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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Efigence Partners with Alior Bank, Telekom Romania to Help Launch Telekom Banking

Efigence Partners with Alior Bank, Telekom Romania to Help Launch Telekom Banking
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Efigence

Alior Bank’s Romanian branch has teamed up with Deutsche Telekom Group’s Telekom Romania Mobile Communications to develop a new digital financial service. And providing the online exchange for this service is none other than Alior Bank’s long-time partner, Efigence. “We have been working together on the Polish market in the field of technology for almost 10 years with very good results,” Marek Lesiak, Efigence President and CTO said. “We are delighted that Alior Bank appreciates our cooperation and decided to work with us on the international market as well.”

The online exchange platform from Efigence will be paired with the Telekom Banking daily online banking service, providing a new solution for customers in the Romanian market. In addition to providing the platform, Efigence designed the interface, and managed technology implementation and integration.

Left to right: Hubert Czerski (Head of Product Management), Paweł Haltof (Innovation Director), and Łukasz Wełniak (Head of Front-End) demonstrating the Efi4 Digital Banking Platform at FinovateEurope 2017.

“Through the online exchange platform, Telekom Banking’s customers benefit from real-time exchange rates for 10 foreign currencies,” said Head of eFX Commerce for Alior Bank, Tomasz Dośpiał. He added that customers using the exchange benefit from being able to initiate trades with only 5% of the total amount, and then provide the balance within two working days in order to complete the transaction.

Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Warsaw Poland, Efigence demonstrated its Efi4 Digital Banking Platform at FinovateEurope 2017. The platform supports online and mobile internet banking, features a payment and transactions automation module, as well as currency trading tools, PFM, and social and financial data aggregation tools for credit scoring. Modules include financial forecasting, through which customers receive contextual, relevant recommendations such as setting up a savings goal, or offers like an increase in credit limit or a personal loan based on their income and spending patterns.

In August, the company was hired by Emirates NBD to help the Middle Eastern banking group build a new interface and UX for its banking platform. In addition to its long-time partnership with Alior Bank, Efigence has also partnered with mBank (FinovateEurope 2013) and Idea Bank (FinovateEurope 2014), demonstrating banking platform innovations such as social media integration and transaction systems for SMEs.

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MapD Partners with IBM Power Systems

MapD Partners with IBM Power Systems
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: IBM, MapD

Analytics platform MapD has partnered with IBM Power Systems to enhance its analytical performance. California-based MapD has optimized its MapD Core database and MapD Immersive visual analytics client to take advantage of IBM Power Systems to target the speed at which SQL queries can be performed.

Running queries on IBM Power Systems S822LC for HPC servers versus x86-based servers offers an SQL querying speed that is up to 1.3 x faster than recent benchmarks. On average, the updated queries show a 65% acceleration over the original, benchmarked SQL queries. Upgrades such as these help users analyze billion-row data sets in real-time.

“We’re bringing new performance capabilities to a broader audience only available on IBM Power Systems,” said Ashish Bambroo, VP of Business Development at MapD Technologies. “IBM Power Systems are optimized for the kind of compute-intensive applications where MapD’s technology excels. By harnessing the advantages of IBM Power Systems, we can provide our enterprise customers with more options for tackling the toughest workloads.”

To increase the speed, MapD is leveraging IBM’s POWER CPUs and NVIDIA Tesla P100 graphics processors. The POWER processor CPU works together with the NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPU, accelerating CPU-to-GPU analytic pipelines up to 2.5X. This acceleration bolsters MapD’s platform that uses GPUs to query and visualize billions of records in real-time. The company’s GPU-based platform performs from 75 to 3,500 times faster than traditional CPU databases.

MapD was founded in 2013. The company’s CEO Todd Mostak most recently demoed the company’s Core and Immerse components at FinovateSpring 2017. Mostak also gave a presentation at FinDEVr New York 2017 titled How GPU-Powered Visual Analytics Are Remaking Financial Services. Last month, MapD ranked among the best database and analytics tools according to InfoWorld.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Azimo, Dream Payments, Efigence, Lendio, MapD, MasterCard, Stash, ThreatMetrix, VASCO, VISA

On Finovate.com

  • Efigence Teams Up with Alior Bank, Telekom Romania to Help Launch Telekom Banking.
  • Mastercard Takes Blockchain Mainstream with API.
  • Zighra Launches Flagship Continuous Authentication Product.
  • Stash Reveals Plans to Launch Mobile-First Banking Service.

Around the web

  • Latvian Bank Citadele secures mobile and online banking with VASCO’s DIGIPASS for Apps and CRONTO
  • Azimo’s momentum continues with triple-digit growth.
  • Visa to offer ThreatMetrix technologies through its Visa ID Intelligence platform.
  • Lendio joins lending platform association.
  • Dream Payments unveils its point of sale solution for First Data’s Clover merchants.

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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Roostify Launches Decision Builder

Roostify Launches Decision Builder
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Roostify

 

Decision Builder, the latest solution from mortgage tech innovator Roostify, will give lenders the ability to provide loan applications with a clear, easy-to-understand view of all the borrower’s loan options – based on the lender’s actual product and pricing system.

“Consumers often approach a home loan with a lot of anxiety, in part because traditionally very little information has been available to them,” Vice President of Products for Roostify, Sandeep Aji said. Not knowing things like how much the monthly mortgage payment will be or the exact amount needed to close “until late in the process,” are an unnecessary source of stress for prospective mortgage borrowers, Aji explained. “With Decision Builder, consumers can get an accurate idea of what to expect before they even fill out an application,” he said.

Readily integrated into the lender’s current website, Decision Builder collects some basic information such as desired loan amount, anticipated downpayment and ZIP code of the house via a set of dropdown questions. The tool then provides a set of loan options that let the prospective borrower see which products and rates they qualify for. Once the consumer makes their choice, a single click allows them to continue the process with their selected loan product. Aji added that improving the application process by providing more information sooner is a benefit to lenders as well as homebuyers. “Offering this information to consumers trying to education themselves allows lenders to establish a trust relationship early on with prospective clients,” he said, “increasing the likelihood they will apply with that lender.” Decision Builder will be demonstrated live next week at the MBA Annual Convention.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Roostify demonstrated its platform at FinovateSpring 2016. Last month, the company announced partnerships with mortgage transaction services provider ServiceLink and digital insurance firm, Matic Insurance Services. In August, the company celebrated a milestone in the number of external developers working on its platform. The previous month, Roostify announced that it had helped housing lender First Cal reduce its loan process to 15 days – 66% lower than the national average of 43 days.

Named to the Forbes Cloud 100 and CB Insights Fintech 250 earlier this year, the company added top executive talent in 2017, bringing on Frank Gelbart as Chief Revenue Officer and Sandeep Aji as Vice President of Products. We profiled Roostify as part of our look at proptech and mortgagetech back in February.

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Kony to Launch Digital Banking Solution Leveraging Daon Biometrics

Kony to Launch Digital Banking Solution Leveraging Daon Biometrics
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daon, Kony

Enterprise application and mobility solutions company Kony unveiled a new digital banking platform and suite of apps. These Next Generation Digital Banking solutions help banks deliver a better user experience cost effectively across any channel.

The suite will be released in the Spring of 2018 and will include digital banking apps for retail banking, business banking, loans, new account onboarding, and digital wallets. In addition to the suite of apps, the company will release its Digital Banking Marketplace that hosts third party partner services to help speed the notoriously-slow app development process.

And thanks to a partnership with Daon, Kony’s Digital Banking Platform will authenticate users with facial, fingerprint, and voice recognition biometrics using the Virginia-based company’s IdentityX solution. IdentityX uses factors such as device-binding, geolocation, liveness detection, and more to offer a seamless user experience. The flexible solution allows for new technology and biometric methods to be integrated as they become available in the future.

Thomas E. Hogan, chairman and CEO, Kony said, “The new Kony Digital Banking Platform, combined with our growing portfolio of banking applications, and our strategic partnership with Diebold Nixdorf, will enable us to achieve our vision to facilitate banking anytime, anywhere, and through any channel – both physical and digital.”

Kony’s CTO, Bill Bodin and Product Marketing Manager, Antonio Sanchez, recently showcased its Digital Banking Platform at FinovateFall 2017. In August, the company unveiled the Kony AppPlatform V8 that aims to help professional developers meet demand for apps and help organizations simplify the app development and deployment processes. Founded in 2007, Kony is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Daon most recently presented its authentication technology at FinovateFall 2016. Today, the company announced that it was selected by VISA to power biometrics for the VISA ID Intelligence Platform that will offer a seamless way for consumers to shop, pay, and bank on their mobile device. Earlier this summer, the company teamed up with EyeVerify to add EyeVerify’s EyeprintID technology to its IdentityX platform. In May, Daon integrated with Experian’s fraud and identity management platform, CrossCore. Check out our profile of Daon along with an interview with the company’s President of the Americas, Conor White.

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FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Ak Bars Digital Technologies

FinovateAsia Sneak Peek: Ak Bars Digital Technologies
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ak Bars Digital Technologies, 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.

Aimee from Ak Bars Digital Technologies is a solution based on deep learning algorithms that helps a contact center operator find the right answer and responds by herself if she has no doubts.

Features

  • Fast learning. It uses an ensemble of algorithms
  • Can be used for development a conversational digital bank and/or roboadvisor in any financial area
  • Awesome UI

Why it’s great
Aimee is constantly learning. It does not require a large training sample and a man-customizer. Therefore, it is may be quickly installed and ready to help with the first answers.

Presenters

Yaroslav Shuvaev, Head of R&D
Shuvaev is in charge of R&D strategy and runs several full-stack development teams.
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Damir Galiev, Head of Innovation PO
Galiev leads the company’s efforts to innovate, commercialize inventions and results of R&D.
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