Jwaala Acquired by Alogent

Jwaala Acquired by Alogent
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Jwaala, Mergers & Acquisitions

 

U.S. firm Alogent has acquired a Texas-based digital banking tech vendor, Jwaala, for an undisclosed amount, reports Antony Peyton of Banking Technology (Finovate’s sister publication).

Alogent, which is based in the U.S. state of Georgia, said it will continue to support Jwaala’s collection of solutions, which will be marketed under the new name, Alogent Digital.

Dede Wakefield, Alogent CEO, described the acquisition as “the next major step forward in our mission to digitize and automate the financial services world”, with Jwaala’s platform bringing a “significant foundational set of capabilities”.

“We believe deeply in our unique approach to digital banking,” Jwaala founding partner and CTO Andrew Taylor added. “And we expect tremendous new growth opportunities as part of a company as agile, innovative, and dynamic as Alogent.”

As reported last year, U.S.-based banking software vendor, Jack Henry & Associates, shed its deposit automation business, Goldleaf Enterprise Payments (formerly Alogent Corporation).

The buyer was Battery Ventures, a US/Israeli venture capital and private equity firm. With that deal, the company regained its former name – Alogent.

In terms of Alogent’s current back office software, this focuses on electronically capturing, processing and analyzing check data and images, including those captured on mobile devices.

Its customers range from small community banks and startups to top tier banks, and it is the latter segment that will be the company’s key focus with the arrival of Battery Ventures.

Founded in 2006, Jwaala demonstrated its MoneyTracker PFM solution at FinovateSpring 2009. In August, the company announced that Alaska USA FCU with more than 625,000 members and more than $7 billion in assets would deploy Jwaala’s Ignite platform. The company began the year with news that United Nations FCU had picked Jwaala’s Ignite as its new digital banking platform.

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Backbase Omnichannel Banking Powers France’s Mobile-Only Orange Bank

Backbase Omnichannel Banking Powers France’s Mobile-Only Orange Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase

France’s latest mobile-only bank, Orange Bank, has gone live on Backbase’s Omnichannel Banking Platform, reports Antony Peyton of Banking Technology (Finovate’s sister publication).

Backbase said Orange is the only French bank to offer for free a service that provides real-time balances, mobile payments, and a virtual adviser that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Orange Bank was finally launched on 2 November after considerable delays.

Backbase CEO Jouk Pleiter demonstrating Your Everyday Bank at FinovateEurope 2017.

As Banking Technology reported in January 2016, Orange outlined its plans for a new bank. In April 2016, Orange made a significant stride in its mobile banking ambitions by acquiring a majority stake in financial services firm Groupama. At present, Orange owns 65% of the capital of Orange Bank and Groupama 35%.

However, there was a hitch in June, when Orange put the brakes on its plans after finding the proposition didn’t quite meet the standards.

In October, the drama appeared to be over as a spokesman for Orange said “the commercial launch will take place on 2 November,” confirming an earlier report by French newspaper La Tribune. They weren’t lying as it went live on that date.

In terms of the new bank, customers can subscribe directly from the mobile application, online, or in one of Orange’s 140 certified stores.

Naturally, Orange is looking to attract its 30 million customers in France to its new bank. In fact, it is present in 29 countries, and according to the group has a customer base of 263 million customers worldwide as of 31 December 2016, including 202 million mobile customers and 18 million fixed broadband customers.

Earlier this month, Orange Bank said it was getting its mobile payment and banking services underpinned by Wirecard.

The paytech vendor said it is providing “all the technical components integrated into the Orange Bank platform to manage their mobile payments”.

Backbase was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The company won a Best of Show award for its demo of Your Everyday Bank at FinovateEurope 2017, which showed how banks can leverage big data and artificial intelligence to create “next-generation customer journeys”. Earlier this year, Backbase partnered with fellow Finovate alum eWise, combining Backbase’s Open Banking Marketplace with eWise’s account aggregation technology.

Named to the European Fintech 100 and noted as a leader in digital banking solutions by Forrester, Backbase announced a partnership with Norway’s SSF Bank in June and a deal to power digital banking for Zensar Technologies in May. Jouk Pleiter is co-founder and CEO.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avoka, BBVA, Configo, Doxo, Fiserv, Meniga, Realty Mogul, VISA

On Finovate.com

  • Digital Experience Specialist Configo Launches Cloud Environment.

Around the web

  • Spanish bank IberCaja deploys digital banking technology from Meniga.
  • Fiserv to help prepare European banks for transition to real-time payments.
  • BBVA and Samsung partner to bring iris scanning technology to smartphones.
  • VISA announces bank partnerships in preparation for Visa B2B Connect commercial launch in 2018.
  • Everest Group names billpay service specialist doxo to list of Top 40 FinTech Trailblazers.
  • FST Media interviews Avoka Chief Experience Officer Derek Corcoran.
  • RealtyMogul wins Gold Stevie Award for Company of the Year in the Consumer Services category.

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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Friday Fun: Searching for “Mobile Banks”

Friday Fun: Searching for “Mobile Banks”
By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Mobile Banking, Search Engine Marketing

If you could choose one banking term to dominate in Google searches, “mobile bank” would be near the top of your list. In the past two months, Google has served 1 million searches for the term (see chart above). And not surprisingly, 75% were conducted from mobile devices.

So who’s on the first page today? When searching “mobile bank” from my Seattle IP address I expected to see the usual mega-banks. And yes, they were there. Among organic results (see desktop screenshot below, mobile search results were similar), US Bank was #2, BofA was #3 & #4, PNC was #5 (despite no branch network in Washington state), Citizen’s Bank was #7 (also with no branches here) with Key Bank, Union Bank, and TCF finishing off the first page.

Nothing too surprising there, other than perhaps the omission of Chase and Wells, which evidently need to boost SEO efforts. But what did surprise me was who finished #1 AND #6, BankMobile from Customers Bank. Next year, the mobile bank is expected to be spun-off in a $110 million merger with Flagship Community Bank, which is wisely keeping the BankMobile name.

Bottom line: Thinking about it, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the results. BankMobile has 1.8 million mobile accounts, ranking it among the 10 largest U.S. mobile banks (after BofA, Chase, Wells, US Bank, Capital One, Discover, Amex and perhaps Barclays and/or TD Bank), I guess Google had it right after all. Enjoy your weekend!

Author: Jim Bruene (@netbanker) is Founder & Senior Advisor at Finovate as well as Principal of BUX Advisors, a financial services user-experience consultancy. 

Google search results for mobile bank (17 Nov 2017, Seattle IP address)

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Kabbage Expands Small Business Funding with $200 Million Credit Facility

Kabbage Expands Small Business Funding with $200 Million Credit Facility
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Kabbage

Alternative credit company Kabbage has a lot to be thankful for this week. The Atlanta-based startup received a new $200 million revolving credit facility from Credit Suisse this week. This brings Kabbage’s total debt funding to $750 million.

Kabbage emphasized that this credit facility diversifies its funding sources, which will help it scale faster and bolster its growth. Specifically, the new funds will help the company serve more and larger small businesses while offering higher lines of credit with longer terms.

Global rating agency DBRS gave investment-grade ratings to the the top two classes of the transaction, which earned ratings of A and BBB. Both classes are collateralized with assets originated through Kabbage’s automated
underwriting technology. This marks the first time DBRS has rated one of Kabbage’s credit facility transactions.

Deepesh Jain, Kabbage’s Head of Capital Markets, commented on the rating from DBRS, saying, “To earn an investment-grade rating requires a rigorous evaluation of not only our lending models, automated risk analysis, and successful history of reducing bad debt to an industry-low, but also our operational processes—from exceptional customer service to unmatched technology development.”

Kabbage has served more than 125,000 small business customers since it was founded in 2009. This week, KPMG ranked Kabbage number 10 of 50 in its list of Fintech 100 for 2017. Earlier this Fall, CB Insights listed the company in its round-up of Top-Targets for European banks. That same week, Kabbage earned its place on the Inc. 5000 list. The company most recently demoed its Kabbage Card small business line of credit at FinovateSpring 2015. Check out our video interview with Kabbage’s COO and co-founder Kathryn Petralia at FinovateFall 2017 last month.

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Coinbase Custody Helps Institutional Investors Securely Store Digital Assets

Coinbase Custody Helps Institutional Investors Securely Store Digital Assets
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Coinbase

 

Who knows how much more appreciation in the price of bitcoin will be required to encourage notorious crypto-currency skeptic and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to endorse investing in digital assets. But when he does, a new company launched by Coinbase called Coinbase Custody will be there to make sure he does it the right way.

“By some estimates there is $10B of institutional money waiting on the sidelines to invest in digital currency today,” Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong wrote in a blog post this month. He highlighted the number of hedge funds that have been set up solely to trade and invest in bitcoin and other digital assets, as well as the growing number of family offices, sovereign wealth funds, and others examining ways to add digital currencies to their portfolios. He also noted that the primary obstacle to broader investment in these assets is the ability to store client’s digital assets safely.

With Coinbase Custody, Armstrong has set out to meet a set of factors – ranging from strict financial controls with audit trails to multi-user accounts and exceptional cyber and physical security – he believes FIs require in order to trust a digital asset custodian. He pointed out that because Coinbase “already store(s) billions of dollars worth of digital assets” for its customers – and currently serves “thousands of institutions” on its U.S. digital currency exchange, GDAX – Coinbase is an ideal partner for FIs looking to securely store digital assets. “Our goal with Coinbase Custody is to help dramatically accelerate the flow of institutional money into digital currencies over the coming years,” Armstrong wrote.

Institutions that sign up for Coinbase Custodian will get access to an early version of the solution to be released in 2018. The product is exclusively for institutional investors with a minimum of $10 million in deposits. Coinbase presently charges an initial set-up fee of $100,000 plus a fee of 10 basis points per month on assets stored.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Coinbase demonstrated its Instant Exchange platform at FinovateSpring 2014. In August, the company closed a $100 million Series D round led by IVP, which took Coinbase’s total funding to $217 million and a valuation of $1.6 billion. Named to KPMG/H2 Ventures Fintech 100 for 2017’s Leading 50, Coinbase introduced its Instant Purchases option in October, which enables users to buy digital assets directly using a U.S. bank account.

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ForwardLane Launches New AI APIs

ForwardLane Launches New AI APIs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ForwardLane

ForwardLane has introduced a pair of new artificial intelligence APIs that apply natural language processing and deep learning AI to help financial market professionals better manage research data as well as improve communication among advisors and end investors.

“The two APIs empower the world’s leading asset managers, wealth mangers, and insurers augment the capabilities of their star performers and bring a consistently high-quality, personalized experience to their clients,” ForwardLane CEO Nathan Stevenson said in a statement. “It ties humans with machines for exciting new solutions.”

ForwardLane CEO Nathan Stevenson demonstrating the company’s wealth management solution at FinovateSpring 2016.

The two API frameworks are Personalized Insights and Expert Conversation. Personalized Insights helps professionals working in advisory, sales, and distribution automate and augment the research and preparation process ahead of client meetings. The API leverages natural language processing to read client profile information and complies configurable human business data with commentary. This provides “high-touch customization” for all of an asset manager’s clients while giving professionals a prioritized client list, and guidance on which research content to share and why.

Expert Conversation is designed for institutional finance and enables on-demand access to company and market intelligence. Financial professionals and individual investors can use the technology to query the firm about how market-related issues and the company’s investment strategies can affect their portfolios.

Headquartered in New York City, ForwardLane demonstrated its cognitive productivity solution for wealth management at FinovateSpring 2016. The company’s technology combines “massively scalable” machine intelligence with institutional-grade risk analytics supported by more than 14 years of actionable investment insights derived from the company’s data aggregation platform. The result is a system for RIAs, IFAs, family offices, and other wealth managers that learns over time, providing the kind of “personalization at scale” that has enabled users to boost client loads up to 3x.

A graduate of the FinTech Innovation Lab’s mentoring program, ForwardLane has raised more than $1 million in funding, and includes Thomson Reuters among its investors. The company was founded in 2015.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Blend, Coinbase, Ellevest, Featurespace, ForwardLane, Kabbage, Overbond, PayPal, Unison, WealthForge

On Finovate.com

  • Coinbase Custody Helps Institutional Investors Securely Store Digital Assets
  • Kabbage Expands Small Business Funding with $200 Million Credit Facility.

Around the web

  • Overbond offers U.S. corporate issuers and institutional investors real-time access to its platform.
  • PayPal and Synchrony Financial expand strategic consumer credit relationship.
  • U.K.-based Featurespace to open office in Atlanta in November.
  • WealthForge Debuts Its First Regulation A Offering with New Investor Workflow
  • GoBankingRates features Blend, Unison, and Ellevest in its 10 Startups to Watch in 2018 list.

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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Actiance Acquired by K1 Capital Management

Actiance Acquired by K1 Capital Management
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Actiance, Mergers & Acquisitions

Communications compliance and analytics company Actiance has made its exit this week. The California-based company has been acquired by K1 Investment Management, an investment firm focused on acquisition-based growth opportunities.

K1 will join Actiance with its rival, Smarsh, which specializes on archiving compliance. The combined company will reach more than 6,500 financial services companies, including the top 15 global banks. Neil Malik, Managing Partner at K1, said, “This combination of capabilities from Actiance and Smarsh provides the industry with a means to get ahead – and stay ahead – of compliance trends, while introducing the latest communications technologies to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the modern enterprise.”

The service can be deployed in the cloud, dedicated, on-premise, and hybrid and will offer capture, compliance, archiving, and supervision support across a range of communication channels, including email, social media, mobile messaging, instant messaging/collaboration, encrypted chat and voice communications. K1 plans to enhance the service by investing in product capabilities, increasing flexibility in deployment options, accelerating expansion in Europe and developing a joint channel partner program.

Kailash Ambwani, CEO of Actiance said that the new combined entity is “incredibly well-positioned” to address the growing compliance needs of financial services firms. He added, “Together we will enhance our combined sales and distribution capabilities, offer our customers additional resources and services, and accelerate our product development.”

Founded in 1998, Actiance most recently demoed at FinovateFall 2012 where it showcased Socialite, an active social compliance tool. Last month, the company launched a Safe Landing program for continuous compliance and in August, Actiance introduced a compliance and archiving solution for WeChat and WhatsApp. Before today’s acquisition, the company had raised $43.6 million.

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PayStand Scores $6 Million in Series A Funding

PayStand Scores $6 Million in Series A Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, PayStand

In a round led by BlueRun Ventures and featuring participation from Cervin Ventures, Serra Ventures, TiE, and Capital for Founders, B2B payment platform PayStand has raised $6 million in Series A funding. The company says that it will use the additional capital to build up its account receivable systems and help launch its new free accounts payable product line – which entered beta availability today. The Series A takes PayStand’s total capital to more than $8 million.

With self-driving cars and rockets to Mars on one side of the balance and paper checks and spreadsheets on the other, PayStand founder and CEO Jeremy Almond made clear which side of history his company was on. Pointing out that “most U.S business payments still run on manual, pre-internet systems,” Almond said, “PayStand takes the best of automation, customization, and blockchain technology to finally bring B2B payments into the Digital Age.”

PayStand CEO and founder Jeremy Almond during his FinDEVr presentation, Comparing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Payment Types.

BlueRun Ventures General Partner Jonathan Ebinger added that PayStand’s emphasis on back-office payments in the enterprise “melds seamlessly into our investment themes of digital transformation.” Saying “we see big things ahead for PayStand,” Ebinger added that PayStand represents many of the best practices and “key financial processes that are vital to our economy.”

PayStand also announced the beta availability of its new AP solution. The technology automates the accounts payable process, eliminating the need for paper checks while providing full data tracking throughout the entire cash cycle to maximize visibility and control. The early-access AP release is free to all beta participants.

Founded in 2013, PayStand leverages blockchain and SaaS technologies to provide a smart billing and B2B payment network based on digitization and automation. The company’s Payments-as-a-Service helps businesses lower time-to-cash, cut costs, and generate additional revenue. Headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, PayStand participated in our first developer’s conference, FinDEVr 2014 in Silicon Valley. At the event, Almond presented “Comparing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Payment Types,” as an introduction to his company’s multi-payment network technology.

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KPMG, H2 Ventures Unveil Fintech 100 for 2017

KPMG, H2 Ventures Unveil Fintech 100 for 2017
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AdviceRobo, AutoGravity, Coinbase, Kabbage, Kensho, Klarna, Kreditech, Lending Club, Leveris, Moneytree, Nubank, On Deck Capital, SecureKey, Sensibill, SoFi, Stash, ThetaRay, Token, Trusona, VATBox, Wave, Xero

It’s that time of the year once again: KPMG and H2 Ventures have teamed up to introduce their Leading Global Fintech Innovators roster, the Fintech 100 for 2017. The judges for this year’s Fintech 100 included more than 20 professionals from KPMG and other organizations with expertise in IT, data analytics, capital markets, financial services, and more.

This year 11 Finovate/FinDEVr alums made the Leading 50, with another 12 alums making the Emerging 50. New entrants to the KPMG/H2 Ventures roster include SoFi and Revolut among the Leading 50. All 12 the alums on the Emerging 50 are making their first appearance. See the full list.

Some of the highlights from the 2017 Fintech 100 include the observation that five of the roster’s top 10 companies are from China, as are the top three companies on the list: Ant Financial, ZhongAn, and Qudian (Qufenqi). The U.S. has a pair of companies in the top five: Oscar and Avant, and Europe and the U.K. each have one company in the top ten: Kreditech and Atom Bank, respectively.

Speaking of Asia, the Asia-Pacific region has 30 fintech companies in the top 100. The United States has 19 companies – the most from any single country – and the U.K. and EMEA areas have 41 companies in the list. The U.K. and EMEA region are also responsible for the highest number of companies on KPMG/H2 Ventures’ Emerging 50 list with 26.

With regard to sectors within fintech, the Fintech 100 breaks down as follows:

  • 32 lending companies
  • 21 payments companies
  • 14 transaction and capital markets companies
  • 12 insurance/insurtech companies
  • 7 wealth management/wealthtech companies
  • 6 cybersecurity/regtech companies
  • 4 blockchain/digital currency companies
  • 3 data and analytics companies

Alums from the Leading 50

Alums from the Emerging Stars

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Actiance, CREALOGIX, Econiq, PayStand, Ripple, Unison, Veridium

On Finovate.com

  • PayStand Scores in $6 Million Series A Funding
  • Actiance Acquired by K1 Capital Management

Around the web

  • American Express, Santander UK, and Ripple team up to support blockchain-enabled, cross-border, B2B payments.
  • Veridium announces partnership with Walla to pilot digital banking model in sub-Saharan Africa that uses biometrics for authentication.
  • Econiq wins Honorable Mention at annual BankNews Innovative Solutions Awards for its Conversation Hub.
  • Best of Show winner Unison unveils 2018 expansion plans.
  • CREALOGIX announces expansion into Asia-Pacific with new offices in Singapore.

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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