Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, IBM, identitii, iSignthis, Jack Henry, KlickEx, TSYS

On Finovate.com

  • KlickEx and IBM Leverage Blockchain Technology to Improve Cross-Border Payments in the South Pacific.
  • Dwolla on Designing a New System for Financial Inclusion: Mojaloop.
  • ACI Launches Payments Risk Management Solution to Boost Fraud Protection.

Around the web

  • TSYS introduces its merchant services company ProPay in Australia.
  • Jack Henry & Associates partners with SAS to bring its cloud-based analytics solution to regional and community banks.
  • iSignthis announces integration of Tradefinancial.com.au into its ISCPay transactional banking platform.
  • Identitii’s Software-as-a-Serice offering goes live on Microsoft Azure cloud.

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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Ripple Entices Banks with New Accelerator Program

Ripple Entices Banks with New Accelerator Program
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Ripple

One of the first rules of basic economics is that incentives matter. Blockchain solutions company Ripple must be privy to this rule because the California-based company today unveiled a new accelerator program and marketing incentives to promote bank interest.

The company announced it will now offer a reward for banks that are the first in their markets to process and promote commercial payments on RippleNet, the company’s enterprise blockchain solution that connects banks, payment providers, digital asset exchanges and businesses. Banks will be rewarded in the form of rebates, funded through $300 million worth of XRP.

The program is intended to accelerate adoption and usage of Ripple and is two-fold– consisting of a Volume Rebate and an Adoption Marketing Incentive. The Volume Rebate program offers rebates to RippleNet members once they’ve achieved integration and volume milestones by predetermined deadlines. The rebates are issued either in XRP or USD and depend on the volume, but vary from covering 50% to 300% of the integration and first-year license fees.

The Adoption Marketing Incentive is available on a first-come, first-serve basis and matches financial institutions’ marketing spend used to promote Ripple products to their end clients. Ripple will also support efforts by providing marketing content and messaging framework and tools. For both programs, selling restrictions are in place to support a healthy XRP market.

Monica Long, VP of Marketing at Ripple, likened the incentive program to PayPal’s early adoption and referral bonuses. Long said, “Since we’re offering the incentives in XRP, we anticipate seeing an added benefit of building an easy on-ramp for institutions to use XRP in their payment flows to lower liquidity cost in the future.” Long added that the reception of the incentive programs was “very positive” in early testing.

Company co-founder Chris Larsen, who debuted Ripple (originally known as OpenCoin) at FinovateSpring 2013.Brad Garlinghouse took the reins as Ripple CEO last fall. The company made headlines this spring when it partnered with BBVA to complete an international money transfer using RippleNet. In July, Ripple expanded its suite of offerings that support XRP and last month the company selected Singapore for its new Asia office location.

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Wave Brings Business Services to Royal Bank of Canada’s Online Banking Platform

Wave Brings Business Services to Royal Bank of Canada’s Online Banking Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Wave

O Canada, indeed! Yesterday we shared the news that National Bank of Canada was joining Toronto-based SecureKey’s Digital Identity Network. Today we learn that Wave – a small, business financial management (BFM) solutions provider also from Toronto – has signed a deal that will integrate its invoicing, accounting, and business financial insights technology into Royal Bank of Canada’s online banking platform.

Pointing to the wide range of responsibilities shouldered by small business owners, Wave CEO and co-founder Kirk Simpson said, “By embedding Wave’s complete small business tools into RBC’s online business banking platform, small business owners now have one single destination to manage their financial life.” Wave’s financial software and services, which include free invoicing, accounting, payment processing, receipt scanning, and more, are currently used by nearly three million businesses worldwide.

Left to right: Wave CEO and co-founder Kirk Simpson and VP of Small Business for RBC Jason Storsley demonstrating Wave embedded financial software for FIs at FinovateFall 2017.

“We’re always exploring how we can use emerging technologies to simplify the complex issues our small business clients face and help them achieve their goals,” VP of Small Business for RBC, Jason Storsley said. “This means a small business owner can spend more time being the CEO of their business and less time being the CFO,” he added. Royal Bank of Canada is the largest bank in the country based on market capitalization ($113 billion). The bank’s 81,000 employees serve more than 16 million retail, business, public sector, and institutional banking clients in Canada, the U.S., and in 35 other countries.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Wave demonstrated its embedded financial software for FIs last month at FinovateFall 2017. The company has raised more than $79 million in total funding, and includes NAB Ventures, BDC IT Ventures, and CRV among its investors. In June, Wave introduced automatic payments for customers living in areas where Payments by Wave credit card processing is supported. This spring the company unveiled a variety of enhancements to its mobile invoicing solution, adding the ability to duplicate invoices, import contacts from your smartphone, and instant address auto-complete.

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Finicity Teams with DataVerify

Finicity Teams with DataVerify
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Finicity

Data aggregation and insights company Finicity announced it has integrated with risk mitigation firm DataVerify to offer mortgage lenders real-time borrower asset verification.

This capability will combine Finicity’s Verification of Assets (VoA) solution– part of the Utah-based company’s set of asset and income verification tools launched earlier this year– with DataVerify’s DRIVE platform that automates underwriting for lenders. DataVerify works by comparing borrower data across multiple databases to assess risk and fraud levels, identifying the legitimacy of borrowers to help lenders avoid loan quality issues.

“With real-time asset verification from Finicity, lenders that use our DRIVE platform will be able to get quick insight into a borrower’s financial information and thus make more efficient and smarter lending decisions” said Brad Bogel, ‎senior vice president at DataVerify. He continued, “The data can be accessed and verified in a matter of clicks, shortening the loan approval process for a greater overall consumer experience.”

Finicity was founded in 1999 and has since developed more than 16,000 bank integrations. The company most recently demoed its credit decisioning solution at FinovateFall 2017. Earlier this summer, Finicity signed a data exchange deal with JP Morgan Chase to allow bank partners to leverage third party financial apps without disclosing their login credentials.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Coinbase, DAVO Technologies, EverSafe, Finicity, Ondot, Ripple, Tradeshift, Wave

On Finovate

  • Wave Brings Business Services to Royal Bank of Canada’s Online Banking Platform
  • Finicity Teams with DataVerify.
  • Ripple Entices Banks with New Accelerator Program.

Around the web

  • Tradeshift joins the Hyperledger Board.
  • DAVO to offer app to Poynt merchants via Poynt’s App Marketplace
  • Ondot, Elan provide two-way fraud alerts for My Mobile Money app.
  • EverSafe wins a spot in Fidelity’s list of “8 financial tips for new widows.”

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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Contextual Commerce Platform Omnyway Raises $12.75 Million in Series A

Contextual Commerce Platform Omnyway Raises $12.75 Million in Series A
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Omnyway

In a round led by Nyca, CommerzVentures, and CEFIF, augmented digital commerce platform Omnyway has raised $12.75 million in new funding. The Series A will give Omnyway (formerly Omnypay) the ability to launch new services, expand operations, and add to its customer base both in the U.S. and around the globe.

“To keep up in this fast-moving, mobile-first (and soon, mobile-only) world, retailers need tools that speak to how people want to shop and engage today,” Omnyway CEO Ashok Narasimhan said. He added that the funding would enable the company to “continue innovating on today’s fundamentally different retail experience.”

This retail experience involves putting mobile at the center of the shopping experience. The company’s platform helps retailers leverage in-store, online, and in-app interaction channels, as well as virtual aisles and dynamic media to engage customers in a dynamic, digital, and thoroughly omni-channel way. Available as a white-label solution, the technology integrates readily with both legacy back-end systems and existing mobile apps, and has been used by retailers like Kohls to add payment functionality to their apps.

Amitaabh Malhotra, Chief Marketing Officer for Omnyway, demonstrating the Zapbuy plugin for banking apps at FinovateFall 2017.

More recently the company has earned recognition for its Zapbuy service, which the company demonstrated during its debut at FinovateFall last month. Zapbuy enables shoppers to purchase items directly from an advertisement simply by clicking on the ad itself. “Zapbuy utilizes the latest in contextualization, personalization, and frictionless checkout techniques to offer an uplift in ROI from advertising budgets while also maximizing revenue,” Omnyway CMO Amitaabh Malhotra explained from the Finovate stage.

Malhotra showed how the platform guided the shopper from a digital ad they had clicked on to a pop-up window that featured credentialed payment options featured such as a bank as well as a QR code. After making their payment selection, the shopper simply locates and chooses the “Zapbuy” option, which opens up the camera on the shopper’s mobile phone so they can photograph the item’s QR code. A confirmation page provides the shopper with all the information about the transaction – including applied rewards or discounts, points earned, shipping address, etc. –  before they make the final purchase.

“We are allowing financial institutions to participate in a new revenue stream which is associated with affiliate revenue and advertising revenue that otherwise would not have been available,” Malhotra said. “Secondly we are also making their credentials top of wallet for that particular user. So every time they come back to that particular type of ad or interface, they are able to make the purchase again using the same credential and any other financial benefits you want to offer them.”

Founded in 2014, Omnyway is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

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P2Binvestor Launches Bank Partnership Program

P2Binvestor Launches Bank Partnership Program
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: P2BInvestor

Peer-to-business crowdlending platform P2Binvestor (P2Bi) has launched a bank partnership program today. The new initiative will offer small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) working capital while providing banks access to a diversified asset class.

Under the partnership, banks will front 50% of the capital with a senior secured position. P2Bi’s base of private investors will provide the remaining half of the capital and businesses will receive the funds with a blended interest rate of 8% to 12%. By partnering with P2Bi, banks can quickly extend multi-million dollar lines of credit to growing SMBs and establish a lending relationship with them at an early stage in their business development.

The Colorado-based company’s CEO Krista Morgan explained that regulatory and technology hurdles have made it difficult for business borrowers and banks to connect. “Until now, there hasn’t been a solution like this, which unfortunately has forced growing companies to take on expensive and time consuming funding,” Morgan said. “We’re enabling banks to lend to businesses they otherwise wouldn’t be able to due to strict lending standards,” she added.

Piloting the bank partnership program is New Resource Bank, a San Francisco-based bank with $331 million in assets under management and a focus on social, environmental, and economic change. “P2Binvestor is excited to be powering New Resource Bank’s line of credit with both our marketplace and proprietary receivables lending platform,” said Morgan.

Vincent Siciliano, president and CEO of New Resource Bank describes the program as a “win-win” for the bank and for businesses. Siciliano said, “By using P2Bi’s platform, growing businesses will be able to secure capital that they typically wouldn’t be able to access through bank lending alone. This allows us to offer a greater suite of lending products to the community of sustainable businesses we serve.”

Founded in 2012, P2Bi debuted at FinovateSpring 2013 and, at FinovateFall 2014, the company showcased its borrower application and loan management platform. In November of 2016, P2Bi closed a $7 million Series A round, bringing its total equity funding to $9.6 million. Last month, Forbes featured the company in an article titled, “When Venture Capitalists Said, ‘No,’ This Woman Didn’t Give Up.”

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doxo Surpasses 30,000 Payable Billers on its Platform

doxo Surpasses 30,000 Payable Billers on its Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Doxo

Consumer bill pay service doxo announced it reached a milestone today. The Seattle-based company now has more than 30,000 billers on its platform, allowing users the ability to pay even more companies from a single website.

This achievement also gives doxo a new status– the Seattle-based company now has more billers on its platform than any other bill paying service in the U.S. The company attributes the growth to the network effect between users and billing service providers. That is, doxo’s user base of 2 million consumers add billers who they want to pay to the platform while billers join the platform to offer their clients a fast, easy way to pay.

The company’s CEO and co-founder Steve Shivers said that the accomplishment is an “important milestone” for the company, especially when coupled with the fact that doxo surpassed 2 million users earlier this year. “The most compelling service we provide to our users is the ability to pay all of their bills from a single, secure, mobile-friendly account,” Shivers said.

doxo is compatible with existing billing systems and allows billers to electronically connect for free. The platform offers a simplified experience for end users and provides a complete online payment system for billers who have yet to go digital. Among the company’s list of billing partners are AT&T, National Grid, Puget Sound Energy, Kansas City Light, and more providers across finance, utilities, healthcare, telecom, banking, and insurance sectors.

doxo debuted its Control Panel at FinovateSpring 2011. The company received the 2015 Washington Excellence Award for Consumer Payments and Customer Service and most recently was named to the Red Herring Top 100 North America Winners in 2017. Founded in 2008, doxo has raised $18.8 million.

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National Bank of Canada Joins SecureKey’s Digital Identity Network

National Bank of Canada Joins SecureKey’s Digital Identity Network
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: SecureKey

At the beginning of the year, SecureKey announced that it had won an $800,000 grant from the U.S., Department of Homeland Security in support of the company’s development of a blockchain-based digital identity network. Today, the Toronto, Ontario-based authentication specialist unveiled the latest institution to join that network: the National Bank of Canada.

“Adding National Bank to our digital identity network is critical to the success of our ecosystem and brings us one step closer to ensuring consumers are able to prove who they say they are, in person, online, and over the phone,” President and CEO of SecureKey Technologies Greg Wolfond said. Speaking for National Bank, Lionel Pimpin, SVP of Digital Channels, Personal and Commercial Strategies called SecureKey’s network “innovative in the online verification process,” adding that the company’s “blockchain technology will ensure people connect conveniently and privately to their trusted online services.”

With $240 billion in assets, National Bank joins a handful of Canadian FIs that have partnered with SecureKey, such as BMO, CIBC, RBC, and Scotiabank. When the network is fully operational, consumers in Canada will be able to opt-in to the service with their mobile device and use their trusted digital identity credentials that users have established with their preferred partner institution. SecureKey’s network uses IBM’s Blockchain service on top of open source Hyperledger Fabric from the Linux Foundation.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, SecureKey demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2012, having won Best of Show two years earlier. The company partnered with IT business and consulting firm Levio last month to add identity authentication services to the latter’s digital transformation projects in Quebec, Canada. Named to Planet Compliance’s RegTech Top 100, SecureKey has raised more than $90 million in total funding and includes Blue Sky Capital and Intel Capital among its investors. Finovate Director of Strategy Lisa Moyle highlighted SecureKey in her look at blockchain and digital identity earlier this year.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, BancPass, Doxo, Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, FICO, Finastra, iSignthis, Narrative Science, nCino, Omnyway, P2BInvestor, SecureKey, SpyCloud, Taulia, Trusted Knight

On Finovate.com

  • National Bank of Canada Joins SecureKey’s Digital Identity Network.
  • P2Binvestor Launches Bank Partnership Program.
  • doxo Surpasses 30,000 Payable Billers on its Platform
  • Contextual Commerce Platform Omnyway Raises $12.75 Million in Series A.

Around the web

  • ConnectOne Bank ($4.7 billion in assets) to deploy nCino’s Bank Operating System.
  • ACI Worldwide partners with European clearing and settlement firm, STET, to bring real-time payment solution to PSPs.
  • FICO reports increased accuracy of its Enterprise Security Score when it comes to predicting data breaches.
  • Finastra moves its payments solution to the cloud via Microsoft Azure.
  • Trusted Knight partners with eTECH Channel.
  • CloudTrade and Taulia partner to enable businesses to transition to paperless invoicing.
  • iSignThis’ ISXPay initiates further Australian card acquiring/processing contracts.
  • BancPass announces license agreement with mobile tolling provider PayTollo.
  • EFL a finalist in the 2017 MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge.
  • Datanami article on bot technology features insights from Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel.
  • MoneyMarketing highlights SpyCloud in a look at the safety of life and pensions company data.

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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First Wave of Demo Companies Driving Fintech Innovation in the Middle East

First Wave of Demo Companies Driving Fintech Innovation in the Middle East
By Heather Stowell Posted on
Categories: Finovate Marketing, FinovateMiddleEast 2018

By the end of 2017, fintech investments in the Middle East are expected to have grown by 2.7x. As governments and financial leaders diversify away from a petroleum-based economy, the focus is on fintech.

But who will capitalize on this ecosystem of fintech innovation? Foreign brands like Amazon (who acquired Middle Eastern e-commerce firm, Souq.com, earlier this year), local powerhouses like Kingdom Holding Company (who recently led Uber-esque Careem’s Series E funding) or both?

Either way, the message is clear: Look to the Middle East for fintech investment opportunities, acquisitions, partnerships, inspiration and competition. And there’s no better place to start than Finovate in February 2018.

Finovate’s signature 7-minute demos will remain at the core of FinovateMiddleEast with dozens of companies showcasing their latest fintech innovations live on stage. Here’s the first wave of demoing companies to check out. The event will take place February 26 and 27:

CASHOFF — A service for collecting and analyzing consumers’ financial data that gives banks complete knowledge about consumers (online banking, PFM, scoring, sales, loyalty).

Dorsum — A chatbot platform that improves the difficulties of customer acquisition for financial institutions.

ebankIT — An omnichannel banking platform that enhances digital transformation for banks and financial institutions.

Everus Technologies — Offers Everus World, a product that fosters fintech challenges, convenience, and public education and awareness for millennials, traders, and gamers.

Innofis — Provides Bank Virtual Assistant, a platform that uses natural language, artificial intelligence, and analytics to create frictionless interaction and sales efficiency.

Moven — A financial wellness platform targeting declining branch revenue for banks around the world.

Munnypot — An automated online solution providing accessible and affordable investment advice for millions of people in the U.K. and overseas.

NymCard — Offers smart mobile technology providing an alternative to the limited capabilities of digital payment products for the banked and underbanked population in MENA.

Ondot Systems — Provides mobile card services supplying financial institutions, card processors and cardholders with mobile applications for credit and debit card control.

Quisk — A payment network breaking up the exclusivity of current mobile payment technologies for anyone with a mobile phone (not just a smartphone).

RISQ — A financial software platform improving the effectiveness of corporate loan acquisition and customer management for commercial banks.

SwipeStox — A social network for stock trading that cuts through the complexity around financial investing for newbie and professional investors.

Wealth Migrate — A global, direct investment platform remedying the lack of direct investment products for middle class, overseas investors.

W.UP — Offers Sales.UP, a digital banking sales and engagement tool that meets financial institutions’ need of customer insights and personalised automated marketing campaigns.

Additional companies will be announced over the next couple months.

Through the expanded Finovate model, the Dubai debut will also feature fast-paced, short-form discussions from industry leaders. Content-driven panels, regulatory perspectives, and world-class keynotes will address themes and topics relevant to the MENA market and broader economy as well.

See the agenda, and stay tuned — new speakers are added weekly.

Save $200 when you register for FinovateMiddleEast by October 26.

PARTNERS

 

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Finastra Partners with VASCO to Offer Customers eSignLive Capability

Finastra Partners with VASCO to Offer Customers eSignLive Capability
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: VASCO

It turns out, banks can gain a lot from business tools. That’s probably why business solutions company VASCO and financial services software company Finastra teamed up. Under the agreement, London-based Finastra now offers an interface from its LaserPro loan origination solution to VASCO’s eSignLive e-signature solution.

The LaserPro loan origination solution offers a streamlined way for commercial lenders to originate and process loan transactions. By adding eSignLive’s e-signature capabilities, LaserPro will make the loan signing process even more efficient. The integration will reduce costs and manual errors for lenders– making a clean audit trail– and will offer borrowers flexibility on when and where they sign their documents.

“Digital loan origination and processing require a high amount of compliance and financial institutions need to balance those requirements with security and ease of use,” said VASCO Chief Executive Officer, Scott Clements. “In partnership with VASCO, Finastra is enabling a trusted process and trusted transactions, which are essential in digital loan origination and processing.”

VASCO President Tommy Petrogiannis and Director of Technical Sales Francois Leblanc demo at FinovateFall 2017 in New York

VASCO most recently presented eSignLive at FinovateFall last month in New York. The company’s President Tommy Petrogiannis and Director of Technical Sales, Francois Leblanc, took the stage to debut the eSignLive Digital Lending Solution. The solution leverages the blockchain and e-signature capabilities to offer a fully compliant, fully digital lending solution. In July, VASCO appointed Scott Clements as CEO and earlier this year was selected by Mizuho Bank for its DIGIPASS, digital application security solution.

Finastra was formed earlier this year by acquiring and combining D+H and Misys. London-based Misys debuted its Fusion.Fabric.cloud software development environment at FinovateEurope 2017 in London.

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