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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
At every Finovate, we welcome four leading fintech research analysts to take the stage for seven minutes each to present key opportunities for the future. Take a look back on our most recent set from FinovateSpring 2019 featuring Michelle Evans, Global Head of Digital Consumer Research at Euromonitor International; Jacob Jegher, Senior Vice President, Banking Head of Strategy, Javelin Strategy and Research; Dan Latimore, Senior Vice President, Banking Group, Celent; and Paul Berg, Senior Managing Consultant, Gallup.
Early booking for FinovateSpring 2020 is also now open! Book your tickets now at the lowest possible price!
Identitii is now a ‘Co-Sell Ready’ partner for Microsoft.
Feedzailaunches tools to help banks offer account opening solutions with fraud prevention.
Bankingblocks leveragesFive Degrees’Matrix solution as its digital core banking platform.
Eurobank Group selectsTemenos‘ T24 Transact for its subsidiaries.
InsuritasLaunches Tucson Federal Insurance Agency for Tucson FCU.
Former Mastercard executive David Yates joinsYoyo as chairman.
AlphaPointnames co-founder Igor Telyatnikov as its new CEO.
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 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.
Middle East and Northern Africa
SoFiannounces $500 million investment led by Qatar.
Emirates NBD to leverage technology from Amazon Web Services to build an AI-enabled “bank of the future”.
New partnership between Turkey’s Isbank and Yandex.Checkout to support transactions in rubles for Russians shopping online in Turkey.
Central and Southern Asia
Strandsstrikes digital banking deal with India’s Tech Mahindra.
BankBazaar to offer financing options for customers of furniture and home products marketplace Pepperfry.
Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog, a premier think tank of the Indian government, sees a $31 billion Indian fintech market by 2020.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazilian exchange brokerage, Frente Corretora de Cambio, goes live with cross-border remittance solution powered by Ripple technology.
World Finance features Sao Paulo among its Top 5 Emerging Fintech Hubs.
IMFBlog looks at how fintech can lower remittance costs in Latin America.
Asia-Pacific
The central bank of Indonesia, Bank Indonesia, unveils its Quick Response Indonesia Standard (QRIS), a new QR code system.
Mastercard and UOB partner to introduce the UOB Retail Business Metal Card designed for APAC SMEs.
B2B cross border payments company TransferMate picks up payment license in Singapore.
New York biometrics technology provider ID R&D has raised $5.7 million in Series A funding, reports Jane Connolly of Fintech Futures, Fintech’s sister publication.
The round was led by a new investor, GSR Ventures, with participation from an existing investor, Gagarin Capital. This is the New York-based company’s second investment; the first being a Seed round of an undisclosed amount raised in December of 2017.
The investment will be used to meet the increasing demand for its artificial intelligence (AI) based voice and behavioral solutions, along with voice and face anti-spoofing technologies. ID R&D will also be using it to add engineering staff and drive international sales.
“What we’ve consistently heard from our customers is that ID R&D’s technologies and solutions stand alone in offering a vastly simplified user experience that doesn’t sacrifice the security of authentication,” said ID R&D CEO, Alexey Khitrov.
The biometric tech provider aims to meet the demand from businesses for conversational interface (CI) and replace existing password and security question-based authentication processes with quicker, simpler voice and facial recognition solutions that require little or no involvement from the user.
The firm’s passive, anti-spoofing capabilities are designed to thwart fraudsters who attempt to access accounts using synthesized or recorded voices; or with photos, videos, or models of the real user’s face.
“With Grand View Research forecasting the speech and voice recognition market size to reach nearly $32 billion by 2025, businesses are racing to keep up with demand for authentication that works across multiple platforms and is as convenient as it is secure,” added Khitrov.
At FinovateFall 2018, Khitrov demoedSafeChat 2.0, an application that passively verifies a user’s identity throughout the conversation (typing or speaking) without asking a them to do anything special to authenticate themselves. In addition to SafeChat 2.0, the company offers IDVoice, a standalone version of ID R&D’s core voice biometric capability; IDSquared, a tool that validates the user by how they type their login credentials and by capturing their face at the same time; and IDBehave, a behavioral biometrics solution that creates a unique biometric template for each user.
ID R&D has seen rapid growth, doubling its sales contracts last year, growing its customer base by 25% in Q1 2019, doubling its staff, and opening a West Coast headquarters. The firm also added a major biometric integrator and a semiconductor company.
B2B payment solutions provider Bento for Business is boosting its leadership team this week. The company has appointed Paula Bachman as Chief Financial Officer and Tracy Hansen as Chief Marketing Officer.
The two will be the first to serve in these capacities, as both roles have been newly created to aid the company during its recent time of growth. Last year, the company’s year-over-year gross dollar volume increased by 3x.
“Paula and Tracy are experienced leaders and critical hires for Bento during this pivotal time in our growth trajectory. They each bring the knowledge and insights needed to progress Bento’s evolution,” said Farhan Ahmad, Bento CEO. “With the right team in place, we are now focused on making further innovations to our financial operating platform to deliver a full-stack payment solution with flexible funding options, built-in compliance, APIs, third-party integrations and more to meet the evolving needs of modern businesses.”
Paula Bachman
In her new role, Bachman (pictured right) will help Bento define new strategies, implement scalable business processes and systems, execute transactions with Bento’s investors and business partners, and lead the human resources group. Prior to Bento, Bachman worked at Networked Insights, a data analytics SaaS firm.
Tracy Hansen
As CMO, Hansen (pictured right) is charged with overseeing and managing Bento’s growth. She has worked at B2B companies including Tealium, NetApp, and CA Technologies, and was most recently CMO of Renaissance Learning, an education software company.
Bento offers an all-in-one platform to help small businesses manage their spending. The company also provides a variety of payment cards to offer businesses more control and visibility over their employees’ spending.
Founded in 2014, Bento demoed its platform at FinovateSpring 2015. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and Chicago. Last month, Bento formed a deal with Visa to include the company as an additional payment card in the Bento for Business platform.
Citrix Analytics and Ping Identitypartner to enable contextual access.
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.
Password management platform Dashlane is riding the momentum of the $30 million it raised last month. Today, the New York-based company more than tripled its last investment, pulling in a $110 million Series D round.
The investment also more than doubles Dashlane’s previous funding total, boosting it to $211 million. Sequoia Capital led the round, with existing investors Rho Ventures, FirstMark Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participating.
However, as CEO Emmanuel Schalit made clear in a blog post, “Dashlane’s ultimate success will not be measured by how much money we raise, but by our ability to empower people and businesses around the world to take control of their digital lives.” Dashlane is best known for its B2C offering that autogenerates secure passwords, as well as its form auto-filling function and digital wallet that securely stores users’ credit card information for fast online purchases. The company will use today’s investment to enhance its core product, add new capabilities, and build its brand to become synonymous with password security.
Schalit said that Dashlane is only “scratching the surface” of securing digital identities. “Billions of people and millions of businesses around the world feel the pain of digital identity – from breaches to stolen identities and the nuisance of remembering passwords. Few are even aware that there is a better way, and we are going to change that,” he said.
In addition to its B2C offerings, Dashlane also provides solutions that help businesses seamlessly onboard staff with new accounts, and has a partner program to allow brands to co-brand Dashlane’s identity manager as a service. The company’s partners include Visa, Intel, and yubico.
“While most people are not aware of the magnitude of these issues, an entire economy is booming and growing in sophistication around harvesting and weaponizing stolen credentials, with participation from nation-states and cybercriminals,” said Sequoia Partner Jim Goetz, who will join the company’s board of directors. “We believe this category has the potential to one day surpass anti-virus in size, and we are excited to partner with the emerging market leader as they create and grow the category.”
Dashlane also announced it has recruited Joy Howard (pictured), former CMO at Lyft, as its Chief Marketing Officer. Howard, who is slated to begin her role at Dashlane in August, will oversee the company’s global marketing initiatives. She brings to Dashlane her experience gained from leadership positions at Sonos, Patagonia, Nike, and Coca-Cola.
Since it was founded in 2009, Dashlane has amassed 11+ million users from 180 countries across the globe. The company demoed its password manager and keyboard-less ecommerce transaction technology at FinovateEurope 2013.
Fresh off its appearance at FinovateSpring, digital money management software developer Strands has announced a new strategic partnership with Tech Mahindra. The IT services and consulting firm will leverage Strands’ AI- and big data-powered technology and financial services expertise to help its clients enhance the customer experience with more contextual and personalized solutions.
“Our white-label digital money management solutions give financial institutions an edge over the competition, speed up internal processes, and help them reap the benefits of a more engaged relationship with their customers,” Strands CEO Erik Brieva said. He added that the strategic partnership would “accelerate the delivery of tangible business value.”
Strands uses big data and advanced machine learning to provide a range of offerings including personal and business financial management, customer-linked offers, insights-driven analysis with its Engager product, and open banking via its API hub. With more than 600 implementations to date, the company seamlessly integrates its technology into bank’s existing systems and, by giving FIs more relevant insights into their customer’s wants and needs, delivers both relationship and smarter banking at the same time.
Tech Mahindra’s Global Head of Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance, Gautam Bhasin put the partnership with Strands in the broader context of the company’s TechMNxt charter. The charter calls on the company to support a partner ecosystem to facilitate the development of solutions based on “next generation” technologies like artificial intelligence.
“Our collaboration with Strands will further enable us to implement this unique digital financial solution to enhance end-customer experience and faster time to market of products and services by banks, as well as increase return of investment for our customers,” Bhasin said.
A multinational Indian IT, integrated engineering solutions, and BPO provider, Tech Mahindra was founded in 1986 and is based in Pune. With $4.9 billion in revenues in 2018, the firm is a subsidiary of the Mahindra Group, and has more than 121,800 workers in 90 countries. The highest ranked non-U.S. company in the Forbes Global Digital 100 roster last year, Tech Mahindra has more than 900 clients around the world. Chander Prakash Gurnani, who won top honors at the CEO World Awards last fall, is CEO and Managing Director.
In collaboration with Mastercard, Strands demonstrated its SME Cash Flow Manager Enhanced by Mastercard Technology earlier this year at FinovateSpring. The solution gives business owners actionable insights to help them save time and money, as well as the ability to monitor Quickbooks data within their digital banking experience. SME Cash Flow Manager enables financial institutions to offer the kind of digital financial management solutions that will lead to greater engagement between FIs and their SME customers.
Founded in 2004, Strands maintains offices in Barcelona, Spain; Miami, Florida; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Kuala Lumpur. The company has raised more than $55 million in funding, and includes Dalbergia, Sequel Venture Partners, Indigo Investment Corporation, and Debaeque among its investors.
Forbes: PayPal’s Latest Milestone: $10 Billion In Small Business Loans.
Atlanta Small Business Network looks at how Fiserv delivers fraud prevention across the globe.
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.
Insights and connections to the Asian fintech community you will only find at Finovate.
Save the date for FinovateAsia 2019! We’re moving back to Singapore this October 14 through 16, with a show that will feature demos of new fintech solutions, key insights from thought-leaders and influencers, and networking that delivers meaningful connections with fintech decision-makers.
Lowest price to attend ends Friday, May 31!
The agenda is packed with the latest fintech innovations, industry titans, and up-and-comers. The first day will feature digital trailblazers and disruptors analyzing the latest trends in fintech and financial services digital transformation in Asia. The stellar speaker faculty will debate the big issues facing financial institutions and fintechs in the new tech driven world. And the second day will feature Finovate’s signature live demos from 35+ fintech innovators.
It’s not just what you see and learn. Make essential business connections with the 600+ senior decision makers at the event. You can arrange meetings using the networking app before the event to make the most of your time there.
Register by Friday, May 31 and save up to $1,100. Book online here today or contact our customer services team at +1 (888) 670-8200 or [email protected].
Make it at FinovateAsia!
Whether a new innovation or service, partnership or brand pivot, you’ll reach an audience of 600+ of the most influential people in fintech. Finovate’s format of seven minutes on stage, exhibition stand, attendee introductions, marketing exposure, and more delivers you a fantastic ROI.
The demo application process is competitive, so apply early to give your company the best chance of getting on stage. Plus, secure the lowest possible rate if chosen to demo.
In a round led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), personal finance solution provider SoFi has raised more than $500 million in equity funding. The new capital gives the San Francisco, California-based company a valuation of $4.3 billion, and will drive investment, the company said in its press release, in continued innovation and growth. SoFi’s total capital now stands at $2.3 billion.
QIA CEO Mansoor Al-Mahmoud highlighted SoFi’s long-term vision, which has enabled the company to evolve into a major personal finance platform for both lending and wealth management. “We strongly believe in SoFi’s approach, and their dedication to build a transformational financial platform that is rapidly disrupting consumer finance,” he said.
In his statement, SoFi CEO Anthony Noto underscored the company’s transformation, as well. “Over the last year, we’ve worked aggressively to grow SoFi from a desktop lending business to a broad-based, mobile-first financial platform enabling members to borrow, save, spend, invest, and protect their money,” Noto said.
With more than 700,000 members and 7.5+ million registered users, SoFi offers a variety of personal finance solutions in lending and wealth management. These include the company’s student loan refinancing and mortgages offerings, as well as newer products like SoFi Invest and SofiMoney.
SoFi Invest, launched at the beginning of the year, is a stock and ETF trading and investing platform that also allows for automated investing. SoFi Money combines the best of checking and savings accounts into a single account with a 2.25% APY and an app to facilitate mobile spending, saving, and payment.
Earlier this month, SoFi announced that it was introducing an exchange-traded fund based on the gig economy, GIGE. The actively managed fund – run by Toroso Investments – enables investors to participate in the stock market gains of companies like eBay, Lyft, Square, and Twitter. In April, the company teamed up with Lemonade and Root to add to its insurance offerings.
SoFi, in partnership with Quovo, participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr New York 2017. At the event, the two companies led a presentation, How Quovo and SoFi Perfected Bank Authentication, which won the duo a Favorite FinDEVr Alum award. SoFi was founded in 2011.
Plaid, a provider of APIs for financial infrastructure, announced its expansion into the U.K. this week. The move makes a lot of sense– an open banking fintech is launching in the motherland of open banking.
“We’re building a financial network that will deliver on the promise of open banking with the best in both local expertise and global opportunity,” Keith Grose, International Lead at Plaid said in a blog post.
The U.K. is Plaid’s second international market after launching in Canada last year. The expansion overseas initiates the San Francisco-based company’s more comprehensive launch into Europe as a whole.
Plaid elected to launch in the U.K. because, as some have argued, the region is the fintech capital of the globe. More than 1,600 fintech companies have come out of the U.K. and that number is projected to double in the next ten years.
Today’s news is as much about Plaid launching in the U.K. as it is about opening up the possibility for its client applications to do business in the region, as well. Venmo, Robinhood, Coinbase and Acorns all use Plaid to connect to their customers’ U.S. bank accounts, and can now more easily expand into Europe using existing integrations.
Plaid, which was granted its AISP license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority last October, currently offers five of its products in the U.K.:
Auth, an account authentication tool
Balance, which pulls account balance information in real-time
Identity, which leverages bank data to verify consumer identity
Transactions, which pulls bank statement data across banks
Assets, a verification of assets tool
Missing from this list is Plaid’s Income product, a tool that validates a consumer’s income and verifies direct deposit data.
At FinDEVr San Fransisco 2014, the company’s founder, Zach Perret gave a presentation about leveraging the Plaid API for financial infrastructure. Plaid has raised $310 million since it was founded in 2013. After the company’s most recent investment last year, TechCrunch estimated Plaid to be valued at $2.65 billion.
Plaid began 2019 by acquiring its competitor Quovo in a $200 million deal. At FinovateSpring earlier this month bill payment platform doxoannounced it is leveraging Plaid to bring customers overdraft protection when paying their bills online. And last week, Plaid unveiled Plaid Direct, a lightweight integration that makes banks and fintechs a data source in the Plaid network, allowing end customers to enjoy open banking connectivity across financial service providers.
