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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 19, 2016
Categories: BlueVine, Capriza, Civic, Cortera, D3 Banking, Malauzai Software, MaxMyInterest, P2BInvestor, Zopa

On Finovate.com

MaxMyInterest Unveils Laser App Integration to Speed Onboarding

Finovate Debuts: Civic’s Identity Verification App Launches Public Beta

BlueVine Increases Maximum Credit Line, Appoints New Chief Revenue Officer

Capriza Raises $23 Million in Series C

Around the web

Mashable features P2Binvestor CEO Krista Morgan for something outrageous she said at FinovateSpring 2013.

Institutional Investor features entrepreneurs from 4 Finovate alums in the 2016 Tech-50 list of fintech technologists.

SLK Group and D3 Banking form partnership.

More Than 25 Financial Institutions Select Malauzai’s SmartwebApps for Desktop

Cortera appoints Bob Maguire as chief revenue officer.

Zopa names Ronen Benchetrit as CTO.

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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Pokemon Banking for Fun (and Profit?)

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 18, 2016
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Facebook, Sberbank, Youth market

The Pokemon Go craze doesn’t surprise me at all. Both my boys grew up with the little beasts so I get their appeal, especially with the AR boost. But what I didn’t expect to see were multiple financial institutions jumping on board, during the first week no less. And one, SberBank, that would pull off a clever product tie-in that might actually have a positive ROI.

Coinciding with the official countrywide Pokemon Go release (expected a ny day now), the Russian bank and insurer (and Finovate alum) is offering free accident insurance for anyone while they are playing the game. Users must register with the bank first (nice monetization through lead-gen) and provide evidence in the case of a claim (and some big costs).

The bank plans to use special game pieces called Lures, to drive players to branch locations. They are also providing additional bonuses for anyone catching a Pokemon in the branch.

SberBank created a special website just for the promotion at SberBankgo.com which explains the offer in both Russian and English (screenshot right). In addition, they’ve added a Facebook page to support the promotion (screenshot above).

While the free insurance promo is probably too costly to work in litigious U.S. markets, banks can still use the game to drive traffic. For example, Florida’s CenterState Bank has already experimented with lures at its branches (see full writeup on its promotion). Or if you just want to have a little fun on social media, drive your branded truck into the background while capturing one of the little critters. Kudos to CACL FCU in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, for acting on that first.

Bottom line: Jumping on the Pokemon Go bandwagon isn’t going to replace anything in your 2016 marketing plan; however, it could be a low-cost way to:

Provide interesting content for your social media outlets
Gain some free PR (limited to first bank/CU that does it in a given market)
Provide leads for certain products (youth bank accounts, insurance, mobile banking)

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Cloud Lending Solutions Partners with Fujitsu

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 18, 2016
Categories: Cloud Lending

Lending platform Cloud Lending Solutions recently announced a partnership with Japanese technology company Fujitsu. Fujitsu will help Cloud Lending Solutions distribute CL Originate, CL Lease, CL Loan, and CL Collections to its large and small business customers in Japanese and ASEAN markets.

Fujitsu EVP Hideki Kiwaki, corporate executive officer and vice head of global services integration, called the partnership an “important strategic initiative” for Fujitsu that “will enable rapid and flexible delivery of financial technology solutions that will eliminate the departmental silos slowing lenders down.”

Cloud Lending will also work with Fujitsu Laboratories of America, which will contribute its “finance-related business knowledge and system-construction know-how.” Fujitsu Laboratories of America will also help integrate the solution with existing systems.

In a press release Snehal Fulzele, CEO, Cloud Lending Solutions said, “Our partnership with Fujitsu will allow us to deliver advanced innovations in financial services to businesses in the Asian region including Japan.”

Fulzele debuted CL Exchange from Cloud Lending Solutions at FinovateSpring 2015. CL Exchange is a marketplace where online lenders exchange consumer and business loan applications to help lenders source the best loan for their portfolio. At FinDEVr San Francisco 2014, the company’s CTO Darpan Saini gave a presentation about why Cloud Lending built on top of Salesforce’s Force.com cloud platform.

Founded in 2012 and based in California, Cloud Lending Solutions has raised $8 million.

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Expensify Unveils ReceiptBurner and Price-to-Beat

By David Penn Posted on July 18, 2016
Categories: Expensify

With the summer travel season in full swing, expense-management specialist Expensify is busy launching new solutions to make it easier for business travelers to manage expenses. Last week, Expensify unveiled ReceiptBurner, a new integration platform that automatically pulls data from receipts regardless of source. And this week, the company announced a new feature, Price to Beat, that gives companies insight into how an employee’s spending on typical travel items—flights, hotel reservations, and rental cars—compares to the average cost. Employees with below-average spending can be given a portion of the savings via Expensify Rewards.

Expensify CEO David Barrett (founder) says both Price to Beat and Expensify Rewards offer ways to “gamify corporate travel by giving employees a share of their company’s cost savings.” He said the combined features bring transparency to corporate travel and spending, pointing out that beyond expense reports, his company is dedicated to “streamlining business travel so that organizations can spend time focusing on building their teams and products instead of getting bogged down by the hassles of travel logistics.”

Left to right: Expensify Director of Strategy and Marketing Ryan Schaffer and founder/CEO David Barrett demonstrated Expensify Invoices at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Francisco.

Businesses need both Price to Beat and Expensify in order to create the employee reward, which appears as a reimbursable item on the worker’s expense report. The procedure is straightforward; employees or administrators simply forward their travel receipts to receipts@expensify within 24 hours of incurring charges and Expensify automatically calculates any potential savings and processes the reward. Price to Beat is still officially in beta and Expensify made the announcement during the annual Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) convention.

Note that Expensify’s ReceiptBurner has already been launched by partners Uber, Revel Systems, and Fujitsu ScanSnap. The solution automatically creates an expense report when an Uber ride is completed and when a transaction is made with a merchant using a Revel Systems POS system. “Our dream is for receipts to become the next floppy disc,” Barnett said.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, Expensify demonstrated its Expensify Invoices solution at FinovateSpring 2013. This spring, the company announced that it would power Uber’s new Auto-Expense feature. And in May, Expensify announced that it had forged a strategic partnership with fellow Finovate alum, Xero. The company in 2015 was called one of the hottest startups by Forbes, and named to Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Company list.

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Finovate Debuts: Walletron Helps Brands Build a Presence in Digital Wallets

By David Penn Posted on July 18, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, Walletron

If you like having your boarding pass on your smartphone, then you’re going to love Walletron.

With a background in payments as well as loyalty, coupons, and rewards, CEO Garrett Baird and the Walletron team are trying to finish off paper statements for good. Walletron already leverages the technology that puts your boarding pass in your digital wallet to do the same for gift cards. Now they are doing the same thing for paper bills.

Baird says Walletron’s proposition is delivering their (brand) presence in the digital wallet, as well as “the communication that goes along with it, with the actual payment relying on the billers themselves to process.” Baird emphasized this point, insisting that FIs and organizations use their existing processes to complete the payment. “We are the communication part,” he underscored, “piggybacking on top.”

Walletron CEO Garrett Baird presented moBills at FinovateFall 2015 in New York.

At FinovateFall 2015, Walletron CEO Garrett Baird demonstrated moBills, the new billpay component of Walletron. moBills enables billers to open a payment and communication channel on their customer’s smartphones through which everything from payment reminders to confirmations can be provided. Payments can be made with a few taps on the app, and users remain authenticated after enrolling in moBills, so there is no need for a subsequent login process.

“People have been waiting for electronic payments to take over since 2000,” Baird said. “But it hasn’t happened yet. There are still very tiny adoption rates. This solution will finally move the needle.”

Company facts:

Founded in 2013
Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Wallets as commerce and communication channel

For Baird, it all begins with the digital wallet and the idea that people cling to paper statements because they are both a reminder and a source of information to complete the transaction: account numbers, user names, routing numbers, and so on. “There are not enough brands taking advantage of the mobile wallet and other wallets,” Baird said. “Airlines have nailed it—great use-case for boarding passes.”

The irony is that mobile devices excel at both of these functions, without the cost and inefficiency of paper. All that is needed is an intermediate layer. And that layer is Walletron. “There is a new communication channel in these wallets,” Baird said. “[It’s] very easy for brands to get up and running. [And] billing data is all Walletron needs.”

Within the digital wallet, the user sees all the billing relationships that have been set up: auto loans, mobile phone company, and so on. On the front of the individual card is basic billing information, with links to pay the bill, read the statement, or change notification preferences on the back. Customers enroll in the moBills program by visiting the company’s online billing website and selecting the moBills option for either Apple Wallet (formerly Passport) or Android Pay (formerly Google Wallet).

As soon as a customer makes a selection, the current billing statement appears in their digital wallet. The customer then makes notification preferences (i.e., due-in-five-days reminder, payment-received notification, etc.). “And there’s no app for the customer to download because they already have the app on their phone,” Baird said from the Finovate stage. “And now the relationship lives in the (digital) wallet.”

Walletron’s growth strategy involves working with the largest billers, including FIs, mortgage and auto loan companies, as well as processors (and fellow Finovate alums) such as FIS, Jack Henry, ACI Worldwide, and Fiserv. In March, the company inked its first deal with Australia-based FlexiGroup, which will offer moBills to hundreds of thousands of customers. “The industry hasn’t yet seen a mobile option which truly eliminates the need for a paper statement,” Baird said during the announcement, “We believe moBills has.”

Check out Walletron’s demonstration video from FinovateFall 2015.

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MoneyHub Teams Up with Unbiased to Help People Manage their Finances

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 18, 2016
Categories: Moneyhub

London-based PFM MoneyHub has partnered with U.K. financial and legal advice-website Unbiased to help financial advisers put their clients “at the center of their financial world.” MoneyHub is calling the partnership “invaluable and unique” because it offers users transparency into finances and helps them plan their financial future.

The new offering integrates Unbiased’s Find an Adviser search tool, which gives MoneyHub users access to the UK’s largest selection of regulated advisers. The tool also helps users determine which adviser is best for their needs. Adding an adviser through the tool facilitates information-sharing between the MoneyHub user and their adviser, who can view an aggregation of the user’s accounts.

Unbiased is offering readers a free trial of MoneyHub’s premium service for a limited time. The company’s CEO Karen Barrett said, “We see technology and financial advice becoming ever more closely intertwined. Rather than replacing face-to-face advice, technology will help to make it more cost-effective and customer-focused.” Barrett added, “This partnership represents a new chapter in the way people relate to their finances, by placing unbiased advisers at the heart of these innovations.”

At FinovateEurope 2015, MoneyHub’s CEO Toby Hughes and CTO Dave Tonge debuted its Ecosystem, an online platform where users aggregate their financial data and information, access financial advice, and connect to products and services from financial institutions. Founded in 2013, MoneyHub was acquired by MMI Holdings in 2014.

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SuiteBox Appoints Isaac Young as CTO

By David Penn Posted on July 18, 2016
Categories: SuiteBox

With more than 10 years experience in financial services technology, Isaac Young will be the new CTO for SuiteBox. Young comes to the New Zealand-based fintech startup after working with global banks like Commerzbank, Rabobank, and UBS. At SuiteBox, he will be responsible for directing the company’s integration initiatives with large channel partners.

“It is a key strategy of ours to bring on channel partners through which the SuiteBox offering can be deployed to large groups of financial advisers,” SuiteBox CEO Ian Dunbar said. “Isaac’s global technology management experience makes him ideally suited to leading these critical projects.” As a software architect for major financial services firms, Young helped design, develop, maintain core banking platforms, automated trading systems, and other critical systems. He was educated at Victoria University of Wellington, where he earned a bachelor of science in chemistry.

SuiteBox CEO Ian Dunbar demonstrated his company’s platform at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

The SuiteBox platform gives financial professionals a secure, virtual workspace in which to engage their clients. The technology supports video conferences, document collaboration and screen sharing, meeting recording, e-signatures, and embedded web forms. Available as a standalone solution as well as an API, SuiteBox reduces reliance on emails and databases while increasing the quality of client engagement especially for financial professionals with a growing, and/or geographically diverse, client base.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, SuiteBox demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2016. In May, the company announced a partnership with Midwinter to give investment advisers new tools to make compliance easier, and in April, SuiteBox took home the Best Technology award at the Melbourne Showcase. That was the company’s second award-winning performance of the year, having won the Mobile category of the KPMG Fintech Innovation Challenge in January.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on July 18, 2016
Categories: Braintree, Chain.com, Concur, CSI globalVCard, Expensify, Guardian Analytics, Lending Club, Markit, Moneyhub, Ripple, Sberbank, Simple, SuiteBox, Walletron

On Finovate.com

SuiteBox Appoints Isaac Young as CTO

MoneyHub Teams Up with Unbiased to Help People Manage their Finances

Expensify Unveils ReceiptBurner and Price-to-Beat

Finovate Debuts: Walletron Helps Brands Build a Presence in Digital Wallets

Around the web

Concur to deploy SilverRail API to enable European travelers to search, plan, and schedule travel by rail.

CSI globalVCard moves global partnership-operations team to Dallas; Nan Dawson promoted to SVP of partnership operations.

Lending Club announces new Chief Capital Officer, Patrick Dunne.

CoinTelegraph names Braintree, Chain, and Ripple as three companies that will shape the future of money.

Markit Unveils Chartworks Suite

Sberbank Capitalizes On Pokémon Go Marketing Opportunity

Over the last year, 50 new customers added Guardian Analytics Wire to protect their customers from the Business Email Compromise scam.

Simple celebrates its 7th anniversary, now with 300,000 customers and a little over 300 staff.

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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Neustar Taps Former Walmart Executive Venkat Achanta as First Chief Data Officer

By David Penn Posted on July 15, 2016
Categories: Neustar

Cloud-based information services specialist Neustar hired former Walmart Chief Data Officer Venkat Achanta to be its Chief Data and Analytics Officer. Achanta will develop and manage Neustar’s identity and attribution platform

Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Steven Wolfe Pereira called Achanta “a real thought leader” and pointed out that attracting top data-science talent is no easy feat. Pereira said that the position, newly created for Achanta, was a “great match” in part because of the way data science interacts with the entire company, from marketing and financial services to security and telecommunications.

Achanta comes to Neustar after working as Chief Data Officer for Walmart since 2014 where he was responsible for enterprise-wide data and analytics delivery and platforms. Before that, Achanta served as SVP, global head of analytics and big data at AIG; vice president of enterprise data services at Capital One; and VP, global product development and delivery for Experian. Achanta has a bachelor of science in computer science and systems engineering from Andhra University; and MBAs from the National University of Singapore and the UCLA Anderson School of Management. In his role as chief data and analytics officer for Neustar, he will report to company CEO and president, Lisa Hook, who called Achanta “uniquely qualified to lead Neustar’s data science innovations.”

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Sterling, Virginia, Neustar demonstrated its PlatformOne solution at FinovateSpring 2016. The company announced in June that it would split into two companies—one based on call-routing for telecoms and the other on information services. This month, Neustar reported that it was working with Experian to make data onboarding easier for marketers by combining its strength in real-time information services with Experian’s vast national consumer database.

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Yandex.Money Releases Apple Watch Payments App

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 15, 2016
Categories: Yandex

In a move that expands payment methods for its users, digital payments company Yandex.Money launched an app for the Apple Watch this week. The app allows users to top up their mobile money accounts, make transfers, receive payment alerts via push notifications, and view their Yandex account balance.

The Yandex.Money mobile app, available to users in Russia, was released on iOS in 2011. It can be used to pay for thousands of goods and services, including those linked to a bank payment account. The company also offers apps for Android, Windows 10, and Windows phones.

Demand for mobile payments seems to be increasing; in fact, AC&M Consulting reports that more than 12 million users in Russia complete payments through mobile devices. However, as the Wall Street Journal depicts, the market is becoming increasingly diluted. On top of Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, banks and merchants have started offering their own payment solutions, such as MasterCard’s Masterpass which launched yesterday for in-store payments; the Wells Fargo Wallet, which launches Monday; Chase Pay, and more.

At FinovateSpring 2013 Yandex launched Twym, an application that allows Yandex.Money users to instantly transfer money in Rubles via Twitter. Money can be sent via a Tweet that includes @twymru, the recipient’s Twitter username, and the payment amount.

Yandex.Money powers the largest online payment service in Russia. In April, the company launched NFC payment capability for Android phones that conducts the transaction via a virtual MasterCard.

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Kabbage Revamps App to Enable Mobile Onboarding for Loan Applications

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 15, 2016
Categories: Kabbage

Alternative financing provider Kabbage unveiled a major mobile update this week. The Atlanta-based company revamped its iOS app to allow small businesses to apply for funding on their mobile devices.

Kabbage launched a native app in 2013 to help customers manage and track their financing. The company has since grown to serve 80,000 small businesses.

Underlying the mobile application process are tools such as driver’s license recognition, bank account verification, and TouchID authentication. After users become qualified, they can continue to manage, track and access funds from within the app.

Kabbage said it hopes the new release will “fundamentally transform the borrowing experience.” The company now drives $7 million per month in loan originations from mobile devices. The app will be available on Android later this summer.

At FinovateSpring 2015, Kabbage unveiled the Kabbage Card, a payment card that lets small business owners carry a financing tool in their wallet to pay for supplies needed to keep their business running. The company’s CTO Andy Badstubner presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 on how to integrate into the Kabbage platform.

Last month, the Kabbage partnered with Scotiabank which will co-brand small-business loans in Mexico and Canada. Scotiabank joins Santander and ING, both of whom already selected Kabbage to power their online business loans.

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CREALOGIX Wins Best Web Development at Systems in the City Awards 2016

By David Penn Posted on July 15, 2016
Categories: CREALOGIX

In 2015, CREALOGIX CEO Dr. Mike Bradford won a Lifetime Achievement Award from Systems in the City. Today we learn that the Swiss digital banking software innovator is back in the Systems in the City winner’s circle, having earned top honors for “Best Web Development”.

“The winning of the award means a huge amount to the entire CREALOGIX team,” said Ben Mann, head of web development for CREALOGIX. “It is a testament to the dedication and commitment of the company as a whole, as well as serving as a challenge for us in the year ahead, to continue to be at the forefront of quality web development in the fintech arena.”

Specifically, CREALOGIX won accolades for its implementation of its Digital Banking Hub with Tilney Bestinvest, a U.K. brokerage firm with 240 financial planners, 120 investment managers, and 20 billion pounds under management. With newly added features to improve the platform’s utility to brokerages, CREALOGIX’s Digital Banking Hub offers wealth managers the ability to readily integrate personalized advice into all systems.

Nominees for the Systems in the City Awards are made by members of London’s financial services sector, including stockbrokers, wealth managers, and investment bankers. An independent panel of “prominent City professionals” determines the final award. CREALOGIX’s Bradford said that the award helped highlight his company’s “technical excellence and position at the forefront of fintech in the U.K.”

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, CREALOGIX demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2016. The Systems in the City award news comes just a week after the announcement that CREALOGIX had partnered with fellow Finovate alum, Entersekt, to build a new authentication solution. The company began the year by forging a digital banking partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

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