Motive Partners Acquires Majority Stake in Finantix

Motive Partners Acquires Majority Stake in Finantix
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finantix, Mergers & Acquisitions

Private equity firm Motive Partners will become a majority shareholder in Finantix, a provider of digital services for the private banking, insurance and wealthtech sectors, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Financial details were not disclosed. Both firms are a bit vague but Motive will support the company and the founders (Ralf Emmerich and Alessandro Tonchia) in “extending the functional footprint of the product and in accelerating geographic expansion”. The latter means Europe, Asia and to enter the U.S. market.

Scott Kauffman, partner at Motive Partners, said Finantix has demonstrated its ability to create a “compelling product, bringing a leading technology platform to an ever-increasing set of blue chip clients”.

Finantix’s founders and the management team will continue to lead the company.

The company has over 250 staff in seven cities and a customer base in more than 45 countries. Some of its clients include Rothschild Bank, Crossbridge Capital, and DBS.

Motive Labs, the operational and technology team of Motive, will also work with Finantix.

Back in March, Finantix acquired Singapore-based Smartfolios, a creator of quant-enabled investment tools. No financial details in that deal as well.

As reported last year, Motive powered up and revealed its plans to invest in fintech firms in the U.K. and U.S.

According to its Form D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the U.S, Motive was looking to raise $150 million.

“Our mission is to back and build the next generation of financial technology businesses to transform markets, models and society,” the company said on its website.

Based in Venice, Italy, and founded in 1994, Finantix demonstrated its Banking Assistant solution at FinovateEurope 2013.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AlphaPoint, Bill.com, Finantix, Jack Henry, Narrative Science, Plaid, Ripple

On Finovate.com

  • Plaid Raises $250 Million Series C Round Led by Mary Meeker.
  • Bill.com Achieves NACHA Certification.

Around the web

  • Narrative Science introduces its new language-based augmented analytics product, Lexio, in beta.
  • Currencies Direct taps Ripple’s xCurrent for real-time remittances to India.
  • AlphaPoint to support Stellar Lumens.
  • Motive Partners acquires majority stake in Finantix.
  • Camden National Bank further leverages Jack Henry relationship to support demand for growth, innovation.

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.

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BioCatch Brings Behavioral Biometrics to ACI Worldwide

BioCatch Brings Behavioral Biometrics to ACI Worldwide
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, BioCatch

A new partnership between real-time electronic payment and banking solutions provider, ACI Worldwide, and behavioral biometrics specialist, BioCatch, will deliver better online and mobile fraud prevention to banking customers. Along with the advanced analytic capabilities of ACI Worldwide’s UP Payments Risk Management, BioCatch’s behavior assessment technology will help institutions better defend themselves and their customers from a growing variety of cyberthreats.

“As online and mobile banking proliferates, fraudsters are consistently finding new ways to infiltrate banks’ systems, creating havoc for consumers and businesses alike,” BioCatch CTO and founder Avi Turgeman said. “By using behavioral data to distinguish between a genuine customer and a fraudster – whether human or non-human – we are able to detect fraudulent activity in real-time and protect consumers.”

ACI Worldwide global director for Payments Intelligence & Risk Solutions Cleber Martins pointed to threats like account takeover, social engineering, and bots as the main obstacles for institutions that are attempting to provide “enriched customer experience(s).” He praised the way BioCatch offers “cost-efficient access to behavioral biometrics” solutions to enable banks to “further promote safety and loyalty through the online relationship with their clients.”

BioCatch demonstrated the Passive Biometrics/Invisible Challenges mechanism of its cognitive behavioral biometrics technology at FinovateFall 2014. The mechanism injects a dynamic, cognitive challenge during the user’s interaction with an app. The challenge is so subtle that the user responds to it without being aware that the challenge has occurred. This response helps define the user’s relationship with the app, providing a unique user profile that reduces vulnerability to a variety of cyber threats.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Israel, BioCatch has raised $41.6 million in funding, and includes Blumberg Capital, OurCrowd, and Maverick Ventures Israel among its investors. In October, the company announced that it was partnering with seven, tier-one Latin American banks in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. Earlier this year, BioCatch teamed up with ForgeRock, offering its behavioral biometrics solution as an integrated module to ForgeRock’s platform.

ACI Worldwide powers electronic payments for more than 5,000 institutions globally, including more than 1,000 of the world’s largest financial institutions and service providers. The company participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, presenting Simple, Global, and Secure eCommerce Payments with ACI Worldwide’s Next-Generation API. The discussion focused on the technical challenges of payments integration and the value of using an end-to-end solution with integrated real-time fraud prevention.

Founded in 1975 and based in Naples, Florida, ACI Worldwide trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker ACIW, and has a market capitalization of $3 billion.

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Interactions Partners with Next Caller for Phone-Based Threat Assessment

Interactions Partners with Next Caller for Phone-Based Threat Assessment
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Interactions

Intelligent Virtual Assistance (IVA) company Interactions recently announced a new partnership with Next Caller, a phone fraud detection and authentication firm, with a goal of boosting Interactions’ fraud protection.

“At Interactions, security is a top priority,” said Mary McKenna, director of product management at Interactions. “Customer service interactions generate massive amounts of data that are often sensitive, so being able to provide our clients with state of the art security is a must. With this enhanced security offering, we strengthen our commitment to protect our clients and their customers from security threats.”

Under the agreement, Interactions will expand security services for its IVA enterprise clients by leveraging Next Caller’s VeriCall tool, which will add a layer of security to prevent fraudulent phone calls. VeriCall will help IVA assess the threat level of an incoming call using the caller’s automatic number identification (ANI) and network information. The resulting risk score will route high risk calls to either further screening questions or to a live agent, and will direct low-risk calls via a more frictionless user experience.

“Our partnership with Interactions will provide sophisticated real-time call verification and authentication technology to their customers,” said Ian Roncoroni, co-founder and CEO of Next Caller. “Fraud is a growing problem for businesses today, and can be especially damaging to companies that have to deal with large amounts of customer data. One small mishap can provide a fraudster with enough personal information to steal a customer’s identity.”

Interactions will use Next Caller’s technology alongside its current security offerings, including Voice Biometrics, which creates a personalized voice print for customers; ANI Blacklists, which cross-checks a caller’s ANI against existing databases of blacklisted numbers; and Voiceprint Blacklists, which uses the caller’s voiceprint to search an existing database of fraudster voiceprints.

Massachusetts-based Interactions leverages AI and voice-recognition technology to help big brands offer a more friendly, automated customer experience. The company most recently presented its IVA at FinovateFall 2018. Founded in 2004, Interactions facilitates 1 billion customer interactions per year across six different channels for large brands including Hyatt, Humana, LifeLock, and Mountain America Credit Union.

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Ohpen Migrates More than 400k Accounts in Partnership with Aegon

Ohpen Migrates More than 400k Accounts in Partnership with Aegon
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ohpen

Ohpen is making tech progress as it has migrated over 400,000 Dutch savings and investment accounts from Aegon to its core banking engine, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

As reported in April last year, financial services provider Aegon was partnering with Ohpen to develop a new platform for its Dutch services.

The firms said they are merging their domain knowledge within pensions and technology. Aegon will plug into Ohpen’s singular platform via a 100% API-based interface.

In the latest phase, Ohpen said this migration is in line with their previously communicated ambition to “build the infrastructure and architecture of the future”.

Chris Zadeh, founder and CEO of Ohpen, said it developed its cloud-based core banking engine “from scratch to ensure that the technology and processes actually work, all the time.”

After the completion of this migration, all accounts of clients with investment and (fiscal) savings products of Aegon Bank will be administered by Ohpen.

In other Ohpen news, last month it unveiled its Ohpen API Portal (OAP) in beta mode. In its view, IT and re-platforming projects in financial services have a “reputation of running over time and budget”.

The firm stays true to its name because when asked about wealthtech woes in the U.K. it was very transparent. In that exclusive report in November, it responded quickly and said it had made 19 staff redundant at its U.K. office due to the lack of action in the asset management space.

Ohpen’s Dutch operations appear to be unaffected by these U.K. job losses. As reported in an exclusive in July, LeasePlan Bank, the online savings bank based in the Netherlands, chose it to upgrade its whole core cloud banking engine.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Ohpen demonstrated its core banking platform at FinovateFall 2012. The firm has raised €40 million in funding and includes Amerborgh among its investors.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Bankjoy, Bill.com, BioCatch, Interactions, iSignthis, Klarna, Launchfire, Passport, PayNearMe, Payoneer, Token, TransferWise, TrueAccord

On Finovate.com

  • Interactions Partners with Next Caller for Phone-Based Threat Assessment.
  • BioCatch Brings Behavioral Biometrics to ACI Worldwide.

Around the web

  • Token to support PSD2 compliance and open banking capabilities for U.K.’s thinkmoney.
  • SafeAmericaCU’s switch to AI-powered technology from Bankjoy helps the $433 million asset FI to earn “Best Practices” honors from CU Journal.
  • TransferWise secures £65 million syndicated debt facility with NatWest, JP Morgan, and LHV Bank.
  • iSignthis plans for Australian neobanking license in 2019.
  • PayNearMe’s electronic payment volume grew by more than 25% month-over-month in the past year.
  • Klarna joins Shopify Plus Partner program to power merchants.
  • TrueAccord wins a Healthy Mothers Workplace Award.
  • Passport recognized as one of Charlotte’s fastest growing companies.
  • Launchfire wins gold Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Award.
  • Bill.com selects Comdata as Virtual Credit Card Provider for B2B Payments.
  • TopTracker partners with Payoneer to allows free payments between companies and freelancers.

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.

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Boku Acquires Mobile ID and Authentication Company Danal

Boku Acquires Mobile ID and Authentication Company Danal
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Boku, Mergers & Acquisitions

Carrier billing company Boku is set to expand its expertise with a new acquisition this week. The San Francisco-based company agreed to acquire mobile identification and authentication company Danal for up to $68 million. The acquisition is expected to close December 31, 2018.

The deal is being structured as a reverse triangular merger to ensure Boku acquires 100% of Danal, a subsidiary of DFS Services. To finance the acquisition, Boku is issuing 26.7 million common shares for $0.0001 each, $3 million in Boku warrants, and $1 million in cash. In addition, Boku will pay deferred consideration of up to $64 million, the exact amount dependent on Danal’s future performance.

Leveraging its connections to MNOs, Danal offers data matching, account baselining, phone identification, and proactive monitoring to verify users’ identities for verticals including banks, healthcare, hospitality, and ecommerce. The San Jose-based company also offers solutions to satisfy Know Your Customer (KYC) and Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulations. Some of Danal’s customers include Western Union, BNP Paribas, PayPal, Square, Moneygram, Login.gov, and USAA. The privately-held company has raised $14.5 million.

Boku will leverage Danal’s technology to offer mobile identity services to its existing customers and to provide global coverage to Danal’s U.S. customers. “Combining Danal’s customer base and technology with Boku’s international scale and global MNO connection capability, will allow us to build the world leader in this emerging space,” said Boku CEO Jon Prideaux. “This acquisition allows us to offer services that go further and to improve user quality for our customers while at the same time improving the mobile experience for users… Danal has shown that MNO data can also combat fraud, reduce friction in signup and ensure regulatory compliance on mobile.”

Boku was founded in 2008 and provides payments technology that allows consumers to charge purchases to their mobile phone bill. The company offers its operator network for acquiring, activating, and monetizing customers through their mobile phones. The Boku platform is used in large digital marketplaces such as the Google Play store, Apple’s App store, Spotify, and Facebook’s App Center.

At FinovateEurope 2011 Boku showcased its mobile payment service. Earlier this fall, Boku was awarded Best Newcomer at the AIM Awards. Boku is publicly traded on the London stock exchange with a current market capitalization of $124 million.

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ayondo Goes Pro

ayondo Goes Pro
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ayondo

Social trading company ayondo announced a new professional trading platform this week. A complement to the Singapore-based company’s B2C product, ayondoPRO caters to the needs of professional traders.

Specifically, ayondoPRO clients will be able to trade more than 2,000 instruments with leverage of up to 200 times. Participants can also join a Spread Rebate Program that gives clients part of the spread they have paid back to their trading account. And professional traders don’t need to sacrifice ayondo’s standard benefits such as negative balance protection and free additional insurance that covers each Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) eligible customer up to $1.3 million in excess of the FSCS standard.

To qualify as a professional for an ayondoPRO account, users must:

  • Have executed significantly sized leverage trades at an average frequency of 10 per quarter over the last four quarters
  • Have a financial instrument portfolio, including cash deposits, exceeding $569,000
  • Currently work or have worked in the financial sector for at least one year in a professional position

“With ayondoPRO, professional and experienced traders will benefit from a combination of excellent service, great trading conditions, and customer protection. We have seen a lot of demand for a platform that provides high-leverage with trading conditions offering tight spreads,” said Raza Perez, Chief Product Officer of ayondo. “The launch of ayondoPRO is part of our commitment to keep improving and investing in our B2C product offering while introducing a PRO White Label facility for B2B clients, at the same time.”

Founded in 2008, ayondo offers a brokerage platform that lets users copy the moves of top traders to optimize returns. At FinovateEurope 2013, the company unveiled a new version of its service, its London brokerage, and a trader career training curriculum. The company became the first fintech to list on the Singapore Stock Exchange this March, following a failed reverse takeover deal from Starland Holdings. Earlier this fall, ayondo formed a white-label agreement with Phnom Penh Derivative Exchange to provide its TradeHub to its derivative broker clients in Cambodia.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ayondo, Boku, Coinbase, Envestnet, IdentityMind Global, Larky, Mortgage Cadence, Passport, Pendo Systems, SaleMove, Token, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

  • Boku Acquires Mobile ID and Authentication Company Danal

Around the web

  • CU Broadcast interviews Larky CEO Gregg Hammerman on what credit union CEOs are prioritizing for their members’ engagement today.
  • IdentityMind protects FIs with virtual currency risk assessment.
  • 32 fintechs graduate from Envestnet | Yodlee’s incubator.
  • Token brings Open Banking to Mena region.
  • Coinbase continues to explore support for new digital assets.
  • The city of Rye, NY partners with Passport to manage parking.
  • Mortgage Cadence integrates Radian’s mortgage insurance service into its Enterprise Lending Center solution.
  • The CX Show interviews SaleMove co-founder and CEO Dan Michaeli about creating contact center leaders.
  • TechCrunch interviews Transferwise cofounder and CEO Kristo Käärman on growing money transfers despite global turbulence.
  • Pendo Systems partners with Azimuth GRC and Global Comply.

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.

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Fighting Financial Crime with Feedzai’s Risk Ledger

Fighting Financial Crime with Feedzai’s Risk Ledger
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Feedzai

Leveraging machine learning and secure, federated data from its customer base and third-party vendors, Feedzai announced this week the release of its latest financial crime prevention solution, Risk Ledger.

Feedzai’s Risk Ledger uses the 30 million transactions processed by its system every day – including more than 100 different payment methods – to deliver a more accurate and comprehensive anti-fraud solution compared to siloed data offerings.  By processing such a wide range and number of data elements (i.e., cards, IPs, merchants, emails) along the full cycle of the customer journey (from onboarding to compliance), Risk Ledger provides anti-fraud and anti-money laundering defense for all members of the payment process from issuers and acquirers to merchants and networks.

“Our goal has always been to make it harder and harder for fraudsters to hide, while making it easier for businesses to serve their loyal customers without friction,” Feedzai Head of Product Saurabh Bajaj explained. “As our customer base across the world continues to grow, the network effect of all of that data will only make Risk Ledger stronger.”

Risk Ledger is the latest solution from Feedzai designed to help fight financial crime. In October, the company unveiled Feedzai Genome, which enables financial fraud investigators to use link analysis graph technology to visualize and identify complex financial crime patterns and take action in real time. Powered by Feedzai’s advanced AI, Feedzai Genome learns over time, keeping pace with evolving AML and fraud typologies.

“Fraud patterns are getting more complex as criminals continue to get more sophisticated to avoid detection,” Feedzai CTO and co-founder Paulo Marques said when the technology was introduced. “Feedzai Genome gives our customers a full picture of financial crime so that they can fight it more effectively.”

With $5 billion in transactions scored daily, Feedzai serves ten of the largest 25 banks in the world, protecting 200 million people against cyberfraud. The company has raised $82 million in funding and includes Data Collective DCVC, Sapphire Ventures, Citi Ventures, and Oak HC/FT among its investors.

Earlier this year, Feedzai introduced its AutoML technology, leveraging machine learning to automate many of the most time-consuming processes for data scientists fighting cybercrime. In July, the company teamed up with Credorax, an e-commerce focused commercial bank, to help merchants better defend themselves against fraud.

Named to the Inc. 5,000 Europe roster for 2018 this summer and honored with a spot on the Forbes Fintech 50 at the beginning of the year, Feedzai demonstrated its fraud prevention technology at FinovateEurope 2014. The company was founded in 2008 and is based in San Mateo, California.

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Finicity Automates Asset Verification for Princeton Mortgage’s SnapApp

Finicity Automates Asset Verification for Princeton Mortgage’s SnapApp
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finicity

Princeton Mortgage will leverage Finicity’s Verification of Assets solution to improve the loan origination experience for lenders and borrowers. The asset verification technology will be integrated into Princeton Mortgage’s digital mortgage platform, SnapApp, automating the asset verification process, reducing mortgage fraud, and speeding time to close.

“We’re thrilled to work with Princeton Mortgage and provide its customers with an innovative, paper-free and hassle-free experience,” Finicity CEO Steve Smith said. “As the leading financial data aggregator in the mortgage lending industry, we are always looking for partners who share our goal of transforming outdated loan origination processes into seamless digital experiences.”

Finicity demonstrated its credit decisioning solutions, including both its Verification of Income (VoI) and Verification of Assets (VoA) reports, at FinovateFall 2017. The Verification of Assets solution enables lenders to leverage bank validated insights to identify underwriting factors that can shave as many as six days off the mortgage origination process. VoA and VoI are part of the company’s innovations to help digitize the lending experience and bring the quality of information available via real-time bank data to the mortgage industry.

Princeton Mortgage’s SnapApp enables borrowers to apply, verify income and assets, access their credit information, run an automated approval and generate a pre-approval letter at any time, according to the company’s Sales Enablement Manager Nicole Gordon. “Borrowers want an effortless mortgage experience, and with our new SnapApp they get just that,” she said.

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and founded in 1999, Finicity partnered with fellow Finovate alums Experian and FICO to launch the new UltraFICO credit score earlier this fall. The new solution is designed to help provide financing to borrowers with credit scores in the so-called gray area of the upper 500s and lower 600s. UltraFICO leverages the account aggregation capabilities of Finicity and Experian’s consumer credit data to give lenders a broader view of a borrower’s financial behavior – especially for those new to credit or with limited credit history.

Finicity has been busy making friends and forging partnerships this year. The company teamed up with Freddie Mac in October, Fidelity Investments and Capsilon in September, Capital One in August, and both SimpleNexus and Cre8tech Labs’ Lender Price in July. The deals ranged from credit decisioning integrations to secure data exchange and customer data security agreements.

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Avaloq and Cyber Infrastructure Firm Metaco Team Up with Gazprombank

Avaloq and Cyber Infrastructure Firm Metaco Team Up with Gazprombank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avaloq

Banking technology supplier Avaloq and crypto infrastructure firm Metaco have partnered with Gazprombank, a Swiss bank, to implement their integrated crypto asset solution, reports Henry Vilar of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

The aim of this project is to provide banks and wealth managers with a solution for the management of client portfolios across all asset classes including cryptocurrencies.

Gazprombank, which is already an Avaloq client, aims to offer a cryptocurrency service to its clients in mid-2019.

The solution will integrate SILO, Metaco’s crypto-wallet management solution, within the Avaloq Banking Suite. The two firms are already familiar with each other as Avaloq has a 10% stake in Metaco.

It will also allow banking and wealth management clients to buy, sell and transfer crypto assets and currencies, without any need for a crypto-wallet or private key management.

Adrien Treccani, founder and CEO of Metaco, said: “We know that security and secure custody are of paramount importance and Metaco’s multi-signature support will make the solution fully capable for institutional use.”

Metaco’s HSM (hardware security module) ensures a “military security” solution for storing private keys and managing wallets and operations. The new solution will support a multi-signature system for transaction approval.

Avaloq demonstrated its double marketplace at FinovateAsia 2018 last month. The double marketplace is a new feature of the company’s ecosystem that brings the app store concept to banking. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, Avaloq was founded in 1985.

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