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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on October 14 through 15, 2019 in Singapore. Register today and save your spot.
Libertypool is empowering people around the world to achieve financial independence through asset accumulation, especially by cryptocurrency investment.
Features
A borderless investment platform for busy investors
A diversified portfolio reflecting the entire cryptocurrency market with 99% accuracy
Customers need 60 seconds to start investing
Why it’s great LPx is the first borderless investment platform that enables people to invest with as little as $500 in the entire cryptocurrency market in a few clicks.
Presenters
Yu Yamanaka, CEO Yamanaka is a high-tech entrepreneur. He worked for startups in security, media, and AI for eight years. He entered the blockchain world as a CTO of an ICO platform that raised $9 million through a token sale. LinkedIn
Goku Anand, Head of Growth An author of ebooks on online marketing and growth hacking, Anand has more than five years of startup experience in growth hacking, digital marketing, branding, and video marketing. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on October 14 through 15, 2019 in Singapore. Register today and save your spot.
ExchangeConnect, from S-Ancial, focuses on incorporating the resourcefulness of data intelligence to empower capital markets. The company effectively integrates the global market ecosystem with its proprietary technology.
Features
Pioneers pre-transaction technologies
Gathers unstructured data and structures flow of information
Provides seamless communication and enhanced outreach between stakeholders
Why it’s great If all data released into the capital market ecosystem can be structured and machine-learnable, automation can take over, benefitting all stakeholders. ExchangeConnect does this.
Presenter
Pradip Seth, Managing Director Seth founded S-Ancial in 2014 as a fintech startup. He has broad knowledge of global corporate governance and disclosure practices. He has been spearheading the development of ExchangeConnect. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on October 14 through 15, 2019 in Singapore. Register today and save your spot.
ChintaMoney is proactively easing financial stress for individuals across the globe through a combination of open banking and payments with a personalized suite of financial products and services.
Features
Payments merged with budgeting
Financial literacy
Complete finance products and services in one application
Why it’s great ChintaMoney is a proactive, turnkey personal finance solution that combines payments with financial products and services.
Presenters
Uday Wagh, CEO Wagh is an innovator and serial entrepreneur, having launched scientific inventions in botany and physics before delving into theater as an actor and finally beginning his career in fintech. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on October 14 through 15, 2019 in Singapore. Register today and save your spot.
FinBit.io, a leading data aggregation and analytics platform, is launching a disruptive credit analytics and scoring product – BankScore – to solve for people suffering with traditional credit scores.
Features
BankScore is based on analysis of an individual’s bank transactions
Real-time aggregation and analytics using machine learning
Solution addresses the large population that struggles with credit scores
Why it’s great Traditional credit scores are broken and incomplete for developing economies as the majority of people may not have a credit card or loan history. BankScore disrupts just by analyzing a bank account.
Presenter
Prashant Paliwal, Founder and CEO Paliwal was driving Yodlee’s APAC fintech business before starting FinBit.io to address large pain points in India and Asia. He is a fellow from MIT Sloan, earned an MS from the University of Cincinnati, and holds two patents. LinkedIn
Ashvi Mittal, Product Manager Mittal is instrumental in devising core analytics algorithms and products as well as driving sales from Mumbai. She holds an MS in Finance from EDHEC France. LinkedIn
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Cloud banking innovator nCinogarnered its largest funding round to date, bringing in $80 million. The round was led by a group of investors advised by T. Rowe Price, with participation from existing investor Salesforce Ventures.
Today’s round elevates nCino’s total funding to over $213 million. The company will use the new investment to boost research and development efforts for the nCino Bank Operating System, expand globally, hire new talent, and develop the skills of its 750 person-strong workforce.
“Since day one, our vision has been to be the worldwide leader in cloud banking,” said Pierre Naudé, CEO of nCino. “We believe that a strong partner ecosystem is critical to maintaining a customer-centric approach in everything we do. This strategic fundraise aligns with that vision and mission by leveraging the investment approaches of two industry leaders to help us further scale our business and Bank Operating System to continue enabling financial institutions to provide the kind of personalized, streamlined and fast experiences that customers have come to expect in the digital era.”
nCino demoed its Bank Operating System at FinovateEurope 2017. The SaaS solution is built on the Salesforce platform and aims to create efficiencies for financial services companies in delivering personalized onboarding, loan origination, and deposit account opening experiences.
Recently, nCino has partnered with Santander UK, teamed up with Mambu to create a banking solution for B-North, and acquired analytics firm Visible Equity.
With offices in London, Sydney, Toronto, Salt Lake City, and Wilmington, North Carolia, nCino serves a growing list of 1,100 financial services clients ranging in size from $30 million to $2 trillion.
Digital banking technology provider Efigence is deepening ties with Poland’s Alior Bank through a partnership with Alior Kantor, the bank’s online banking currency exchange brokerage.
Alior Kantor has deployed Efigence’s EFI4, a digital banking platform that combines off-the-shelf technology with a customized user experience for each client. The new user interface was recently introduced in Alior Kantor’s Polish and Romanian markets.
With the new launch, Efigence’s EFI4 fuels a new version of Alior Kantor that helps improve customer interaction with the bank and generate revenue by way of customer acquisition, up-selling, and maintenance. The new platform aims to offer a seamless user experience starting from onboarding, which takes less than five minutes. Accounts come with a multi-currency card with competitive exchange rates, account-to-account and peer-to-peer money transfer capability, weekend currency exchange, and more.
“We are more than happy that this product was implemented in two independent markets – Poland and Romania. It’s undoubtedly the right choice for modern and digital-based financial companies like Alior Bank,” said Marek Lesiak, Efigence President and CTO. “Thanks to this powerful digital banking platform the currency exchange has never been so smooth and easy. Moreover Alior Kantor, based on EFI4, is fully compliant with PSD2 and offers facilities for third party providers.”
Today’s news comes two years after Efigence began working with Alior Bank in the Romanian market and more than a decade after Efigence first began working with Alior. The digital banking technology provider’s other clients include Idea Bank, mBank, Nordea, Kontomierz, and Emirates NBD.
Efigence, which most recently demoed at FinovateEurope 2018, took home Best of Show honors for its demo with mBank in 2013. Efigence was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Poland.
If there is one region where “A Tale of Two Fintechs” applies, that region is Asia.
From blockchain-based innovations in trade finance to leveraging mobile to better serve the historically underbanked, fintech’s role in Asia is not just a tale of economic and technological development. Increasingly, it is a story of leadership in solving real world problems, as well.
As Finovate returns to Singapore for FinovateAsia next week, we thought it would be an ideal opportunity to look at some of the notable numbers and key trends in fintech in the region.
Singapore
Singapore is home to 500+ fintech startups and 40+ innovation labs
Fintechs in Singapore picked up more than $370 million in funding in 2018
The fintech adoption rate by consumers in Singapore topped the global average this year.
When it comes to fintech, Singapore is clearly punching above its weight. With a smaller population, fewer local customers, and a modest pool of tech talent to draw from compared to the U.S., the U.K., and China, the fact that Singapore was ranked fourth in a listing of global fintech hubs – after the U.K., and the east and west coasts of the U.S. (judged separately in a report from Ernst & Young) – is a testament to the vibrancy of Singapore fintech.
How does Singapore do it? Close alliances and mentorships, including private-public partnerships and a willingness to work with other countries and fintech hubs around the world are one factor. The city-state’s central bank and financial regulatory body, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, has pledged to commit $168 million over the next five years to support collaborations between financial institutions and fintechs. Singapore has also begun issuing more digital banking licenses in recent months. Could a booming challenger bank industry be far behind?
$25.5 billion in fintech deals in 2018 according to Accenture; 44% of all fintech investments worldwide
Top Deals in 2018: Ant Financial’s Alipay raised $14 billion, Baidu spinoff Du Xiaoman Financial raised $4.3 billion, Lufax raised $1.3 billion
Four of the top 10 fintechs in the world are Chinese according to H2Ventures and KPMG
Payments dominate Chinese fintech: 34 out of top 100 fintechs are payments companies. And with ecommerce driving much of fintech innovation in China, many are wondering what the next big thing in the industry will be? Some have suggested that wealth management, catering to a new generation of Chinese investors, may be the next frontier for innovation in Chinese fintech.
Hong Kong-based fintechs received $545.7 million in funding in 2017
Host to more than 550 fintech companies, Hong Kong has a 67% fintech adoption rate
80% of publicly-funded tertiary educational institutions have fintech-related programs for undergraduates or graduates
Public-private partnerships are a key driver of fintech innovation in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s launch of its Faster Payment System in 2018 paved the way for instant fund transfers between the Chinese renminbi and the Hong Kong dollar, as well as the issuance of eight virtual banking licenses this year. The Monetary Authority is also responsible for introducing a trade finance platform based on blockchain technology.
The overall transaction value for the Indian fintech industry is estimated at more than $66 billion in 2019 by PwC
Indian fintechs received $1.8 billion in venture capital funding across 97 investments in 2018
With a fintech adoption rate second only to China’s, India surpassed China in the number of fintech deals in Q2 of 2019
India is often overlooked in the conversation on Asian fintech. But the most notable aspect of the country’s experiment with mobile payments, its unified payment interface (UPI), has been a dramatic display of the power of interoperability. In the three years since UPI was launched, the service facilitated 800 million monthly transactions. More than 140 Indian banks are participating in UPI and both Alphabet’s Google and Facebook’s WhatsApp offer instant payments via the technology.
The ASEAN region is the third largest region in Asia and consists of Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia
In Southeast Asia, less than 30% of adults have access to formal banking services. Approximately 33% of SMEs lack access to business financing
Market growth of the fintech market in Southeast Asia is expected to reach as much as $70 billion by 2020
The fintech industry of Southeast Asia is increasingly gaining the attention of analysts and investors alike. Earlier this year, Indonesian e-commerce payments and lending innovator Akulaku picked up a $40 million investment from Ant Financial. The #1 payment app in Vietnam, Momo, closed a Series C investment at the beginning of the year valued at $100 million.
And while financial inclusion is a huge theme for the underbanked in this region, innovations in a variety of fintech subcategories should be recognized, as well. For example, fintechs like Jitta in Thailand are bringing digital investing solutions to the region while Malaysia’s mortgagetech innovator MHub offers networking and collaboration solutions for property developers and financial services professionals.
OurCrowd to open its 13th global office in São Paulo, Brazil.
Jack Henryappoints Ted Bilke as new CTO and promotes Greg Adelson to new Chief Operating Officer position.
Deloitte Romania and FintechOSpartner to offer banks digital transformation and automation solutions.
Finastralaunches Fusion Mortgagebot Data Insights, a tool to benchmark mortgage borrower information for banks and credit unions against other Fusion MortgagebotPOS users.
InCommadds Giant Eagle to its Healthcare OTC Network.
Westcon-Comstor to distributeCheck Point Software.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
A pair of Finovate alums – Privakey and bleu – have earned spots in the 2020 class of the IBM Hyper Protect Accelerator. The program, launched this June, is dedicated to supporting innovative startups in both the fintech and healthtech industries. A total of 15 companies from nine countries were selected for the Accelerator’s incoming class.
Each participating startup will get up to $120,000 in IBM Cloud credits, an in-person workshop in the U.S., technical and business mentorship, and business value design assistance, as well as access to IBM’s network of partners, customers, and stakeholders. Startups will also work with program collaborators such as IBM Alpha Zone, Queen City Fintech, and MEDICI.
The IBM Hyper Protect Accelerator added that it will use IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services powered by LinuxONE to ensure program startups have “the highest level of security, uptime, availability” as they innovate and scale their solutions.
Privakey demonstrated its cloud-based, identity and authentication service at FinovateFall 2017. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Privakey began the year with the release of the latest version of its Privakey CX solution. Last month, the company launched its PSD2 Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) solution.
“Our PSD2 compliant solution is designed to eliminate what merchants fear most about SCA – shopping cart abandonment,” Privakey CEO Charlie Durkin said. “The customer experiences a transaction flow that is intuitive, simple, consistent, and contextual. Privakey eliminates out-of-band codes and other inconvenient authentication methods typically associated with SCA.”
Making its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2015, bleu leverages low energy Bluetooth beacons to facilitate mobile transactions. A small wireless device sends a Bluetooth signal to a customer’s Bleu app when they enter a store. The beacon links the customer with the store and when the customer is ready to pay, they choose their preferred method of payment to automatically complete the transaction.
The Los Angeles, California-based company was founded in 2014. Sesie Bonsi is CEO.
Along with Privakey and bleu, the rest of the cohort is below:
Azaad Health (healthtech – Pakistan)
BioTrillion (healthtech – U.S.)
Cube Wealth (fintech – India)
encore (fintech – U.A.E./Pakistan)
Fostrum (fintech – Canada)
Galen Data (healthtech – U.S.)
Home Lending Pal (mortgagetech – U.S.)
MotionsCloud (insurtech – German)
My Allergy (healthtech – U.K.)
px pulse (healthtech – U.S./Pakistan)
Verge.Capital (fintech – Ireland)
Wayapay (fintech – Kenya)
Well Kept Beauty (healthtech – U.S.)
The startups selected for the Class of 2020 were chosen by an expert panel of peers from IBM and Queen City Fintech. The criteria used by the panelists included team, value proposition, mission, problem statement, vision, target market, business and economic model, and technical roadmap.
With FinovateEurope set to make its German debut next February, it is especially gratifying to hear that investors are voting with their dollars when it comes to identifying and backing innovative European fintechs.
Hamburg-based online lender and POS financing firm Kreditech announced late last week that it has raised $24 million (€22 million) in funding. The round, led by Runa Capital, takes the company’s total equity financing to more than $519 million, and will be used to deepen its presence in existing markets, especially in Asia.
“I am really excited about our growth plans in India,” Kreditech CEO David Chan said. “We hold a first-of its-kind digital NBFC (non-banking financial company) license in a large and fast-growing market. We have been successful in finding our niche and have established the right proof of concept. Now it’s time to scale up while a key target customer segment remains unaddressed by the competition.”
Also participating in the round were existing investors HPE Growth and Amadeus Capital Partners, as well as private German investors.
Kreditech specializes in offering financing products to “near-prime” customers. In 2014, the company made its Finovate debut, demonstrating how its self-learning, proprietary algorithm accurately assessed the creditworthiness of loan applicants in less than a minute. The technology leverages up to 10,000 current data points to provide better insights into the finances of underbanked applicants who might otherwise struggle to secure credit.
The funding news for Kreditech comes as the company previews its 2018 financial statement, to be released in October. Chan said that Kreditech was “on track” to hit profitability targets, and added that the company was up to the task of “rapid, profitable growth.” In its funding statement, the company noted that it is aiming for $1 billion euros in revenue by 2025.
With more than 300 employees in seven countries and lending operations in India, Poland, Russia, and Spain, Kreditech is also developing regional centers of excellence and tech centers in its native Poland, as well as Romania and Thailand. The company was founded in 2012.
Toronto-based DUCA Financial Services Credit Union has selected Fiserv and its DNA core account processing platform with the aim to modernise its operations and improve overall agility and efficiency, reports Alex Hamiton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
Doug Conick, president and CEO of DUCA, says the credit union’s approach has always been about “high touch” and “high tech.” “We needed an intelligent, agile core platform provider that will strengthen our ability serve members both now and in the future,” he added.
Founded in 1954 as Dutch Canadian Toronto Credit Union, DUCA operates 16 branches and employs more than 260 people. The credit union’s transition to the new core platform will be led by Canadian financial technology provider Celero.
“Our focus is on helping credit unions like DUCA gain the operational and relationship management advantages they need to accelerate their growth strategies,” said Simon Vincent, executive vice president for banking and omnichannel at Celero.
“Through our technology integration experience and relationships with organizations like Fiserv, we are helping drive credit unions’ digital transformation goals forward.”
Rob Palin, general manager for Canada at Fiserv, said that DNA is a system that can provide a “complete view” of member relationships: “Along with our partner, Celero, we are committed to helping DUCA meet its aggressive implementation timeline and growth initiatives.”
Fiserv demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2018. Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, the company merged with First Data earlier this year in a deal valued at $22 billion.
