Conversation.one Among U.S. Fintechs to Join Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud Platform

Conversation.one Among U.S. Fintechs to Join Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Conversation.one, Finastra

FinovateSpring Best of Show winner Conversation.one is among four U.S.-based fintechs that are joining Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud open platform. Conversation.one, which offers a voice banking and chatbot building solution for banks and credit unions, will leverage FusionFabric.cloud’s developer environment to boost its technology’s deep learning capabilities.

“Accessing Finastra technology and APIs through the FusionFabric.cloud platform is extremely efficient. It brings additional value to our solutions and, importantly, to our clients,” Conversation.one CRO and co-founder Rachel Batish explained. “The platform gives us access to more than 9,000 financial institutions across the globe. Our goal over the next two years is to deliver the capability to build cross-channel conversational solutions in minutes to close to 30% of Finastra’s clients, so they become our customers as well.”

Also among FusionFabric.cloud’s latest round of early adopters this week were Tradle, a blockchain-based KYC solutions provider; Active Allocator, a digital asset allocation platform; and regtech solution provider for banks and insurance companies, GreenPoint Financial.

Chief Cloud Officer for Finastra Natalie Gammon pointed to the “broad financial service spectrum” available to fintechs via FusionFabric.cloud. “It means fintechs and developers can dramatically reduce build time for apps, bringing them to market faster. We see FusionFabric.cloud gathering significant pace, championing a collaborative ecosystem and changing the way the financial services industry develops and deploys software for the better,” Gammon said.

The news comes just days after Conversation.one announced that First Abilene Federal Credit Union, a Texas-based credit union with $71 million in assets and nearly 11,000 members, had leveraged Conversation.one’s technology to launch its Amazon Alexa Skills and Google Home Action offerings.

Conversation.one CEO Chen Levkovich credited First Abilene FCU with recognizing the potential of voice and chat technology to improve customer engagement. “First Abilene can now provide their members with a wider range of services, from multiple digital touch-points,” Levkovich said. “We are extremely excited to work with such an innovative team and we are looking forward to their expansion into additional channels.”

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Conversation.one demonstrated its build-once-deploy-anywhere platform for conversation apps at FinovateSpring 2018, winning Best of Show honors. Conversation.one’s solution enables banks and credit unions to build, deploy, and enhance Alexa Skills, Google Home Actions, FB Messenger Bots, as well as phone and texting intelligent assistants in a single process that takes as little as a few minutes.

Finastra, which formed via a merger between Misys (FinovateEurope 2017) and D+H last summer, has been gaining early adopters to its FusionFabric cloud open architecture since the fall and began 2018 with a trio of new platform users, as well as a partnership with Thomson Reuters as a data provider. A strategic alliance with Microsoft announced in March meant that the company’s enterprise-ready trusted cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, would underpin FusionFabric.cloud. Shortly afterward, Finastra announced another trio of APAC fintech companies that would leverage its solution to develop and deploy their apps.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entersekt, Finovate Global, Revolut

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.

MENA

  • Dubai’s mobile-only, millennial-focused digital bank Liv celebrates acquiring more than 10,000 new customers every month in its first year of operation.
  • Islamic banking technology provider Path Solutions recognized as vendor of choice for Sharia-based core banking platforms by IBS Intelligence.
  • Dubai-based insurtech startup Aqeed raises $18 million in fuding one month after launch.

Africa

  • Africa-based digital payments solution company Cellulant has raised $47.5 million in Series C funding.
  • Hypepotamous profiles South African authentication specialist Entersekt.
  • Wala, which leverages blockchain technology to power its mobile money solution, goes live for Android users in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.

LATAM

  • Kyriba announces plans to boost investment in Latin America and help CFOs and treasurers modernize cash, risk, payments, and working capital optimization.
  • Morgan Stanley to buy $14 million  (50 million reais) in bonds from Brazilian online lender Geru Tecnologia e Servicos.
  • Forbes.com looks at the future of financial technology in Mexico

CEE

  • Polish Credit Office, the largest credit bureau in Central and Eastern Europe, to use blockchain technology from Billon to store and access credit histories of more than one million businesses and 24 million people.
  • Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which CEE country has the most fintech companies of all? According to Unicredit, Bulgaria wins the top spot with 70 registered and working firms.
  • Revolut hires former Lead Marketing Manager of Uber Romania, Irina Scarlat, as its new Country Manager for Revolt Romania.

Asia

  • EY Asean markets managing partner Liew Nam Soon discusses the growth of Vietnam’s fintech industry.
  • Singapore Business Review looks at how blockchain technology could revive Thailand’s trade finance sector.
  • Hong Kong’s fintech unicorn WeLab plans to be among the first companies to apply for a virtual banking license from Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

Top image designed by Freepik

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bluefin Payment Systems, Conversation.one, GoodData, identitii, Interactions, QuantConnect, ShopKeep POS, Temenos

On Finovate.com

  • Conversation.one Among U.S. Fintechs to Join Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud Platform.
  • ShopKeep Launches on Android to Broaden Hardware Options.
  • GoodData Launches GoodData Spectrum UI Tools.
  • identitii Forges New Partnership with Robot Automation Specialist Blue Prism.

Around the web

  • Interactions unveils enhanced IVA platform to deliver the omnichannel intelligent virtual assistant capabilities.
  • QuantConnect users now have access to Algorithm Framework, a tool that breaks down algorithmic trading strategies into core modules to make code reusable in the QuantConnect community.
  • Temenos announces launch of its Front Office Suite.
  • Bluefin partners with Paya to provide PCI-validated point-to-point encryption.

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

Personal Capital Exceeds $7 Billion AUM, Lands $15 Million Credit Extension

Personal Capital Exceeds $7 Billion AUM, Lands $15 Million Credit Extension
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Personal Capital

Wealth tech player Personal Capital surpassed a growth milestone this week, reaching $7 billion in assets under management. The company also announced it received a $15 million credit extension from Silicon Valley Bank, adding to the $25 million credit the bank offered Personal Capital in 2016.

Personal Capital balances its high-touch digital advisory services with freemium tools that help users track all of their investments in one place and measure their progress against their retirement goals. The company also offers access to registered personal financial advisors who offer tailored investment advice for a fee. While this model seems to have scaled relatively well since Personal Capital’s launch in 2009, the company’s assets under management have not grown as quickly as its competitors Betterment, which currently has $13.5 billion under management, and Wealthfront, which has $10 billion under management.

This news comes as the company wraps up one year of operation under new CEO, Jay Shah, who took over operations from the company’s founder and original CEO, Bill Harris. Before his appointment, Shah served in the roles of Personal Capital’s chief information officer and chief operating officer.

“Personal Capital was built on the idea that transparency and a consumer’s ability to have a holistic view of their finances can transform their financial life,” said Shah. “Our team has worked hard to make sure Americans have the visibility that is necessary to realize their investing, spending and saving goals. As Registered Investment Advisors, we remain committed to putting clients first and advocating for an industry-wide fiduciary standard. Clearly, that is resonating.”

Founded in 2009, Personal Capital most recently presented at FinovateSpring 2014 where it debuted One Click Investment Portfolios. Earlier this spring, the company began offering socially responsible tools that make it easy for investors to put money into causes that matter to them. Personal Capital has raised $240 million.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Plaid Goes International

Plaid Goes International
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Plaid

Plaid, a company that has been called the plumbing of fintech, offers technology that allows apps to connect to users’ bank accounts. Today, the San Francisco-based company is making its first move to international territory– Plaid is launching in Canada.

Not only is Plaid’s full API suite available to Canadian developers, the company also added coverage for the region’s largest financial institutions, including Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, TD Canada Trust, Bank of Montreal, CIBC, and Tangerine. It also supports cross-border institutions such as American Express and Capital One.

This announcement comes after the company underwent a months-long beta test with a handful of its Canadian customers, including Drop and Wave. Access is now available to developers looking to launch in Canada and to U.S. developers seeking to expand their services to Canadian citizens.

Plaid has 100+ employees and offers 6 products, including Auth, an account authentication tool; Balance, which pulls account balance information in real-time; Identity, which leverages bank data to verify consumer identity; Transactions, which pulls bank statement data across banks; Assets, a verification of assets tool; and Income, a tool that validates a consumer’s income and verifies direct deposit data. Since it was founded in 2012, Plaid has analyzed more than 10 billion transactions.

Plaid has raised $59.3 million to date. At FinDEVr San Fransisco 2014, the company’s founder Zach Perret gave a presentation about leveraging the Plaid API for financial infrastructure. Plaid has been listed as a Forbes Fintech 50 honoree for three consecutive years and was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list in June of last year.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Tango Card Receives $35 Million

Tango Card Receives $35 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Tango Card

Digital rewards-as-a-service platform Tango Card may be doing a little dance today. That’s because the Seattle-based company just closed a $35 million round of funding, bringing its total funding to $54.8 million.

The growth equity investment comes from FTV Capital. Tango Card plans to use the funding to grow its Reward Delivery Platform and Rewards as a Service API, scale its Rewards Genius dashboard, offer new integrations, expand internationally, and boost hiring at its Seattle headquarters.

“Our mission is clear – make rewards easy to send and awesome to receive,” said David Leeds, CEO and founder of Tango Card. “In the past, incentive programs were highly manual and the results were difficult to track. Tango Card delivers an enterprise-friendly solution that is easy to integrate, customizable, and expansive in its catalog of rewards and incentive offerings, serving over 2,000 satisfied customers that trust and rely on us to help them scale their business.”

Founded in 2009, Tango Card helps companies recognize and reward employees, engage with existing customers, and motivate potential customers. The company demoed its Rewards-as-a-Service (RaaS) API at FinovateFall 2016. RaaS is comprised of multiple elements, including customer creation, account creation, funding, catalog support, ordering, and reporting. With these methods, customers can integrate a full rewards program into their app to incentivize consumer and employee behavior.

Leeds said that the company began searching for a growth equity partner last year. Given FTV’s similar vision and 20-year track record, Leeds said the firm was “the number one partner” on its list. Tango Card will also benefit from FTV’s Global Partner Network, which offers Tango Card a list of potential enterprise customers. As a part of today’s transaction, FTV’s Chris Winship and Robert Anderson will join Tango Card’s board of directors.

In the press release, Winship described the B2B prepaid space as “a $100 billion global market opportunity,” adding, “Tango Card provides an industry-leading solution that capitalizes on this shift to digital, enabling its enterprise clients to efficiently use rewards and incentives for numerous use cases and to achieve business goals such as driving employee engagement and retention, improving employee culture and wellness, and incentivizing customer activities.”

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Market EarlyBird Unveils Mobile App

Market EarlyBird Unveils Mobile App
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Market EarlyBird

Late last year, Market EarlyBird made its web app available as a desktop app in a secure wrapper on Windows. Less than six months later, the London-based fintech is unveiling a new mobile client for its “Safe, Smart Twitter for Finance” platform.

“More than 90% of our users run EarlyBird on their desktop,” Market EarlyBird CEO Danny Watkins explained. “However a recent industry survey has shown increasing numbers of traders are using their smartphones to conduct foreign exchange deals and we have also seen a significant demand from our customers, particularly some of the buy-side firms, for a mobile client.”

“So now users have access to their favorite features of EarlyBird such as extensive search, filtering, and alerting capabilities – wherever they are and with no compromise to any of the extensive compliance and privacy features,” Watkins said.

Market EarlyBird offers a read-only, anonymized Twitter service designed for financial markets professionals that enables them to spot trading opportunities and quickly identify potentially market-moving news before it makes the headlines. The platform helps satisfy compliance requirements by recording, logging, and timestamping Tweets as they appear – as well as including them in MiFiD II Transaction Reconstruction where appropriate. And by blocking users from tweeting and direct messaging, the platform satisfies one of the principal challenges for financial professionals using Twitter.

“We have heard anecdotally of traders using their mobile phones, or having an iPad alongside their trading terminal with public Twitter on it,” the company noted in a recent blog post titled, Why Twitter’s of little value to financial firms. “Almost certainly this breaches the bank’s rules,” the post read.

Available on both iOS and Android, Market EarlyBird’s mobile app maintains the same functionality as the desktop version, including Tweet curation tools, alerts for priority Tweets and Tweet monitoring for compliance purposes. The mobile app also readily syncs with the desktop version to provide a seamless customer experience wherever they are.

Founded in 2012, Market EarlyBird demonstrated its cloud-based Twitter platform at FinovateEurope 2017. The company’s platform is currently in use or being piloted by nearly half of the top 20 banks in the world, as well as several buy-side firms. Check out our profile of the company from last spring.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

CrowdFlower Rebrands as Figure Eight to Take Advantage of Booming Interest in AI

CrowdFlower Rebrands as Figure Eight to Take Advantage of Booming Interest in AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CrowdFlower, Figure Eight

Here’s one that slipped under the radar as we were gearing up for FinovateSpring. Crowdsourcing platform provider for online staffing Crowdflower rebranded as Figure Eight in April. In a blog post previewing the change, CEO Robin Bordoli explained that changes in the evolution of artificial intelligence and the market for machine learning were opening up new opportunities for the firm.

“As the market has evolved, CrowdFlower has adapted to serve our customers and their changing needs. We’ve executed intentional changes to how we operate to meet the market requirements of scale, quality, complexity, and flexibility,” Bordoli wrote. These changes have included shifting the company from managed service to SaaS, abstracting sourcing human intelligence from the application of human intelligence, Human-in-the-loop and active learning, combining human intelligence and machine learning, and acting as a trusted AI guide for customers just beginning to take advantage of the technology. Bordoli took over as CEO of the company which was led by founder Lukas Biewald until early 2015.

The company said that it chose the name Figure Eight for a variety of reasons – and in consultation with “one of the top naming agencies in the valley.” These reasons varied from the continuous loop shape of the figure eight to the number eight as a reference to a byte, which is a building block of eight bits, to the numerical difference between the atomic numbers for Carbon (6) and Silicon (14). “Carbon is an essential component of human biology,” Bordoli wrote. “Silicon is an essential component of computing power. So the number eight represents the bridge between humans and machines.”

As part of the reorganization, Figure Eight has made a handful of executive and board of directors changes. Dale Brown was hired to work as VP of Business Development after previously serving in a similar capacity at Bitnami. Robert Munro was promoted from VP of Machine Learning to Chief Technology Officer. Alyssa Simpson Rochwerger was hired to work as VP of Product, having worked as director of project management at IBM Watson. Figure Eight also added Alta Vista search engine company founder Louis Monier to its board of directors.

Based in San Francisco and founded in 2009, Figure Eight (as CrowdFlower) demonstrated its platform that automates the management of online human workforces at FinovateFall 2014, earning Best of Show honors. With $58 million in funding, Figure Eight includes Industry Ventures, M12, Canvas Ventures, Trinity Ventures, Harmony Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners among its investors. Earlier this month, the company introduced a suite of new solutions designed to help more businesses embrace AI: Figure Eight Datasets, Video Object Tracking, and Smart Bounding Box Annotation.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: CrowdFlower, Figure Eight, Lleida.net, Market EarlyBird, NYMBUS, Passport, Personal Capital, Plaid, Segmint, Tango Card, TSYS

On Finovate

  • CrowdFlower Rebrands as Figure Eight to Take Advantage of Booming Interest in AI.
  • Market EarlyBird Unveils Mobile App.
  • Plaid Goes International.
  • Personal Capital Exceeds $7 Billion AUM, Lands $15 Million Credit Extension.

Around the web

  • DeepTarget and Segmint collaborate, combining Segmint’s Data Insights and DeepTarget’s cross-selling platform.
  • NYMBUS wraps up 4-month conversion process for Surety Bank.
  • E-Z Parking & Valet launches Passport’s PassportParking app in Greenville.
  • Allied Irish Bank extends agreement with TSYS to continue processing the bank’s credit and debit card portfolios.
  • Lleida.net granted 4th U.S. patent.

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

Kabbage’s Planned Payment Processing Services to Bolster Client Data Stores

Kabbage’s Planned Payment Processing Services to Bolster Client Data Stores
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Kabbage

Online lender Kabbage has been providing working capital to small businesses since 2009. This week, the startup’s President, Kathryn Petralia, disclosed plans to enter into payment processing by year end.

The company hopes the move will diversify its offerings, which have largely stayed in the same sector since 2009. Kabbage also anticipates the launch will help it compete with ever-rising fintech giants such as PayPal and Square, both of which started as payment processing solutions and have since added small business lending services. The payment processing offering will leverage Kabbage’s existing small business client base, providing merchants solutions for in-store and online payments.

In an interview with Reuters, who broke the news on Monday, Petralia said, “The monoline businesses have a hard time succeeding long term.” She added, “We have seen a huge pain point around cash flow management,” noting that payment service providers’ lengthy contracts and high fees contribute to the issue.

As with many fintech developments these days, this one comes down to data. When Kabbage gains insight into transaction data from small business clients, it can more accurately underwrite loans for those clients. Additionally, access to client data will offer Kabbage an advantage when serving its existing client base. The company can speed up traditionally slow onboarding and application processes by leveraging data it already has on existing clients.

Kabbage demoed at FinovateSpring 2015, where it debuted the Kabbage Card, which allows users to withdraw from their line of credit at any point-of-sale where VISA is accepted. Earlier this year, the company expanded its line of credit to $250k and most recently announced the acquisition of online lending competitor Orchard.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Tradeshift Pay to Free Up $9 Trillion in Cash Trapped in Accounts Receivable

Tradeshift Pay to Free Up $9 Trillion in Cash Trapped in Accounts Receivable
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Tradeshift

Supply chain payments company Tradeshift is unifying supply chain payments elements with the launch of Tradeshift Pay. The California-based company’s cloud platform will bring together supply chain payments, supply chain finance, and blockchain-based early payments in a single offering.

The aim of Tradeshift Pay is to relinquish the $9 trillion in liquid capital that businesses have held up in accounts receivable, often caused by a disconnect between businesses and their suppliers. Tradeshift Pay offers buyers a single wallet that supports a variety of payment options, including virtual card payments, dynamic discounting, supply chain finance through bank partners, and blockchain-based payments. More than a dozen major banks and card providers support Tradeshift Pay, including HSBC, Santander, and CreditEase.

“In an industry where 50% of U.S. payments are check-based and companies around the world struggle to access finance and payments, Tradeshift Pay is a real enabler for the digitally connected economy,” said Christian Lanng, Tradeshift CEO and co-founder. “For the first time, businesses can go to one single wallet to handle all their payments, end-to-end, across all channels. And for the first time, you can do both regular and blockchain-based early payments in one platform in the cloud.”

Leveraging the blockchain not only democratizes the solution for unbanked businesses, it also allows businesses to get paid faster– lowering the average payment receipt time from 45 days down to a couple of days.

Tradeshift launched its business commerce platform in 2010 and now connects more than 1.5 million companies across 190 countries. 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. Earlier this year, Tradeshift launched Tradeshift Frontier, an innovation lab aimed at applying emerging enabling technologies to the supply chain. Headquartered in San Francisco, Tradeshift has offices in Copenhagen, New York, London, Paris, Suzhou, Tokyo, Munich, Frankfurt, Sydney, Bucharest, Oslo, Stockholm, and Kuala Lumpur.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

International Invoicing Platform from Flywire Emerges from Beta

International Invoicing Platform from Flywire Emerges from Beta
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Flywire

Global payment and receivables solutions provider Flywire has added a new international invoicing service to its offerings. The solution, which has been delivering thousands of invoices worldwide every month as part of a six month beta with select customers, will be available free of charge and can be deployed as a stand-alone product or integrated with Flywire’s payments and receivables platform.

The new solution features support for more than 100+ currencies, automatic invoice reminders, recurring and monthly installment invoicing, robust analytics and reporting, and built-in business and country-specific compliance requirements and instructions. The technology seamlessly integrates with the company’s accounting software as well as with most enterprise applications.

Flywire CEO Mike Massaro pointed out that there is a big difference for most companies when it comes to domestic billing compared to international billing. Calling the former “simple and straightforward,” Massaro said, “When it comes to international billing, the process is far more complex, and if your invoicing does not make it easy for your international customers to pay you, it creates a domino effect of problems starting with extended DSO, high reconciliation costs, compliance issues, and poor customer satisfaction.”

Flywire’s new global service comes as the Boston, Massachusetts-based company makes additional headlines on the international front courtesy of a partnership with the SP Jain School of Global Management. Announced this week, Flywire and SP Jain will host a competition for student-led start-ups in Singapore and the APAC region. The first-of-its kind contest will launch later in May and Flywire is using the prize money it received from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) last year to fund the competition.

“With this initiative, we are able to harness the power of our MAS FinTech win to fuel the next generation of thought leaders and industry change-makers in Singapore and throughout APAC,” Flywire APAC Managing Director Andrew Ong said. “It was important to be able to pay it forward with a challenging and relevant programme that we hope will eventually produce the next innovative startups.”

Founded in 2009 and making its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2011 as peerTransfer, the company rebranded in the fall of 2015 to Flywire. Along with expansion to its U.S. and European offices, the rebrand better positioned the company for “sustained growth, expansion of its products and services, and creation of lasting relationships with its payment users.”

More recently, Flywire announced a partnership with Billtrust to streamline cross-border accounts receivables. This spring, the company teamed up with Flutterwave to integrate the African payments API as the preferred cross-border payments option for students, patients, and businesses in Nigeria.

Flywire has raised more than $43 million in funding and includes Bain Capital Ventures, QED Investors, and Spark Capital among its investors.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook