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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
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.
As we approach the end of the summer, we reignite our #WomeninFintech series. We recently spoke with Kathleen Craig, CEO, HTMA creators of Banker Jr. and Plinqit about what inspired her to launch fintech software for banks and credit unions to engage their next generation of customers and why she thinks the future of fintech has to become more relationship driven.
Finovate: How did you start your career?
Kathleen Craig: I have more than a decade of banking and customer service experience. Prior to launching HTMA, I served as Vice President of eServices at a Michigan-based community bank. I studied Business Administration at Eastern Michigan University.
Finovate: What sparked your interest in fintech?
Craig: During my time with eServices in 2010 through 2012, I could see the writing on the wall that our community bank was going to need to compete in the digital arena. At the time the large cores were making this really hard to do. I understood that open banking and open API’s were an inevitability and I wanted to be a part of driving our industry forward to a place where only the largest technology companies could use technology and consumer data to serve $1 billion bank customers better.
Finovate: What prompted you to launch HTMA/Banker Jr etc.?
Craig: My motivation to create HTMA came from my passion for technology, children, and financial literacy. Our first product, Banker Jr. for banks and Member Jr. for credit unions, launched in January 2013 to provide financial education to children while giving institutions the opportunity to tap into their up and coming customer base through a branded platform. The solution is now licensed by financial institutions in nineteen states.
Finovate: Why is it important to teach financial literacy to children?
Craig: Financial education is lacking, especially among the youngest generations, and we are seeing the effects in consumer financial behavior and saving habits. In fact, according to GOBankingRates, over half (58 percent) of American adults do not have $1,000 in their savings accounts to cover emergency expenses, and many are struggling to pay down debt. Forbes reported that 38 percent of United States households carry credit card debt. Just under half (43 percent) of individuals with student loans are not making payments. Additionally, one in three Americans have no money saved for retirement.
Meanwhile, only 16.4 percent of United States students are required to take a personal finance course to graduate high school, however, the group where the biggest lack of financial literacy can be seen is Millennials, with only 24 percent demonstrating basic financial knowledge. This is a serious problem.
Finovate: Why is it important for banks to embrace new tech?
Craig: One of the biggest differentiators for community financial institutions is their customer service and ability to help their community members. However, increasingly people are not walking in the doors, so technology is going to be the best way for them to translate that great customer service to a digital experience. To do this, we are going to have to push for it and be creative and innovative. Digital lends itself to transactions versus relationships, but we believe it can do both.
Finovate: Where do you think the future of fintech is heading?
Craig: It has to be more relationship driven. While it is great that folks can check balances, deposit checks and transfer money, people really need guidance and help with their money. Right now education and guided experience is not happening yet in fintech. There is a lot of talk about AI, chatbots and data driven tech, but measured successful outcomes that demonstrate a customer is better off having used your platform is what fintechs need to be striving for. The future of fintechs needs to be made up of less buzzwords and more customer results.
Finovate: What piece of advice would you give women starting out their career in finance/ fintech?
Craig: First, you need to do what you are passionate about. Secondly, have great mentors and advocates. The wider and more diverse your circle is the more fun you will have and the more success you will be able to achieve by learning from those you surround yourself with.
Wealthtech firm Wealthfront made its first acquisition today. The California-based company has purchased Grove for an undisclosed amount. Grove is a four year old virtual financial planning and advice company with $4 million in assets under management and is headquartered in California.
Not included in Wealthfront’s purchase are the clients behind Grove’s accounts, which number close to 500. Grove has entered into a strategic agreement with Facet Wealth to offer financial planning to these clients, who will be able to transition to Facet Wealth starting tomorrow. With Facet, clients will receive three check-ins per year, a dedicated financial planner, investment recommendations, and a strategy session for $780 per year plus a set-up fee of $560. Additionally, Facet anticipates that some of Grove’s CFPs and planning employees will transition over to its team.
Wealthfront is making the purchase to bolster its Self-Driving Money vision. Under the new initiative, Wealthfront takes control of the user’s finances by allocating their paycheck once it is deposited into their account. The tool will ensure all bills are paid, deposit the appropriate amount into each savings account, and contribute to the best investments to help the user attain their goals.
Grove Cofounder and CEO Chris Hutchins said, “We’ve always appreciated the role technology and automation can play in scaling quality financial advice. We are dedicated to the vision of Self-Driving Money as we believe it will have a huge impact on how people manage their finances.”
This is Wealthfront’s first reveal of its Self-Driving Money plans. The launch depicts a departure from the high-touch model competitors such as Betterment and Personal Capital have added to their offerings. It shows that, in an era of customer service revolution in fintech, Wealthfront is sticking with its robo roots. If Wealthfront serves as a place where consumers deposit their paycheck, they can gain a better foothold to compete with traditional banks.
Wealthfront debuted as KaChing at FinovateSpring 2009. The company pivoted as Wealthfront in 2015. Last year, Wealthfront unveiled a host of new offerings, including a freemium model, homeownership planning tool, and an integration with TurboTax that leverages user’s data to offer a more personalized experience.
Akamai has teamed up with CashFlows to help the U.K.-based fintech protect cardholder and personal data from cyberattack. CashFlows will leverage Akamai’s Kona Site Defender solution, which provides DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) mitigation, web app security, and 24/7 monitoring. CashFlows added that the new security solution from Akamai also will enable it to add more payment options and products to its platform. Cryptocurrencies, data analytics, and gateways were among the additional solutions that could be introduced. All will be supported by Akamai security technology.
CashFlows CTO Mat Peck credited Akamai’s “global network and expertise” in explaining the company’s decision to work together. This expertise included Akamai’s track record in defending companies against some of the largest DDoS attacks in the world. Kona Site Defender runs on the edge servers of the Akamai Intelligent Edge platform. The fact that the system is supported by Fast DNS means that CashFlows can service its customers via local DNS servers while adding a layer of DDoS protection. “We need to make sure anyone anywhere in the world can make local connections to our service, in a way that is resilient and incredibly protected,” Peck said.
One of the first independent U.K. payments firms to be accepted as a principal member of both Mastercard and Visa, CashFlows currently processes payments for more than 1,000 customers and powers 34,000+ ATMs throughout Europe. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Cambridge, the company provides merchant services, alternative payments, and BIN Sponsorship solutions via its cloud-based payments platform. Martin Belsham is CEO.
Akamai demonstrated the Client Reputation feature of Kona Site Defender at FinovateEurope 2015. The service enables FIs to identify which IP addresses are likely to represent a web or DDoS attacker, web scraper, or scanning tool. More recently, Akamai unveiled its Enterprise Defender solution to help its customers transition toward Zero Trust security regime. The company launched its Edge Cloud solution line in June, which facilitates data delivery between IoT connected devices and in-app messaging at scale. The launch highlighted Akamai’s IoT Edge Connect, a product that provides a secure framework for sending and publishing information using Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) common to IoT and in-app messaging.
Akamai began the year with news that it planned to acquire customer identity access management company Janrain. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and founded in 1998, Akamai trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker AKAM. The company has a market capitalization of $14 billion.
Data-as-a-service (DaaS) startup DemystDatareceived $12.5 million in a Series C round co-led by MissionOG and Notion Capital. Singtel Innov8 also participated in the round, which raises the New York-based company’s total funding to $31.5 million.
DemystData will use the funds to further develop its data platform, bolster its workforce, and increase data onboarding. The company offers an alternative data marketplace that helps banks and businesses protect themselves against fraud using email and address verification, criminal history information, and data on negative online sentiment. Leveraging its third party data warehouse, DemystData also offers property information for risk underwriting, as well as commercial marketing segmentation.
In 2018, DemystData launched its API-based external data platform. The data-as-a-service tool helps bank’s data teams improve their growth, risk, and compliance workflows.
“This is an exciting time for us,” said DemystData Founder and CEO Mark Hookey. “Data demand is growing from AI, digitization, and faster innovation cycles. Clients are rapidly adopting platforms to meet data compliance needs, support testing, and eliminate the friction from the external data.”
With AI evolving into a hot topic these past few years, data services have become increasingly popular. DaaS companies such as DemystData are fueling the AI era by breaking down silos of big data and creating a type of subscription service for live data streams. These information services companies allow firms to break outside of their internal data sources by accessing real-time data streams.
This information services vertical is a $50 billion market. In the past four years, the number of enterprises demanding information services rose from 17% to 59%. “Over the past 12 months we have doubled ARR, tripled our data access, and tripled our client base,” added Hookey.
At FinovateAsia 2012, DemystData debutedCredit-in-a-Box, a suite of tools that help banks leverage big data to make better lending decisions. Among the company’s competitors are Alpine Data Labs, TIBCO, and MX.
Payment security solutions company Bluefin is expanding its expertise this week with the launch of ShieldConex, a tool to help secure personal data for firms in retail, hospitality, healthcare, and high education verticals.
With ShieldConex, firms can enter sensitive consumer data– including personally identifiable information and card data– into forms embedded on their website. Once sensitive data is entered into an online form, Bluefin’s technology immediately tokenizes it, replacing it with a Format Preserving Token (FPT) or Format Preserving Encryption (FPE) that can be used in the same way as the original data. With the encryption in place, even if an organization is hacked, the fraudster only sees tokenized data, which is useless to them.
The new tools allows merchants to remain compliant in encrypting their data while maintaining control over the embedded, client-facing form.
According to Bluefin Chief Strategy Officer Ruston Miles, the company is currently “in testing” to help a major airline tokenize user information entered online. “What makes this system unique is the fact that we will collect the information on behalf of the client first, and then perform FPT or FPE. Thus, the client never touches the sensitive data on their web property and the partner gets back a vaultless token for storage – it’s the best of both worlds,” added Miles.
Originally focused exclusively on securing the payment experience, Bluefin offers token-based payment processing, payment tokenization, point-to-point encryption, EMV authentication, and Payment iFrame, a tool that allows merchants to embed an iFrame in their checkout page to encrypt user-entered payment data.
Miles gave a presentation at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014 about how Bluefin’s point-to-point encryption can help with PCI compliance. Recently, the Georgia-based company partnered with NCR and Powertranz to help secure NCR’s Aloha POS solution.
Bluefin has raised $6 million and was founded in 2007. John Perry is CEO.
Global US-based fintech, Fiserv, announces its open core platform will now serve Long Island-based credit union, NEFCU, to help transform the credit union’s member experience and drive innovation, reports Ruby Hinchliffe of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
The fintech’s DNA core account processing platform was chosen for its open architecture and APIs, and its ability to service all loan types from a single system. The move to Fiserv will also facilitate NEFCU’s planned introduction of self-service kiosks.
NEFCU, who has more than $3 billion in assets, hopes that through the new partnership it will be able to deliver more personalised services and relevant product offerings, with a look to add integrated solutions from Fiserv too, including content management and wire transfers.
“Our goal is to become the financial institution technology leader on Long Island, and we wanted a core platform that could help us achieve that goal,” said NEFCU CEO, John Deieso. “We needed a core platform that was future-oriented, and a partner committed to continuous investment in its technologies.”
Fiserv believes “the right technology” can enable credit unions to meet “rapidly evolving expectations” expectations of its members and drive growth as a result.
Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Fiserv demoed its integration of Samsung SDS America’s biometric authentication and collaboration solutions into its Commercial Center: Security solution at FinovateSpring 2018. The company announced late last month that it had completed its $22 billion merger with First Data.
SumUpto power card payments for Fleximize members.
Wiproteams up with Blue Prism to launch new automation lab in Australia.
AiThority talks withDataSine CEO Igor Volzhanin on the role of machine learning and AI in marketing technology.
IdentityMindpicks up new patent for digital identity-based automated review.
Tinkurges regulators to “be flexible” when it comes to the implementation deadline of September 14 for PSD2.
Flybitsnamed to the Digital Finance Institute’s list of Canada’s Top 50 Fintech Companies for 2019.
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.
An agreement between alternative investment platform Artivest and WM Partners will allow the middle-market, private equity firm expand its ability to reach qualified high net worth (HNW) investors and financial advisors.
WM Partners co-founder Jose Minski highlighted this opportunity as a key reason behind the collaboration. “Artivest provides us with the scalability and efficiency to broaden our exposure to a more diversified investor base,” Minski said. “We are eager to harness Artivest’s open architecture platform to engage with advisors and qualified investors who are looking to add a private equity solution that strives to generate diversified returns within their portfolios.”
A specialist in buyout investments in the health and wellness sector, WM Partners focuses on creating scalable businesses by acquiring, integrating, and consolidating tuck-in acquisitions, and driving operational efficiencies to boost growth. Based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the firm emphasizes companies in the natural personal care, natural remedies, and functional foods businesses, and features a senior team with more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, consumer, and health and wellness industries.
Chief Investment Officer for Artivest Matt Osborne underscored the growth of the health and wellness sector as an investment opportunity. “Health and wellness brands have been continuing to gain market share for over a decade, and now advisors and investors can attempt to improve the health of their products by seamlessly and cost-effectively accessing this unique alternative solution through our digital platform,” Osborne said.
Artivest’s latest partnership news comes just days after the company announced the appointment of new CEO, Martin Bealieu, who previously served as Artivest executive chairman. Bealieu takes over the top spot from former CEO and founder James Waldinger, who will take the role of executive chairman. Bealieu is only the most recent C-suite shift for the company, which hired Karl Jaeger as Chief Financial Officer in June, and appointed Paul Nobile as Chief Marketing Officer in May.
An alum of FinovateSpring, Artivest demonstrated its online platform for alternative investments in 2014. The New York City-based company began 2019 with news of a platform expansion that added product structuring and fund distribution solutions for asset and wealth managers. Over the course of this year, the company has forged partnerships with Sudrania Fund Services, institutional investment manager LaSalle, and alternative investment manager EJF Capital.
Artivest has raised $17 million in funding, and includes FinTech Collective and Signatures Capital among its most recent investors. The company was founded in 2011.
Sometimes the best way to determine the latest trends is to ask the experts.
So that’s exactly what we’ll be doing at FinovateFall next month when three of fintech’s most renowned analysts take the stage to offer their take on what they see as today’s hottest trend in fintech.
Join us for the Analyst All Star session at FinovateFall next month; September 23 through 25 in New York (you won’t want to miss out; register today). Each analyst will have seven minutes on stage to describe their thoughts on what’s driving fintech innovation today. Here’s who you can expect to see on stage:
Alyson Clarke @alysonmclarke
Clarke is a principal analyst at Forrester. With more than 19 years of financial services industry experience, she is a highly skilled expert with extensive industry experience in both wealth management and banking. Clarke has global expertise, having previously worked at Forrester in the financial services vertical in Forrester’s Sydney, London, and San Francisco offices. She is now based in New York and specializes in digital and non-digital channel strategy and innovation. In particular, Clarke focuses on the sales, service, and customer experience of financial services and advice across online channels, smartphones, tablets, and branches.
Jacob Jegher @jjegher
Jegher is an experienced fintech executive and digital banking thought leader. He advises clients on emerging technologies and business strategies related to retail, small business, and corporate digital banking. Jegher provides strategic consulting to financial institutions and solution providers on issues ranging from digital strategy to vendor selection. In addition to his client-facing responsibilities, Jegher leads Javelin’s overall strategy, marketing, and product development efforts.
Most recently, Jegher was Vice President of Global Solution Marketing and Head of Analyst Relations at FIS, where he was responsible for marketing strategy efforts across all business units and solutions. Jegher also brings extensive expertise in the banking research and consulting field, having spent over 10 years as a Research Director at Celent.
Alissa Knight @alissaknight
Knight is a senior analyst with Aite Group where she is focused on researching cybersecurity issues impacting the financial services, healthcare, and fintech industries by assessing sector trends, creating segment taxonomies, looking at market sizing, preparing forecasts, and developing industry models. She provides market research, competitive intelligence, and consulting services in the cybersecurity market through unbiased, objective and accurate research and content development. Out of her research, Knight produces reports and white papers, as well as provides advisory services and often keynotes at cybersecurity conferences, seminars, and roundtables.
Knight also sits as the Chairperson on the Board of Directors for Brier & Thorn and was previously CEO of Applied Watch and Netstream.
JumiojoinsNICE Actimize’s financial crime, risk management based ecosystem, X-Sight Marketplace.
CashFlows partners with Akamai to defend against cybercrime, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
Bpm’onlinewinsBest CRM Solution for Enterprises at MarTech Breakthrough Awards.
Kony launchesConversational AI DevKit to enhance the customer experience.
Trustly appoints Louise Nylén as Chief Marketing Officer.
Expensifyadds CPE credits to its accountant training and certification course.
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 new agreement will give HSBC Bank Australia access to financial communications technology innovator Identitii’sOverlay+ platform, a peer-to-peer solution that enables the secure sharing of data and documents between authorized parties and to regulators.
Overlay+ leverages blockchain technology and tokenization to make financial communications easier and more secure. A private blockchain ensures an auditable, time-stamped, tamper-proof record of all activity, and uses permissioned communications to allow trusted parties to securely share intelligent information in real-time. The platform uses unique identifiers, known as Identitii Tokens, which serve as cryptographic keys to permission access to the blockchain.
Importantly, the technology, dubbed a “platform for intelligent information exchange” by the company, can be added to a bank’s or corporation’s existing technology infrastructure via API to support both internal and external document and information exchange.
“This is our second technology license with HSBC and it delivers on a key part of our growth strategy, which is deepening relationships with existing customers,” Identitii CEO Nick Armstrong said. “It also represents the commercialization of a new use case for Overlay+, which seamlessly integrates with existing systems to ensure compliance with regulatory reporting requirements.”
The five-year pact has a minimum contract value of $511,600. Identitii’s revenues will come from both professional service fees incurred during technology implementation (slated to be finished in Q2 2020), as well as ongoing monthly license fees.
Identitii’s HSBC/Overlay+ announcement comes just a few months after the company announced that HSBC had launched its digital accounts receivable tool, DART, leveraging tokenization technology from Identitii. The company teamed up with Trace Financial Limited in April to help companies migrate to new messaging standards for financial business transactions. Identitii began the year with a new membership in the Banking Industry Architecture Network (BAIN), ensuring its Overlay+ platform is compatible with open banking standards.
Identitii demonstrated its platform at FinovateFall 2017. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in New South Wales, Australia, Identitii won an award for Best Workplace Diversity at The Finnies 2019 earlier this year. The company went public last fall, and currently trades under the ticker ID8 on the Australian Stock Exchange. Identitii has a market capitalization of $10 million.
