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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.
FinovateEurope kicks off today at the Tobacco Dock in London, U.K. The Tobacco Dock is located on Wapping Lane, at St. Katharine’s & Wapping, London E1W 2SF.
Registration opens at 0800, and the first demo begins at 0915. If you are hoping to attend FinovateEurope this year, but haven’t yet registered to save your spot, then know that our ticket window is open and we’d love to have you join us.
Here’s what’s on the schedule for Day One. Our detailed agenda for today is available on the FinovateEurope website.
0800 – 0915 Registration, continental breakfast, networking
0915 – 1030 Demo Session #1
1030 – 1115 Intermission with Refreshments & Networking
1115 – 1230 Demo Session #2
1230 – 1345 Lunch & Networking
1345 – 1500 Demo Session #3
1500 – 1545 Intermission with Refreshment & Networking
1545 – 1700 Demo Session #4
1700 – 1830 Reception & Networking
Winners of our Best of Show award will be announced tomorrow.
Door opens at 0800 again tomorrow morning, with the first demo session starting at 0845.
Morocco’s CFG Bank is focusing on “digital-first banking” and is working with Kony, a U.S.-based digital banking tech specialist, on “long-term digital transformation strategy”, according to the vendor, reports Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
The strategy is “built on the pillars of simplicity, transparency and sustainable customer relationships”, Kony explains. “Central to that strategy is CFG Bank’s dynamic app built on Kony’s digital banking platform, Kony DBX, which provides a more modern digital banking experience.”
The two parties have been working together since 2016. Together, they built “a digital banking app designed so that customers could retake control of the vast majority of banking transactions, and rely on physical branches for ‘life moments’, such as plans for funding educational goals or detailed processes around investments and inheritance”, Kony says.
Driss Benchafai, general manager at CFG Bank, said that to succeed in Morocco’s banking environment, “it’s essential to be unique”.
“It’s not enough to provide the same services or similar features as other banks,” observed Benchafai. “Rather, we must craft a customer experience that is tailored, simple and that empowers customers with the ability to complete services and transactions how and when they want.”
Benchafai felt Kony “has played a significant role in helping CFG Bank stand out from other banks”.
The two firms are now exploring further capabilities, such as data analytics, behavioral analysis and artificial intelligence (AI), to improve future iterations of CFG Bank’s digital banking experience.
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Kony demonstrated its Retail Banking Solution at FinovateFall 2017. The company has raised more than $115 million in funding, and includes Insight Venture Partners, SoftBank Capital, and Telstra Ventures among its investors.
The digital lending market is rapidly expanding, growing at an impressive 47% CAGR, spurred by venture capital (VC) investment, according to the new whitepaper, European Digital Lenders: How operating efficiency is helping digital lenders attack a $150 billion annual origination market across the Eurozone in 2018, from analysts at the Fintech research practice, Autonomous Next. The UK alone has an origination market of $6.6B, while across Europe, the addressable market is $150B and revenues are estimated at $400m. This represents a sizable opportunity for a competitive market that includes new entrants and incumbents alike.
But while the market is growing quickly, the whitepaper reports that digital lending’s share of the total addressable origination market is still relatively low – especially given the size of the opportunity.
This discrepancy is attributed to the competitive nature of this new, but rapidly expanding, market. To remain competitive and profitable, lenders need to drive efficiency through digitisation. Efficient onboarding and servicing using digitised workflows, such as digital identity verification technology, are being used by both new entrants and incumbents to boost competitiveness by ensuring regulatory compliance, improving speed, and reducing the cost of customer acquisition. In fact, the report finds that digital identity verification can reduce KYC/AML costs by up to 70%, and improve speed by 80%.
Aplazame, an instant consumer financing company based in Spain, illustrates an ideal example of increase in customer acquisition by way of digitisation in their case study. Spain sees massive online shopping cart abandonment, with over 69% of carts abandoned, representing a missed total of approximately 46 billion euros. In order to capture these lost opportunities, Aplazame needed to correctly, securely and quickly verify the identity of customers who applied for credit. After adopting a secure, easy-to-use identity verification solution, they were able to verify a customer’s identity in less than 20 seconds, allowing them to offer instant, secure and streamlined financing – and ultimately achieving a 20% increase in conversions.
The report also highlights the speed of onboarding as another competitive factor as processing times have been drastically reduced in the digital world – from a traditional six weeks to a matter of minutes. However, while digital lenders have increased the speed of onboarding, their costs of acquiring customers hasn’t budged. On average, acquisition costs remain at $300 per customer, which includes as much as $150 to run KYC and AML checks. Another stumbling block many digital lenders face is the high cost of their capital is preventing digital lenders from competing with incumbent banks on price – and this cost isn’t likely to drop anytime soon, so a savvy digital lender has to figure out how to be as efficient as possible.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Smart digital lenders are starting to harness their lower operating costs to their advantage. For digital lenders, reducing costs is paramount to offering a real alternative to traditional banking providers. Where digital lenders must also play catch up is with security – and digital identity verification has the potential to be the tool to make this happen.
For digital lenders, mandatory KYC and AML checks are still largely manual, building delays and inefficiencies into the onboarding and vetting process. Combine these delays with high costs per customer, and the clunky process can prevent digital lenders from competing with incumbent banks on price. To gain an edge on their competition, digital lenders are investing in identity verification solutions, which provide an opportunity to massively enhance the efficiency of the onboarding process in terms of both speed and cost reduction. Diminishing inefficiencies and offering better prices can help drive a more ideal customer experience and help to garner some market share away from traditional lenders.
Businesses from other industries, from online marketplaces and sharing economy platforms, to innovative financial institutions like challenger banks and money transfer services, are following suit as they realize that the right identity verification solutions can help them achieve compliance, reduce fraud, onboard more customers quickly, create trust and safety, and promote brand integrity.
For example, global money transfer company MoneyGram deployed Mitek’s Mobile Verify® to aid their organization in reducing friction, speeding up the verification process to service more customers faster, and to fulfill regulatory requirements. As a result, MoneyGram saw a 20% reduction in fraud loss and, more specifically, an 80% reduction in account takeover fraud – as well as a more than 70% increase in ID acceptance rates.
In addition to reducing fraud and creating a safer platform, proper identity verification tools can help many types of businesses more quickly build their customer base. When blockchain payment pioneer Nocks began using digital identity verification, they achieved an onboarding speed of 5 minutes and drastically reduce its abandonment rate, enabling them to grow their customer base by 214% in just six months.
In this new economy, businesses need to prioritize their digital processes to respond to consumers and regulations. Digital identity and onboarding, in particular presents lenders and savvy financial institutions the chance to improve customer acquisition funnels, improve margins, mitigate fraud risk, and meet regulatory requirements while delivering a fast and secure digital user experience. In the end, those businesses that seize on the opportunity that digitization offers will be the ones who hold the key to success in the age of digital only lending and finance.
Download the Autonomous Report and find out more about how to drive success with digital identity.
Where can you find 1,200 fintech fans, 120 fintech experts, 64 innovative fintech companies, four days of fintech demos and discussions, and one digital graffiti wall?
The answer, my friend, is not blowing in the wind. It’s right here at London’s Tobacco Dock for FinovateEurope 2019!
Today is rehearsal day, which means that our demoing companies are busy putting the finishing touches on the live demonstrations that will fill the first two days of FinovateEurope. Rehearsal day also means that we’re less than 24 hours away from the start of the show, and if you haven’t picked up your ticket yet, there’s no better time than the present to visit our registration page and save your spot.
And remember that on Day Three, FinovateEurope will transition from live fintech demos to live fintech discussion and debate. We’ll have more than 100 industry experts and professionals taking on every aspect of financial technology – from AI and the blockchain to digital transformation and open banking.
If you are an old Finovate hand who has not yet experienced this new feature of our conferences, then you are in for a real treat. Check out the Day Three agenda for yourself; there is truly something for everyone.
We shared some conference notes and need-to-knows yesterday. For a quick refresher: FinovateEurope begins Tuesday, February 12 and continues through Thursday, February 14 – with a special Summit Day on Friday, the 15th. Our venue this year is London’s Tobacco Dock, a historic facility in the city’s Docklands area of the East End. It is located on Wapping Lane, at St. Katharine’s & Wapping, London, E1W 2SF.
Registration begins at 0800 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with Friday’s registration beginning at 0815.
Once you arrive at the venue – and grab a cup of tea or coffee and a sample of our continental breakfast – be sure to join our FinovateEurope community on our Knect3655 event app. Download the app from your preferred App Store, then search for “FinovateEurope” to access features like Sli.do, our audience participation solution; our Best of Show voting dashboard; our networking platform Brella; our attendees list; conference agenda and much more.
If you have any questions, including any challenges working with the app, please send us an email at info@finovate.com, and we’ll be happy to help.
In the meanwhile, our demoing companies have a few more practice runs to go before rehearsal day is done. We hope you’ll join us this week. Travel safe – and we’ll see you at the dock!
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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.
Silicon Valley-based wealthtech player Personal Capital is living up to its name as it has raised $50 million in a Series F funding round led by IGM Financial, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
The firm is in a personable mood as it has recently surpassed $8.5 billion in assets under management and two million registered users on its platform, which tracks more than $650 billion in aggregated account value.
The company didn’t go into specifics, but the funding will be used for growth, enhance its technology platform, and invest in partnerships.
“We have stayed laser focused on our mission of building a business that uses the ideal combination of technology and advisors to help Americans achieve clarity and confidence in their financial lives,” said Jay Shah, CEO of Personal Capital.
In terms of details, it has launched Smart Withdrawal, a personalized and interactive withdrawal strategy planner for retirement.
The company also announced a partnership with Alight Solutions and AllianceBernstein to create WealthSpark that will provide American workers with insights to their finances through Personal Capital’s technology.
Personal Capital is headquartered in Redwood City with hubs in San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, and Atlanta. It was founded in 2009.
IGM Financial is a Canadian personal financial services company, with approximately $154 billion in total assets under management. Its activities are carried out principally through IG Wealth Management, Mackenzie Investments and Investment Planning Counsel.
Personal Capital demonstrated the One Click Investment Proposals feature of its platform at FinovateSpring 2014. The company is also a veteran of our developers conferences, most recently providing a presentation titled Data-Driven Account Opening at FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2016.
FinovateEurope 2019 kicks off this week here in London, U.K. And for the second year in a row, FinovateEurope has a new home in England: London’s famous Tobacco Dock. We’re hoping that you’ll be able to join us this week for what promises to be three days (plus an additional summit day on Friday) of innovative fintech demos, insightful keynotes, and deep dive breakout sessions.
To help ensure you make the most of the event, here are a few last minute notes and need-to-knows.
Registration for FinovateEurope is still open! If you haven’t picked up your ticket, run – don’t walk – to our registration page to make sure you don’t miss a minute of this year’s event. Group, government, and startup discounts are available. Contact us at gf-registrations@knect365.com for information on government and regulatory entity discounts. For more information on startup discounts, email us at europe@finovate.com.
FinovateEurope moves to London’s Tobacco Dock this year. Located in London’s growing enterprise zone and just one stop on the DLR from Bank, Tobacco Dock is close to the Tower of London and only a few kilometers from Tech City and London’s Financial District. Tobacco Dock is on Wapping Lane, St. Katharine’s & Wapping, London, E1W 2SF.
Registration on Tuesday morning begins at 0800, and the first demo starts at 0925. Both coffee and a continental breakfast will be provided, so be sure to arrive a little early, pick up some refreshments, and join us in the main hall.
On Thursday, registration begins at 0800, with our Chairman’s opening remarks – courtesy of Dave Birch, Global Ambassador with Consult Hyperion – starting at 0840, and our opening keynote beginning at 0845 – featuring Tan Le, founder and CEO of EMOTIV. On Friday, registration begins at 0815, with opening remarks from our Chairs begin at 0900. Opening keynotes begin at 0910 for the Open Banking Summit and at 0915 for the AI Summit.
Both Tuesday and Wednesday will feature four live demo sessions each for a total of 64 scheduled demos. Get to know our demoing companies ahead of time via our FinovateEurope 2019 demos page, and then learn a little more about them in our FinovateEurope 2019 Sneak Peek series.
On Thursday, we bring the experts to the stage to discuss some of the most important technology trends in fintech. We will begin with an opening address and opening keynote, and then proceed to a variety of main stage addresses and panels on topics including e-commerce, innovation and collaboration, and digital transformation. Thursday will also feature streams on subjects such as challenger banks, blockchain technology, the the democratization of data, and the role of augmented intelligence in chatbot technology.
And remember we will also hold a special Summit Day on Friday with two streams: one dedicated to Open Banking, and the other focused on AI. For more information on how to attend our Friday Summit Day, check out our registration page. Discounts are available for attendees purchasing tickets to all four days of FinovateEurope 2019.
As you can see, there’s a whole lot going on at FinovateEurope this year. We look forward to seeing you this week here in London at the Tobacco Dock!
Have a question about FinovateEurope? Check out the FAQ section on our FinovateEurope 2019 page, or send us an email at europe@finovate.com.
On Finovate.com
Around the web
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.
New York Community Bancorp will move to Fiserv’s DNA core platform to improve its retail banking and commercial lending services, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
The bank, which has $51.2 billion in assets, will use an integrated suite of digital banking and payment solutions. It will also move from in-house processing to an application service provider (ASP) model hosted by Fiserv.
It is understood the new tech will replace the legacy Miser solution from Fiserv’s rival FIS.
Barbara Tosi-Renna, assistant chief operating officer, New York Community Bancorp, said: “We chose Fiserv because its solutions, integration and expertise put us in the strongest position to succeed in our fast-changing marketplace.”
The bank will add solutions from Fiserv including Commercial Center for commercial cash management and business banking, and the open, real-time Dovetail Payments Platform (paytech provider Dovetail was acquired by Fiserv in 2017).
It also will move existing in-house solutions including the Corillian Online and Mobiliti digital banking solutions from Fiserv to the bank’s new outsourced environment.
New York Community Bank is the “leading producer of multi-family loans” in New York City and the largest regional bank headquartered in New York by assets.
The bank has customers in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, and Arizona through a network of more than 250 branches.
Meanwhile, Fiserv has been busy. As usual.
Just last month, Banco CTT, one of Portugal’s newest banks, selected Fiserv to enable anti-money laundering (AML) capabilities.
In addition, and a much bigger deal, Fiserv revealed it will acquire First Data in an all-stock transaction of $22 billion.
Ahead of FinovateEurope in London next week, we talked with Tobias Christen, CEO of Zurich, Switzerland-based DSwiss, about his company and its flagship digital safe technology that supports the long-term secure, safe-keeping of personal files and passwords.
DSwiss was founded in 2008 and most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2018.
Finovate: Banks offer an adapted version of your digital safe directly from their online banking portals. But why would people want to save passwords and files with their bank?
Tobias Christen: A recent PwC-survey concluded that banks are amongst the most trusted organizations when it comes to privacy and cybersecurity, outranking healthcare providers, nonprofits, and online retailers. This only confirms our own experience: Increasingly, people are looking for a trusted partner that can help them keep important data safe. Banks are really well-positioned to act as that partner because of their long history as custodians of wealth.
The study also revealed that only 10% of consumers feel they have complete control over their personal information. In my opinion, that’s because they started out making the mistake of saving everything with companies whose business model was to sell data. There’s nothing wrong with using social media, iCloud or Google Docs but we’re seeing a growing understanding that not all data is made equal. Some documents are worthy of a superior protection – copies of ID papers, financial documents and passwords for example – and people are really looking for a safe alternative to store such data.
This is where a digital version of the bank safe seems like a very logical place to go. People feel safer storing essential data here because the business model of banks is not based on selling customer data but rather on their ability to keep such assets safe.
Finovate: How do you keep up with consumer demands and ensure that the digital safe stays relevant to them?
Christen: We’ve had a two string approach to that. On the one hand, we develop and market our own B2C solution called SecureSafe, which has more than 1 million users. Being behind our own B2C solution gives us direct access to highly valuable user feedback. Due to the popularity of such services as Dropbox, SecureSafe users started asking for more advanced file sharing and sync capabilities. We responded with secure sharing and encrypted sync functionality.
On the other hand, we’ve established a highly collaborative approach to the digital safe. Since our first private and cantonal bank clients joined us in 2009, DSwiss experts have joined forces with banks to develop strategic features that fit their particular needs. In 2011, we started to work on a patented single sign-on technology to allow for smooth integration of digital safes in online bank portals. eDelivery for the safe transfer of bank documents directly to clients’ safes followed soon after. After entering our first collaboration with a major bank in 2015, we’ve been able to speed up the collaborative product innovation.
Our latest innovation combines original meta-data that is passed along with documents (or requests) and data that is extracted with rule-based and machine-learning-based algorithms. This might sound very technical, but at Finovate London 2019 we’ll show you how it makes onboarding for a mortgage a lot faster and easier for bank clients. Ultimately, this feature makes any interaction between bank advisor and end-client user-centric. This fosters customer loyalty and helps a bank stand out to prospect clients.
Finovate: How do you keep up with security demands from your bank clients?
Christen: Banks have always been focused on a particularly high level of security and are understandably cautious when it comes to collaborating with fintechs. However, DSwiss was built on the principles of privacy by design from the get-go. We’ve employed zero knowledge architecture, double encryption and triple data redundancy since the very beginning. In particular, our zero knowledge architecture takes the confidentiality protection, which banks generally implement, to the next level. Throughout the years, we’ve been so fortunate as to work with banks of all sizes, both private and retail. That has enabled us to build up a lot of experience with the specific regulations that concern banks, such as GDPR.
Finovate: According to you, what are the biggest challenges to online security and privacy protection today?
Christen: In the old days, cyber criminals were quite often isolated individuals with limited financial resources. They were principally motivated by curiosity, pride or revenge. Today, the offenders are mostly motivated by economical perspectives and they are often engaged by governments. This means that we increasingly see well-organized and well-founded groups at work.
Watch DSwiss and dozens of other innovative fintech companies demonstrate their latest technologies live at FinovateEurope 2019, 12-14 February at the Tobacco Dock in London, U.K. For more information, including how to buy your ticket and save your spot, visit our registration page today.