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
Coinbaseextends support for USD Coin (USDC) trading in 85 countries.
Finastrahires Mark Miller as new Chief Financial Officer.
Fenergoannounces API integration with global financial markets data provider Refinitiv.
Hastings Direct extends deal with Equifax by signing a multi-year deal.
SDC and Tinkpartner to give 120 Nordic banks access to account aggregation and payment initiation services.
Kony Quantumpowers Qualifacts’ new CareLogic mobile app.
WireBarley partners with Currencycloud to boost its operations in the U.S.
Lendionamed to Fortune’s Best Workplaces in Financial Services & Insurance.
BlueVinetaps Herman Man as new Chief Product Officer.
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.
Minnesota-based ClickSWITCH is having a big month. A week after making its first-ever appearance on the Finovate stage, the account acquisition solution provider has announced raising $13 million in new funding.
The Series B was led by Commerce Ventures and Points72 Ventures, and will help the company accelerate its product roadmap, add to its executive leadership ranks – as well as to its sales and development teams – and contribute toward the firm’s overall growth.
ClickSWITCH CEO Cale Johnston underscored the momentum the company has experienced with clients and prospects since closing its previous, Series A round. “We remain focused on providing the best automated account switching solution available in the market for financial institutions and fintechs,” Johnston said. “We are eager to continue working with Commerce Ventures, Points72 Ventures, and our other tremendous investors to further growth of our customer base and expand our service offerings.”
Founded in 2014, ClickSwitch offers financial institutions a white-label technology that enables customers to easily and quickly switch their direct deposits and recurring payments when opening new accounts. In addition to improving the process for banking customers, the solution makes it easier for FIs to onboard new customers by making new account funding a faster process.
Commerce Ventures Partner Dan Rosen referred to the landscape as a “battle for banking deposits” between banks and fintechs. “ClickSWITCH is a critical utility for onboarding and activating valuable new customers,” he said. Point72 Venture’s Tripp Shriner added that changing direct deposits was one of the “biggest pain points” for banking consumers when it comes to opening a new account. ClickSWITCH, per Shriner, “dramatically reduce(s) friction … increasing choice for customers.”
This latest round of funding puts ClickSWITCH’s total capital at $17.1 million. Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership that would bring its account switching solution to Virginia’s Old Point National Bank. ClickSWITCH demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring in May. Video of the company’s live demonstration will be available soon.
Debt collection solutions company Intellaegis, which does business under the name masterQueue, is marking its first round of funding today. The amount of the investment is undisclosed.
“To this point, we’d been self-funded by the founders and two strategic Angel investors,” said Co-Founder and CFO Perla Lewis. “This allowed us to double staff and increase our year over year Q1 revenue from 2018 to 2019 by eighty percent.”
The company has also brought on Lance Suder, a former entrepreneur and Stanford grad, as its Director of Operations. “As masterQueue makes contacting customers easy, efficient and compliant, I’m proud to join their seasoned team, and we’re excited to have found an investor that shares our vision and passion,” said Suder.
masterQueue’s debt collections tools help recapture delinquent loans by gathering, organizing, and tracking big data from dozens of data aggregators to find customer assets. The resulting workflow facilitates compliant debt collection, skip tracing, and repossession efforts.
Debt collection technology is one of the lesser-heralded sub-sectors of fintech. Perhaps startups are hesitant to enter the space because of its associations with loan sharks. We have, however, seen a handful of successful entrants in the space, including TrueAccord, collectAI, and Global Debt Registry.
Headquartered in California, Intellaegis demonstrated masterQueue’s debt collection workflow at FinovateSpring 2011. John Lewis is president and CEO.
Finastra has signed three global banks on its Fusion LenderComm platform: BNP Paribas, Natixis and Societe Generale, following a recent sign-up by NatWest, reports Henry Vilar of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
“All of these banks were part of our Fusion LenderComm pilot and the momentum that the platform has seen since then is nothing short of extraordinary,” said Grant Jones, VP, Fusion LenderComm, Finastra. “This brings global banks together on the platform in the live Fusion LenderComm environment, for seamless and secure information exchange.”
Fusion LenderComm is based on Corda Enterprise, R3’s commercial version of its open source blockchain platform, Corda. The firm says it is enabling banks to expose real-time credit agreement, accrual balances and position information data to lenders, directly from agent bank loan servicing platforms, such as Finastra’s Fusion Loan IQ.
Philippe Boulas, Global Head of Corporate Banking Operations at BNP Paribas, said: “With the creation of this community and a collaborative mindset we have a unique opportunity to tackle the operational pain points we have all been experiencing for years and that constrain syndicated loan market expansion.”
Finastra said that Fusion LenderComm integrates directly into the overall technology stack at the banks.
Cécile Bartenieff, COO of global banking and investor solutions at Societe Generale, said: “The Fusion LenderComm initiative will help provide greater transparency and operational efficiency to the syndicated loan market for the benefit of all participants, including the pool of banking lenders and our borrower clients. This is an illustration of how blockchain can help banks optimize the entire flow of financial operations in a standardized and secured framework.”
The product of a merger between Misys – which demonstrated its FusionFabric.cloud technology at FinovateEurope 2017 – and D+H two years ago, Finastra recently announced the appointment of Chief People Office Sharon Doherty. Named a leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide End-to-End Corporate Banking Solution Providers 2019 Vendor Assessment report in March, Finastra has forged a variety of partnerships in the first half of the year, including deals with Al Taif Islamic Bank in Iraq and Silvergate Bank of San Diego, California.
Bank data expert The ID Co. boosted its funding total to $11 million this week after closing on $2 million (£1.5 million). Headline investors in today’s round are Amadeus Capital Partners and SixThirty.
The company, which already has clients in 30 countries, said the funding will fuel further global growth. CEO James Varga said, “We are hiring fast and entering new markets and geographies across the globe. The recent launch of DirectID Insights and Income Verification means that we are in an excellent place to capitalise on the need for greater efficiency in lending practices to reflect borrowers’ expectations.”
The ID Co. has two main branches, DirectID, its B2B offering, and NoMo, its B2C product launched last fall. DirectID’s product lineup includes Insights, a dashboard that displays data to assist underwriters in lending decisions, and Income Verification, a tool that combines real time data with six algorithms to offer a clear picture of clients’ income. In addition, the company offers an onboarding solution, a categories and classifications engine, and a bank account validation tool.
James Varga, CEO (right), and Lazaro Campos, Chairman
The ID Co. was prepared for the onset of the U.K.’s Open Banking mandate well before it came into play last January. Atul Kamra, Managing Partner of SixThirty said, “James and The ID Co. team have gotten a real nice head start here, and are well positioned to take advantage from the regulatory tail winds afforded by Open Banking.”
Varga added, “The financial world is being fundamentally changed through Open Banking. It improves our understanding of each individual, allowing us to move away from traditional credit reference agencies.” Varga last demonstrated miiCard’s identity as a service capabilities at FinovateFall 2013.
Launched as miiCard in 2011, the company pivoted to The ID Co. in 2016. Within the last year, the company has launched its Open Banking API, released its NoMo consumer cashflow tracking app, and unveiled its Income Verification solution.
IBS IntelligencefeaturesCustomerXPS’ Clari5 in its latest report.
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.
Data insights startup Segmint has agreed to power analytics capabilities for Austin, TX-based Buzz Points. Specifically, Ohio’s Segmint will enable Buzz Points to help its clients to build marketing segments based on cardholders’ buying behavior.
“The ability to identify customers with a strong probability of action in combination with a strong call to action like rewards is a marketer’s dream,” said Dwayne Spradlin, Buzz Points CEO. “We’re excited to find strategic partners like Segmint that help us continue to offer robust platform solution with an even greater ROI for our clients.”
Founded in 2007, Segmint leverages the raw, unstructured data from banks’ consumer transactions to form marketing insights that lead to customer acquisition, cross-selling, and more efficient marketing techniques.
The company’s products include Merchant Payment Cleansing, a tool that decodes merchants’ cryptic transaction data descriptions; Transaction Analytics, which cleans and categorizes data to make it useful for marketers; and Data-Driven Marketing Platform, an all-in-one tool to help non-technical marketers create, deliver, and monitor campaigns.
Segmint, which demoed at FinovateFall 2012, was founded by John Cale, Nate Shahan, and Rob Heiser, who serves as CEO. The company has raised $30 million.
Mobility-as-a-service platform Drover has teamed up with identity verification specialist Onfido to support smarter, more secure onboarding for its customers.
“Balancing security against a smooth user experience is a challenge for many businesses, but our AI technology means we’re able to help Drover deliver both,” Onfido CEO Husayn Kassai said. “Reducing risk and building trust is core to both of our businesses, so the partnership is a natural fit.”
With Onfido as a partner, Drover will offer its drivers the ability to easily verify their identity when signing up for the company’s flexible car subscriptions. Drivers take a photo of their government-issued ID document, and Onfido checks to assure that the document is genuine by cross-referencing it against international databases. The technology also leverages machine learning to conduct facial checks to ensure image accuracy and liveness.
Drover CEO Felix Leuschner highlighted this last factor as one of the key reasons for partnering with Onfido. “As we grow our user base, being able to consistently deliver the speed our users want with the security they need is crucial,” he said. “Onfido helps us do both, so we can protect our platform without impacting on (our) user experience.”
An alternative to car leasing and buying, Drover began as an option for drivers working for Uber. Founded in 2015, the company has since grown into a subscription service for consumers that provides access to a new car for a single, all-in-one monthly payment. Drover is based in London, U.K., and has raised more than $9.7 million (£7.5 million) from investors including Partech, Version One Ventures, Cherry Ventures, Forward Partners, and BP Ventures.
Onfido demonstrated its Facial Check with Video technology at FinovateFall 2018. The London, U.K.-based company, which was founded in 2012, raised $50 million in new funding last month in a round led by SBI Investment and Salesforce Ventures. Appointed to the FIDO Alliance Board of Directors and added to the inaugural cohort of cross-border regulatory sandbox, Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) this spring, Onfido also made major C-suite moves in the first half of the year, appointing Kevin Goldsmith as Chief Technology Officer and Thomas Ammirati as Chief Revenue Officer.
In addition to its partnership with Drover, Onfido has teamed up with a variety of businesses and institutions this year. In March, the company announced a collaboration with INTERPOL to help the international police organization better spot fraudulent IDs. In February, Onfido announced it would provide identity verification for 2nd Address, a California-based online rental marketplace for extended accommodations.
Paysendannounces its new stablecoin will be available on the Stellar Network in June.
LoanScorecardforges partnership with Calyx Software, merging its SimpleCECL solution with Calyx’s Path LOS.
Digital Onboarding will join Best of Show winners Voleo and Neener Analytics as part of the fourth annual FIS Fintech Accelerator program.
Chartis Research recognizesFICO as a category leader in AI for Financial Services.
Judo Bank of Australia goes live with Temenos’ T24.
Xerolaunches new feature in the Xero Projects iOS app that suggests project time based on geolocation
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.
Everyone, including fintechs, gets by with a little help from their friends. That must be what digital banking solutions provider Kony and financial data expert MX were thinking when they joined forces this week.
Under the agreement, Kony will leverage MX’s PFM expertise to bolster Kony DBX, its digital banking experience product. Specifically, Kony will use MX’s data services for PFM and tap into the company’s solutions for spending categorization and classification.
Explaining the decision to partner, Kony DBX SVP and GM Jeffery Kendall described access to clean, actionable financial data as “critical” for banks and credit unions to meet customer expectations. “We are excited to collaborate with MX to deliver valued-added data services for Personal Financial Management and spending categorization and classification solutions that will give consumers a clear view of their financial health. In addition, banks and credit unions can also gain insight so they can better tailor their digital banking offerings to their customers and members,” said Kendall.
Don Parker, EVP of partnerships at MX added, “Together, and through Kony’s expansive partner network, we will help more banks, credit unions and fintech developers grow faster, reduce costs, and deliver exceptional experiences to their customers.”
The first client of the joint solution is CommonWealth One Federal Credit Union, a 33,000 member credit union with branches in Northern Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and Harrisonburg, VA. “By having access to clean, relevant and categorized data, we will be able to better serve and meet our members’ financial needs, and our members will also be able to aggregate and see all of their accounts in one place, said Larry Flory, CIO of CommonWealth One Federal Credit Union. “Having improved insight into their finances will enable our members to make better financial decisions.”
This is Kony’s second major enhancement this month to the Kony DBX platform. A little over a week ago the company partnered with Micronotes to bring Micronotes’ personalized conversation solution to Kony DBX’s bank customers.
Kony’s CTO Bill Bodin and Product Marketing Manager Antonio Sanchez showcased the company’s digital banking platform at FinovateFall 2017. Kony was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Austin, TX.
MX was founded in 2010 and is partnered with more than 1,800 financial institutions and 43 of the top 50 digital banking providers. Headquartered in Lehi, Utah, MX is a six-time Finovate Best of Show winner, having most recently presented at FinovateFall 2017, where it demoed Discovered Accounts.
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.
Asia-Pacific
Singapore-based financial supermarket GoBear scoops up $80 million in new funding.
Wiprobuilds prototype for central bank digital currency project in Thailand.
Chinese fintech Pintec Technology opens international headquarters in Singapore.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Chipper Cash, an African cross-border payment startup, raiseded $2.4 million in funding – including a contribution from football Hall of Famer Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures.
Central Bank of Kenya and the Monetary Authority of Singapore to launch the first Afro-Asia Fintech Festival.
Remoney winsInnovation in Lending award at the Nigerian Fintech Awards.
RightCapital links up with investment research firm Morningstar.
Turbine, the creator of the Lord of the Rings online game, usesXsolla to power in-game storefront
investorID tapsIdentityMind’s compliance and risk management capabilities
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.
