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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Merck Sharp & Dohme FCU deploys trio of biometric authentication solutions from Fiserv.
New partnership bringsnCino’sBank Operating System to Allied Irish Banks.
Entrust Datacardpartners with JPMorgan Chase to pilot email security project.
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.
Small business financing company Kabbage has made a purchase that will help it get to know the world of SMEs all the better. In a deal announced today, Kabbage will acquire small business intelligence firm, and fellow Finovate alum, Radius, adding insights from more than 20 million U.S. small businesses to its platform.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Upon the successful closing of the acquisition, Kabbage said in a statement that it will add “nearly 20 team members” from Radius to its offices in San Francisco, including Radius CEO Joel Carusone, to help support the integration of the two platforms and the two companies.
“Data has always been our competitive advantage, and Radius strengthens it by adding millions of new and verified small business insights to our platform,” Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein said. “These new technology and data-analysis capabilities further differentiate us from other SMB-focused fintech companies as we dramatically expand our product set and service platform to address the unique cash flow needs of small businesses.”
Expressing a “deep respect for Kabbage’s data-driven technology and focus,” Radius’ Carusone highlighted similarities between the two firms. “Our companies have complementary technical architectures and domain experience for decision making,” he said. “With Kabbage, we can build a more sophisticated analytics solution to identify, reach, and serve small businesses.”
San Francisco, California-based Radius was founded in 2009. The company demonstrated its platform at FinovateSpring 2014, showing how it leverages big data to gain insights into more than 27 million small and medium-sized businesses. This information helps FIs find the best customer segments, build efficient and accurate targeted lead lists, and measure the success of marketing campaigns.
Radius began 2019 with the launch of its Data for Good campaign to help the company’s employees and customers give back to their communities. This included credit-backs to the accounts of for-profit companies for any data used to support philanthropic causes. The campaign also featured service donations to nonprofits to enable them to use the Radius’ enterprise customer data platform to reach out to and potentially partner with small businesses.
In May, Radius unveiled a new data stewardship app designed to fix bad, siloed Salesforce data. The new solution enables enterprises to manage data across any Salesforce field based on unified, trusted data. “Existing tools enrich some external data,” Radius CEO Joel Carusone explained, “but what’s missing is an easy-to-use application coupled with a powerful platform that gives users access to data unified across all third-parties and their internal data sets.”
Atlanta, Georgia-based Kabbage made its first appearance on the Finovate stage in 2010, demoing its Kabbage Loan offering at FinovateSpring that year. The company most recently demoed its Kabbage Card, a part of the company’s Kabbage Everywhere product expansion, at FinovateSpring 2015.
Featured in June by CEO World in its look at fintechs that are helping fight for fair lending, Kabbage announced a partnership with online banking platform Azlo in May that would create a new entity, Mission Street Capital, to help small businesses get the financing they need to grow. Kabbage also announced in May that it was teaming up with the BTEA (Building Trades Employers’ Association) in a strategic alliance to help women and minority-owned business enterprise contractors to secure funding for their projects.
With $2.5 billion in funding, Kabbage includes SoftBank Capital, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and BlueRun Ventures among its investors. The company was founded in 2009.
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Illuma Labs’Illuma Shield provides passive voice authentication for call centers. It reduces operating costs, enhances security against fraudsters, and eliminates friction from the customer experience.
Features
Reduce average handle time and operating costs
Enhance security against fraudsters and social engineers
Elevate user experience by eliminating friction in the authentication process
Presenters
Milind Borkar, Founder & CEO Borkar has over a decade of experience spanning R&D and marketing, and leads the IP and business development activities for the company. LinkedIn
Jeremy Whittington, Co-Founder & CTO Whittington has over 20 years of experience architecting SaaS applications, and leads architecture and product development activities for the company. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
NYMBUSSmartLaunch enables financial institutions to quickly and cost-effectively stand up fully-outsourced digital banks to attract new customers and revenue growth.
Features
Allows banks to immediately compete with today’s emerging digital challenger banks
Doesn’t require technology conversions
Doesn’t require banks to hire new resources
Why it’s great NYMBUS SmartLaunch is a pioneer in the industry’s transformation by eliminating the need for financial institutions to undergo a conversion or hire new resources to digitally innovate and compete.
Presenter
Drew Dizon, Senior Vice President of Strategic Solutions With over 17 years of fintech experience, Dizon helps to identify and evaluate potential products and solutions that promote the strategic growth initiatives at NYMBUS. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Stratifyd has developed an AI infrastructure to automate and analyze the voice of the consumer for financial enterprises using unsupervised and supervised technology.
Features
Offers the fastest time to insights
Utilizes predictive intelligence to provide deeper understanding of customer feedback
Leads with machine learning, removing human bias
Why it’s great Stratifyd’s AI-powered platform ingests, analyzes, and visualizes omni-channel data through unsupervised machine learning and natural language understanding to deliver real time customer analytics.
Presenter
Kevin O’Dell, Chief Technology Officer O’Dell is growing and scaling the company by solving the most challenging customer analytics problems faced by enterprises. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
Cinchy is the first data collaboration platform built for the enterprise. The company allows people, SaaS tools, legacy systems, and artificial intelligence to collaborate on data in real-time.
Features
Cuts tech project delivery times in half
Eliminates data fragmentation and data integrations
Embeds unprecedented levels of data privacy
Why it’s great Cinchy’s unique network-based architecture for enterprise data is a radical new alternative to the 40-year-old paradigm of buying, building, and integrating separate applications for every use case.
Presenter
Dan DeMers, CEO and Co-founder DeMers spent over a decade as an IT executive with leading global financial institutions. In 2019, he was selected to join the Canadian Council of Innovators. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
ValidiFI is redefining how financial services measure risk and process payments. With innovative data and technology the company increases client acquisitions, reduce processing fees and facilitate payments.
Features
Validate a payment will be successful before submitting for processing
Eliminate the cost of overdraft and NSF fees
Create velocity, transaction type, and address filters to fight fraud
Why it’s great The PRO provides ALL the tools you need to increase your payment processing success rate AND validate that there is money in a bank account before you process a payment.
Presenters
Oscar DiVeroli DiVeroli serves as the CEO of ValidiFI. He has an extensive background covering 30 years of progressive management and business ownership experience in different industries. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateMiddleEast on November 20 and 21, 2019 in Dubai. Register today and save your spot.
BlytzPay is an app-less, mobile point of sale solution that allows merchants and businesses to communicate, invoice, and collect from their customers using a text message.
Features
Promotes financial inclusion by allowing customers to pay bills with cash
Facilitates billing transparency with two-way communication
Offers a secure, efficient, one-click text-to pay solution
Why it’s great BlytzPay’s cash option provides a solution that allows different socioeconomic classes an equally convenient, secure, efficient opportunity to participate in the world of digital payments.
Presenters
Robyn Burkinshaw, Founder and CEO Burkinshaw, a serial entrepreneur, is passionate about bringing technologies to market that break down barriers and enable financial inclusion for all. LinkedIn
Trevor Atwood, SVP of Sales Atwood is the SVP of Business Development for BlytzPay and leads all partnerships and merchant development efforts. He was previously Sales Manager for Progressive Leasing. LinkedIn
Volkswagen Bank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, will leverage technology from OneSpan to secure its transactions and ensure PSD2 compliance. The bank announced today that it will protect its standalone mobile authentication app, PhotoTAN app, with OneSpan’s mobile SDK, Mobile Security Suite.
The SDK also enables the app to take advantage of OneSpan’s Cronto technology, which ensures banks comply with PSD2 requirements with regard to authentication and dynamic linking. Cronto offers a patented visual transaction signing solution that uses a graphical cryptogram of colored dots to encrypt transaction data. The technology provides banks with a strong defense against a variety of cyberthreats, including account takeover and man-in-the-browser Trojan attacks.
“Cronto is a unique technology available in the market in that it combines security and support for regulatory compliance with a seamless customer experience,” OneSpan SVP of Global Sales Dan Dica said. “This combination is important because it enables our customers to advance their digital transformation easily and securely.”
Citing customer demand and new regulation as key drivers of change in the financial industry, Volkswagen Bank Project Manager Mario Bandau praised OneSpan as a company that has “proven to be knowledgeable in all areas.” Bandau credited the firm for “providing us with all the necessary advice and the solutions we need to deliver the kind of experience customers request while ensuring PSD2 compliance.”
With more than €83 billion in assets and deposits of more than €32 billion, Volkswagen Bank is one of the leading direct banks in Germany. Founded in 1949, the bank provides new and used vehicle financing for Volkswagen brands, as well as direct banking and dealer financing. The firm’s PhotoTAN app, available on both iOS and Android, uses facial biometrics to authenticate and sign transactions whether those transactions are started online or on the mobile device.
OneSpan made its most recent Finovate appearance (as VASCO) at FinovateEurope 2017, demonstrating its Smile & Sign mobile onboarding solution. The technology provides institutions with a secure, easy-to-use, compliant way to onboard customers via their mobile devices using biometrics, push notifications, visual cryptograms, and e-signatures.
OneSpan has been in the fintech headlines frequently of late. In June, the company won the SIIA CODiE Award for Best Fintech Solution for its Intelligent Adaptive Authentication technology. That same month, OneSpan announced a partnership with Belgian online lender Buy Way, and launched its Secure Agreement Automation cloud solution for digital account opening.
With a market capitalization of $542 million, OneSpan trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker OSPN.
U.K.-based start-up B-North has chosen a German Software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, Mambu, to provide its core banking technology, reports Ruby Hinchliffe of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
The Manchester neobank, which is still awaiting a license from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is the first client to experience a co-created solution by Mambu and a U.S.-based cloud banking tech provider, nCino.
The cloud provider will deliver its loan and deposit origination platform, enabling the challenger to speed up its processes and deliver a highly efficient, “minimum hassle” service to its SME customers.
“The advantage of creating a new bank without legacy systems or legacy business processes is we can design the solution around our customer’s needs and leverage the very best cloud-based technology,” said B-North CTO, Ewan Hutton.
He added: “Mambu has already proved its engineering capabilities with its core banking solution in the marketplace and for B-North it is a perfect fit vs traditional solutions that are over-engineered legacy designs with recent front-end face-lifts.”
B-North’s new localised technology will make loans available to SMEs in just ten working days, rather than the standard three to four months.
Currently, SMEs make up 99% of U.K. businesses and employ more than 16 million people.
nCino’s area vice-president, Jacqui Morcombe, said: “B-North is taking a progressive approach to its technology strategy. By building a foundational cloud-based architecture it is establishing itself as a customer-centric institution without the constraints of inflexible systems as market pressures shift.”
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, nCino demonstrated its Bank Operating System at FinovateEurope 2017. Berlin, Germany-based Mambu made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2013, and returned to participate in our developers conference FinDEVr New York in 2016. Mambu was founded in 2011.
Paysendreaches one million customer mark for its card-to-card money transfer service, Global Transfers.
Tinkoffgoes live with Pulse, a free social network for investors.
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.
Avalara announced this week that billing and revenue automation platform Ordway is the latest company to join its Certified Partner program. Ordway customers will now be able to choose Avalara’s AvaTax to ensure accurate, real-time calculation of all applicable taxes, fees, and surcharges for every billed item.
“We’re excited to partner with Avalara to provide our customers with an option to automatically calculate sales tax,” Ordway founder and CEO Sameer Gulati said. “Our out-of-the-box tax calculations work for many of our customers, but for those that desire the additional power of AvaTax, our integration makes effortless tax calculation and collection possible.”
The integration will lower the amount of manual work typically involved in determining and collecting state and local taxes by providing sales and use tax calculations within existing business apps at the time of checkout or billing. Avalara’s systems keeps track of the most current tax rules and rates, covering more than 12,000 U.S. sales and use tax jurisdictions. The cloud-based, SaaS technology features 700+ prebuilt integrations into ERP, ecommerce, and other systems, as well as an advanced API.
“Ordway understands the needs of its customers, and their billing revenue automation platform reduces accounts receivable complexity for their customers along many fronts,” SVP of Business Development for Avalara Greg Chapman said. “We understand that digitization of business processes is not an option it is essential. We are proud to offer more accurate and efficient tax compliance solutions to our shared customers.”
In addition to the benefits of the AvaTax integration, Ordway customers who also use Ava CertCapture will also be able to seamlessly link to exception certificates collected and maintained within Avalara’s system.
A specialist in bringing tax compliance automation to businesses, Avalara presented “The Wacky World of Sales Tax” at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2015. The company’s senior manager for developer relations showed how the Avalara’s APIs help businesses navigate the complicated world of transactional sales taxes.
More recently, Avalara announced the acquisition of Portway International, a Canada-based firm that provides Harmonized System classifications and outsourced customs brokerage services. Earlier this month, the company reported second quarter revenue growth of 43% over the previous year, and more than 10,000 “core customers.”
“We continue to believe that the automation of transaction tax compliance will be adopted over an extended period,” Avalara founder and CEO Scott McFarlane said in a statement, “as customers upgrade systems, expand their businesses both domestically and internationally, and respond to changing government rules, such as the recent legislative responses to the Supreme Court’s Wayfair decision.” The Wayfair decision refers to the 2018 ruling that states can collect sales tax from internet retailers.
Avalara began the year with a bang. In January, the company acquired the “operational assets” of a firm called Compli that helps alcoholic beverage makers comply with regulations with regard to alcohol production, distribution, and sale. A month later, Avalara was back in the acquisition business with a purchase of Seattle-based AI technology company Indix. Also that month, Avalara announced a trio of major executive hires: appointing Amit Mathradas as president and Chief Operating Officer, Sanjay Parthasarathy as Chief Product Officer, and Ross Tennenbaum as EVP of Strategic Initiatives.
Founded in 2004, Avalara trades as AVLR on the New York Stock Exchange following its 2018 IPO. The company has a market capitalization of $6 billion.
