savedroid Announces ICO Launch, New Equity Funding

savedroid Announces ICO Launch, New Equity Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: savedroid

 

AI savings technology innovator savedroid is leveraging the booming interest in crypto currencies to raise capital: both crypto and conventional.

On the crypto-fundraising side, savedroid announced the beginning of its ICO in February. The company noted that the pre-sale of the savedroid token featured more than 3,800 backers and sold out within seven hours.

“savedroid’s vision to connect the technical crypto world with the average user by leveraging the latest technology to provide easy access to crypto currencies has convinced me,” said crypto entrepreneur Dennis Weidner, an investor in savedroid. “Given their track record and the experience of the management team I want to support the successful scaling of the business model with my investment and thereby realize my dream of a unique and independent crypto ecosystem.”

On the more conventional fundraising side, savedroid announced a new equity investment of ($1.84 million) €1.5 million from the Investment and Economic Development Bank of Rheinland-Pfalz (ISB), Weidner, serial fintech investor Alfred Schorno, and others. The new funding will be used to help grow the savedroid’s technology and operations to better support crypto saving and investing. The company’s total capital stands at more than $4.29 million (€3.5 million.)

“savedroid offers a convincing and globally scalable business model,” Schorno said. “Their AI-based app enables users to successfully overcome their weaker self and consistently save money, which is a very strong value proposition.”

Founded in 2015, and headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, savedroid demonstrated its algorithm-based savings technology at FinovateSpring 2016, simultaneously injecting a new term, “smooves,” into the fintech lexicon. By turning everyday activities into automated savings opportunities, savedroid’s app enables users to improve their lifestyle and their savings at the same time. savedroid founder and CEO Dr. Yassin Hankir discussed his company’s technology and the future of savings technology in our feature on savings tech last spring.

The company’s recent embrace of crypto currencies is designed to democratize cryptocurrency savings and investment by providing ready access to cryptocurrency-based savings and investment plans including portfolios, futures, and ICOs. savedroid anticipates making its cryptocurrency-based savings plans available in mid-2018, with switching and credit card payments added in 2019, and smart investments in crypto-based portfolios, derivatives, and ICOs to be integrated in 2020.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Blackhawk Network, EVRY, Finastra, FIS

On Finovate.com

  • Blackhawk Network Acquired by Silver Lake, P2 Capital Partners in $3.5 Billion Deal.

Around the web

  • FIS partners with Australia’s ME Bank to serve as card platform provider.
  • Finastra launches Future of Banking Center of Excellence at Cyberport in Hong Kong.
  • Swedbank Norway and EVRY renew core banking contract.

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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Fintech for Your New Year’s Resolutions

Fintech for Your New Year’s Resolutions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Thought Leadership

Make a New Year’s Resolution for 2018? While fintech can’t help you lose weight (yet!), there are plenty of players to help you achieve your financial resolutions. So here are a few specific financial goals you might have set for 2018 – along with the fintech innovators who can help you achieve them.

 Save more

After feeling the burn of holiday spending, many people are planning to buckle down and increase their savings in the new year.

  • Dyme
    Dyme offers an automated savings platform. The text-based app not only reminds users to save, it also automatically moves money from their checking account to their savings.
  • Meniga
    Meniga’s personal financial management (PFM) platform makes it easy for users to track their goals and inspires them to mitigate their spending habits to reach their goals on time.
  • Qapital
    Another PFM app, Qapital offers a visual way for users to see the progress of their savings goals.

Buy a house

Interest rates are on the rise, so if you’re looking to buy a home there’s no better time than the present.

  • Blend
    Blend helps put an end to the “document volleyball” that often occurs in the home buying process. Blend’s online portal offers secure and compliant document transmission and communication channels that help buyers, lenders, and agents stay on track.
  • Sindeo
    Sindeo’s platform offers users access to more than 1,000 loan programs and guidance from mortgage advisors. The company’s QuickStart program helps users complete a loan application and receive a pre-qualification letter in under 10 minutes.
  • Unison
    Unison Home Ownership Investors contributes up to half of the buyer’s down payment, lowering their monthly payments and helping them to avoid paying mortgage insurance. When the term of the loan is up or the buyer decides to sell their home, Unison claims a portion of the home’s appreciation.

Organize your retirement

It seems as if there is always something to be done when it comes to retirement funds– rollovers, maximize returns, minimize fees, optimize diversification…. Fortunately, wealth tech is one area of fintech where there are seemingly endless firms to help.

  • Wealthfront
    Wealthfront is one of the largest players in the wealth tech space. The company offers retirement and college savings plans, and allows users to borrow against their portfolios.
  • Blooom
    With transparent advice and low fees, Blooom has an algorithmic approach to investing that aims to maximize 401(k) returns.
  • Nutmeg
    U.K.-based Nutmeg algorithmically manages users’ ISA’s pensions, and general investments for less of a fee than a traditional investment advisor.
  • Scalable Capital
    U.K.-based Scalable Capital uses a technology-based approach to make wealth management available to everyone.

For a more complete list and analysis of players in the B2C wealth tech space, check out our previous coverage.

Pay down student loans

For many millennials, the burden of student loans is getting in the way of starting a family, buying a house, and even saving for retirement. Paying down loans faster has the potential to open up more opportunities.

  • Tuition.io
    While it’s not a B2C play, Tuition.io enables employers to offer a workplace benefit that assists employees by making contributions to their student loan payments.
  • Student Loan Genius
    Student Loan Genius follows a similar model to Tuition.io (though they might say it’s the other way around).
  • Personetics
    Personetics Act leverages AI to notify banks which of their clients have student loans and can pay the off faster. The technology finds unused funds that can be applied toward the balance and automatically pays down student loans on the client’s behalf.

Maximize your tax benefits

Whether you’re doing your personal taxes or trying to balance sales tax for your small business, these tools can help you get a head start on this annual task.

  • Xero
    Founded in 2006, Xero is a long-standing cloud accounting players for small businesses. XeroTax helps businesses to prepare, review and lodge returns for individual, partnership, company, trust, SMSF, FBT and activity statements.
  • Credit Karma
    Starting last year, Credit Karma began offering tax preparation and filing service for the 2017 tax year. Unlike many self-service tax preparation services, Credit Karma’s is free. And –bonus– the company partnered with American Express this year to offer an advance on your refund.
  • Avalara
    Similar to Xero, Avalara is focused on small businesses. The Seattle-based startup helps companies with VAT automation, as well as plan, manage, and prepare sales and use tax.

Give more

Looking for some extra karma this year? Here are some fintechs that can help boost charitable giving.

  • Betterment
    Yes, Betterment is a wealth management company and not a pure-play tax startup. However, last year the company announced a charitable giving feature that allows customers to donate shares from taxable accounts to charitable organizations.
  • Place2Give
    Canada-based Place2Give is a one-stop shop where users can search for and donate to North American charities.
  • Sustainably
    Sustainably is like Acorns for charitable giving. The U.K.-based company automates donations to users’ selected charities by rounding up their purchases to the nearest £1, making micro-donations.

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Fintech News from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

Fintech News from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateMiddleEast 2018

Image by Tamer Fahmy

As Finovate prepares for its first conference in the Middle East, here’s a round up of recent fintech news and need-to-knows from the MENA region. Learn more about how to join us in Dubai in February for FinovateMiddleEast.

  • Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) forge fintech cooperation agreement, the first of its kind for the MENA region.
  • Batelco and Arab Financial Services launch new digital mobile wallet and payment solution, bWallet.
  • Egyptian fintech Moneyfellows raises $600,000 in new funding in round led by Dubai Angel Investors and 500 Startups.

MENA Fintech Fact:

  • Jordan’s Central Bank reports online payments through online bill payment service eFAWATEER.com increased by 5x in 2017, topping JD3.3 billion ($4.6 billion)
  • Islamic bank Kuwait Finance House-Bahrian (KFH) organizes FinTech Training Program.
  • Emirates NBD announces plans to introduce battery-powered smart payments cards developed by U.S.-based fintech Dynamics.

Thought Leadership – Writing about trends in global Islamic finance in Daily Fintech, Arunkumar Krishnakumar asks:  “Would the digitization drive overcome a lack of standards?”

Although the Fintech Fever hit the West over the last few years, the uptake to digitization in the Islamic Finance world has been relatively slow. Over the last year or so, this trend has been changing, and 2018 is expected to be the year when Islamic Fintech players will start emerging across the world and not just in the Islamic countries.

  • Ethereum-based blockchain venture studio ConsenSys opens office in Dubai Design District.
  • Fintech News Middle East lists its 9 Fintech Startups in the Middle East to Watch in 2018.
  • Worldpay teams up with payments provider iyzico to aide in expansion into Turkish market.

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Feature Friday: Getting Phygital with Fintech Startup Root Banking

Feature Friday: Getting Phygital with Fintech Startup Root Banking
By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Feature Friday, Mobile Banking

Phygital may not be heading for inclusion in the Oxford Dictionary anytime soon. But it does attract attention to your fintech startup, especially when you are specializing in integrating digital and physical channels.

Enter Root Banking, a San Francisco-based startup from industry veteran Matt Krogstad (see note 1). I met Matt when he was at mobile banking pioneer M-Com (acquired by Fiserv in 2011). Fast forward six years, and after stints at Bank of the West and First Republic, Matt is back in the fintech startup world, with a service designed to bring Starbucks-level channel integration to banking.

Root Banking’s service connects mobile customers to their branch to order ahead. For example, last Friday I needed a money order to pay a local tax bill when my ACH was inadvertently returned. This was double frustrating. First, my bank fumbles the electronic transaction, then I had to make a trip to the branch and wait in line, then wait at the teller station while they printed up a money order. Had I been able to order it in advance, and just picked it up, the whole thing would have been less unpleasant.

The other primary use cast for Root Banking is mobile delivery. Imagine if my bank would have dropped the money order off at my home (or better yet, mailed it to the City of Seattle treasurer). I probably would have opted to avoid a delivery fee, but it would be nice to have the option.

The startup hopes to integrate their phygital services into the FI’s existing mobile app. But Root will make a standalone app available if necessary. Several banks are piloting the service and are not yet integrating the requests into branch systems, instead simply delivering the requests through secure digital channels.

Bottom line: To me, the order ahead use case is most interesting. Most times I’ve needed to visit the branch (usually for small business matters), there is paperwork that could have been uploaded in advance to reduce my time at the branch by an order of magnitude. Not only is that good for customers, it potentially drives costs out of the system at the branch level. A win-win.

Contributor: Jim Bruene (@netbanker) is Founder & Advisor at Finovate as well as Principal of BUX Certified, a financial services user-experience accreditation program. 

Note:
1. For reference, see Penny Crosman’s 10 January article in American Banker 

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Cardlytics Appoints New CTO

Cardlytics Appoints New CTO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Cardlytics

Data-driven marketing company Cardlytics is reinforcing its troops for the new year. The Atlanta-based company has appointed Sathish Gaddipati as Chief Technology Officer.

Gaddipati has been promoted to the new role, having previously served as Cardlytics’ Senior Vice President and Head of Technology. As CTO, Gaddipati is charged with leading platform engineering, technical product management, software development, data engineering, quality assurance, and IT operations.

Gaddipati, who has been with Cardlytics for a year, said that he realized the company “was the perfect fit for me.” He added, “It’s incredibly gratifying that our combined efforts have allowed us to continue providing sophisticated technology to leading financial institutions, and I look forward to working on exciting future developments.”

Prior to joining Cardlytics, Gaddipati, who has an MS in Industrial Management from the Indian Institute of Technology, held roles at The Weather Channel, The Walt Disney Company, NCR Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), Sun Microsystems, and Omnitracs.

Founded in 2008, Cardlytics has raised $203 million in funding. The company demoed its geolocation application at FinovateFall 2013. In 2016, Cardlytics analyzed approximately $1.3 trillion in U.S. purchase spend. Scott Grimes is CEO and cofounder.

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Blooom: Fighting Fraud in the World of the 401(k)

Blooom: Fighting Fraud in the World of the 401(k)
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: blooom

If the idea of a hacker getting access to your bank account is scary, imagine learning that a cybercriminal has hacked into your 401(k).

That’s the kind of anxiety independent robo advisor blooom is guarding against with the introduction of its new Suspicious Activity Alerts feature. The technology continuously monitors user’s 401(k), 403(b), and similar employer-sponsored retirements accounts for withdrawals or loans. If suspicious activity is detected, the solution sends the customer an alert by text message.

“The 401(k) is often a person’s single largest financial asset,” blooom CEO and co-founder Chris Costello said. “bloom is committed to safeguarding your right to retire. Whether it’s exposing and minimizing hidden investment fees or identifying suspicious activity, blooom serves one person: the individual.”

Founded in 2013, blooom demonstrated its robo advisory platform at FinovateFall 2014. Geared specifically for the employer-sponsored retirement market, Blooom provides free 401(k) analysis and charges a flat fee of $10 a month for basic 401(k) management and monitoring – including the Suspicious Activity Alerts feature. Additional 401(k)s can be added for $7.50 per month. Blooom automatically rebalances and adjusts the investment allocation based on the user’s general investment preferences (i.e., stock vs. bond mix) and goals (i.e., time-until-retirement). The company also offers access to human financial professionals to provide planning advice beyond the 401(k).

Blooom’s approach seems to be working. The company announced last fall that it surpassed the $1 billion assets under management milestone, doing so faster than any other independent robo advisor including both Betterment and Wealthfront. In a blog post discussing the milestone, Costello pointed to the application of readily available technology to the often-overlooked world of employer-sponsored retirement accounts as key to blooom’s growth and success.

“There has been ‘off-the-shelf’ technology that has existed for upwards of 10 years that can automate things like the construction of a portfolio allocation, rebalancing a portfolio, and even tax-loss harvesting,” Costello wrote. “But nothing existed to perform this kind of automation when it comes to the 401(k) space – where accounts are spread out over dozens and dozens of different financial institutions. Until now.”

With more than $13 million in total funding, blooom includes QED Investors, Industry Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Allianz Life Insurance, TTV Capital, and Nationwide Insurance among its investors. The company is based in Overland Park, Kansas.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AutoGravity, blooom, Lendio, SynapseFi

On Finovate.com

  • Blooom: Fighting Fraud in the World of the 401(k).

Around the web

  • Forbes looks at how AutoGravity is “building the Expedia of car buying and financing.”
  • Lendio earns spot on Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500.
  • SynapseFi announces support for interchange processing for debit and credit card transactions.

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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ID.me Powering Single-Sign On for VFW’s Digital Platforms

ID.me Powering Single-Sign On for VFW’s Digital Platforms
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ID.me

Identity management platform ID.me has landed a new client this week. Veterans for Foreign Wars of the U.S. (VFW) can now offer its members a more streamlined and secure online experience with ID.me’s single-sign on capabilities.

After VFW members sign up for an account at ID.me, the Virginia-based company issues them a single username and password. Members use these credentials to log in to the VFW Online Membership System, access VA benefits on Vets.gov, and gain access to military discounts from 200+ retailers.

This is a sizable win for ID.me, whose founder and CEO Blake Hall is a third generation soldier, former Army Ranger, and graduate of West Point. With this new client, the company has access to VFW’s 1.7 million members, all of whom stand to benefit from a simplified sign in process and secure way to prove their veteran status. The announcement of this client comes just a month after the company teamed with General Motors to support its military discount program.

“Trying to remember the login information for several different online accounts is difficult, and further, verifying your identity online can be a cumbersome process,” said VFW National Commander Keith Harman. “So we’re glad to be able to provide our members with a simple solution.”

At FinovateSpring 2017, Hall showcased how ID.me streamlines account opening, regulatory compliance, and customer support for banks and fintechs using identity that is accredited by the federal government. Last month ID.me surpassed 5 million users and in October, the company partnered with Finovate alum ThreatMetrix to deliver ID verification for government and commercial digital services. The company has raised a total of $45.8 million.

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Gusto Partners with Accounting Platform Aplos

Gusto Partners with Accounting Platform Aplos
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Gusto

Accounting software provider Aplos has teamed up with payroll processing specialist Gusto to offer an integrated, back office financial and HR solution for Aplos’s nonprofit and faith-based organization client base.

“We are thrilled to expand our support of nonprofits by partnering with Aplos,” Gusto Head of Partnership Development Mike Triantos said. “Gusto and Aplos share the same vision by making it simpler to manage nonprofits and churches so they can focus on their core mission.”

The strategic partnership between the two companies will enable Aplos customers to import Gusto payroll runs into their accounting without requiring a manual export/import process. The cloud-based solution calculates, pays, and files federal, state and local payroll taxes, and manages W2, 1099, and new hire forms. In a statement, Aplos CEO Tim Goetz pointed out that Gusto was even able to factor in pastoral housing allowances and other more esoteric church financing arrangements

“When you are trying to change the world you don’t want to get stuck doing paperwork,” Goetz said. “This partnership with Gusto eliminates countless hours of administrative time.” He added that nine out of ten Aplos customers preferred Gusto over other payroll solutions. “I truly believe our nonprofit and church customers will feel this partnership makes their jobs easier so they can put their focus back on their mission.”

Founded in 2011 as ZenPayroll, the company demonstrated its payroll processing technology at FinovateSpring 2014. Rebranding as Gusto a year later, the San Francisco, California-based fintech has since partnered with firms like Capital One, raised more than $176 million in funding, and now serves more than 40,000 companies across the U.S. Gusto was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list in June, and was featured in Business Insider as one of “3 startups to bet your careers on in 2017” last January.

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Alfa-Bank Collaborates with HashCash to Bring Domestic Payments to the Blockchain

Alfa-Bank Collaborates with HashCash to Bring Domestic Payments to the Blockchain
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alfa-Bank

Russia’s largest commercial bank is making bitcoin waves today. Alfa-Bank announced that it has initiated a collaboration with HashCash, a private, permissionless, digital cash system.

Through the partnership, HashCash will create a payment router and clearing house where all transactions are sent to Alfa-Bank on the blockchain. Alfa-Bank will clear transactions, forward them to the receiving bank in real-time, and log supporting documents. The transfers will operate on the Open Source Blockchain, HC NET, which uses fiat currencies for settlement.

Raj Chowdhury, Managing Director of HashCash Consultants said that the implementation “creates a clearing house solution that combines the liquidity efficiency of a netting system and the intra-day finality of a real time gross settlement system.” He added, “The result is a safe, secure, reliable, fast and final payment system for all transacting parties.”

This isn’t Alfa-Bank’s first foray into the blockchain. Last year, the bank partnered with S7 Airlines for blockchain-based ticket payments. It also collaborated with Sberbank on Russia’s first Blockchain Payment.

At FinovateFall 2015, Alfa-Bank debuted Sense, a predictive marketing solutions product for financial institutions.

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Ripple Launches Trial with MoneyGram

Ripple Launches Trial with MoneyGram
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Ripple

Blockchain solutions innovator Ripple announced plans to team up with remittance services company MoneyGram.

This announcement comes at a time when both Ripple and MoneyGram have been in the news headlines. Many outlets have reported on Ripple for the volatility of XRP, its digital currency (and for the rumored rise of its founder, Chris Larsen, as one of the richest persons in the world). And last week, an attempted purchase of MoneyGram by Chinese firm Ant Financial was blocked by the U.S. government.

Ripple’s xRapid transfer flow

As a part of the partnership, MoneyGram will use XRP through Ripple’s xRapid, a service that aims to provide liquidity to financial institutions. Touting the practicality of leveraging XRP for remittances, Ripple noted that transactions can be made for fractions of a penny and in two-to-three seconds. This is favorable compared to Bitcoin’s fees of $30 per transactions and wait times of up to an hour.

Through agreement, the companies will also explore MoneyGram’s integration into Ripple’s xVia, an API for businesses, payment providers and banks to send payments across various networks using a standard interface.

MoneyGram’s current model requires the sender’s account to be pre-funded before they are able to send currency. Leveraging blockchain technology, MoneyGram can simplify cross-border transfers, making them more efficient. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said, “Money transfer companies are incredibly important because they help people get money to their friends and loved ones…. By using a digital asset like XRP that settles in three seconds or less, they can now move money as quickly as information.”

MoneyGram is the second largest money transfer company in the world, competing not only with traditional companies such as Western Union, but also with the likes of fintechs such as Azimo, TransferWise, and CurrencyCloud. Leveraging the blockchain for cross-border remittances and transactions is not new to fintech. At FinovateFall last year, we saw nanopay demo its cross-border payments platform that enables the banks to provide instant fund transfers, without intermediaries, at a 60% cost reduction. Similarly, in 2015 CoinJar showcased its platform that lets users buy, sell, send, receive, and spend digital and traditional forms of currency using the blockchain.

Ripple has offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney, and counts more than 100 customers across the globe. At FinovateSpring 2013, company co-founder Chris Larsen debuted Ripple (originally known as OpenCoin). Last fall, Ripple teamed with AmEx and Santander to support blockchain-powered international B2B payments. And in December of last year, the company’s XRP currency reached a milestone, boasting availability on 50 exchanges worldwide.

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