FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Rootant

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Rootant

FinovateAsiaA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on October 29 and 30, 2018 in Hong Kong. Register today and save your spot.

Rootant empowers global financial institutions to transform to a cross-platform, easy-to-use, and user-friendly financial platform with applications and services that improve the end user experience.

Features

  • Various services: front-end replacement, application enhancement, gamification, workshop, and training
  • Various verticals: bank, broker, asset investment, and wealth management
  • Various presence: SH, HK, and SGP

Why it’s great
Rootant (Finance_Design+Tech+Global) provides better financial experience for clients.

Presenter

Lincoln Yin, CEO
Yin is a young entrepreneur who started Rootant at the age of 19. He is a member of the Global Shapers Community and a delegate of the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance.
LinkedIn

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Klarna Rakes in $20 Million in Fall Funding Round

Around the web

  • Entrust Datacard named Employer of Excellence.
  • Ayondo expands B2B offering in Asia with a new white label deal.
  • Tradeshift appoints Silicon Valley veteran as its First CLO, CCO.
  • eToro cuts crypto costs to support mass adoption.
  • Roostify announces bidirectional integration with Ellie Mae’s Encompass digital mortgage solution.

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.

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Voca.ai

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Voca.ai

FinovateAsiaA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on October 29 and 30, 2018 in Hong Kong. Register today and save your spot.

Voca.ai is a human-friendly virtual agent supercharging contact centers. The Voca agent significantly reduces costs of call centers while increasing revenues.

Features

  • Personalization: adjusts tone, accent, and gender per the customer’s data
  • Customization: is customized to the business’ lingo and terminology
  • Scalability: can make 200 calls one day and 1 million the next

Why it’s great
Voca.ai is the only scalable way to reach out to your customers over the phone without losing the human touch.

Presenter

Einav Itamar, Investor, Director
Itamar is a serial tech entrepreneur with 12 years of experience in AI and big data.
LinkedIn

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: DepositBook

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: DepositBook

FinovateAsiaA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on October 29 and 30, 2018 in Hong Kong. Register today and save your spot.

DepositBook is a wholesale deposit marketplace that connects institutional and corporate depositors with banks globally.

Features

  • Offers an open banking platform revolutionizing the wholesale deposits markets
  • Grants depositors access to special interest rates with one central account
  • Allows banks to raise liabilities at no additional costs

Why it’s great
DepositBook’s deposit marketplace creates a win-win for all stakeholders. Banks can raise funding with global depositors who discover the best rates and transact through a central account in a seamless manner.

Presenters

Siddharth Bhandari, CEO
Bhandari is the founder CEO of DepositBook. He has been a career banker for over 20 years, holding leadership positions globally. Bhandari has a Masters degree in Finance from the London School of Economics.
LinkedIn

Samir Rajpurkar, CTO and Co-founder
Rajpurkar has 25+ years of experience in banking and technology. He was formerly Regional Head of Technology at Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), where he was responsible for managing technology services.
LinkedIn

Webinar: What’s next for top-tier banks and financial messaging?

Webinar: What’s next for top-tier banks and financial messaging?

WIFT remains a mission critical channel for all financial institutions. But the cost and complexity of operating SWIFT for top-tier banks has increased substantially since the introduction of SWIFT’s CSP programme. As payments and connectivity become increasingly commoditised for all financial institutions, banks are re-thinking how best to maintain secure, reliable and compliant SWIFT operations and back-office applications at the lowest cost.

To respond to our customers’ needs, equensWorldline has launched a new fully managed service to meet the needs of tier-1 banks that can no longer afford to invest in ageing infrastructure or meet increasingly stringent regulations and market practices.

Now, for the first time, outsourcing of SWIFT and other financial messaging channels is a realistic and attractive option for tier-1 banks that previously operated their SWIFT infrastructures in-house.

Commerzbank AG, a top SWIFT user, recognised the benefits and adopted the Next Generation Financial Messaging service from Worldline, an Atos Group Company. The service uses the BOX Messaging Hub from Intercope.

The webinar will give an overview of the:

  • Fundamental changes to SWIFT operations impacting Tier-1 banks
  • Changes to the regulatory environment including SWIFT’s CSP programme
  • The key financial benefits of  using this managed service
  • Key benefits of a modern and high performance platform
  • Flexible customization to customer needs
  • Ease of integration to back-end applications

Featuring:

Julius Pietowicz, Head of the SWIFT Service Centre, equensWorldline

Olaf Badstuebner, Global Director Financial Services, Atos Group

Daragh Kirby, Sales Director, INTERCOPE

Priority Payment Systems to Offer Sezzle’s Shop Now, Pay Later Solution

Priority Payment Systems to Offer Sezzle’s Shop Now, Pay Later Solution

Fresh of its return to the Finovate stage, alternative payment platform Sezzle announced this week that Priority Payment Systems will offer Sezzle as a payment option for its merchants. This will allow Priority Payment Systems merchants to add the e-commerce financing technology both at the product page and at checkout.

“We’re excited to offer our clients and their merchants a new alternative payment method, providing more choices for consumers and differentiation in the marketplace,” Priority Payment Systems CEO John V. Priore said. Founded in 2005, Priority Payment Systems has 174,000+ SME merchant customers, and processes 39+ billion electronic transactions a year. Sezzle founder and CEO Charlie Youakim praised the company’s “scale and breadth in e-commerce,” and called the Alpharetta, Georgia-based firm “an excellent financial services partner for Sezzle.”

Sezzle provides POS financing that enables consumers to pay for purchases in four interest-free installments over a six-week period. Sezzle pays the merchant directly, assuming all repayment risk, and has helped more than 1,800 e-commerce retailers boost average order values by an average of 20%. Sezzle is also a popular option with younger consumers who are less likely to have a credit card. The company noted that 80% of the 100,000+ shoppers on its platform are less than 35 years old.

Brent Sandor, Marketing Director at 686, a fashionable outerwear and technical apparel retailer, underscored Sezzle’s value in providing payment flexibility. “Our products are very popular with young consumers, but it’s hard for some of them to afford the full purchase price, and Sezzle enables them to budget and spread their purchase over time.”

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Sezzle demonstrated its “Shop Now, Pay Later” alternative payment system for e-commerce checkouts at FinovateFall 2018 last month. Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership with fellow Minneapolis startup, CartStack, to help e-commerce merchants better engage with their customers. In May, Sezzle added former Bluestem Brands VP and U.S. Bank executive Karen Hartje as CFO.

With $10.9 million in funding, Sezzle includes E-Merge and CSC Upshot among its investors.

The ID Co. Launches NoMo Cashflow Tracking App

The ID Co. Launches NoMo Cashflow Tracking App

The ID Co. announced late this week that its NoMo solution is the first mobile app to leverage Open Banking to give users simple financial cashflow tracking. The solution is currently available on iOS with an Android version expected in December.

“We have been working on building a consumer app that allows customers to answer one very simple, but important question, and we’re confident that this premise means NoMo will be a great success with customers,” James Varga, CEO of The ID Co., said. He noted the new offering, combined with its DirectID solution for FIs, adds a significant dimension to the company and would “broaden (its) appeal within the market.”

“We look forward to the reception NoMo will receive now it has been launched,” Varga said.

NoMo provides cash-flow averaging, spending recommendations, personalized updates, and a financial performance overview that tracks your performance and progress in growing your cash account, specifically. Just in time for the trend toward rising short-term interest rates, view of the user’s account is “read-only,” adding to its security and privacy. NoMo is free to download and only available for U.K. users.

Two years into its rebrand from miiCard, The ID Co. continues to help banks and financial services companies onboard customers faster and more efficiently while meeting compliance standards and requirements. In August, The ID Co. partnered with CYBG (Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank), integrating its DirectID user verification technology into CYBG’s mobile banking app. The previous month, the company launched its Open Banking API platform, making it easier for businesses to use DirectID to access open banking services with major U.K. banks.

With customers including OakNorth Bank, Navient, and fellow Finovate alum, Prosper, The ID Co. has raised more than $9 million in funding. The company is headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Priority Payment Systems to Offer Sezzle’s Shop Now, Pay Later Solution.
  • The ID Co. Launches NoMo Cashflow Tracking App.

Around the web

  • IDG’s Techworld features U.K.-based insurtech innovator, Anorak. The company was also selected to participate in the Plug and Play Insurtech innovation platform in November.
  • Silicon Republic highlights Meniga in its roundup of “cool start-ups from Reykjavik.”
  • In partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, HackerOne uncovers 150 cybersecurity vulnerabilities during Hack the Marine Corps challenge.

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.

Student Loan Genius Relaunches as Vault

Student Loan Genius Relaunches as Vault

Fall has brought not only a change of season for student loan repayment benefits platform Student Loan Genius, it also marks a name change, as the company has rebranded as Vault this week.

“Vault was born out of the desire and ability to be more than a third-party financial technology service for organizations,” said Matt Beecher, CEO of Vault. “We solve a very real and increasingly suffocating financial problem that affects a large number of employees: student loan debt. And, we are willing to get down into the trenches to create results that give our clients an advantage in the marketplace. We’ve changed our name to reflect that we’ve honed our focus, more than ever, on empowering financial freedom.”

The rebrand also helps to differentiate Vault from a student loan refinancing platform with a name similar to its former one, Student Loan Hero.

The news comes as Vault closes a deal with American Family Insurance. The firm agreed to provide its employees with two of Vault’s offerings, Vault Pay, which facilitates employer student loan contributions; and Vault Advisor, an online tool that suggests customized payoff plans based on employees’ actual loans.

Vault was founded in 2013 and demonstrated at FinovateSpring 2016, where it showcased a 401(k) product that allows employers to allocate unused 401(k) dollars to student loan benefits. The offering launched this week under the name Vault Match. Headquartered in Texas, Vault has raised a total of $7.7 million.

Lighter Capital Launches Capital Client Perks Program

Lighter Capital Launches Capital Client Perks Program

Revenue-based financing provider Lighter Capital has brightened up its services today with the launch of a new perks program.

The Lighter Capital Client Perks, which bundles business tools and service offerings, launches today for startups funded by Lighter Capital. Customers can use the program for free and benefit from offers that add up to $75,000 in savings from 30 companies (including Finovate alum Gusto), more than 10% of which are Lighter Capital clients. Offerings include cloud hosting, HR services, marketing and sales automation, CRM, and more.

“We recognize that in today’s business environment, it takes more than money for tech startups to achieve success – so we’ve assembled a lineup of services specially catered to assist early-stage companies,” said BJ Lackland, CEO of Lighter Capital. “Our goal is to help startups grow. We’d love it if companies can receive enough savings from these perks that they effectively pay us no interest on our loans. That’s a great benefit for everyone.”

Since it was founded in 2010, Seattle-based Lighter Capital  has funded more than 270 startup companies with 450+ rounds of financing totaling more than $125 million. Designed for tech companies, Lighter Capital’s revenue-based financing model exchanges from $50,000 to $2 million in up-front capital for 2% to 8% of future revenue. Unlike with VC funding, startups retain full ownership of their company.

Lighter Capital last demoed at FinovateFall 2013 where it showcased loan analysis and monitoring tools. The company was recently ranked 776 on the Inc. 5,000 list for achieving a growth rate of 6.5x over the last three years.

Trustly Teams with Mintos Marketplace

Trustly Teams with Mintos Marketplace

Payment solutions company Trustly landed a new client in the peer-to-peer lending space this week. The Sweden-based company announced it has teamed up with Mintos, Europe’s largest P2P marketplace.

The collaboration will allow the almost-100,000 investors at the Latvia-based P2P platform to transfer funds from banks in 29 European countries in real time. Mintos anticipates the partnership will not only simplify but also speed up the process for investors.

In a statement, Mintos CEO and co-founder Martins Sulte commented on the importance of offering “fast and highly secure transfers” and meeting investors’ demand “for a seamless, fast, and simple user experience.” He added, “We are very pleased to be able to grow our offer with both an in-demand payment method and the unrivaled European coverage that Trustly provides.”

Johan Nord, Trustly CCO, discussed the value of synergies within fintech. He said that today’s partnership with Mintos “is an excellent example of how two financial technology businesses can partner to create value for investors by streamlining the transaction process, while also delivering the highest level of transaction security.”

Founded in 2008, Trustly supports card-not-present payments for online merchants and offers a secure way for consumers to transact using their online banking access credentials. At FinovateEurope 2017, the company debuted Direct Debit, a payment offering that removes the pain of entering payment card information by allowing users to transact using their current account by entering their bank login credentials.

Trustly works with more than 3,000 banks across Europe. The company has 215 employees across Sweden, Spain, Malta, Germany, and the U.K. Last month, the company teamed with proptech company Oscar Properties to help clients book and pay for their new apartment online.

Daon Inks Deal with South Africa’s Capitec Bank

Daon Inks Deal with South Africa’s Capitec Bank

Finovate is not the only company looking forward to doing more business in South Africa. Biometric identity technology solutions provider Daon has partnered with Stellenbosch South Africa’s Capitec Bank in a multi-year agreement that will leverage Daon’s IdentityX platform to develop new authentication solutions. Capitec initially will use the technology to enhance its onboarding process.

“Daon is excited to partner with Capitec to deliver digital onboarding and authentication to its clients,” Daon CEO Tom Grissen said. “We share in Capitec’s mission for simplicity and client empowerment through convenient and secure choices for mobile banking.”

With more than 10 million active clients, Capitec Bank is the fastest growing full service retail bank in South Africa. The bank has more than 820 branches and 4,600 ATMs across the country, and has more than three million customers using its banking app to access account information, as well as make payments, transfers, and pre-paid purchases.

“Capitec remains committed to providing an all-inclusive banking solution and harnessing the power of technology to make interactions easier and simpler,” Wim de Bruyn, Executive Information Technology at Capitec said. “We are eager to work with Daon to bring new and innovative solutions to our clients so we can continue to keep their banking experience affordable and secure.”

Daon demonstrated its universal mobile biometric authentication platform, IdentityX, at FinovateFall 2016. The platform leverages multiple authentication methodologies – from biometrics to geolocation and device binding – to enable firms to build the most appropriate authentication experience for their customers. This approach also future-proofs the platform, making it easy for companies to integrate new technologies and biometric modalities as they come to market.

Founded in 2002, the Reston, Virginia-based company has deployed its technology in a wide variety of verticals including digital banking, payments verification, employee credentialing, and cloud authentication. An authentication innovator with a broad, global reach, Daon teamed up with Tradelink to bring biometric authentication technology to Hong Kong’s Dah Sing Bank this summer, and began the year announcing a strategic partnership with North African security and document dematerialization specialist, GEMADEC.