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
New Zealand bank TSB has gone live with TemenosInfinity for online account opening and onboarding in just nine weeks, reports Sharon Kimathi of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
Included in the short implementation period was an API-based connectivity for workflow integration directly with TSB’s existing Microsoft Dynamics’ client relationship management (CRM) system.
It now provides applicants with the option to “save and resume,” returning to an application later, on any channel, without the need to start over.
Hamish Archer, TSB general manager – technology said: “We want more Kiwis to experience our world-class service, so we’re excited to use technologies like this which work seamlessly alongside our people, who genuinely care about doing the best for our customers.”
Martin Frick, managing director – APAC, Temenos, said: “We are delighted that TSB has chosen Temenos to power its growth, and that they are already starting to see results from the implementation.”
Since going live, Temenos Infinity has shortened the time needed to complete customer applications and insert the completed digital application directly into the TSB back office process.
Temenos was founded 1993, and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The company demonstrated its Connect Mobile Banking solution at FinovateEurope 2015. Later that year, the company participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, presenting its B2B Financial Apps Marketplace.
Nvstrearns a spot in the Financial Venture Studio’s incoming cohort.
CREALOGIXintroduces new Chief Financial Officer Daniel Bader.
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.
Cross-border remittance startup Paysend has received a money transfer of its own this week. The London-based company landed $10.6 million (£8.5 million) in Series B funding, bringing its total raised to $30.7 million.
There’s no word on an updated valuation but before today’s round, the company was valued at $155 million.
The investment comes courtesy of GVA, which contributed almost $5 million (£3.95 million), as well as a Seedrs crowdfunding campaign that brought in $5.6 million (£4.6 million). Launched last month, the Seedrs campaign garnered contributions from investors, including Plug and Play and Digital Space Ventures, which co-led the round.
Regarding company’s decision to crowdfund the round, Paysend CEO Ronald Millar said, “This funding round has been the next step in our journey to create money for the future, and we’ve been delighted that we’ve been about to open it up to our customers in order to give them the opportunity to join us on the exciting next phase of the Paysend journey.”
Paysend, which demonstrated its Global Account at FinovateSpring 2018, competes with the likes of Transferwise and CurrencyFair to help users request money from 50 countries and send money across 70 countries. On a monthly basis, the company facilitates more than 2 million transactions totaling $55 million for its 900,000 users.
The company recently releasedPays XDR, its own digital currency. Pays XDR is a stable coin backed by cash reserves, matched to the proportion of the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights.
Adding to its already busy year, in May Paysend launchedPaysend Link, an app that allows users to send money to anyone with just their phone number. Fund recipients can immediately transfer payments they receive to their Mastercard, Visa, or UnionPay card. The money is immediately available to use or to withdraw.
Unveiled this week, the latest version of ID R&D’s voice solution, IDVoice, leverages AI and voice technology to give users a major boost in biometric matching speed and an enhanced, multi-channel onboarding and authentication process.
“As enterprises migrate to conversational interfaces through mobile, web, and call center applications, a strong cross-channel voice authentication capability is essential,” ID R&D Chief Science Officer Konstantin Simonchik said. “With IDVoice v2.7, we are making it much easier and more efficient for enterprises to deploy voice biometrics consistently on all channels using the programming tools they prefer.”
IDVoice enables enterprises to execute on their omni-channel voice biometric strategy, while avoiding the drawbacks common to many other voice biometric solutions. With IDVoice, for example, developers can account for different channels without requiring separate enrollments for each channel (i.e., mobile, web app, call center, etc.). This is made possible by the platform’s biometric engine architecture which is channel, language, and age variance agnostic, as well as being resistant to environmental noise.
Other enhancements to the technology improve its ability to detect voice activity and add a 10x speed improvement to a critical platform algorithm. Together these improvements ensure that IDVoice provides higher quality and faster onboarding and verification, saving time and improving the user experience. Opus Research founder and lead analyst Dan Miller referred to the technology as offering a “zero-effort authentication process (that is) fast becoming a necessity for businesses with customers who reach out across multiple devices and channels.”
The launch of the latest version of IDVoice comes just days after ID R&D announced that sound recognition technology specialist Wavio would integrate ID R&D’s AI and machine learning acoustic detection functionality into its sound recognition solution, SoundAI.
“Wavio was highly impressed when we tested ID R&D’s software, and after learning more about ID R&D’s deep research and knowledge of voice, audio processing, and the very latest in artificial intelligence methods, we were convinced that ID R&D is the right partner to help us fulfill our mission,” Wavio CEO Greyson Watkins said.
ID R&D demonstratedSafeChat, its frictionless, continuous authentication for remote logins and conversational interfaces, at FinovateFall 2018. The technology provides authentication by leveraging a combination of biometric inputs that are available through the normal interactions between users and the device. This enables the solution to verify the identity of users without requiring them to do anything specific to authenticate. ID R&D noted that the technology brings a biometrically-secured, Alexa-like experience to mobile, conversational, and IoT platforms.
Founded in 2016, ID R&D is headquartered in New York City. The company has raised $5.7 million in funding from investors including GSR Ventures and Gagarin Capital Partners. Alexey Khitrov is CEO.
As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Mexican fintech Prestanómica raises $300,000 in Series A funding.
TechCrunch profiles Dataplor, a company that indexes microbusinesses in emerging markets, as it announces a $2 million funding ahead of its planned expansion to Chile, Peru, and Colombia.
Mexican crypto exchange Bitso becomes the first Latin American fintech to earn an international cryptocurrency license.
Asia-Pacific
UnionBank successfully pilots blockchain-based cross-border remittance solution from the Philippines to Singapore.
Singapore-based fintech soCash secures $6 million in Series B funding.
The first cross-border mobile payment alliance in Asia, Singtel’s VIA, goes live in Japan.
Sub-Saharan Africa
EY reaches agreement with Open Banking Nigeria to develop a standard API for financial services companies in the country.
Kenya’s KeshoLabs launches its payments and remittances platform, Pesabase.
African telecom Africell pledges to spend “part” of $100 million line of credit from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation on expanding infrastructure and fintech services.
Central and Eastern Europe
Vienna, Austria-based Bitpanda announces it has topped one million users on its trading platform.
Fintech Futures takes a look at Lithuania’s efforts to attract more fintechs to the country.
Moscow Department of Information Technology launches initiative to ease access to billpay, internet banking, and other services via unified city ID.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Egyptian fintech XPay raises $250,000 in pre-seed funding.
M-Gurush, the first mobile money service in South Sudan, goes live.
Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) signs Memorandum of Understanding with OneConnect Financial Technology.
Central and Southern Asia
In partnership with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Indian banks, JCB International has launched its first branded card in India.
India-based, cloud banking and enterprise payments platform Zeta locks in Series C funding that boosts the company’s valuation to $300 million.
Indian B2B payments firm PayMate closes Series D round.
PassTime partners with masterQueue to help locate and contact customers for debt collection.
Five Degrees is selected to join the Kickstart innovation program.
Voleo, Neener Analytics, Gremln Social, and Digital Onboarding all successfully complete 2019 FIS Fintech Accelerator program.
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.
Betterment knows its clients are smart when it comes to saving for their futures. And with that well-established, financially savvy client base, the company launched a checking and savings platform this week.
The new platform is called Betterment Everyday (because what’s better than a user base that logs in every day?) and is aimed to help the company’s clients better manage their money today so that they can maximize earnings for the future.
Betterment Everyday offers savings and checking accounts, with customer deposits held at partner banks including Citi, Barclays, and Valley National. The savings accounts, available today, can earn up to 2.69% APY until the end of this year, after which will drop to 2.43% and be subject to change.
The checking product will be available later this year and comes with benefits typical of online-only banks. Users will receive a debit card issued by nbkc bank of Overland Park, Kansas, will be reimbursed for all ATM fees worldwide, will not be charged monthly maintenance fees, and do not need to maintain a minimum balance.
“As we launch Betterment Everyday, we’re starting to bring our role as your financial advisor into your everyday life, turning your daily choices and transactions into saving for the future,” said Betterment CEO Jon Stein in a blog post. “We’re building the framework for where we believe the industry can (and should) move. We believe the future is smart money management, and we’re leading the way.”
In addition to attracting new clients and refocusing existing users, the new account offerings also serve to compete with fintechs that have launched similar products in recent months. Wealthfront, SoFi, which offer high interest savings accounts boasting yields of 2.57% and 2.25%, respectively, and Acorns, which offers a debit card for a fee of $3 per month.
Last year Robinhood launched a checking account that boasted a 3% interest rate, but quietly rescinded the product after regulators from the SEC and SIPC cited lack of regulatory oversight. The startup had not consulted regulators before the proposed launch and is now working on a new version of the checking account. Today, Betterment may be in a similar situation. The company did consult regulators before this week’s launch, but, according to CNBC, has been asked to provide more information on the new offering.
Betterment CEO Jon Stein debuted the company’s MultipleGoals feature at FinovateFall 2011. Since it was founded in 2008, the company has raised a total of $275 million. Last fall, Betterment unveiled a Trust Account Opening feature that allows advisors to manage the entire process. And this year, the company was honored on the Forbes Fintech 50 list for the 4th year in a row.
Personalized software-as-a-service innovator BlueRushunveiled a new distribution partnership designed to drive further market penetration of its Best of Show winning IndiVideo platform. BlueRush’s partner, Nikia Dx, will promote the company’s solution over its client network of insurers, financial service providers, and utility companies.
“We are delighted to partner with Nikia Dx to access their strong pipeline of market opportunities,” BlueRush CEO Steve Taylor said. He highlighted personalized video bills and financial statements as technologies that many companies are exploring, and noted that BlueRush’s platform was well-positioned to enable these initiatives. “Since these documents are sent in such high volumes, and IndiVideo is highly scalable,” Taylor said, “there is significant opportunity to add personalized videos to increase loyalty, engagement, retention, and investment in products or services, while capturing valuable data-driven insights.”
IndiVideo integrates readily into existing marketing infrastructure to accelerate and enhance the customer journey. The platform leverages predictive analytics and customer data to produce intelligent, personalized videos that are rendered locally on the viewer’s device. This boosts the technology’s scalability and avoids per render fees. The solution also captures customer interactions with the videos to enable it to better analyze data and understand customer preferences over time.
“We are focused on realizing the promise of customer engagement for our clients through disruptive digital solutions,” Nikia DX CEO Phil Santoni said. “Our team has been effectively delivering strategic transformation solutions in every business sector, unlocking assets and creating business value for our clients, for more than 30 years. We see exciting market opportunities for BlueRush’s IndiVideo platform.”
Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based BlueRush demonstrated IndiVideo at FinovateSpring earlier this year, winning a Best of Show award. Last month, the company announced that its platform had surpassed $100,000 in committed monthly recurring revenue. In April, BlueRush and its Chilean partner Kunder wonBest Financial Services Online Video at the 2019 Internet Advertising Competition awards. Also this spring, the company partnered with Bee Concept to help a large Colombian bank deploy the IndiVideo platform to boost the rate of mortgage sign-ups.
A handful of Finovate alums were among those earning top honors at the second annual PayTech Awards earlier this month. In categories ranging from e-commerce to real-time payments, four Finovate alums won commendations for their contributions to “excellence and innovation in the payments industry.” Another trio of alums took home “Highly Commended” runner’s up recognition.
We’ve listed those honored alums below along with the categories they competed in and a link to their most recent Finovate/FinDEVr conference demo video.
The PayTech Awards consists of three categories: Judged Awards, Leadership Awards, and Ovum Payments Innovation Awards. In addition to those alums that won their categories – or earned Highly Commended honors – a few Finovate/FinDEVr alums were also short-listed ahead of the final votes. These companies – along with their category and most recent Finovate/FinDEVr video – are below:
BeSmarteeannounces direct integration with real estate document collaboration and recording technology solution provider Simplifile.
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.
There’s one perk that comes with working as a woman in a male-dominated field– there’s never a line for the ladies restroom. In fact, at a handful of Finovate conferences, we’ve had to convert some of the women’s restrooms into men’s rooms in order to make a the wait time for the men more reasonable. When that happens, you know there’s a problem– one that goes beyond toilets.
Lack of workforce diversity has many drawbacks, the most obvious of which is the gender pay gap. According to the film Equal Means Equal, a documentary that looks at how women in the U.S. are treated today, “Compared to white men, white women working full time, based on median annual full-time earnings, earn 78 cents to every dollar a man earns.”
In an effort to help tip the scales of the gender ratio and bring awareness to the wage gap, Finovate is offering female registrants tickets to FinovateFall for 78 cents on the dollar. That means women who register by this Friday, July 26, can purchase a ticket to FinovateFall for 22% off just by entering the code EQUALITY on page two of the booking form.
Here are a handful of speakers who are helping to bring the female quotient up a notch at FinovateFall this year:
The conference takes place September 23 through 25, with an additional summit day on September 26, at the New York Marriott Marquis.
To take advantage of this offer, book online today with code EQUALITY, contact our customer service team at +1 (888) 670-8200, or [email protected]. Rooms can be reserved at the New York Marriott Marquis.
Payroll, benefits, and HR platform Gusto just landed $200 million in funding, a slew of new investors, and a valuation of $3.8 billion. The Series D round almost doubles the $2 billion valuation the San Francisco-based company received in December of last year after closing $140 million in funding. Gusto’s total funding now sits at $510 million.
The new investors, Fidelity and Generation Investment Management, were joined by existing investors T. Rowe Price Associates, Dragoneer, General Catalyst, CapitalG, 137 Ventures, Y Combinator Continuity, and Emergence Capital. Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves said that Gusto selected the group “based on their long-term perspective.” He added, “These investors are committed to our view of creating a durable and sustainable business, and their investments will fuel our ongoing creation of equitable solutions and inclusive economic growth for everyone.”
Gusto will use the funding to further its research and development efforts, specifically in the fintech and healthcare arenas. The company also plans to grow its workforce, which currently sits at more than 1,000 employees spread across Denver, San Francisco, and New York.
Along with the funding, Gusto has onboarded its first independent board member, Anne Raimondi (pictured), former SVP of operations at Zendesk.
Gusto has added two notable features to its platform recently, including Time Tracking, which syncs hourly employees’ time directly to the company’s payroll in order to properly calculate time off and holidays; and Flexible Pay, which allows employees to select when they prefer to receive their paycheck. This year, the company formed partnerships with ScaleFactor and Trainual to deliver accounting and offer new hire training, respectively.
As for what’s next, it’s hard not to wonder about an IPO. We interviewed Reeves for a blog post titled M&A is the New IPO last month. When asked about the company’s plans, Reeves said, “There are pros and cons to being a public company, and we believe that today, the benefits of Gusto staying private outweigh the benefits of being public.” He added, “An IPO isn’t our end-goal; instead, it’s creating a world where work empowers a better life. We currently serve more than 1% of all employers in the U.S., which is an accomplishment we’re incredibly proud of, but we realize we still have a lot more work to do. Building Gusto to its full potential is a multi-decade mission for me.”
Gusto launched in 2012 under the name ZenPayroll. At FinovateSpring 2014, Reeves showcased the company’s flagship payroll solution while smiling throughout the entire seven minute demo.
