HT Mobile Apps Acquires Hip Pocket

HT Mobile Apps Acquires Hip Pocket
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Hip Pocket, Mergers & Acquisitions

If you try to access Hip Pocket’s website today, you’ll be redirected to this site: htmobileapps.com/products/hippocket/. That’s because mortgage rate comparison site Hip Pocket has officially been acquired by HT Mobile Apps (HTMA).

Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Hip Pocket is a six-year-old fintech that aims to help consumers compare mortgage, auto loans, and retirement products on their bank’s website. The solution also gives banks a personalized way to engage their clients.

Founded by Mark Zmarzly in 2013, the company has raised over $250,000 across three rounds of funding. At FinovateSpring 2015, Hip Pocket demoed its mortgage comparison site. Two years later, the company graduated from Point of Light accelerator and that same year the company spun out Hip Money, a savings app that specifically targets millennials.

Kathleen Craig, Founder and CEO of HTMA said, “Hip Pocket is a great complement to our range of products. Each of our products empower customers to grow their knowledge of personal finances while also helping financial institutions provide better digital offerings and develop more meaningful relationships with their customers. We are excited to acquire this innovative technology.”

“Kathleen and I have known each other for years and always looked for ways to help each other’s companies,” said Zmarzly. “As we talked more, it became obvious that we could raise the level of impact for banks and customers by working together.”

The acquiring party, HTMA, is a Michigan-based fintech that offers a suite of solutions for banks and credit unions. The company also offers Plinqit, a savings management app; as well as Banker Jr. and Member Jr., apps that teach financial literacy to young clients.

This deal comes at a time when merger and acquisition activity is booming within fintech. So far this year, Finovate alums have inked 32 M&A deals, including the mega-merger announced today between Kony and Temenos. We laid out why all of this M&A is good for fintech in a blog post published this June.

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DefenseStorm Launches New Fraud Monitoring Solution

DefenseStorm Launches New Fraud Monitoring Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: DefenseStorm

Cloud cybersecurity specialist DefenseStorm announced the launch of its latest anti-fraud solution, DefenseStorm FI CyberFraud, this week. FI CyberFraud is designed to spot fraud risks in banking apps as well as identify potentially fraudulent activity in computer systems. The solution leverages designated specialists who work in collaboration with the institution to manage alerts, help in fraud investigations, and serve as an extension of the institution’s own internal operations, fraud, and IT teams.

“Until now, no solution has provided specific monitoring capabilities related to data and application protection, coupled with the ability to correlate events across data, applications, and server/network/workstation events,” DefenseStorm CEO Harold Brewer said. “DefenseStorm FI CyberFraud has the potential to reduce fraud-related costs, improve the financial institution’s risk management posture, and drive cost efficiency related to the required monitoring of cyber activities.”

More specifically, FI CyberFraud analyzes and correlates data from all electronic delivery systems to spot potentially fraudulent behavior and monitors and audits access and configuration changes to both core and ancillary systems such as data warehouses. The technology also tracks transaction activity and databases for atypical usage patterns. DefenseStorm will demonstrate its new solution at the upcoming CUNA Operations and Member Experience Council and Technology Council Conference in Chicago next month.

The new product announcement from DefenseStorm comes just one month after the company picked up a major investment of $15 million in a round led by Georgian Partners. The funding took the company’s total capital to more than $29 million. Also in July, DefenseStorm teamed up with digital banking provider Apiture to offer cloud-based cybersecurity and cybercompliance solutions to its 500+ community bank and credit union partners. This spring, DefenseStorm announced a collaboration with Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union (HTFCU) to help the 50,000-member institution more proactively manage cybercrime risk.

Named a Top 40 Innovative Technology Company by the Technology Association of Georgia at the beginning of the year, DefenseStorm was founded in 2014 in Seattle as Praesidio. The company changed its name to DefenseStorm two years later, and expanded its operations from Seattle, Washington, where it still maintains an office, to Alpharetta, Georgia, where the company is currently headquartered.

DefenseStorm demonstrated PatternScout, its anomaly detection engine, at FinovateSpring 2017. PatternScout uses machine learning to identify potentially fraudulent activity in networks, and provides automated alerts to enable IT professionals and operations teams to stop cyberattacks before they spread.

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Trends at FinovateFall: The Big, the Small, and the Surprises

Trends at FinovateFall: The Big, the Small, and the Surprises
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2019

FinovateFall is happening in less than a month, and we’re taking a look at the fintech trends that will grace the stage over the course of the three-day show.

This year’s word cloud of themes hints at the major points the demoing companies will showcase on September 23 and 24, and leads us to the topics of discussion we’ll see on stage during the panels and keynote discussions on September 25. Register in advance to secure your seat at the show.

I’ve broken down this year’s trends into three groups; the big, the small, and the surprising:

The big trends

Artificial Intelligence (AI)
This is a trend that needs no introduction or explanation. We’ve seen AI come out on top as the largest trend in every Finovate conference this year, and next month’s show will be no different.

Data
Data is a necessary component behind two of this year’s hottest trends– AI and machine learning. And since banks have an overload of data that gets larger by the minute, the way that they manage data is just as important as how they use it.

Compliance
Buried within the regtech subsector of fintech, compliance is one of those topics that no one wants to think about but everyone needs to have a plan for. And these days, compliance is no longer just for banks. With bank-fintech partnerships on the rise, fintechs are increasingly expected to play by the rules, too.

Small but mighty trends

Chatbots
Chatbots may not dominate the conversation at FinovateFall this year but that doesn’t mean people won’t be talking about them. Customer experience is top on the minds of both banks and fintechs alike, and having a chatbot can ease a lot of headaches associated with taking care of customers, including lowering costs, offering the ability to scale, and providing a mobile-first solution.

Customer service
In many ways, 2019 is the era of the customer in fintech. We’ve seen both banks and startups throughout the industry refocus their solutions not only to attain new customers, but also to retain existing ones. As these efforts come to a head, investment in customer service solutions is at an all-time high.

Investing
Investment technologies experienced their hey-day in 2015, when the use of AI was in its infancy and new robo-advisors were launching every week. Now, after much consolidation, investing technology is making a comeback with more sophisticated AI advancements.

Surprising trends

IoT devices
Fintech may be all about technology, but the application of IoT devices has been slow to take off. Applications for Google Glass failed to prove valuable and the growth of Fitbit Pay remained stagnant. Today, not many new players in fintech have come forward.

Mobile wallets
Technology that was the hype of 2011, mobile wallets, are everywhere and no where. A lot of players offer them, including PayPal, Square, and most alt-banking services providers. However, mobile wallets have faded into the background of fintech hype as they have transitioned into a necessity for many players.

Insurtech
Unlike the previous two trends, insurtech is surprising not because it appears in the word cloud of trends we’ll see at FinovateFall, but because it appears to be such a small fraction compared to the size of other trends. The U.S. has never had a large number of insurtech players, especially compared to the U.K., but insurance is widely used across the country. Perhaps 2020 will mark the year of insurtechs in the U.S.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avaloq, Azimo, BeSmartee, DefenseStorm, Fiserv, Hip Pocket, Kony, Kony Solutions, Marqeta, PayActiv, SparkPost, Tink, Token

On Finovate.com

  • Trends at FinovateFall: The Big, the Small, and the Surprises
  • DefenseStorm Launches New Fraud Monitoring Solution
  • From Start-up to Scale-up: Token Introduces New CEO Todd Clyde
  • Temenos Buys Kony to Boost its Front Office Technology for Banks

Around the web

  • PayActiv partners with Fiserv to streamline access to earned wages.
  • ABN Amro teams up with open banking solution provider Tink to bring multi-banking functionality to the bank’s Grip app.
  • Avaloq appoints Imad Abou Haidar as its new Head of Asia.
  • BeSmartee launches its new Mortgage Loan Officer (MLO) Command Center for loan originators.
  • Marqeta to create 175 new jobs in 2019, growing its workforce beyond 400 people.
  • SparkPost unveils new SparkPost Recipient Validation service, a sender reputation protection service that helps eliminate harmful bounces.
  • Azimo’s Richard Ambrose moves from COO to CEO, replacing Michael Kent.

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.

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Finovate Webinar: How Bad Bots Impact Financial Services Customers

Finovate Webinar: How Bad Bots Impact Financial Services Customers
By Charlie Burgess Posted on
Categories: Finovate Webinar

September 17, 2019 | 10am Pacific Time | Register now

What happens when you mix automation with a library of stolen user credentials? This toxic combination allows bad actors to launch sophisticated attack campaigns against your public-facing web, mobile, and API-based applications. Attacks such as account takeovers and fake account creation lead to fraud and theft. This, in turn, has both a financial and reputational impact on financial services organizations.

In this #FinovateWebinar, we will highlight how these automated attacks take full advantage of Bulletproof Proxies, a rapidly growing class of infrastructure providers that have taken the concepts of anonymity and availability found in Bulletproof Hosting and extended them to the delivery infrastructure required to launch automated bot attacks. Topics to be covered will include:

  • Common automated attacks targeting financial services
  • What a Bulletproof Proxy is and why it matters
  • How Bulletproof proxies came to be and their place in the cyber community

Featuring

  • Matt Keil, Director of Product Marketing, Cequence

Register now >>

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NestReady to Enhance the Homebuying Experience at West Community CU

NestReady to Enhance the Homebuying Experience at West Community CU
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: NestReady

Courtesy of a partnership with NestReady, Missouri-based West Community Credit Union will soon offer a new and improved homebuying experience to its 26,000 members. The partnership between West Community CU and NestReady came about after the credit union’s president and CEO, Jason Peach, attended an event at fintech accelerator SixThirty.

“Our credit union strives to be very early adopters of technology that will enhance our members’ experience,” Peach said. “Being at the leading edge of innovation is important as there are many larger financial institutions as well as non-banks vying for our members’ business.” He praised NestReady’s technology as “a transparent environment” that “streamlines the more challenging aspects” of buying a home.

NestReady demonstrated its white label, end-to-end, homebuying platform at FinovateFall 2018. The technology automates many of the more cumbersome, labor-intensive steps in the mortgage process. It also leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to give lenders actionable insights during the customer journey to ensure they are able to effectively engage the homebuyer at critical steps in the purchase process. The goal is to help boost the credit union’s role in the full homebuying experience – from the initial home search and discovery all the way through financing.

“Enabling (credit unions) to offer a true end-to-end homebuying experience and making them the trusted brand for every homebuying need is our primary focus,” NestReady CRO Marcos Carvalho said. He added that the company’s technology would help West Community CU “increase engagement and build loyalty.”

Awarded the Midwest Excellence Institute (MEI) Missouri Quality Award in 2018, West Community Credit Union serves members and businesses in St. Louis, St. Charles, and Boone counties. Founded in 1936 as Brentwood Mutual Credit Union, West Community CU has grown into one of the ten largest credit unions in Missouri, with assets of more than $260 million. The credit union, headquartered in O’Fallon, operates eight branch locations as well as mortgage lender West Community Mortgage, which it launched in 2017.

One of Finovate’s newer alums, NestReady announced in June that it was partnering with technology and marketing credit union service organization, CU Solutions Group (CUSG). NestReady also reported in that announcement that CUSG had made an investment in the company, though the amount was not disclosed. This spring, NestReady announced that a new partnership will also bring its technology to the loan originators of South Carolina mortgage banking company, Resource Financial Services.

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We’ve Got Funding, How About You?

We’ve Got Funding, How About You?
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Arival Bank, Bambu, CredoLab, Funding, Vymo

With FinovateAsia and FinovateMiddleEast coming up later this year, we wanted to pause to take a look at the funding that participants from last year’s shows have received so far this year.

In the first eight months of 2019, four fintechs that participated in FinovateAsia and FinovateMiddleEast 2018 raised more than $23 million combined.

With real funding at stake, what are you waiting for? Apply to demo your tech at FinovateAsia or FinovateMiddleEast today. The application is free and you have nothing to lose!

The Middle East and North Africa startup culture has continued to mature, especially when it comes to early stage companies. Part of the growth can be attributed to the region’s investment in both talent and infrastructure. Coding programs and regional hackathons have not only added to the talent pool of startup recruits, they have also given the startup culture a boost.

In Asia, India has risen as the region’s top country for fintech funding. The $286 million in fintech funding the country raised in Q1 of this year outranks China’s total of $192 million raised for fintechs in that same quarter. Part of the slowdown in China can be attributed to increased regulation in the region.

If your startup is interested in demoing at this year’s FinovateAsia or FinovateMiddleEast conference, contact our demo team at [email protected] or [email protected].

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Digital Onboarding, Flybits, HackerOne, Lending Club, NestReady, Unison

On Finovate.com

  • NestReady to Enhance the Homebuying Experience at West Community Credit Union.

Around the web

  • Tearsheet interviews Flybits CEO Hossein Rahnama on the challenge of digital transformation.
  • Facebook partners with HackerOne to launch bug bounty for its Libra Project.
  • Crowdfund Insider quotes Unison CEO Thomas Sponholtz and Lending Club CEO Scott Sanborn on the trend of fintechs considering a move from the San Francisco area.
  • Hanscom Federal Credit Union selects Digital Onboarding to facilitate account activation.

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.

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Ping Identity Preps for $100 Million IPO

Ping Identity Preps for $100 Million IPO
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ping Identity

Intelligent identity platform Ping Identity is making plans to go public. The company’s registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which paves the way for an initial public offering, was made available late last week.

The number of shares to be offered and the initial price range have not yet been disclosed, but TechCrunch reports that the company could secure a valuation between $2 billion and $3 billion. Ping Identity will list on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “PING.”

Vista Equity Partners, which acquired Ping Identity in 2016 for $600 million, will retain partial ownership of the company post-IPO. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, RBC Capital Markets, and Citigroup are the IPO’s lead underwriters.

Founded in 2003, Ping Identity demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2012. The company’s solutions enable customers and employees to securely and seamlessly access cloud, mobile, SaaS, and on-premises applications and APIs from any location. Ping Identity leverages single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to provide one-click, real-time access and security, helping organizations move toward a “Zero Trust” identity-defined security regime. Named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Access Management in 2019, the company introduced its new private cloud identity solution for the enterprise, PingCloud Private Tenant, earlier this month.

In its prospectus, Ping Identity notes that its platform secures more than two billion identities around the world as of June of this year. More than 50% of the Fortune 100 are Ping Identity customers, as are 12 of the biggest banks and five out of the seven largest retailers in the U.S. The company also highlighted its use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as its role in helping develop open identity standards.

Financially speaking, the company is seeking a return to the profitability it enjoyed in 2017. Ping Identity reported year-over-year revenue growth of 17% the following year, and announced period-over-period revenue growth of 14% for the first six months of this year.

This spring, the company was named Best Identity Management Solution at the 2019 SC Awards, and twice-honored by DeveloperWeek with its Devies and Info Security Global Excellence awards. Ping has forged partnerships this year with companies like fellow Finovate alum TIBCO to leverage AI to help defend APIs against cyberthreats, and with Citrix Analytics to enable contextual access for its Citrix Workspace.

Ping’s competitors in the SSO and MFA solution provider space include heavyweights like IBM and Oracle, as well as Microsoft. And while comparing its technology favorably to the “complex, costly and increasingly fragile” systems of its rivals, Ping Identity has partnered with Microsoft and noted the benefits of this relationship in its prospectus.

“(We) partner with Microsoft to provide SSO, security control and adaptive MFA where non-Microsoft environments require integration or independence is preferred,” the prospectus reads. “Microsoft’s integration and interoperability with our solutions benefits enterprises while providing optionality and choice.”

Ping Identity was founded by Andre Durand, who serves as the company’s CEO. The company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

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ProfitStars Reaches 500 Bank and Credit Union Customers for Commercial Lending Solution

ProfitStars Reaches 500 Bank and Credit Union Customers for Commercial Lending Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ProfitStars

Heading into the fall of 2019, ProfitStars Commercial Lending Center Suite will boast 500 banks, credit unions, and other FIs as customers. The company announced late last week that the milestone had been reached, underscoring the popularity of its solution that leverages automation and digital technology to streamline and enhance the commercial lending process.

Calling commercial lending “the last paper-based process left in banking,” ProfitStars president Russ Bernthal credited the lending technology for helping lending institutions make better decisions, more effectively manage risk, and boost profitability. “By partnering with us, 500 institutions are empowered to more effectively manage borrower relationships from one loan experience to the next, strengthening existing relationships and driving new business opportunities.”

Among the banks and credit unions to deploy ProfitStars Commercial Lending Center Suite in recent months are First National Bank, which selected the technology in May, and First State Community Bank, which announced its decision to deploy the solution in March. In addition to banks, firms like United Capital Funding, an accounts receivables and factoring company, have leveraged ProfitStars commercial lending platform to improve portfolio management and better serve their customers.

“Since installation, we have benefitted from more advanced portfolio management and flexible reporting tools,” United Capital Funding managing partner Ivan Baker said. “The platform also offers comprehensive digital capabilities that allow us to enjoy more touch points with our clients and connect with them when and how they prefer.”

A division of Jack Henry & Associates, ProfitStars demonstrated its Budget Manager solution at FinovateSpring 2012. Budget Manager is a distributed budgeting tool that enables administrators to access front line budget data and input in into the ProfitStars ALM/Budgeting app. The company’s offerings, which also include check imaging, card processing, and payment solutions, help its 9,000 customers manage risk, control costs, optimize revenue, and support growth.

In addition to ProfitStars partnership news this year, the company’s new product releases made fintech headlines, as well. This spring, ProfitStars introduced its Gladiator Total Protect solution, a suite of managed, IT, network security, and compliance services for banks. The release of Gladiator Total Protect follows the launch of its Gladiator iPay Enterprise Security Monitoring solution, made available last fall.

ProfitStars is headquartered in Allen, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Bento for Business, ID R&D, LoanScorecard, Ping Identity, Revolut, Xero

On Finovate.com

  • Ping Identity Preps for $100 Million IPO.
  • ProfitStars Reaches 500 Bank and Credit Union Customers for Commercial Lending Solution.

Around the web

  • PYMNTS interviews  Bento for Business Co-Founder and CEO Farhan Ahmad.
  • OnPay partners with Xero to bring back-office services to the agricultural industry.
  • Innov8tif selects ID R&D’s Passive Facial Liveness for remote customer onboarding.
  • LoanScorecard to power new QuickQual loan solution from Angel Oak.
  • ACI Worldwide to help Massachusetts-based Nichols College enhance its payment processes.
  • Revolut bolsters executive ranks with appointment of new treasurer, deputy Chief Financial Officer, and director of financial crime risk.

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.

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Xendpay Joins RippleNet to Bring Fee-Free Cross Border Payment Options to SE Asia

Xendpay Joins RippleNet to Bring Fee-Free Cross Border Payment Options to SE Asia
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Xendpay

By joining RippleNet – the global payments network that leverages blockchain technology to quickly and inexpensively facilitate transactions – cross-border money transfer specialist Xendpay will bring its fee-agnostic remittance service to customers in countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

This includes access to its Pay What You Want feature that enables customers to pay no fees on transfers totaling $2,500 over the course of a calendar year. For businesses, the option is twice as valuable with a $5,000 fee-free limit.

“Most of our customers are migrants who are sending money back home,” Xendpay Head of Product Innovation Bhavin Vaghela said. “This money is vital to support their families: to pay rent or mortgage, electricity bills, medical fees, and education costs.” He added that, as an online service, Xendpay is able to save on overhead and pass that savings on to the customer.

“I think of our fees as similar to providing a tip,” Vaghela said. “If you feel like you’ve been treated well, received a good rate and enjoyed the experience, you might pay the recommended rate. We’ve even had clients pay us more.”

In joining RippleNet, Xendpay and its customers will benefit from a significant increase in processing speed for international money transfers, according to Vaghela. He noted that a transfer in a currency like the Thai Baht that might have taken up to four days to complete, now takes less than an hour courtesy of RippleNet’s technology and network of partners. Not only does the partnership with RippleNet accelerate the money transfers Xendpay has always offered, but also the collaboration enables Xendpay to provide money transfers it previously felt it could not.

“We were unable to offer currencies like Malaysian Ringgit or Bangladeshi Taka before,” Vaghela said. “Now that it’s easier to connect with local partners, we can provide our clients with more local currencies and, therefore, see new growth in those corridors.”

Xendpay demonstrated its cash-to-cash mobile international payment service at FinovateEurope 2013. Founded in 2012 by Paresh Davdra and Rajesh Agrawal, CEO, and headquartered in London, U.K., the company offers its services in 200+ countries, and transfers funds in more than 50 currencies and 2,900+ currency pairs. Xendpay is agent of foreign currency exchange payments firm RationalFX, founded in 2005 by Davdra and Agrawal.

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