Tink Receives $16.5 Million in Funding, Announces Expansion, New Clients

Tink Receives $16.5 Million in Funding, Announces Expansion, New Clients
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Tink

Swedish-born PFM app Tink has landed $16.5 million today for its personal financial management app and packaged APIs. The funds come from SEB, Nordea, Nordnet, ABN Amro, Creades and Sunstone and brings the company’s total funding to $30.5 million.

“This latest funding will allow us to put great focus on the European market, scale our offer, and help banks to keep pace with the expectations of their customers,” said Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink. “We see this need continuing to grow as customers exert their rights to access their financial information and take control of their money.”

In addition to expanding its pocketbook, the company has also broadened its horizons. Not only has Tink signed licensing agreements with Nordea, Nordnet, and Klarna, it also announced plans to further its European expansion. Today’s partnerships add to the company’s existing agreements with Sweden-based SEB and Dutch-based ABN Amro who teamed up with Tink last year. Through the partnerships, Nordea, Nordnet, and Klarna can integrate Tink’s aggregation, payment initiation technology, and PFM platform into their existing customer channels. Klarna, a bank focused on the online payment experience, demoed its flagship payment technology at FinovateSpring 2012.

Kjellén announced that the company will be live in 10 European countries at the beginning of 2018. He said that Tink’s technology “transforms the industry” by assisting banks to build a customer experience that helps clients understand their finances, make smarter choices, and “ultimately brings them financial happiness.” Kjellén continued, “We see today’s announcement as evidence of a new generation of bank and fintech partnerships. By working together, we are paving the way for a new era of banking in Europe – unlocking the market to create greater choice and a better deal for consumers.”

Tink is an active supporter of the European Union’s proposed PSD2 legislation and has campaigned for greater consumer access to their financial data. The company’s APIs enable banks to plug-and-play account aggregation, payment initiation, PFM, and product recommendation technology in a single platform.

Tink has 50 employees and was founded in 2012. The Tink app has more than 400,000 users in Sweden. This summer the company earned a place on CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list., Kjellén, along with the company’s Commercial Director Tashi Sylten, took home a Best of Show win for their demo of Tink at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Three years earlier, at FinovateEurope 2014, the company won Best of Show for its debut of the Tink platform.

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FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: AApay Technology

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: AApay Technology
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AApay Technology, FinovateAsia 2017, FinovateAsia 2017 Sneak Peek


A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on November 7 and 8 in Hong Kong. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

AApay is an aggregation payment system, the product of a start-up company founded by three young aspirants who graduated from HKUST.

Features

  • Offers real-time automatic bill-splitting among customers
  • Enables aggregation of various popular payments in the greater China region
  • Provides an efficient platform to launch advertisements precisely

Why it’s great
Share your bill with the world in seconds.

Presenters

Fiona Hong, CMO
Hong is CMO of AApay Technology (Hong Kong) Limited. She has strong market sense and rich knowledge in corporate governance.

Ye Ma, CEO
Ma is CEO of AApay Technology (Hong Kong) Limited. He is a serial entrepreneur and designer.

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FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Strands

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Strands
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateAsia 2017, FinovateAsia 2017 Sneak Peek, Strands

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateAsia on November 7 and 8 in Hong Kong. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

Strands is the fintech partner for banks and SMEs, providing solutions that empower people to better manage their financial and consumer lifestyle and facilitating the transition into Open Banking.

Features

  • Enables banks to adopt a role as an SME business partner
  • Provides banks with better understanding of SME’s preferences and behaviour patterns
  • Helps accelerate the process into Open Banking

Why it’s great
Offers one point-of-entry, a 360 degree financial picture, more efficient money management, and an engaging, meaningful conversation between SME and bank.

Presenters

Victoria Yasinetskaya, Marketing Director
Yasinetskaya is a senior marketing executive with extensive experience in FS. She is an active participant in the conversation about women’s role in fintech and setting the precedent for female inclusion in financial services.
LinkedIn

Albert Morales, Product Manager
Morales is the Product Manager of digital money management solutions. Since his previous role at Kantox, Morales has been a hands-on witness of the technological revolution within the finance industry.
LinkedIn

Yogesh Desai, Business Development Manager – APAC
Desai has 18+ years of experience in the technology industry. He focuses on assisting banks to add new revenue streams, enhance customer experience and increase wallet share. He works with banks in the APAC region.
LinkedIn

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AApay Technology, Blackhawk Network, BLUERUSH, Chain.com, Fidor Bank, Strands, Tavant, Temenos, Tink, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

  • Tink Receives $16.5 Million in Funding, Announces Expansion, New Clients.
  • BLUERUSH Raises $1.3 Million in New Funding.

Around the web:

  • Blackhawk Network appoints Charles O. Garner as Chief Financial Officer.
  • Tavant enabling digital mortgage experience for goodmortgage.com.
  • TechCrunch: TransferWise changes fees for GBP transfers, introduces complicated flat transaction fees.
  • Chain.com announces a new service called Sequence, a cloud-based ledger service for managing balances in financial and commerce apps.
  • Fidor partners with Eight to jointly design the customer experience for Fidor’s  financial services marketplace.
  • Temenos and Abu Dhabi Global Market announce fintech collaboration.

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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Finn.ai Powers Facebook Messenger’s First, Fully-Featured, AI-Powered Virtual Banking Assistant

Finn.ai Powers Facebook Messenger’s First, Fully-Featured, AI-Powered Virtual Banking Assistant
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finn.ai

Courtesy of a new partnership with Finovate multiple Best of Show winner Finn.ai, the 700,000 banking customers of ATB Financial now have access to virtual banking assistance via their Facebook Messenger app. “AI is completely reinventing the consumer banking experience,” Finn.ai CEO Jake Tyler said. “With the Finn.ai platform, you get more than immediate, secure banking access, you get smart, personalized financial insights to help you achieve your specific financial goals.”

Calling the partnership “one more way we’re delivering on our commitment to really make banking work for people,” ATB Chief Transformation Officer Wellington Holbrook expressed excitement at the idea of bringing “conversational commerce” to its retail banking customers. “The more you interact with the assistant the smarter it gets,” Holbrook said. “This empowers us to continually improve service and delivery to our customers with a level of security consistent across our digital offerings.”

Finn.ai CEO Jake Tyler demonstrating the Finn Virtual Banking Assistant at FinovateFall 2017.

The largest “home-grown” financial institution in Alberta, Canada, ATB Financial has been testing AI and chatbot technology with early adopters since February with the goal of leveraging the popular Facebook Messenger app to provide banking services. The firm credited Finn.ai for being able to help an “agile, mid-sized FI” like ATB Financial quickly move the project from proof-of-concept status to “rapid full-market deployment.” Holbrook noted that ATB, with more than $48 million in assets and more than 5,000 team members, hopes to expand use of the technology to other platforms, including smart devices like televisions.

More than just a Q&A chatbot, ATB’s Finn.ai-powered virtual assistant enables secure billpay, viewing of account balances, money transfer between accounts – including cross-currency money movement. The virtual assistant also provides spending insights, access to live customer support, and Mastercard statement alerts.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Finn.ai demonstrated its Virtual Banking Assistant at FinovateFall 2017, winning Best of Show. Earlier this year, Finn.ai earned a spot in Payment Canada’s pitch competition, Dragon’s Den. The company has also been recognized this summer by Capegemini’s global InnovatorsRace and at the VivaTech conference in Paris. We featured Finn.ai in our look at artificial intelligence and fintech, A Fintech Filter for Artificial Intelligence in 2017 back in January.

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BioCatch to Power Behavioral Biometrics for Samsung SDS America

BioCatch to Power Behavioral Biometrics for Samsung SDS America
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BioCatch

Behavioral biometrics and threat detection firm BioCatch announced it is working with software solutions and IT services company, Samsung SDS America, to combat fraud that occurs after a user has logged in.

Through the partnership, BioCatch will integrate a layer of fraud protection that works beyond the login process into Samsung SDS’ Nexsign enterprise biometric authentication software. The integration is intended to fill security gaps that occur when mobile apps don’t require users to login multiple times to validate their identity. To solve this, BioCatch will collect and analyze more than 500 parameters around a user’s activity– continuously monitoring their behavioral patterns within the app to authenticate the user and detect abnormal bot or malware behavior.

In a statement Eyal Goldwerger, Chief Executive Officer at BioCatch remarked at how new innovations in fintech have made it easy for users to conduct their banking activities. He added:

“However, given how sophisticated fraudsters are today, the consumer-grade authentication protocols that exist leave open the real possibility of account takeovers. In fact, all the fraud that BioCatch finds today, comes from within authenticated sessions, prompted by malware, social engineering and other sophisticated attacks that circumvent the login method entirely. As a result, security continues to be a major factor holding back the full potential of mobile banking and payments… Through Nexsign and our partnership, Samsung has created the platform that resolves this constant battle.”

Founded in 2011, BioCatch monitors 4 billion transactions per month for a handful of major banks. Earlier this year, the company bolstered its fraud detection by forming a relationship with LexisNexis Risk Solutions to offer companies additional risk scores by monitoring user behavior and discerning between real and fraudulent users. In April, the company partnered with Experian to prevent new account fraud for CrossCore users and in February BioCatch teamed up with Nuance Communications to power continuous authentication for Nuance Security Suite solution.

At FinovateFall 2014, the company showed off Invisible Challenges. The company has raised $11.6 million and is headquartered in Israel.

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Clinc Teams with Enacomm to Bring AI Chatbots to Small Banks and Credit Unions

Clinc Teams with Enacomm to Bring AI Chatbots to Small Banks and Credit Unions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Clinc

You may have met Clinc’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Finie at FinovateFall last year, where the company took home a Best of Show award. Today, thanks to a partnership with Enacomm, the Michigan-based company is making that chatbot more widely available.

Through the reseller agreement, Enacomm will distribute Finie to mid-tier banks, community banks, and credit unions. In a statement Clinc CEO Jason Mars described Enacomm as the “right partner” because the company shares Clinc’s “vision for modernizing the consumer banking experience.” Mars continued, “Teaming up with Enacomm will help us to empower a greater number of smaller financial institutions, like community banks and credit unions, with next-generation, voice-controlled AI technology that otherwise would be out of reach.”

Clinc’s Finie AI chatbot leverages machine learning and natural language to engage users in natural, human-like conversations about their finances without requiring them to learn commands or rules. Finie delivers real-time, personalized responses in chat format ranging from spending advice, balance information, and complex transaction details.

“Not only does intelligent interaction technology conserve resources, but Clinc’s advanced AI platform provides the best experience we’ve seen to enable customers to quickly and easily find the information they need to make informed decisions about their money through conversations with their bank accounts,” said Enacomm CEO Michael Boukadakis.

In August, Clinc announced a partnership with USAA. The startup agreed to power AI for the bank’s voice banking skill for Alexa, enabling USAA’s 12 million members to engage with Clinc’s AI chatbot regarding their finances. The skill is currently in a pilot phase.

Clinc was founded in 2015 by Mars and his fellow University of Michigan professors, Lingjia Tang, who serves as the company’s CSO; Michael Laurenzano, CTO; and Johann Hauswald, Chief Architect. Earlier this year, Clinc raised $6 million in Series A funding from Drive Capital, Cahoots Holdings, Hyde Park Venture Partners, and Stuart Porter. Those funds boosted Clinc’s total funding to $7.8 million.

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Ledger Partners with Intel to Boost Blockchain App Security

Ledger Partners with Intel to Boost Blockchain App Security
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ledger

Ledger, the Paris, France-based specialist in providing security for cryptocurrency and blockchain applications, has partnered with Intel to bring greater protection for users of digital wallets. Ledger will integrate its Blockchain Open Ledger Operating System (BOLOS) into Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX), with the joint solution initially being deployed with cryptocurrency software wallets Electrum and MyEtherWallet.

“We have seen an increasing demand from the market for secure solutions to manage crypto assets over the past couple of years,” Ledger CEO Eric Larchevêque said. He added that the collaboration with Intel “is a unique opportunity to keep providing our growing client base with innovative solutions for cryptocurrency and blockchain applications.”

Eric Larchevêque, Ledger CEO, demonstrating Ledger Blue at FinovateEurope 2016.

The solution is designed to help cryptocurrency owners safeguard their digital assets by protecting their private keys from unauthorized use. The collaboration between Ledger and Intel means that sensitive information will be stored within an Intel SGX enclave instead of on the application. In addition to stopping many software-based attacks, the solution provides users with a compromise between software wallets and hardware wallets. Back in May, Ledger announced a soft launch of its Ledger SGX Enclave, which provided hardware security features on Intel Skylake Core CPUs and in many ways previewed this week’s news.

Ledger designs and builds trusted hardware wallets and security devices for decentralized applications such as Bitcoin and the blockchain. Explaining the importance of cryptocurrency security during his FinovateEurope demo last year, Larchevêque put it bluntly “if your bitcoin are stolen, they are stolen. There is no bank. There is no insurance. Pretty much, it is game over.” He explained, “when you own bitcoin what you really own are private keys, a critical piece of information that you use to sign bitcoin transactions. So anyone with access to your private keys can at any time empty your account.” Comparing storing private keys on your computer or smartphone to displaying gold bars on your chimney, Larchevêque said that the hardware wallets his company has built – such as Ledger Nano and Ledger Blue – are specifically designed to solve this problem.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Paris, France, Ledger demonstrated its Ledger Blue solution at FinovateEurope 2016. Earlier this month, the company announced a partnership with Gemalto to provide security infrastructure for crypto asset applications. In August, Ledger announced support for Segwit (Segregated Witness) optimizations to scale Bitcoin. With clients in 165 countries, and more than 60 employees, and 300,000 Ledger wallets sold, the company has raised more than $10 million in funding and includes MAIF Avenir and XAnge among its investors.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Clinc, D3 Banking, DAVO Technologies, Finicity, Finn.ai, Kantox, Ledger, PayPal, Samsung, Scalable Capital, SecureKey, Top Image Systems, Zafin, Zumigo

On Finovate.com

  • Ledger Partners with Intel to Boost Blockchain App Security.
  • BioCatch to Power Behavioral Biometrics for Samsung SDS America.
  • Clinc Teams with Enacomm to Bring AI Chatbots to Small Banks and Credit Unions.
  • Finn.ai Powers Facebook Messenger’s First, Fully-Featured, AI-Powered, Virtual Banking Assistant.

Around the web

  • PayPal launches PayPal for Marketplaces
  • Forbes: Banks Wanted To Sink Kantox— Now They’re Vying For Its Technology
  • Zumigo’s  Zumigo Assure now prevents payment fraud even when card numbers are compromised.
  • SecureKey collaborates with Intel to enable consumers to access its blockchain-based digital identity technology via traditional web browsers.
  • Finicity launches online platform that allows lenders to order, manage and monitor digital verification reports.
  • DAVO’s Sales Tax App, now available in the Square App Marketplace.
  • D3 Banking partners with P2P payments network, Zelle.
  • Behavioral biometric technology from BioCatch to be integrated into Samsung’s Nexsign platform.
  • Top Image Systems introduces its eFLOW AP solution for SAP.
  • Zafin offers its miRevenue platform as a cloud-based SaaS solution.
  • Scalable Capital provides BlackRock employees with streamlined access to its investment management services.

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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Zighra Launches Flagship Continuous Authentication Product

Zighra Launches Flagship Continuous Authentication Product
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Zighra

User authentication company Zighra  launched its flagship product today. Dubbed SensifyID, the new offering provides continuous authentication and threat detection. SensifyID guards against account takeover, remote malware, social engineering, and bot attacks.

By running machine learning and behavioral authentication algorithms, SensifyID is able to monitor user activity within an app combined with data such as device information and environmental factors to offer continuous proof of the user’s identity. The Canada-based company built SensifyID based on its algorithms that learn user behavior within 15 user interactions. The technology works in both online and offline modes.

“The rise of mobile transactions and on-demand services have opened the door for well-organized, ill-intentioned actors to compromise accounts and commit fraudulent transactions across apps in banking, commerce and other industries,” said Deepak Dutt, CEO of Zighra. “By adding SensifyID to our suite of AI-powered analytics, we are taking behavioral authentication to the next level by creating a unique, personalized cognitive profile that cannot be stolen or altered by humans or bots. Businesses that use Zighra’s SensifyID will know exactly when they are interacting with a human customer and when they are not, down to the very second.”

Founded in 2009, Zighra debuted KineticID at FinovateFall 2013. KineticID protects users with more than 700 device types in more than 70 countries. The company’s technology tracks more than over 900 human and environmental traits such as device, network, social, location, behavioral and biometric intelligence, as well as human-machine and machine-machine interactions. In August, Zighra appointed Hari Koduvely as Chief Data Scientist and in December of 2016, the company closed a $1 million round of funding.

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Stash Reveals Plans to Launch Mobile-First Banking Service

Stash Reveals Plans to Launch Mobile-First Banking Service
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Stash

 

Mobile-first investment platform Stash is about to go mobile-first in the field of online banking. The New York City-based startup, which demonstrated its Stash Retire solution at its Finovate debut last month at FinovateFall, announced today that it plans to offer a variety of banking services for mobile-centric customers.

“When we launched the Stash platform, we redefined the financial services experience by providing affordable access and education to millions of Americans,” Stash CEO and Co-Founder Brandon Krieg explained in a statement. “Our new banking services will take that promise a step further. We are pioneering ways to relieve stress and improve our clients’ financial security for years to come.”

Stash CEO and co-founder Brandon Krieg demonstrating Stash Retire at FinovateFall 2017.

The services, bundled as Stash Banking and slated to be available in early 2018, include common banking solutions such as billpay, direct deposit, and debit cards. The platform has a goals-based savings feature, with auto and smart-save functionality as well as access to Stash’s proprietary long-term financial security strategy, The Stash Plan. Accounts with Stash Banking are free, FDIC-insured, with no fees, no minimum balance requirement and are accessible via the largest ATM network in the U.S.

Talking about the decision to launch the new service, Ed Robinson, President and co-founder of Stash, emphasized both the potential cost savings and the opportunity to provide better support and guidance to financial services customers. “When we talked to our clients and analyzed their expenses, we were shocked by how much they were paying in fees,” Robinson said. “We dug deeper and discovered traditional banks offered very little guidance or tools to help Americans manage their money,” he added. “We’re building our banking services to solve that and bring new tools, coaching and complete transparency to the process.”

Founded in 2015, Stash demonstrated its Stash Retire solution at FinovateFall 2017. Stash Retire gives investors the opportunity to participate in low-fee, self-directed IRA accounts while still taking advantage of Stash Invest’s core features such as auto-invest and the ability to invest in increments as small as $5. With more than 2.5 million subscribers and more than 1 million clients, Stash has raised more than $78 million in funding, including a $40 million Series C completed this summer. The company includes Breyer Capital, Coatue Management, Goodwater Capital, and Valar Ventures among its investors.

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Mastercard Takes Blockchain Mainstream with API

Mastercard Takes Blockchain Mainstream with API
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: MasterCard

Mastercard announced it has tested and validated its blockchain and will be opening access to it via a set of three APIs published on the Mastercard Developers website. The APIs include the Blockchain Core API, the Smart Contracts API, and the Fast Pay Network API.

Mastercard will pilot the blockchain for use in the business-to-business space, implementing it to increase speed and transparency in payments and decrease costs for cross-border payments. The blockchain solution aims to offer a new way for consumers, businesses, and banks to transact. The company describes it as the “key” to its strategy of providing payment solutions that “meet every need of financial institutions and their end-customers.”

Mastercard’s blockchain operates independently of a digital currency. As Justin Pinkham, a senior vice president at Mastercard Labs told Forbes, “We are not using a cryptocurrency, and we are not introducing a new cryptocurrency, because that introduces other challenges—regulatory, legal challenges. If you do a payment, then what we can do is move those funds in the way that we do today in fiat currency.”

The company lists four main differentiators of its blockchain:

  • Privacy — Mastercard ensures that transaction details are only shared among individuals who are a party to the transaction.
  • Flexibility — it can be used in combination with other Mastercard APIs; SDKs are available in six different languages.
  • Scalability — it is designed for commercial processing speeds.
  • Reach — it is integrated into Mastercard’s payment network, which includes 22,000 financial institutions.

“By combining Mastercard blockchain technology with our settlement network and associated network rules, we have created a solution that is safe, secure, auditable, and easy to scale,” said Ken Moore, executive vice president of Mastercard Labs. “When it comes to payments, we want to provide choice and flexibility to our partners where they are able to seamlessly use both our existing and new payment rails based on the needs and requirements of their customers.”

The company’s rival Visa has also began working with the blockchain. Last October, the company announced it had teamed up with Chain to launch a blockchain-based B2B payments service called Visa B2B Connect. Neither companies have made firm announcements regarding blockchain use cases for end consumers.

Founded in 1966, Mastercard demoed its Cash Pick-Up ATM solution at FinovateFall last month. Cash Pick-Up allows the sender to disburse cash to banked and unbanked consumers without a card at an ATM. In addition to today’s blockchain developments, the company has recently joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to explore possible use cases for Ethereum.

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