BeSmartee and LoanFuel Help Make Mortgage Lending Mobile

BeSmartee and LoanFuel Help Make Mortgage Lending Mobile
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BeSmartee

Courtesy of a new partnership between mobile platform designer LoanFuel and next generation loan origination platform BeSmartee, mortgage borrowers will benefit from a faster, more efficient lending process whether they are using a mobile device, desktop, or both.

The two companies have announced that LoanFuel will integrate BeSmartee’s technology into its mobile app. BeSmartee uses AI and big data to drive an advanced origination process that takes borrowers from initial contact to underwriting in 20 minutes. This includes supporting the customer through key initial steps including loan application, credit report, income and asset documents, as well as eSigned and eDelivered disclosures and paid appraisal.

Available as both an iOS and an Android mobile app, LoanFuel is a product of Easy Mortgage Apps, a Massachusetts-based company founded in 2012, that builds innovative mobile apps for lenders. LoanFuel uses mobile capture technology to accelerate the lending process, making it easier for prospective borrowers to upload documents and deliver them to their lender. The app helps mortgage lenders process applications faster and more efficiently, and also enables them to reach out to customers with drip marketing via push notifications.

“More and more customers want to receive data and information whenever and wherever they are,” BeSmartee co-founder Arvin Sahakian said. “As these on-demand needs increase, partnerships like this will provide the options to meet those needs. By accommodating customer expectations for on-demand access, loans will close even faster as consumers enjoy an enhanced experience and up-to-the-minute information on their loan on their preferred device.”

LoanFuel President Michael Kelleher highlighted the compatibilities between the two solutions, adding, “”LoanFuel is always interested in leveraging technologies and relationships to make the loan experience more enjoyable. As an organization, we identified the need to offer a mobile POS and looked to partner with market leaders in this sector. BeSmartee has been an amazing addition to our list of third-party integrations.”

Founded in 2008 and based in Huntington Beach, California, BeSmartee demonstrated its Smart Mortgage solution at FinovateSpring 2017. In February, BeSmartee picked up $150,000 in debt financing from Lighter Capital. The following month, the company announced that it was partnering with fellow Finovate alum Finicity, integrating the company’s Verification of Assets (VoA) solution into its loan origination platform. BeSmartee also integrated with FormFree’s AccountChek Asset Verification service this spring.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Strands, Mastercard to Develop Cash Management Platform for SMEs

Strands, Mastercard to Develop Cash Management Platform for SMEs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: MasterCard, Strands

Strands and Mastercard are working together to provide issuing banks with an integrated platform of digital cash management and commercial payment tools designed for SMEs, reports Antony Peyton of FinTech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

According to the duo, Strands’ business financial management (BFM) will use Mastercard’s digital payment technology to deliver solutions to these businesses to understand their finances, project short-term cash flow and see personalised recommendations for customised solutions.

“SMEs are the backbone of the global economy and represent one of the biggest potential sources of revenue for banks; yet they are typically offered banking solutions designed with the retail customer in mind. Our in-house research shows that 61% of SMEs place cash flow management as one of their top three priorities to help them secure their financial future,” said Erik Brieva, Strands’ CEO.

Strands’ BFM solution helps manage accounts payables, receivables, budgets and provisions and is powered by a layer of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models.

For example, SME users can predict income, expenses, forecast balances, receive alerts and notifications, and recommend products and/or services.

Going forward, Strands adds that users of this BFM platform will also have access to Mastercard In Control, which can help businesses track the use of commercial credit cards, Mastercard Merchant Match Tool to identify merchants that accept credit cards as a form of payment or Mastercard Easy Savings to provide loyalty rewards at select merchants and retailers.

Strands has done more than 600 bank implementations with over 100 million customers in 36 countries. Clients include Barclays, BBVA, Santander, Commercial Bank of Africa, Deutsche Bank, and Huntington.

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, Strands demonstrated its white-label BFM solution at FinovateAsia 2017. The technology leverages Strands’ API Hub, as well as machine learning, to enable banks to better analyze and understand the preferences and behaviors of their SME clients. Banks can then use these insights to make recommendations to help them improve their businesses.

Strands has raised $55 million in funding, and includes Dalbergia, Debaeque, Sequel Venture Partners, and Indigo Investment Corporation among its investors.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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 [email protected]. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

Top Image Designed by Freepik

 

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook