Basisbank to Deploy FICO’s Rules Management System, Blade Advisor

Basisbank to Deploy FICO’s Rules Management System, Blade Advisor
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FICO

Denmark-based online lender Basisbank is implementing FICO’s Blade Advisor rules management system to “control credit risk and accelerate its digital transformation”, according to the vendor, reports Tanya Andreasyan of Banking Technology (Finovate’s sister publication).

“As a fintech, we need to be fast and responsive to customer demands, while maintaining strong risk management,” said Morten Larsen, head of business development at Basisbank. “We need to give our risk analysts the maximum flexibility to make changes quickly, not wait in a queue for IT to make changes. In our review of the market, FICO provided the most powerful and flexible solution, and also has the greatest expertise in financial services.”

Basisbank was founded in 2000. It offers simple banking and finance products consumers direct to market and at point of sale at retail partners and car dealers. Today, it has over 90,000 customers and partners with 700+ retail shops and automotive dealers. It says that more than 75% of its credit applications come from mobile devices.

FICO’s Shalini Raghavan (Senior Director, Product Management) and Tom Traughber (VP, Chief Architect, Product Development). presented “Rapidly Deliver Contextually-Powered Stream Processing” at our developers conference, FinDEVr New York 2016. The discussion focused on how FICO’s Decision Management Platform Streaming supports high volume, latency analytics for batch and stream sources.

Founded in 1956 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. FICO leverages predictive analytics and data science to improve operations ranging from risk management and fighting fraud to customer service. The company’s solutions are used by businesses in more than 100 countries.

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eToro Raises $100 Million in Series E

eToro Raises $100 Million in Series E
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: eToro, Funding

In a round led by China Minsheng Financial, social trading network eToro has raised $100 million in new funding. The Series E, which featured participation from SBI Group, Korea Investment Partners, and World Wide Invest, as well, will help the company expand into new markets. The new capital will also help eToro build on its R&D efforts in blockchain technology and asset digitization. eToro’s total capital is now $162 million.

“This round of investment will be critical in helping us to further develop our technology infrastructure to support the rapid growth that we’ve recently experienced,” eToro founder and CEO Yoni Assia said. “It will also help us to enter new markets, enabling us to bring our social approach to investing to more people around the world, and providing more people with safe and secure access to the markets.”

Assia added that the funding would enable eToro to remain as innovative technically as it is in the field of social trading and investing. “As new technology continues to change finance,” he said, “we want to remain at the forefront of that change. So today’s announcement will help us to continue our market leading work in blockchain research and the development of digital assets.”

Digital assets and blockchain have proven to be significant opportunities for growth for eToro. In February, the company added XLM (Stellar Lumens) to its offerings. Back in December, eToro teamed up with CoinDash to build blockchain-based social trading products. The company enabled direct trading of five major cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and Ripple – back in September, shortly after earning a spot on the European Fintech 100.

Named a company to watch by Disruptor Daily, eToro has offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, and New York City. The company demonstrated its CopyFunds for Partners solution at FinovateEurope 2017. With a trading and investing community of more than nine million users, eToro’s network gives users the opportunity to automatically copy the buying and selling of the network’s most successful traders and investors. Those traders and investors can earn income when their trades are copied by members of the community as part of eToro’s Popular Investor program. Stocks, exchange-traded funds, currency pairs, indices, and commodities, as well as cryptocurrencies can be traded on eToro’s platform.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, CardFlight, Compass Plus, eToro, Hyperwallet, IdentityMind Global, Kasasa, LendingTree, MaxMyInterest, NCR Corporation, NetGuardians, NICE Systems, Revolut

On Finovate.com

  • LendingTree Launches Free Credit Monitoring.
  • eToro Raises $100 Million in Series E.
  • NICE Actimize Launches AI-Powered Financial Crime Investigation System.

Around the web

  • Hyperwallet tackles payments for staffing and recruiting platform tilr.
  • Compass Plus offers active-active database clustering on TranzAxis.
  • Steward Bank selects NetGuardians to help fight against fraud.
  • Kasasa named one of “2018 Best Places to Work in Financial Technology” by American Banker
  • CardFlight announces that over 80% of SwipeSimple merchants have been upgraded to EMV quick chip payment acceptance.
  • Revolut launches disposable virtual cards for online payments.
  • ACI Worldwide teams up with Shanghai-based UnionPay International.
  • IdentityMind Global announces GDPR-readiness ahead of the EU’s May 25th deadline.
  • MaxMyInterest adds former TD Ameritrade executive Tom Bradley to Advisory Board.
  • NICE Actimize unveils new AI-powered financial crime management solution, Actimize ACTone.

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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LendingTree Launches Free Credit Monitoring

LendingTree Launches Free Credit Monitoring
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: LendingTree

Online loan marketplace LendingTree is expanding its horizons today. The North Carolina-based company introduced a free credit monitoring service for members of My LendingTree, a financial intelligence platform launched in 2014.

Through a partnership with TransUnion, LendingTree monitors credit profiles of My LendingTree’s 7 million enrolled users on a daily basis and notifies them of any changes within 30 minutes of the report activity. Users with the LendingTree mobile app will be alerted of changes via a push notification. Upon receiving a credit notification, users can confirm or dispute the activity within the My LendingTree platform.

“LendingTree empowers consumers with the information they need to feel more confident in their financial decision making,” said Charles Battle, LendingTree’s Senior Director of Product Management. “By adding free credit monitoring to My LendingTree, we’re making it even easier for consumers to manage their credit and monitor their financial health.”

This new offering falls outside of LendingTree’s core competency as a loan match-maker. However, it helps create a relationship with consumers who may not be shopping for a loan but may be looking to borrow in the future.

Since it was founded in 1998, LendingTree has facilitated more than 65 million loan requests. The company went public on the NASDAQ in 2000 and was acquired by InterActiveCorp (IAC) in 2003. At FinovateSpring 2015 the company debuted My LendingTree, a personalization platform with a dashboard to view all credit-related accounts.

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Currencycloud Helps Businesses Extend Global Reach

Currencycloud Helps Businesses Extend Global Reach
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Currency Cloud

International payments platform Currencycloud is empowering businesses to tap into the global economy with its new offering, Global Collections, a multi-currency accounts receivable product.

With Global Collections, banks and payment companies can offer their clients a low-fee cross-border payment acceptance tool that is faster and has less friction than traditional offerings. The new capability allows businesses in the U.S. or E.U. to generate international bank account numbers (IBANs) and Virtual Account Numbers (VANs) so they can receive U.S. dollars or Euros without incurring fees. In other words, businesses can get paid in foreign currencies as if they were operating their business locally.

Neil Ambiker, CEO of payments company B2B Pay, said, “[Global Collections] does so much more than streamline account receivables. It has empowered us to provide customers a frictionless experience, foster trust in our brand and most importantly, grow at an international level.”

While Currencycloud has always offered the ability to send funds, the collections capability is new. Todd Latham, Currencycloud CMO and Head of Product described the move as a “natural next step.” He added, “This launch is a revolution in collections and provides the infrastructure needed to fast track B2B innovation, allowing companies to go global while acting local.”

Currencycloud will roll out Global Collections later this month.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in London, Currencycloud most recently presented at FinovateFall 2016 where it debuted its Payment Engine. Earlier this month, the company was named an “outstanding place to work,” and last June was listed in CB Insights’ Fintech 250.

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Trusted Knight Unveils Financial Fraud Fighting Solution, Protector Air

Trusted Knight Unveils Financial Fraud Fighting Solution, Protector Air
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Trusted Knight

Digital data security specialist Trusted Knight launched Protector Air this week. The cloud-based solution deploys in-stream between consumers and businesses to defend against cyberattacks and fraud. The solution is capable of protecting against a variety of fraudulent activity and malware including rootkits, man-in-the-middle browser attacks, session hijacking, and account takeovers.

“The conventional security approach has been to protect the endpoint and the web application separately using two distinct solutions,” Trusted Knight CEO and founder Joseph Patanella explained. “What we’ve enabled is the modern paradigm of accepting that there will be compromised endpoints as well as attacks on web servers, but secure business can still take place if each touch point of each transaction is protected,” Patanella said. “We are creating a new category of solutions with Protector Air – one that provides full transaction stack protection.”

Protector Air secures three cyberattack vectors: protecting websites from direct infrastructure, framework, and application logic attacks; protecting users from endpoint and browser-based malware such as keyloggers and Trojans; and protecting the communications itself from service disruption caused by distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks. With an anti-fraud intelligence layer to protect transactions, Protector Air’s technology is unified, agentless, turnkey, cloud-based, and platform independent.

Headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland and founded in 2010, Trusted Knight demonstrated its Protector Anti-Crimeware Software at FinovateSpring 2013. Last fall, the company forged a strategic partnership with channel enablement specialist, eTECH Channel to help it better bring its full product suite of anti-fraud solutions to market faster and more efficiently. Last summer, Trusted Knight was named a finalist in the SC Awards 2017 Europe in the Best Fraud Prevention solution category. The company secured Series B funding in 2016 (the amount of the investment and the name of the investor were undisclosed) and has made one major acquisition, the purchase of Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm, Sentrix.

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Your Sneak Peek into FinovateSpring Begins Next Week

Your Sneak Peek into FinovateSpring Begins Next Week
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2018, FinovateSpring 2018 Sneak Peek

Spring is officially here and it’s time for a fresh look at the dozens of companies that will take the stage at FinovateSpring at the Santa Clara Convention Center on May 8 through 11. New this year, we’ve expanded the show to four to include discussions and analyses of a range of fintech topics.

If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time to save on your ticket.

Your sneak peek into the demos

Finovate’s demo-only format will take center stage on the first two days, highlighting a range of fintech startups who will demo their newest offerings.

To get ready for what’s to come, we’re featuring a series of sneak peeks of some of the demoing companies. Stay tuned on the blog throughout the next few weeks as we reveal what each company is working on and why it’s worth paying attention to. As FinovateSpring draws near, we’ll also highlight notable speakers and keynote addresses that will take place later on in the conference.

For more of what to expect, check out the agenda, view the list of demoing companies, and plan your visit.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, CAN Capital, Currency Cloud, Finastra, Jack Henry, Payfone, PayPal, Roostify, Trusted Knight

On Finovate

  • Trusted Knight Unveils Financial Fraud Fighting Solution, Protector Air.
  • Currencycloud Helps Businesses Extend Global Reach.

Around the web

  • Beacon Community Bank to deploy Jack Henry’s SilverLake System for core processing.
  • Finastra welcomes APAC early adopters to its FusionFabric.cloud 0pen architecture ecosystem.
  • Roostify announces new VP for Business Development, Mark McLaughlin.
  • BioCatch voted “Best Innovation in Securing Transactions” at the European Payments Summit’s Florin Awards.
  • Payfone launches Instant Experiences for Retail platform.
  • Users can now add multiple credit and debit cards to their PayPal account directly from BofA’s mobile app.

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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Hyperwallet’s Partnership with Lyric Brings Advance Royalty Payments to Artists

Hyperwallet’s Partnership with Lyric Brings Advance Royalty Payments to Artists
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Hyperwallet

Mass payout platform Hyperwallet has teamed up with Lyric Financial, a financial services provider specializing in royalty advances and loans for musical artists.

In the press release, Hyperwallet CEO Brent Warrington explained that recording artists face a struggle of income unpredictability. “Our job as a global payout platform is to help change the way these folks get paid, ultimately ensuring financially vulnerable workers have quick, efficient, and secure access to their earnings, whenever and wherever they need them,” he added.

Hyperwallet’s payout solution is scalable and allows users to get paid in real-time. This is valuable to Lyric clients, who will benefit from faster, more efficient royalty payment advances that help smooth out irregular and delayed payouts for their work. “Powering our royalty payment disbursement platform with Hyperwallet has not just improved the speed of distribution, but has also further increased visibility into the process for our payees,” said Eli Ball, Lyric Financial CEO.

Since Hyperwallet facilitates low-cost bank transfers across almost a dozen countries, including India, Russia, Brazil, and Indonesia, the partnership will also help Lyric support its growing roster of global clients. Ball added, “It’s reassuring knowing that the Hyperwallet network can easily enable us to expand our local payouts across 100+ countries quickly and easily.”

Hyperwallet most recently presented at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, where Bill Crowley, Chief Product Officer, and Blair Olynyk, Software Architect, gave a presentation titled, Pay the Planet: Implementing Frictionless Global Payout Distribution. Last December, Hyperwallet began supporting payouts from Amazon’s Australia marketplace. Hyperwallet was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

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Personetics Brings Cognitive Banking to Romania’s Banca Transilvania

Personetics Brings Cognitive Banking to Romania’s Banca Transilvania
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Personetics

Cognitive banking has come to CEE.

Romania’s second largest bank, Banca Transilvania, will integrate AI-powered, forward-looking financial guidance into its digital banking experience courtesy of a new partnership with Personetics. The bank, with more than 2.2 million clients, will add Personetics’ technology to the new version of its BT24 Internet Banking and Mobile Banking solution this year, giving Banca Transilvania’s retail and business customers access to insights and tools to better manage their finances.

“With the move towards open banking and PSD2 compliance, the ability to utilize data assets to deliver personalized service and guidance will become a key competitive differentiator for financial institutions in Europe and elsewhere,” Personetics CEO and co-founder David Sosna said. Speaking for Banca Transilvania, CEO Omer Tetik praised the way the technology will enable the bank to get its products to customers faster, and called the partnership with Personetics, “a new and strategic step regarding our digital focus and proof of our commitment to offer convenient and reliable services to our customers.”

Personetics specializes in leveraging machine learning, predictive analytics, and AI to help banks and credit unions create personalized, digital banking experiences for their customers and members.  The company’s Cognitive Banking Brain engine enables a range of applications including a Cognitive Banking Framework; Personetics Engage to provide personalized guidance for customer financial management; Personetics Assist, an AI-driven chatbot solution for institutions; Personetics Act, an automated money management solution; and Personetics Anywhere, which enables banks to deploy chatbot solutions over popular messaging platforms. The solutions help banks lower operational costs, increase cross-selling, and build better quality online engagement.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Personetics demonstrated its Personetics Anywhere chatbot solution for financial services at FinovateFall 2016. Last month, the company announced that challenger bank Tandem would use Personetics’ technology to provide personalized financial guidance for its customers. Also this year, Personetics has announced a partnership with Israel Discount Bank, where it will power the intelligent financial assistant, Didi. The company serves more than 45 million customers worldwide, and is partnered with six of the top 12 banks in North America and the European Union.

Named a Gartner Cool Vender, a Top Ten FinTech Company by KPMG, and a Top Ten Company to Watch by American Banker, Personetics has raised $18 million in funding. The company includes Lightspeed Venture Partners, Viola Ventures, and Sequoia Capital among its investors.

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SumUp Facilitates Cashless Donations for the Church of England

SumUp Facilitates Cashless Donations for the Church of England
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: SumUp

Mobile payments company SumUp is making it easier for church congregations to donate thanks to a partnership with the Church of England. The Ireland-based company’s mobile point of sale (mPOS) technology will be available for congregations to make contributions at weddings, funerals, christenings, and other church events such as concerts. This follows a successful trial of contactless payments in around 40 churches last summer.

Specifically, SumUp will facilitate contactless, virtual terminal, and mobile SMS donations for the church, which regularly receives more than $800 million (£580 million) in donations per year. This is expected to not only make payments faster and easier but also to adapt to a younger congregation demographic in an increasingly cashless society.

All of the Church of England’s 16,000 churches will have access to a portable SumUp Air card reader. These terminals accept contactless payments, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, as well as chip & PIN and can process 500 transactions on a single charge.

If you’re worried the biblical parable of the widow’s offering will be less relevant, do not fear– the terminals will not be used to accept regular tithes and offerings from the church pews. There is still too much friction involved, since each transaction must be entered into the terminal by a church deacon or other representative, and because a card transaction still takes more time than simply dropping cash into the collection plate.

In a press release, National Stewardship Officer of The Church of England John Preston said, “How we pay for things is changing fast, especially for younger church-goers, who no longer carry cash, and we want all generations to be able to make the most of their place of worship. Installing this technology does mean that one-off fees can be done via card, as can making one-off donations. The vast bulk of regular giving will continue to be done by standing order as we continue our trial with various technologies.”

SumUp was founded in 2011 and was recently named Europe’s fastest-growing company in the Inc. 5000 rankings. That achievement is difficult to contest– SumUp onboards more than 2,000 new companies each day, processes more than 100,000 global transactions every day, and exceeded $98 million (£70 million) in annual revenue last year. The company’s clients include DHL, black cab drivers, Tupperware, and Bosch. SumUp demonstrated its mPOS system at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. The company has raised $44 million from investors including American Express, BBVA, Groupon, and Holtzbrinck Ventures.

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Neener Analytics Completes Proof-of-Concept with Jamaican Payday Lender

Neener Analytics Completes Proof-of-Concept with Jamaican Payday Lender
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Neener Analytics

FinovateSpring Best of Show winner Neener Analytics is showing a leading payday lender headquartered in Jamaica how its social media analytics can help boost a number of KPIs.

In a recent email, Neener Analytics said that a just-completed pilot resulted in lowering the lender’s default rates by 33%, and showed ways to grow revenue by more than 20% and  increase loan volume by than 33% without increasing current risk thresholds.

“We’re not cherry-picking here. This is just another example of results we achieve regularly for our customers,” the company stated.

Neener Analyics has developed social media analytics solutions for lenders, insurance companies and other businesses to help assess risk outcomes for thin file and no file credit customers. The company’s regulatory, compliant solutions work with a simple, single login from Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, and enable institutions to predict which borrowers represent a high default risk, which borrowers are likely to payoff debts early, and even which debtors are likely to pursue full amortization (the likelihood that their debt will be revolved). Neener Analytics also provides a risk-correlated, projected FICO score with an accuracy of nearly 80%.

At FinovateSpring last year, the company demoed key features of its compliant social media analytics platform: Default Prediction, Transactor-Revolver Prediction, and Risk Alignment. Based in San Jose, California, Neener Analytics was co-founded by Jeff LoCastro (CEO) and Marc Tomlinson (CTO & Co-founder). The company is an alum of the Plug and Play accelerator, entering the program in the fall of 2017, and was a finalist in the Citi Tech for Integrity Challenge. Read our profile of Neener Analytics from last summer.

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