TransferTo Adds Digital Wallet to Payments Network via Cellum Partnership

TransferTo Adds Digital Wallet to Payments Network via Cellum Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: TransferTo

Courtesy of a new strategic partnership, European mobile wallet provider Cellum will provide its international money transfer services by way of TransferTo’s cross-border mobile payments network. “Cellum is always looking at ways to expand its portfolio with meaningful services that allow us to offer even more value to our partners,” Cellum CEO János Kóka said. “Our strategic partnership with TransferTo strengthens our position as the one-stop mobile wallet provider of choice in Southeast Asia and beyond.”

“We are happy to collaborate with Cellum and open the doors for their partners to reach our global network, and look forward to the opportunity of expansion by adding further digital wallet providers,” TransferTo CEO Peter De Caluwe added.

Founded in 2006, TransferTo enables FIs and digital financial service providers around the world to offer international mobile airtime top-ups and money transfers to and from emerging countries. TransferTo’s real-time network reaches more than 135 countries, connecting mobile money operators, wallet providers, and money transfer operators with banks, FIs, NGOs, and e-commerce merchants.

The company demonstrated its Mobile Money Hub at FinovateFall 2015. Last month, TransferTo and banking software provider Fern Software were awarded a grant from the United Nations Capital Development Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformation (SHIFT) Challenge Fund. The goal of the fund is to use remittances to improve the financial lives of women in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Also in November, TransferTo announced the hire of a new VP for Business Development, Djibril Diallo, to lead operations in West and Central Africa, and added a new Chief Financial Officer, Dan Gardner, who is a former executive at Transfast and Payscout.

This fall, TransferTo reported 8x revenue growth in international money transfer transactions over the past six months with more than six million transactions. The company partnered with South East Asia’s leading mobile ride-hailing platform, Grab, to facilitate real-time earnings payouts for Grab drivers, and teamed up with IN Switch to support international money transfer services in Latin America.

TransferTo has raised $6.5 million in funding and includes STC Ventures and Ingenico Healthcare/e-ID among its investors. Peter De Caluwe, the company’s current CEO, joined the company in May as global Chief Operating Officer and was promoted to chief executive in August when TransferTo founder Eric Barbier transitioned to the role of President and board member. The company is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Dubai, London, and Miami.

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TSYS to Acquire Cayan for $1.05 Billion

TSYS to Acquire Cayan for $1.05 Billion
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, TSYS

Payments service provider TSYS has boosted its portfolio this week. The Georgia-based company has agreed to acquire Cayan, a payment technology company, for $1.05 billion. TSYS expects the deal to modestly benefit its net revenue growth and adjusted earnings per share.

Cayan’s flagship platform, Genius, provides a scalable, unified commerce experience across channels. The company offers merchant acquiring services to 70,000+ companies and 100+ U.S.-based partners.

M. Troy Woods, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of TSYS, said that this acquisition “strategically complements” the goals TSYS has “to become a leading payment solutions provider to small and medium size businesses.” Woods continued, “The addition of Cayan’s unified commerce solutions puts us in a strong competitive position to jointly offer a broader set of value-add products and services to our partners and merchants.”

The acquisition has been approved by the TSYS Board of Directors and is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.

TSYS was founded in 1983 and has 11,500 employees across offices in 13 countries. Last year, the company processed 25.5 billion transactions, generating $4.2 billion in revenue. TSYS demoed its Spend Controls feature at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. Last week, the company extended its agreement with Capital One to continue providing processing services for the bank’s North American clients. This October, TSYS company expanded its ProPay merchant services to Australia and, earlier in the summer, teamed up with behavioral analytics company Featurespace to bolster its fraud prevention capabilities. TSYS is a publicly traded company (NYSE: TSS).

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Azimo, CK Mack, GoodData, NCR Corporation, Passport, Patch of Land, Pindrop Security, Realty Mogul, ThreatMetrix, TransferTo, TSYS

On Finovate.com

  • TSYS to Acquire Cayan for $1.05 Billion
  • TransferTo Adds Digital Wallet to Payments Network via Cellum Partnership

Around the Web

  • GoodData appoints James Smith as chief marketing officer.
  • Passport and TransLink partner to develop and launch Park&Go, an app for Vancouver Park and Ride payments.
  • Tucson FCU implements NCR’s Interactive Teller software to allow members to bank face-to-face with a live teller from their cars.
  • Azimo introduces near-instant, 24/7 money transfers to Nigeria.
  • ThreatMetrix exceeds 45% Annual Growth.
  • The Real Estate Crowdfunding Review ranks CK Mack, Realty Mogul, & Patch of Land in its list of top 100 real estate crowdfunding sites.
  • Fortune features Pindrop’s AI voice recognition.

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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NICE Teams with Brightstar India

NICE Teams with Brightstar India
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: NICE Systems

Data analytics and insights company NICE announced a strategic partnership this week. The Israel-based company has teamed up with Brightstar India, a subdivision of Brightstar Global that manages mobile devices across the wireless ecosystem.

The partnership will support the launch of NICE Uptivity, a workforce optimization solution for small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs). Nice Uptivity offers tools such as quality assurance, speech and data analytics, coaching, and customer surveys. The tool’s modular structure allows for custom configurations that are tailored to scale to individual businesses. The companies will launch NICE Uptivity to mid-market organizations in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Darren John Rushworth, President of NICE APAC said the partnership is about “bringing the market leading WFO suite for SMEs to the Indian and South Asian markets.” Rushworth continued, “Our collaboration to introduce the Uptivity WFO Suite will greatly benefit companies which are poised for growth or have multi-location operations…. NICE solutions, provided and supported by Brightstar India, are helping to bridge the gap between the needs of today and the goals of tomorrow.”

NICE’s 6,500 employees work in 35 offices across the globe. Founded in 1986, the company serves 2,500 customers, 85% of which are Fortune 100 companies. Among NICE’s clients are Alliance Data, Walgreens, and Capital One. At FinovateEurope 2015, the company showcased Real-Time Authentication, a passive, phone-based authentication offering that leverages voice biometrics. Earlier this month, NICE earned its status in the Risk Management category of Amazon’s AWS Financial Services Competency Program. In July, the company teamed up with Tableau Software to launch a visual analytics solution.

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

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateMiddleEast 2018, Thomson Reuters

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.

  • Al Baraka Banking Group partners with Path Solutions to deploy iMAL Islamic core banking system.
  • UAE Exchange to launch gocash card and mobile app courtesy of partnership with online travel firm, Cleartrip
  • Thomson Reuters celebrates 150 years in the Middle East and North Africa at event in Egypt

MENA Fintech Fact In the Middle East and North Africa, nearly three out of every four fintech startups are based in four countries: the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, or Lebanon. Half of all MENA fintechs launched after 2012.

  • Online real estate marketplace and KPMG Global Fintech Top 50 member Wealth Migrate opens office in UAE, announces new country CEO, Lee-Ann Rush.
  • Group Chairman and CEO of Path Solutions, Mohammed Kateeb, named to World’s Top 50 Most Influential Leaders in Islamic Economy for third consecutive year.

Thought Leadership  Fintech is the new oil in the Middle East and North Africa – Forbes looks at how regulators and governments in the MENA region are “thinking more deeply about the impact that fintech companies will have on the broader economy.”

  • Entrepreneur Middle East features investor forecasts for the MENA region in 2018.
  • Alrajih Islamic Bank for Investment and Financing chooses Islamic core banking system iMAL from Path Solutions.
  • Al Baraka Banking Group (ABG), Kuwait Finance House-Bahrain (KFH-B), and Bahrain Development Bank (BDB) form fintech consortium, Algo Bahrain, to build Sharia-compliant banking solutions.

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Modo Brings on Former CEO of Klarna North America, Brian Billingsley

Modo Brings on Former CEO of Klarna North America, Brian Billingsley
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Modo Payments

Cloud-based payment services company Modo Payments has given itself an early Christmas present this year, appointing former CEO of Klarna North America Brian Billingsley as Chief Revenue Officer.

Billingsley’s payments background will play an integral role in expanding Modo’s capabilities. “All I wanted for Christmas was for Brian to join the team, and Santa really came through for this lucky #paymentsgeek this year. He’s honestly the best Christmas present I could’ve asked for,” said Modo CEO Bruce Parker.

Parker and Billingsley have worked together before. In October the two companies teamed up to integrate Modo’s Checkout Event payment service to help Klarna accelerate implementation of its checkout solution for merchants.

Billingsley said he was “blown away” by Modo’s tech when Klarna implemented it. “Modo has incredible talent and technology, and I believe Modo will revolutionize payments over the next few years making complex payments function as we experience email today – it just works,” he added. Billingsley will officially join the Modo team next month.

Founded in 2010, Modo exchanges payment data across platforms on behalf of banks, payment networks, and providers, enabling them to store, share, and track payment event data. The company presented at FinovateFall 2016, where it showcased its Modo Digital Payments Hub. In addition to a partnership with Klarna last month, Modo also teamed up with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Alliance Data, FIS, and Verifone to boost user engagement by creating Payout, Checkout, and Loyalty Events for online retailers.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Azimo, Modo Payments, Ripple

On Finovate.com

  • Modo Brings on Former CEO of Klarna North America, Brian Billingsley

Around the web

  • Azimo launches cash pick-up in the Philippines.
  • Ripple’s XRP overtakes bitcoin cash as 3rd largest cryptocurrency.

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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Net Neutrality: Pay Up for Fast Fintech or Let the Invisible Hand be Your Guide?

Net Neutrality: Pay Up for Fast Fintech or Let the Invisible Hand be Your Guide?
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Uncategorized

With the FCC voting 3 to 2 to repeal net neutrality today, let’s take a look at the impact a post-net neutrality internet may have on fintech and banking.

Politics and opinions aside, the repeal of net neutrality may have two main effects in our industry:

Pay up for fast fintech

Though Comcast has said it will not offer paid prioritization for websites, many are concerned that lack of regulation for internet service providers (ISPs) will create tiered offerings for fast lanes and slow lanes. In other words, if you want your site to load faster, you’d better have some extra cash. Since consumers have little patience for website loading times, this could be an extra stumbling block for fintechs with a grand idea but limited funding. The players with the bigger pocketbook, not the better innovation, may win out.

While this same principle applies to banks, it is not as large of an issue, since banks are cash flow positive and have income to foot the larger internet bill. Additionally, consumers have a lower elasticity of demand for banking services than fintech services. In other words, because online banking is seen as more of a true need, they are not only willing to pay more but they will also be willing to wait for a longer web page loading time.

The counter-argument is that, if net neutrality remains in place, everyone will end up with a larger internet bill since ISPs will need to find a way to build and maintain faster online networks. “If the rules stay in place… ISPs will have to find other ways to fund these robust networks,” Nicol Turner-Lee, a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution told U.S. News.

An eye on competition

Another area of concern of an unregulated internet is competition. Currently, net neutrality prevents ISPs from discriminating toward competing applications. This argument isn’t generally heard in the banking/ fintech space, since ISPs do not own any competing banking or fintech applications. However, if an ISP was to create or acquire a P2P payment app, it could speed up that service, while potentially throttling performance for Zelle and Square Cash.

The counter-argument here is that we should allow the markets to operate freely and that the Invisible Hand will allow for faster innovation. In this line of thinking, perhaps if our favorite P2P payment apps are too slow we’ll be more likely to begin using the blockchain?

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Symbiont Smart Contracts to Simplify Index Data Sharing for Vanguard

Symbiont Smart Contracts to Simplify Index Data Sharing for Vanguard
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Symbiont

Smart contracts platform Symbiont announced this week it has teamed up with the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) to help Vanguard improve the distribution of index data.

This partnership will allow index data to move between index providers and market participants in real time over a single, decentralized database. The project, which has been in a testing phase for the last several months, delivers the data over a blockchain and automates the workflows using smart contracts. The result is three-fold: it expedites data delivery, eliminates the need for manual updates, and reduces risks. The groups expect that CRSP index data delivery and intra-day updates over the blockchain will be available in early 2018.

Generally, transmitting index data relies on multiple parties and channels. Explaining the benefits of the improved distribution method, Warren Pennington, a principal in Vanguard’s Investment Management Group said, “Using this platform, investment managers will be able to instantly distribute, receive, and process index data, resulting in better benchmark tracking and significant cost savings that potentially results in better returns for our clients.”

Mark Smith, CEO and co-founder of Symbiont, said he is “pleased” that CRSP and Vanguard were willing to collaborate on the new method. “Through this collaboration we were able to show how Symbiont’s blockchain technology and smart contracts can enhance market data distribution among disparate parties,” Smith said.

Symbiont was founded in 2015 and offers three products, each of which leverages the blockchain. Symbiont Assembly offers a single, global accounting ledger, Symbiont Secure Channels is a mechanism for sharing confidential data, and Symbiont Smart Securities is a platform that models the complex states and interactions for financial instruments. At FinDEVr New York 2016, the company’s CTO and cofounder Adam Krellenstein gave a presentation titled Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts.

Last month, Symbiont won the Buy-Side Technology Award for Best Distributed Ledger Technology Project by Waters Technology for the second consecutive year. Earlier this summer, the company closed an undisclosed strategic investment from China’s Hundsun Technologies. Headquartered in New York, Symbiont has a total of $7 million in funding.

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Financeit Recapitalizaton Gives Goldman Sachs Majority Stake

Financeit Recapitalizaton Gives Goldman Sachs Majority Stake
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinanceIt, Funding

Point-of-sale financing provider Financeit completed an investment round today with existing shareholder Goldman Sachs. The round gives the firm a majority stake in the Toronto-based fintech.

Michael Garrity, CEO and President of Financeit, said the investment was a sign of Goldman Sachs’ “continued confidence in our leadership team, our business model, our platform, and the ability to grow our service.” He highlighted the recent integration with Centah, a SaaS workflow and lead management solutions provider, as an opportunity to expand into the home improvement industry “from lead generation to closing the sale.”

Financeit helps merchants increase closing rates and transaction sizes by enabling them to offer customers affordable monthly or bi-weekly payment plans. The cloud-based technology provides a fast and transparent application process for consumers, and helps merchants better manage cashflow, get paid sooner, and offer customers additional payment options. Financeit is free to use, and requires no merchant fees.

But Financeit adds a twist. “We service the transaction on both sides,” Garrity explained during his Finovate demo. “On one side we have a set of merchant partners who rely on us to power sales at the point-of-sale every day with our innovative solutions. On the other side, we have a set of financial institutions who rely on us to originate and to manage these loans on their behalf in their name and within their compliance framework.”

Financeit most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2014, during which the company, in partnership with fellow Finovate alum FIS, launched its U.S.-compliant POS financing platform. Founded in 2011, Financeit was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list in July and in June, the company received new funding capacity of $85 million from a “major Canadian life insurance company.” Since inception, the company has worked with more than 7,000 merchant partners in Canada and processed more than $2.5 billion in loan applications.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinanceIt, Finicity, Green Key Technologies, Lendio, Mambu, Pindrop Security, Roostify, Socure, Symbiont, Symphony Software Foundation

On Finovate.com

  • Net Neutrality: Pay Up for Fast Fintech or Let the Invisible Hand be Your Guide?
  • Financeit Recapitalization Gives Goldman Sachs Majority Stake
  • Symbiont Smart Contracts to Simplify Index Data Sharing for Vanguard

Around the web

  • Pindrop and Lloyds Banking Group win Gold Award for ‘best risk and fraud management programme’ at the European Contact Centre & Customer Service Awards.
  • Socure named one of the Top AI Companies in the world by CB Insights.
  • GreenKey joins Symphony Software Foundation.
  • Argentine digital consumer lender Wenance chooses Mambu’s SaaS engine.
  • Finicity integrates its asset verification tool into Black Knight’s LoanSphere Exchange Digital platform.
  • HousingWire features Roostify and its focus on the consumer experience.

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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BLUERUSH Introduces New CEO and Director Steve Taylor

BLUERUSH Introduces New CEO and Director Steve Taylor
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BLUERUSH

Steve Taylor will take the reins at BLUERUSH, the company announced today. Taylor, a current BLUERUSH director, replaces Larry Lubin who will remain with the firm as President and as a director.

“Since getting involved in Bluerush I have become increasingly impressed with the team and the market opportunity for the Digital Reach and Individeo platforms,” Taylor said. “We are now beginning to put the sales, marketing, and R&D elements in place to accelerate the transformation of Bluerush into a SaaS business.”

Additionally, Round 13 Capital co-founder John Eckert will join BLUERUSH’s board of directors. Round 13 contributed to the company’s recent fundraising effort along with the Capital Founders Fund.

Above: BLUERUSH President Larry Lubin demonstrating Individeo at FinovateFall 2017.

“I am very excited to have Steve Taylor on board as the CEO and John Eckert join our Board,” Lubin said. “Steve has been instrumental in helping us develop a roadmap that will help us grow our recurring revenues and he will be in an even better position to drive this as the CEO.”

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, BLUERUSH demonstrated its Individeo platform at FinovateFall 2017. Individeo leverages big data visualization to produce personalized videos that help financial services customers better understand their financial options. Also active in healthcare and media verticals, the company’s flagship solution, Digital Reach, gives sales and marketing professionals personalization, distribution, and tracking of content, providing a high level of control over how content is distributed and to whom.

In October, the company announced a $1.3 million fundraising, featuring participation from Round 13 and Capital Founders Fund, as well as now-CEO Steve Taylor. BLUERUSH is a publicly-traded company on the TSVX under the ticker symbol “BTV” and has a market capitalization of $5 million.

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