re-centering wealth management to the customer and away from the product.
Presenters
Nick Wakefield, Managing Dir. Wakefield is a keen innovator in financial technology, helping to build Bambu across Europe. He is also the Co-Founder of Regulation Asia, the leading intelligence hub for regulatory professionals across Asia-Pacific. LinkedIn
Sam Beeby, Ops. Dir. Beeby has 15 years of experience in digital product delivery for clients including Google, Facebook, Nike and Amazon. He is now focused on revolutionising financial services with human-centered designs. LinkedIn
The Brexit challenge. Rising economies of Central and Eastern Europe. The crisis of confidence in traditional financial institutions. The growing anxiety over the power of new enabling technologies … how will innovation in financial technology be shaped by these competing interests and demands?
Next week in Berlin, Germany, Finovate will host its first fintech conference in continental Europe. From February 11 through February 13, we will present the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the analysts, and the venture capitalists who will share their accomplishments and insights with our 1200+ audience of financial professionals. Below is a sneak peek at what we have in store over the course of our three-day event. Visit our FinovateEurope page for more details.
Industry Stage Day – February 11
This year FinovateEurope kicks off with an Industry Stage Day. This day begins with a pair of keynote addresses leading into the morning’s special address from Steven Van Belleghem, author of Customers The Day After Tomorrow. The afternoon will feature a variety of tracks with their own keynotes, addresses, and fireside chats on themes such as the digital future, insurtech, open banking, and payments.
Our Industry Stage Day will also feature our new Startup Booster program. Read our interview with Finovate VP and host of the Finovate Podcast Greg Palmer on Finovate’s latest commitment to fintech’s startup community.
Demo Stage Days – February 12 and 13
The second and third days of FinovateEurope will introduce our live fintech demos into the mix. In addition to our demos, we will also feature addresses, power panels, and special analyst insight presentations to help contextualize and examine the technologies – and their applications – on display during our Demo Stage Days. Learn more about the companies demonstrating their technologies in our FinovateEurope Sneak Peek series.
Another new feature for FinovateEurope is our Women in Fintech stream on Wednesday. This special opportunity offers keynote addresses, panel discussions, and networking sessions geared toward discussing and promoting gender diversity in the fintech industry.
FinovateEurope Need to Knows
We’re excited about Finovate’s first trip to Berlin, Germany. If you’re planning on joining us, then here’s some information to help you make the most of your stay.
What: FinovateEurope 2020 – a three-day conference in Berlin, Germany featuring live demonstrations of the latest innovations in financial technology
When: The conference begins Tuesday morning, February 11, with registration at 8:30am and opening remarks at 9:15am. FinovateEurope continues through Thursday, February 13.
Where: FinovateEurope will be held at the Intercontinental Berlin, Budapester Strabe 2, Berlin, Germany.
Why: Finovate’s combination of keynote addresses, panel discussions and debates, and live technology demos is the most exciting way to keep up with what’s new – and what’s next – in the world of fintech innovation.
How: To get tickets and join us? Visit our registration page today and save your spot! Join us for our Industry Stage Day, our Demo Stage Days, or save big with an All-Access Pass that will enable you to enjoy the entire, three-day event.
The collaboration could begin as soon as March. Amazon has not commented on the report either, other than to affirm that lending is one of the services it provides to its merchant partners. In a statement, the company praised its merchants for “account(ing) for more than half of everything sold in Amazon’s stores.”
Goldman’s potential alliance with Amazon follows news of the investment bank’s 2019 partnership with Apple and Mastercard as part of the Apple Card launch. It also comes as the firm makes a number of moves that suggest it is serious about financial technology. Financial News London noted that in addition to partnership changes in recent years that have led to fewer traders and more investment bankers, Goldman Sachs is also “clearing out space for leaders in the new consumer business (it) is building.” The article highlights a pair of new Goldman Sachs partners – the founder of PFM app Clarity, which Goldman acquired in 2018, and the CEO of United Capital, a recent wealth management acquisition – as evidence of this trend.
Another example of Goldman Sachs interest in fintech, of course, is its digital bank offering, Marcus, launched in 2016. At the company’s first investor day last week, Goldman affirmed its commitment to Marcus, pledging to add a digital wealth management component and a checking account to the platform in 2021. Goldman also unveiled a new mobile Marcus app that enables accountholders to check balances, schedule transfers, and make loan payments. As reported in the company’s fourth quarter results, Marcus has $60 billion in consumer deposits.
A possible partnership with Amazon is not the only fintech headline Goldman Sachs has picked up this week. Yahoo Finance is reporting that Goldman may seek to build its own financial services cloud platform as part of a “transformational, multi-decade effort.” The report quotes Goldman Sachs co-Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti who suggested that the company would leverage it own “core technology services” for external uses in the same way that Amazon has with its Amazon Web Services platform, and potentially provide a significant new revenue stream.
The actual scope of Goldman’s initiative is what has most observers and analysts buzzing. Does the company’s stated “transformational, multi-decade effort” essentially mean Goldman-Sachs-as-a-Service? Or a full-fledged AWS competitor? Bank of America and IBM announced their intention to develop a financial services public cloud platform last fall. It will be interesting to see if Goldman’s ambition is to meet, or exceed, that goal.
Recently I came across an interesting story of how tech native GenZ kids were being paired with aging Boomers to help them navigate a variety of contemporary technology tools – from their smartphones to their SnapChat apps.
At a time when sneers like “OK Boomer” quickly trend on social media, it was a refreshing reminder of the role younger generations can play in making some of the dramatic changes in society – including technology – easier for their older family members, friends, neighbors, and even perfect strangers to navigate.
With this in mind, I wanted to take a look at how entrepreneurs are leveraging fintech to do the same thing: make it easier for seniors to not just participate in online life, but to thrive there.
Ensuring that the online and mobile worlds are a safer place for seniors is one of the important contributions that technology can make. EverSafe, which introduced its solution to Finovate audiences at FinovateFall 2014, specializes in leveraging technology to help protect seniors against financial exploitation. The company’s software examines the senior’s financial transactions and credit report on a daily basis, looking for unexpected patterns and other anomalies that may indicate potentially fraudulent activity. Once suspicious activity is detected, the user is alerted immediately and, if the activity is confirmed, a resolution process is started.
Earlier this year, Eversafe lent its technology to researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine in Portland. The goal is to help medical professionals uncover cognitive test markers that correlate with changes in the financial behavior of seniors. Interviewed in Alzheimer’s News Today, Dr. Kathy Wild noted that these insights could help determine when and to what extent independent living is the best option for a given senior. The results of Wild’s study are expected in 2021.
Eversafe was founded in 2012 by Howard Tischler, who is the company’s CEO. The firm is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.
Best of Show winner at FinovateFall 2018, Golden offers technology geared toward helping older Boomers take care of their parents, many of whom are entering assisted living communities. The company’s Financial Caregiving Assistant app and Family Collaboration platform provide an array of services such as security for online accounts; automatic, on-time billpay; expense review; and a family document vault. The offering also helps seniors and caretakers to discover government benefits and drug discounts they may be eligible for. Partnerships with a variety of financial services companies gives Golden users the ability to offer branded services – including legal, financial, estate, and wealth management services – to their customers, as well.
The first company to win AARP’s Financial Innovation Award and Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Aging Innovation Challenge, Golden was launched in 2016 by CEO Evin Ollinger, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Even among hardened fintech fans there was an audible gasp in the room when FinovateAsia 2019 Best of Show winner Bereev‘s CEO announced bluntly that her company’s goal was to help you “plan for your death.” Then again, it’s hard not to take a company that uses the Twitter hashtag #DeathPlan seriously.
Malaysia-based, Bereev digitizes and simplifies a life-planning process that is not only complex, but is also typically paper-intensive and burdensome. In explaining the origins of the company, founder and CEO Izumi Inoue compared the unexpected, end-of-life experience of her grandmother with the passing of her grandfather soon afterward, who had learned from his wife’s death the importance of end-of-life planning. And not just for important documents and the numbers to bank accounts, either. More personal instructions like which friends to contact were also a part of Inoue’s grandfather’s plan. They are a part of Bereev, as well.
A legacy planning solution, Bereev helps guide an individual’s family on what to do in the event of their injury, incapacitation, or death. Bereev has four components to building this contingency plan: a digital vault for important documents such as wills and insurance policies; the ability to record and save “last words” to be sent or shared with loved ones; and an accessibility console that enables the user to determine who gets access to which data and information in Bereev.
The fourth component is a guided journey that helps ensure that users provide clear instructions on how they want their affairs handled after death. The solution is set up so that all the user has to is answer a pair of questions each week, and Bereev will build out over time a personalized set of end-of-life instructions based on the user’s responses. “Before you know it,” Inoue said, “you’ll have very clear instructions left behind.”
Poignantly, Inoue notes that there are many innovations in technology in general and fintech in specific, that help you prepare and take advantage of the happier times in life: getting married, buying a first home, planning for a family. “But what about the darker and tougher times in life,” Inoue asks, “who is going to help you then? At Bereev, our goal is to help you cope through those difficult moments of life – with technology.”
