Aixigo Relaunches Digital Portfolio Management System

Aixigo Relaunches Digital Portfolio Management System
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: aixigo

Digital wealth manager investify has a new high performance portfolio management system courtesy of its partnership with Germany’s aixigo. The system, accessible via API, features a variety of enhancements that make it easier for the portfolio to intake and manage large data sets from legacy systems, quickly refine them, and make the data available to all customer systems.

With nearly 100 services, the API provides digital wealth managers with the necessary processes and functions for high-volume business, enabling the platform to serve both average and wealthy customers. And as a REST API, the technology supports innovation from financial services providers looking to further develop their digital customer journeys with apps, chatbots, or voice interfaces. For its part, investify will take advantage of the portfolio analysis, monitoring, and reporting services available through aixigo’s solution.

“The speed and mass suitability of the module enables an extremely scalable portfolio analysis, which is crucial for digital asset management,” founder and managing director of investify, Sebastian Hasenack said. “Moreover, it is a decisive advantage of investify for high volume B2B cooperation in the banking and insurance sector.”

“The aixigo high performance portfolio API is based on five basic principles that we have not invented but consistently apply,” Fabian Budde, aixigo Head of Customer Projects, added. “To make the data quickly available, it is stored in an in-memory database. We use so-called cache-oblivious algorithms to reduce processor waiting times.”

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Aachen, Germany, aixigo demonstrated its Digital Financial Portfolio Management Backoffice at FinovateEurope 2018. The company is also an alum of our developers conference. Aixigo Head of Portfolio Management Systems Marcus Gruendler presented Digital Wealth Management with APIs at FinDEVr London 2017 last summer.

In June, aixigo’s wealth management technology won the Outstanding Front-End Digital Solutions Provider (Vendor) category of the Private Banking Conference & Awards. Last fall, the company was honored with the Banking IT-Innovation award from the Business Engineering Forum of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

Luxembourg-based investify demonstrated its online advisory technology at FinovateEurope 2016. The solution not only guides users through the process of determining personal financial goals, but also makes it easy for a customer to open an investment account at the same time. The B2C company has 15 employees and has raised more than €2 million in funding.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: aixigo, BeSmartee, Braintri, Efigence, Equifax, NF Innova, Nomis Solutions, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

  • Aixigo Relaunches Digital Portfolio Management System.
  • BeSmartee and LoanFuel Help Make Mortgage Lending Mobile.

Around the web

  • Albania’s Raiffeisen Bank Shqipëri partners with NF Innova to deploy digital self-service kiosks.
  • TransferWise opens office in Hong Kong as part of expansion into Asia.
  • Equifax teams up with digital consent management platform Consents Online to support open banking.
  • Nomis Solutions picks Melbourne as site of new regional headquarters.
  • Efigence provides UI/UX design, development and implementation for new investment platform from Polish home equities broker, CDM Pekao.
  • Braintri discusses the commercialization of its contactless payment technology, Jiffee, at SelectUSA Investment Summit 2018.

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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Azimo Adds 10 Countries for Nordic Users

Azimo Adds 10 Countries for Nordic Users
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Azimo

For international remittance platform Azimo, the world just became a bit more flat. That’s because the U.K.-based company recently expanded its services to allow customers to send money to 10 more countries.

Azimo users in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden can now send funds to bank accounts in Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Hungary. Other recently-added countries include the Philippines, Nigeria, China, and Poland.

The Nordic region is a strategic focus for Azimo. The purpose of the company’s recent $20 million in funding round from Rakuten Capital was to fuel Azimo’s growth in Nordic countries as well as in the broader European region. And the demand can be seen in the metrics– the number and volume of transfers from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have increased by more than 150% in the last year.

Founded in 2012, Azimo has raised a total of $66 million. The company debuted its global money transfer platform at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. The platform allows users to send money in the recipients’ local currency directly to their bank account. Last year, the company reported triple-digit growth.

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Enveil Launches its ZeroReveal Compute Fabric Technology to Defend Data In Use

Enveil Launches its ZeroReveal Compute Fabric Technology to Defend Data In Use
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Enveil

Enveil, the cybersecurity company that specializes in protecting data in use, introduced its latest innovation – ZeroReveal Compute Fabric – this week. The technology is a two-party platform that enables users to access a variety of Enveil’s ZeroReveal solutions to protect data in its most vulnerable state: when it is being used.

“Continued reports of chip flaws and data breaches in recent months make it clear that encrypting data at rest and in transit isn’t good enough in today’s volatile security environment,” Enveil founder and CEO Ellison Anne Williams explained. “Organizations must eliminate the Data in Use security gap and do so in a way that won’t negate investments in existing systems and protocols.”

“We allow you to securely use data where it is and as it is today, delivering nation-state level security – no system overhaul required.”

Ellison Anne Williams, Enveil founder and CEO, demonstrating the company’s technology at FinovateFall 2017.

Because most data needs to be decrypted when subjected to search or analytics, a potential vulnerability exists every time data is being accessed. With Enveil, this “last gap in data security” is sealed, giving enterprises the ability to securely work with both encrypted and unencrypted data in the cloud, on premises, and in between.

Enveil is an innovator in the field of homomorphic encryption, a protocol that has been known for more than 30 years but until now never practically applied to consumer use. In an article for Dark Reading last month, Williams pointed to the value of homomorphic encryption, which she referred to as the “holy grail” of cryptography.

“If we ignore the need to protect data while it’s being processed (in use), it really doesn’t matter how secure the data is on the way to the vault (in transit) or while stored in the vault (at rest); an attacker can simply patiently wait until the data is completely exposed during use to steal it,” Williams wrote. “Homomorphic encryption can ensure this final piece of the data security puzzle is solved by eliminating the data in-use security gap.”

This week, Williams referred to the company’s Compute Fabric as the first practical application of this technology. “And certainly the first to have any kind of nation-state security certification coming out of active deployment in the operational capacity,” she added.

Enveil’s Compute Fabric technology builds on the company’s previous client stand-alone application for point-to-point security during data use. The new solution represents an expansion of that product, providing more multiple deployment options and enterprise-wide security. Additionally, Enveil’s solutions do not require firms to replace their current cybersecurity systems in order to defend data in use.

Enveil demonstrated its data security technology at FinovateFall 2017. The company’s point-to-point solution featured a client application that encrypts operations and decrypts results. Enveil’s server application resides inside the environment of the data repository and processes encrypted operations over the data.

The company’s solutions are deployed in a variety of industries including financial services, healthcare, supply chain, and cloud security. Enveil has raised $4 million in funding and includes Thomson Reuters, In-Q-Tel, DataTribe, and Bloomberg Beta among its investors.

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Tradeshift Collaborates with MakerDAO on Blockchain Payments

Tradeshift Collaborates with MakerDAO on Blockchain Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Tradeshift

Supply chain payments company Tradeshift has always aimed to help businesses get paid faster. Today, it’s doubling down on that mission by partnering with MakerDAO to leverage the blockchain to speed up payments.

MakerDAO is the creator of Dai, a decentralized stablecoin based on the Ethereum blockchain, as well as the Dai Credit System. Through the partnership, Tradeshift will leverage MakerDAO’s credit system to create a supply chain liquidity marketplace. The marketplace aims to serve businesses, which can leverage transactions and digital assets on the Tradeshift platform to create short-term financing models; developers, who can build apps for investors; and investors, who benefit the tokenization of assets such as invoices made available on new financial apps.

As Tradeshift Co-Founder Gert Sylvest described, it was previously difficult for trade receivables to leverage the blockchain, since the market has tight margins that do not allow for the volatile fluctuations that come with settlement in digital currencies. The difference in the Dai Credit System, Sylvest explained, is that it is “a transparent and stable token that allows anyone to represent real-world currency settlements on the blockchain.”

The Dai maintains stability because it is an open smart contract platform that allows anyone to issue Dai against their assets, which are held as collateral. When users want to retrieve their collateral, they return the Dai currency they issued, plus a fee based on how much time they used it for. This removes the need for users to blindly trust a third party. MakerDAO’s video explains a bit more in-depth:

Rune Christensen, CEO of MakerDAO said that this partnership “proves the potential of the blockchain to level the economic playing field for businesses of all sizes around the globe.” He added that the collaboration offers “new options for investors by creating an entirely new class of investment vehicles with vetted risk, based on real world assets.”

Founded in 2010, Tradeshift helps business’ buyers and suppliers digitize and collaborate on their transactions using any supply chain app. At FinovateEurope 2012, Tradeshift demoed Instant Payments, which allows small businesses to receive payments instantly on the Tradeshift platform in exchange for a small interest rate.

The company’s business commerce platform connects more than 1.5 million companies across 190 countries. To date, the California-based company has processed more than half a trillion dollars in transaction value. Tradeshift has raised $432 million, including its most recent $250 million round from Goldman Sachs this spring which vaulted the company’s valuation up to $1.1 billion.

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BlueRush’s IndiVideo to Boost Customer Engagement for Meridian Credit Union 

BlueRush’s IndiVideo to Boost Customer Engagement for Meridian Credit Union 
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BLUERUSH

Meridian Credit Union, the fourth largest credit union in Canada with more than $8 billion in assets ($11 billion CAD), has teamed up with BlueRush to improve the customer experience for its more than 275,000 members. Meridian will use the Toronto-based company’s digital marketing solution, IndiVideo to help provide customers with the tools they need to make better financial decisions.

“Meridian is committed to creating an online experience where banking feels good” the credit union’s SVP of digital banking, David Baldarelli, said. “We chose BlueRush because of their demonstrated excellence in creating exceptional digital marketing software, including friendly, intuitive and more engaging tools that our Members can use to help make informed decisions about managing their finances.”

A suite of interactive, personalized videos and financial calculators, BlueRush’s IndiVideo leverages AI-driven video content in an entertaining and easy-to-understand way. Demonstrated as part of the company’s Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017, IndiVideo creates a financial conversation between the customer and the video content that simplifies complex subjects and empowers individuals to take more control over their personal finances.

“IndiVideo further solidifies Meridian’s positioning as a forerunner in digital banking,” BlueRush CEO Steve Taylor said. “IndiVideo builds a powerful relationship between financial institutions and their customers which ultimately decreases funnel abandonment. Our partnership with Meridian is further proof that our investments in IndiVideo as a SaaS platform are paying off.”

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, BlueRush demonstrated its SaaS-based content engagement platform, DigitalReach, at FinovateSpring 2018. DigitalReach spans sales, marketing, and compliance to allow organizations to distribute a range of content types – including interactive video – to reach customers at specific moments in the customer journey. The solution enables the centralization, personalization, distribution, and tracking of content, giving organizations comprehensive control over what is sent to who and how.

BlueRush’s news comes as the company announces revenue gains of 14% for the third quarter and gross margins increases of 83% in its SaaS business. Taylor highlighted growth in the company’s sales funnel, expansion beyond Canada, as well as “key partnerships” with firms like Microsoft for what he called “tremendous progress in a very short time.”

Last month, BlueRush partnered with fintech solutions company Kunder to work with Chilean pension fund leader, AFPHabitat. A publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “BTV,” BlueRush has a market capitalization of more than $6 million ($7.7 million CAD). The company has raised an additional $1.3 million in post-IPO funding from Round13 Capital.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Azimo, BLUERUSH, Kabbage, Lendio, Tradeshift

On Finovate.com

  • BlueRush’s IndiVideo to Boost Customer Engagement for Meridian Credit Union.
  • Tradeshift Collaborates with MakerDAO on Blockchain Payments.
  • Azimo Adds 10 Countries for Nordic Users.

Around the web

  • Inc. talks to Kabbage about why its holding off on an IPO.
  • Lendio has helped facilitate nearly $120 million in growth capital through 5,000 loans to small businesses in California to date.

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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Onist Teams Up with Quovo

Onist Teams Up with Quovo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Onist, Quovo

Collaborative financial management platform Onist announced it is teaming with financial account analysis company Quovo. Onist will leverage Quovo’s data to provide a more reliable financial picture to its Canadian clients, making it the first company in Canada to use Quovo’s services.

The collaboration will allow Onist to pull in details from new Canadian accounts, credit unions, investment accounts, as well as common bank accounts, and credit cards. The Onist platform will provide a single place where consumers and authorized third party professionals can get a comprehensive view of their net worth and cash flow. By aggregating this data and facilitating access, Onist and Quovo aim to help clients make better informed decisions.

In the press release, Onist CEO Brad Kotansky said, “Onist is all about helping families and their advisors collaborate around household finances – and having access to your complete, reliable Canadian financial data is key to that. We are thrilled to partner with Quovo and feel strongly that we can help bring Canadians the same financial insight Americans have had for years. There’s never been a better time for Canadian families to be able see and digest all of their important financial information in one place.”

The idea of democratizing financial information is core to both companies. Quovo co-founder and CEO Lowell Putnam said that Onist’s efforts to offer consumers a clear view of their finances aligns perfectly with Quovo’s own mission, making Onist, as Putnam described, “an ideal early partner.”

Headquartered in Canada, Onist was founded in 2015 and showcased its financial management platform at FinovateSpring 2017. The company offers a virtual family office that facilitates collaboration among the family and their financial advisors, estate planners, tax professionals, insurance advisors, and accountants. Leveraging a second data aggregation partnership with Envestnet|Yodlee, the Onist platform enables users to aggregate all of their financial accounts and select the information they want to share with their planning professionals.

Quovo presented at FinDEVr New York 2016 and FinDEVr New York 2017, where it was awarded Favorite FinDEVr Alum. Earlier this spring, the company received an investment from Canadian VC firm Portag3 Ventures that intended to help Quovo enter into the Canadian market. Founded in 2010, Quovo serves hundreds of institutions, thousands of advisors, and millions of end-users. Lowell Putnam is co-founder and CEO.

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More Than $1.5 Billion Raised by 37 Alums in Q2 2018

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings

 

Best funding quarter for Finovate alums to date.

There’s no other way to put it. With more than $1.5 billion raised by 37 alums, the second quarter of 2018 is twice as large as the previous year’s Q2. Not only that, but this year’s second quarter is also the biggest quarter for equity funding in Finovate history, ranking among our “unicorn” quarters of more than $1 billion raised.

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q2 2017: More than $726 million raised by 25 alums
  • Q2 2016: More than $510 million raised by 23 alums
  • Q2 2015: More than $840 million raised by eight alums
  • Q2 2014: More than $458 million raised by eight alums

Previous Billion Dollar Quarters

  • Q1 2018: More than $1.32 billion raised by 26 alums
  • Q3 2017: More than $1 billion raised by 31 alums
  • Q3 2015: More than $1 billion raised by 40 alums

Which alums topped the funding ranks in the second quarter? There were a number of triple digit investments over the past few months, including a pair of quarter billion dollar investments picked up by digital bank Revolut and business commerce innovator Tradeshift. But the biggest alum funding in Q2 2018 was the $360 million raised by low code app development platform OutSystems, which presented its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr, last year.

Combined, the top ten equity investments for the quarter add up to $1.3 billion, representing 86% of the total alum funding for Q2.

Top Ten Equity Investments for Q2 2018

  • OutSystems: $360 million
  • Revolut: $250 million
  • Tradeshift: $250 million
  • LendStreet: $117 million
  • Signifyd: $100 million
  • BlueVine: $60 million
  • WorkFusion: $50 million
  • Unison: $40 million
  • Tango Card: $35 million
  • Qapital: $30 million

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q2 2018. Interestingly, the amount raised in June 2018 alone – more than $716 million – is greater than all but two previous second quarters.

April 2018: More than $370 million raised by 11 alums

May 2018: More than $434 million raised by 11 alums

June 2018: More than $716 million raised by 15 alums

f you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the second quarter of 2018, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

Top Image Designed by Freepik

 

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Fortytwo Data Upgrades Entity Screening Platform

Fortytwo Data Upgrades Entity Screening Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Fortytwo Data

Fortytwo Data, the London-based anti-money laundering (AML) and client screening platform provider, introduced an enhanced version of its Sanction Screening Augmentation platform this week. The upgrade means that the company’s entity screening technology is now capable of reducing false positives by up to 93%.

In a press release, the company noted that false positives are a major pain point for companies, making AML and sanctions screening more expensive. Fortytwo Data leverages machine learning and automatic rule generation to improve the rate of false positive detection by more than 30%. Working with a FTSE 100 company, Fortytwo Data was able to reduce the number of AML false positives the company was having to manually check with its legacy system from 5% of all entities to less than 0.5%. Similar results were found when Fortytwo Data applied its technology to the firm’s sanction screening process.

Fortytwo Data Chief AI Officer Luca Primerano demonstrating its Customer Screening and Transaction Monitoring Enhancement technology at FinovateEurope 2018.

Fortytwo Data CEO Julian Dixon acknowledged the challenges executives face in trying to clear the regulatory bar when it comes to monitoring and due diligence. “However, the technology has already caught up enough to make our platform, the only truly AI off-the-shelf solution in the world, the most cost-efficient solution,” Dixon said.

“It is a myth that large companies need to spend millions of pounds updating their systems and there are millions of pounds to be saved,” Dixon added. ” Legacy systems don’t even need to be replaced – they just bolt together.”

Dixon noted that the company’s technology was making an impact “not just inside financial firms, but (with) cutting edge bluechips in a variety of sectors” as well.

Fortytwo Data demonstrated its end-to-end AML transaction monitoring and client screening platform at FinovateEurope 2018 earlier this year. The company’s solutions are used by banks, financial service providers, and businesses in other highly regulated sectors to lower operational and reputational risk to their enterprises as well as cut costs.

With £2 million in funding, Fortytwo Data includes BIG IDEAS GROUP among its investors. This spring, the company appointed Luca Primerano as Chief AI Officer.

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Sberbank Now Supports Google Pay

Sberbank Now Supports Google Pay
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Sberbank

Russia-based financial services organization Sberbank is making online payments easier for its clients with a new collaboration this week. The bank is integrating with Google Pay, making it the first bank in Russia to do so. The move is expected to bring Sberbank’s payment method to top-of-wallet in ecommerce shops that offer Google Pay.

When they’re ready to make a purchase at an online point of sale, Sberbank users simply need to log into Google Pay, select their previously saved payment method, and confirm the transaction. The service is available via native apps, as well as on mobile and web interfaces with major internet browsers.

Sberbank acquiring and bank card division director Svetlana Kirsanova noted that the feature will help users save time when shopping online by offering a more user friendly interface. “In the modern world, the speed and easiness of making purchases are the priority, and that’s why Sberbank is focused on introducing technology that helps to avoid performing additional actions and lets purchases be made in seconds,” Kirsanova added.

At FinovateSpring 2016 Sberbank launched Sberbank Messenger, which is built on top of the bank’s digital ecosystem and enables consumers to chat and seamlessly send money to one another. The service also allows businesses to interact with consumers using both human respondents and chatbots, and enables consumers to purchase goods and services without leaving the chat dialogue.

Established in 1841, the bank has 260,000 employees and serves more than 110 million clients, equivalent to 70% of Russia’s population, through 16,000+ branches.

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Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Twisto

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

  • UAE’s Foloosi introduces cashless transactions via digital wallet.
  • Revenue management specialist SunTec partners with UAE’s Mashreq Bank.
  • Jumhouria Bank of Libya to deploy reconciliation management technology from SmartStream Technologies.

Latin America

  • Fintech Futures takes a look at Mexico’s preparation for implementation of its new fintech law.
  • TyN Magazine profiles Argentine P2P lender, TuTasa. In Spanish.
  • Bermuda’s government to amend banking laws to support new class of banks to work with local fintech and blockchain startups.

Asia

  • Bloomberg investigates the challenges Singapore is facing in trying to meet its fintech aspirations at a time of stiff competition for engineering talent.
  • Will China step up regulations on its P2P lending industry?
  • Lattice80 and SuperCharger team up to develop bridge between fintechs in Singapore and fintechs in Hong Kong.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian logistics startup Kobo360 picks up $1.2 million in pre-seed funding; announces launch of Kobo Wealth Investment Network, a crowd investing vehicle financing program.
  • Creamer Media’s Engineering News looks at how policymaking in South Africa will affect fintech innovation in the country.
  • Nuadox features its seven African fintech startups to follow in 2018.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Silicon Republic features expense-tracking tool BudgetBakers, PFM solution Spendee, and financial services provider for the underserved Twisto in its list of 10 Outstanding Start-ups from Prague to Watch.
  • Blockchain innovator Billon is the first Polish company to be featured in the FinTech 50.
  • Bank of Lithuania introduces regtech solution to make it easier for companies to remotely apply for e-money and payment institution licenses.

Top image designed by Freepik

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