Best of Show Winner Finn AI Partners with Visa Canada to Boost Chatbot Capabilities

Best of Show Winner Finn AI Partners with Visa Canada to Boost Chatbot Capabilities

Visa Canada and Finn AI have teamed up to offer new capabilities in conversational banking chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI), powered by the Visa Developer Platform, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

The Vancouver-based fintech firm will use Visa Developer Platform APIs to enhance its conversational AI technology to “provide a more personalised experience” for banks to interact with their customers.

Jake Tyler, CEO at Finn AI, said: “This will help banks meet consumers’ needs on their terms, allowing them to set travel notifications, flag fraudulent transactions, manage subscriptions and more – as easily as chatting to their friends – 24/7 in the channels of their choice.”

For example, users could ask “Where is the closest ATM?” or “Please cancel my card” using Finn AI technology and the APIs.

A customer could chat with a virtual assistant and follow a process to ensure their cards are optimised while they are travelling.

Or they could turn on travel notifications before departing, retrieving foreign exchange rates while at the airport, and locating the nearest ATM at their destination.

A customer can also disable a misplaced card to ensure protection against fraudulent transactions through a “simple, natural conversation”.

Other Finn AI partnerships include ATB Financial, Bank of Montreal (BMO), Banpro Grupo Promerica in Nicaragua, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Finn AI made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2016, winning Best of Show. The company returned to the Finovate stage the following fall for FinovateFall 2017, once again taking home top honors for a demonstration of its virtual banking assistant.

Finn AI has raised $3 million in funding and includes Yaletown Partners, Flying Fish Partners and angel investor John Livingston among its investors.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • AlphaPoint Raises $15 Million in a Series A Led by Galaxy Digital Ventures.
  • Nextmarkets Picks Up $6.9 Million in New Funding.

Around the web

  • NetSuite names Expensify Innovation Partner of the Year.
  • Passport hires its first Chief Corporate Development Officer.
  • Signicat to offer Freja eID for customer onboarding thanks to partnership with IT security firm, Verisec
  • Equifax appoints former IBM Watson and Cloud Platform CTO Bryson Koehler as its new Chief Technology Officer.

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.

Ondot Introduces Digital Card Services Platform

Ondot Introduces Digital Card Services Platform

Winner of Best of Show awards at FinovateSpring and FinovateMiddleEast, Ondot Systems has launched its digital card services platform. The new offering provides card issuers with full digital card life-cycle management – from initial invitation through secure payments – in a single platform.

“In a digital-first world where payments are becoming invisible and consumers expect instant gratification, card issuers must attract, acquire, and empower consumers with personalized digital experience,” Sung-Wook Han, CTO for Ondot, explained. “Ondot provides a comprehensive set of services around the ‘digitized card,’ integrating into existing mobile apps, card management systems, and authorization platforms.”

Ondot CEO Vaduvur Bharghavan demonstrating the Ondot Digital Card Mobile App at FinovateSpring 2018.

Ondot’s latest solution takes advantage of social networking and bot technology to enhance the customer acquisition, application, and KYC processes. Approved cardholders get instant digital card issuance with dynamic security codes (CVV2) to support secure e-commerce, and the ability to make in-app push provisions to digital wallets. Ondot also brings to bear its innovations in card control technology, enabling cardholders to control how and when their cards can be used. Cardholders can also set spending limits, location parameters, and allow or block transactions with specific merchants.

Ondot’s latest offering can be integrated into current mobile banking apps via APIs/SDKs, or accessed as a white label mobile app with customized branding. The platform supports credit, debit, and prepaid cards, including Visa, Mastercard and private label cards.

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and having offices in Bangalore, India, Ondot Systems made its Finovate debut in 2014. At the event, the company won Best of Show for a live demonstration of its Mobile Card Services solution. More recently, Ondot participated in our inaugural FinovateMiddleEast conference in February, demoing its Digital Card Mobile App. The company followed its Best of Show winning demonstration with news that it was bringing Mobile Card Services to customers in Asia.

Last month, Ondot celebrated a major milestone by having 3,000 financial institutions offer mobile card controls powered by its technology. Founded in 2011, the company has raised $28 million in funding. Vaduvur Bharghavan is CEO.

Dorsum Unveils My Wealth Mobile App

Dorsum Unveils My Wealth Mobile App

Budapest, Hungary-based Dorsum launched a new wealth management mobile app this week. The investment software provider’s new My Wealth mobile app helps customers better understand and review their portfolio holdings, as well as make new investments with just a few taps. The app leverages gamification and an education marketplace toolkit to ensure that customers remain well-informed about basic investment concepts and principles. My Wealth also features a self-learning chatbot as well as the ability to request a human financial advisor to take over the conversation, giving users the benefits of both AI and human advisory.

Imre Rokob, Director of Business Development at Dorsum noted that innovations like the My Wealth app are driven largely by a combination of a shift in investing preferences and the arrival of non-financial participants in the investment arena. “Present-day investors want to manage their portfolios on the go while staying in control in an efficient and intuitive way,” Rokob explained. “I’m very proud that our continuous effort to revolutionize our B2B software offerings has resulted in a digital innovation offering a unique wealth management mobile application with the right balance between intelligent automation and a human approach.”

My Wealth not only helps bridge the gap between AI and human financial advice. The technology also helps investors bridge the gap between their actual and optimal investment portfolios. When this occurs, the app provides customers with a list of potential investments the user could make that would help bring the actual portfolio more in line with the optimal portfolio. Users can receive personalized notifications and news on the app, as well as set up a meeting for a call or chat with an advisor. The solution works for both iOS and Android, and can be readily integrated into any wealth management platform or system. While designed for customers, financial advisors can use the app to keep in touch with clients and to send personalized notes and advice, as well.

“Our exceptional solution merges with the traditional advisory and the digital advisory process into a hybrid model,” Dorsum CEO Robert Ko said. “Our software meets the digital expectations of the younger generations, ready to fight with robo disruptors and boost performance of personal financial advisors.”

Dorsum demonstrated its Botboarding platform at the inaugural FinovateMiddleEast 2018 conference earlier this year. The technology, which won the company a Best of Show award last year at FinovateEurope 2017, creates customer onboarding chatbots that combine natural language communication with traditional data collection and user profiling.

In addition to its Botboarding platform, Dorsum offers a client acquisition tool that supports client engagement with vivid presentations and a portfolio calculator that provides instant financial planning simulations, as well as its wealth management platform. With subsidiaries in Romania and Bulgaria, Dorsum includes Raiffeisen Bank International, Erste Bank, and Generali among its clients.

Risk Ident to Help Universum Protect Retailers from Fraud

Risk Ident to Help Universum Protect Retailers from Fraud

Anti-fraud solutions provider Risk Ident has teamed up with Universum this week to strengthen risk evaluation capabilities for Universum’s clients.

As part of the agreement Universum will leverage Risk Ident’s FRIDA, a self-learning anti-fraud technology. FRIDA automatically analyzes individual transactions to establish relationships between transactions and quickly identify fraudulent connections. Retailers’ fraud managers receive an overview of flagged transactions, marking potential fraudulent activities, within seconds.

Universum will also deploy Risk Ident’s DEVICE IDENT, device fingerprinting technology that analyzes consumers’ devices and identifies fraudulent correlations with their use in real time. Retailers integrate DEVICE IDENT into the checkout page on their website and can quickly take action when the system notifies them of potential fraudulent activity.

“We are really looking forward to future cooperation. Above all, our retailers will benefit from this partnership: Risk Ident is the market leader in the fraud prevention sector, and will help improve the Universum Group’s risk evaluation,” said Ralf Linden, managing director of sales & marketing of the Universum Group.

Risk Ident was founded in 2012 by Roberto Valerio, who demoed EVE, the company’s evaluation engine, at FinovateEurope 2016. EVE is a standalone software application that offers machine learning-powered risk management technology that detects connections between transactions and previously unidentified fraud scenarios. Risk Ident is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany and Boston, Massachusetts. Earlier this year, the company was recognized as the Best Financial Transaction Security Company at the 2018 FinTech Breakthrough Awards.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Risk Ident to Help Universum Protect Retailers from Fraud.
  • Dorsum Unveils My Wealth Mobile App.
  • Ondot Introduces Digital Card Services Platform.

Around the web

  • NuData Security named a “Top 100 in Tech” by Business in Vancouver.
  • ThetaRay wins ATMIA’s Next Generation ATM Security Award.
  • Tuition.io to power student loan repayment benefits for Hulu employees.
  • Standard Chartered Bank announces intentions to apply for the virtual banking license.
  • Conversation.one is Amazon Alexa-Certified for Financial Institutions.
  • Flywire and UnionPay Partner to Take the Cost Out of Cross-Border Payments from China.
  • Yoyo introduces quarterly tracker to monitor customer activity in closed catering environments.
  • U.K.-based Business Leader magazine features Wealthify and YellowDog among its 32 South West Tech Businesses That Are Shaping the Future spotlight.
  • Unblu opens offices in London.

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.

rplan Acquired for $20 Million

rplan Acquired for $20 Million

Client engagement technology provider rplan revealed a plan of its own this week. The U.K.-based company has been acquired by InvestCloud for $20 million.

rplan offers API-based technology to help investment firms, especially heavily regulated companies in international markets, support their clients. The company counts four of the top eight institutional asset managers in the U.K. as clients and will now be available to InvestCloud’s client base of more than 700 firms, including some of the largest financial institutions in North America.

John Wise, chairman and CEO of InvestCloud, said that institutional asset management is an “important and growing segment for InvestCloud.” Wise also noted he will leverage rplan to grow InvestCloud’s direct-to-consumer and digital product channels. “They truly complement the InvestCloud Digital Platform and will bolster our successes in this space,” Wise added. rplan Director Andy Creak said that combining InvestCloud’s financial resources with the rplan solution and industry knowledge will help the company “dominate” the direct-to-consumer market across the globe.

rplan was founded in 2011. At FinovateEurope 2013, Creak, along with CPO Nick Curry, demoed the rplan portfolio builder, which helps users create an investment portfolio based on key criteria such as goals and risk. Since then, the company has launched an online course providing education on the fundamentals of investing and introduced a simple, transparent pricing structure.

AI Foundry Overhauls Agile Mortgages Solution

AI Foundry Overhauls Agile Mortgages Solution

Data insights company AI Foundry has been doing a bit of spring cleaning lately. The latest revamp comes in the form of the new version of its Agile Mortgages solution unveiled this week.

The updated version includes a new user interface; a mortgage document library with automatic document classification and data extraction capabilities; LOS First, a loan origination system connection with Ellie Mae’s Encompass; a document checklist; and Audit First, a loan quality checker that ensures loans move quickly through underwriting.

“Our new solution capabilities, especially the LOS First connector, puts AI Foundry in a leading market position with the most comprehensive digital mortgage solution for mortgage origination,” said Alan Swahn, vice president of marketing at AI Foundry. “We are taking mortgage automation to the next level by providing an out-of-the-box solution that cuts the time from UAT to high-volume production with consistent results. Our new Audit First module finds data or document quality issues upfront in the process, before they become expensive problems to fix later.”

Sid Probstein, CTO & VP Professional Services, and Alla Eizenberg, Solution Architect, presenting AI Foundry’s Agile Mortgages at FinovateSpring 2018

Headquartered in Massachusetts, AI Foundry offers solutions to help streamline and automate lending, mortgage, and banking processes. The company showcased Agile Mortgages at FinovateSpring 2018. In January, CIO Review named AI Foundry among the 20 most promising enterprise information management solution providers in 2017.

Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World

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.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Revolut announces recruitment initiative in Kraków, Poland to hire 100 new workers in a single day employment in its offices in Eastern Europe.
  • Forbes features Tinkoff Bank in look at Russia’s efforts to develop its digital economy.
  • Polish financial group Aforti Holdings to launch non-bank lender for SMEs and startups in Romania.

Asia

  • Banks in South Korea to introduce blockchain based identity verification for mobile and online logins. The technology is reportedly built on a private blockchain system developed by Samsung SDS.
  • Daon Partners with Tradelink to Bring Biometrics to Dah Sing Bank.
  • Bank of Thailand is developing and testing blockchain apps in its regulatory sandbox.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Financial technology services firm, One Global, discusses plans for expansion into Egyptian market.
  • ADGM Reglab reports record number of fintech applications for its third cohort.
  • Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange turns to Equifax for advice on development of new technologies to improve operational efficiency.

Africa

  • TransferTo, Orange Money Botswana, and EcoCash partner to support digital money transfers between Zimbabwe and Botswana.
  • IMF review of South Africa suggests “increased focus on the role fintech …” could access to credit for SMEs and promotion broader financial inclusion.
  • Nigerian startup, Piggybank.ng, raises $1.1 million to further develop its online savings platform.

Latin America

  • Diario Financiero interviews Ángel Sierra, executive director of La Asociación Fintech Chile, on digital innovation (video in Spanish).
  • TransferWise initiates service in Argentina.
  • PayU goes live in Colombia with its PayU te fía (PayU You Trust) solution that enables borrowers to extend repayment terms (in Spanish).

Top image designed by Freepik

Daon Partners with Tradelink to Bring Biometrics to Dah Sing Bank

Daon Partners with Tradelink to Bring Biometrics to Dah Sing Bank

Biometric authentication specialist Daon has teamed up with Tradelink to give customers of Hong Kong’s Dah Sing Bank the option of biometric authentication when accessing bank services. The bank, one of the top 10 banks in Hong Kong, will leverage Daon’s IdentityX platform to offer both fingerprint and facial authentication.

“We are pleased to partner with Tradelink on this innovative initiative for Dah Sing Bank. Our partnership with Tradelink continues to make a significant impact in the financial and banking industry throughout Hong Kong,” Daon CEO Tom Grissen said. “Daon’s technology provides a trusted digital security experience for all of our customers. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Tradelink as the demand for more secure and convenient authentication increases among mobile banking customers.”

The IdentityX platform provides FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) capabilities that enable authentication based on a wide variety of biological attributes including voice, face, behavior, and palm. Institutions can integrate their current security systems into the platform, as well as add new authentication systems as they become available. This enables institutions to extend the lives of their older or customized security systems and devices. The component approach also makes it easier for organizations like Dah Sing Bank to make more specific decisions on which cybersecurity technologies best suit their specific customer preferences.

Daon’s collaboration with Tradelink to support FIs in Hong Kong is part of an initiative the two firms have launched to provide authentication solutions for banks in the region. In February, Daon reported on the successful implementation of a FIDO biometric solution with one of Hong Kong’s largest banks. The deployment was completed in partnership with Tradelink subsidiary, Digi-Sign, and has proven to be a model for similar implementations for “multiple financial institutions in the region,” the company noted in a statement.

Headquartered in Reston, Virginia and founded in 2002, Daon demonstrated its IdentityX platform at FinovateFall 2016. The company began the year partnering with North African security and document dematerialization specialist GEMADEC. Last fall, Visa announced that it would leverage IdentityX to power biometric services for its Visa ID Intelligence platform. The Visa news came during a season of partnership activity for the company, which also announced agreements with Kony in September and Nations Trust Bank of Sri Lanka in November.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Daon Partners with Tradelink to Bring Biometrics to Dah Sing Bank.
  • AI Foundry Overhauls Agile Mortgages Solution.

Around the web

  •  Klarna partners with EMaC, a U.K. automotive service plan provider, for a drive now, pay later service.
  •  Paysend triples its customer base over the last 6 months.
  • eToro announces that clients can now invest directly in shares on the platform.
  • MX appoints Ben Holzman, a former managing director of Bain Capital Ventures, as new COO.
  • TechCrunch: Coinbase opens its crypto index fund to accredited U.S. investors.
  • Langley FCU to deploy Symitar Episys core processing platform from Jack Henry & Associates.
  • Mambu announces new board member, former SAP CEO, Henning Kagermann.
  • Revolut partners with Cyprus-based telecommunications company, PrimeTel.
  • First Data and Mastercard collaborate on a digital disbursement platform for business customers.
  • Entersekt opens new office in Atlanta, Georgia to support the company’s growth in North America.
  • The Open Bank Project collaborates with Citizens Bank on innovation event.
  • First National Bank Texas ($1.8B Assets) selects Insuritas to power turnkey insurance agency.
  • Prosper resumes operations for Montana residents

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.

PayStand Announces Canadian Expansion

PayStand Announces Canadian Expansion

Next generation payment solution provider PayStand is expanding into Canada. The Scotts Valley, California-based company announced that its digital payments platform will support domestic B2B commercial payments and help it earn a share of the Canadian payments volume that takes place over electronic funds transfer (EFT) – more than a third of which is B2B.

“Today’s commercial payments infrastructure in Canada is built on many layers of outdated technology and processes that are needlessly complex and time-consuming, not to mention error-prone and labor-intensive,” Jeremy Almond, PayStand CEO, explained in the company’s press release announcing the expansion. He pointed out that PayStand’s infrastructure provides native support to Canada’s EFT and card payment technology, “essentially transforming and modernizing the entire payments lifecycle for businesses, no matter the type or matter of payment.”

Founded in 2013, PayStand helps businesses access the “$550 billion stuck in pre-Internet paper, plastic, and manual processes.” By leveraging smart network and blockchain technologies, PayStand’s platform digitizes account receivables and automates processing. Its customers, representing verticals ranging from manufacturing to software services, use its Payments as a Service (PaaS) technology to integrate digital payments into their mobile apps, websites, ERP billing systems, and invoices.

An alum of our developer’s conference, PayStand presented Comparing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Payment Terms at FinDEVr 2014. At the event, PayStand’s Almond compared the relative advantages and disadvantages of card networks, eChecks, and digital currencies as payment options, and the value of flexible payment rails that provide multiple alternatives.

Earlier this year, PayStand announced B2B payments integration with SuiteCloud, which enabled quick fund transfer from 18,000 financial institutions and six major credit card brands. In January, PayStand was featured along with fellow Finovate alums Truphone and Featurespace in The Silicon Review’s 50 Smartest Companies of 2017 roster. The company has raised $8.3 million in funding, and includes BlueRun Ventures and LEAP Global Partners among its investors.