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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 24, 2015
Categories: Azimo, Bleu, CenturyLink, edo Interactive, EverSafe, FIS, Fiserv, Geezeo, Google, Kashoo, On Deck Capital, PaySimple, Personal Capital, Ping Identity, Prosper, RAGE, Stockpile, Stocktwits, TransferTo, Xero

On Finovate.com

“StockTwits Offers Brokerage Functionality Powered by Robinhood”

“Finovate Debuts: bleu Unveils its Beacon-powered, Point-of-Sale Solution”

Around the web

TechCrunch names Stockpile gift card on list of Awesome Gifts For Your Favorite 20-Something.

Prosper recognized as 24th fastest-growing company on Deloitte’s Fast 500. San Francisco Business Times places Prosper as number 3 of the Fastest Growing Companies of 2015.

Kashoo launches period-locking feature to lock data within prescribed timeframes.

Xero launches Apple watch app.

Built in Colorado names Google, OnDeck, Ping Identity, Personal Capital, Xero, and PaySimple on list of top 100 tech companies in Colorado.

TickSmith’s TickVault platform earns the fast-growing firm an Innovators Award from FIA.

CenturyLink and Cogent enter into interconnection agreement.

RAGE Frameworks partners with Genpact, leveraging AI to automate financial processes.

Los Alamos National Bank chooses FIS as its new core banking provider.

National Bonds to deploy AML Risk Manager from Fiserv.

Geezeo launches its Life Infused Financial Experiences custom apps.

Let’s Talk Payments looks at edo Interactive and its partnership with Visa Europe.

Azimo extends its money-transfer service to Nigeria.

Fidelity Clearing and Custody teams up with EverSafe to help prevent elder financial abuse.

TransferTo joins forces with Continental Money to bring remittance services to Africa.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Fintech Fundings: 26 Companies Raise $1 Billion Week Ending 20 Nov 2015

By Jim Bruene Posted on November 23, 2015
Categories: Funding

Large swaths of cash flowed into the global fintech sector last week. All told, 26 companies brought in $1.06 billion. A quarter of the total was Square’s IPO ($243 million), another $330 million was debt, with the remaining $479 million being VC/angel funding.

In addition to Square, two companies topped $100 million: student and personal loan startup Earnest ($75 million equity; $200 million debt) and Australia’s ZipMoney ($1 million equity; $100 million debt).

Two Finovate alums landed new rounds: $5 million to Tuition.io which enables employers to help pay down employee student loan debt and Nous, a crowdsourced investment-information platform, which raised $290,000.

Year-to-date, the total raised is $17.7 billion, or about $24 billion counting the payments-company IPOs (Worldpay, First Data, Square).

Here are the fundings by size from 14 Nov to 20 Nov 2015:

Earnest
Alt-personal and student lender
Latest round: $275 million ($75 million equity; $200 million debt)
Total raised: $299.1 million ($99.1 million equity; $200 million debt)
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: Consumer, credit, lending, underwriting, loans, student loan refinancing
Source: Crunchbase

Square
Payment processor and small-business lender
Latest round: $243 million (IPO)
Total raised: $833 million
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: Consumer, SMB, payments, point-of-sale, mPOS, acquiring, merchant, credit/debit cards
Source: LA Times, Crunchbase

ZipMoney
Financing online consumer purchases
Latest round: $101 million ($1 million equity; $100 million debt)
Total raised: $101 million (includes $100 million debt)
HQ: Sydney, Australia
Tags: Consumer, SMB, B2B2C, financing, lending, underwriting, ecommerce, payments
Source: Crunchbase

Ebury
Global funds-transfer service for businesses
Latest round: $83 million
Total raised: $119 million
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Enterprise, SMB, accounts payables, payments, FX, trade finance
Source: Crunchbase

LQD Business Finance
Online small-business financing
Latest round: $30 million Debt
Total raised: $30 million Debt
HQ: Chicago, Illinois
Tags: SMB, commercial lending, credit, loans
Source: Crunchbase

Openhouse
Real estate discovery app
Latest round: $13.5 million
Total raised: $19.5 million
HQ: Santa Monica, California
Tags: Consumer, real estate, home buying, mortgage
Source: Crunchbase

Align Commerce
Payment service provider for global commerce
Latest round: $12.5 million
Total raised: $12.5 million
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: Enterprise, SMB, payments, bitcoin, FX, trade finance
Source: Crunchbase

Sensible Lender
P2P property lender
Latest round: $10.6 million
Total raised: $10.6 million
HQ: Kent, England, United Kingdom
Tags: P2P lending, investing, mortgage, underwriting, crowdfunding
Source: FT Partners

Hanweck Associates
Real-time risk analytics for financial institutions
Latest round: $10 million
Total raised: $10 million
HQ: New York City, New York
Tags: Security, risk management
Source: FT Partners

Card.com
Prepaid card platform
Latest round: $9 million
Total raised: $12 million
HQ: Santa Monica, California
Tags: Consumer, debit card, gift card, payments, card management
Source: Crunchbase

Intersections
Identity-protection services
Latest round: $7.5 million Post-IPO equity*
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Chantilly, Virginia
Tags: Consumers, enterprise, security, credit report monitoring
Source: Crunchbase, BusinessWire

SalaryFinance
Payroll-based lender
Latest round: $6.1 million
Total raised: $6.1 million
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Enterprise, SMB, B2B2C, consumer credit, lending, underwriting, employee benefits
Source: Crunchbase

Tution.io
Student loan repayment service for employers
Latest round: $5 million
Total raised: $8.15 million
HQ: Santa Monica, California
Tags: Student lending, employee benefit, SMB, enterprise, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

Prepaid Financial Services
Prepaid card services
Latest round: $3.8 million (at $75 million valuation)
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Consumer, SMB, prepaid cards, debit cards
Source: FT Partners

Vanare
Wealth management system for advisors
Latest round: $3.35 million
Total raised: $3.35 million
HQ: New York City, New York
Tags: Advisers, investing, asset management, robo-adviser
Source: Crunchbase

Peppermint Innovation
Mobile banking and payments platform
Latest round: $2.7 million
Total raised: $2.7 million
HQ: Australia
Tags: Payments, mobile, remittances, banking, Indonesia (market)
Source: FT Partners

GoodBox
Mobile ecommerce and payments platform
Latest round: $2.5 million
Total raised: $2.7 million
HQ: Bangalaru, India
Tags: SMB, payments
Source: FT Partners

ietty
Home discovery platform
Latest round: $1.6 million
Total raised: $4.0 million
HQ: Tokyo, Japan
Tags: Consumer, real estate, home buying, mortgage
Source: Crunchbase

iBox
Mobile point-of-sale solution
Latest round: $1.3 million Seed
Total raised: $4.8 million
HQ: Hong Kong, China
Tags: SMB, payments, mPOS, merchants, acquiring, hardware, credit/debit cards
Source: Crunchbase

Health Solutions One
Online health insurance broker
Latest round: $1 million Seed
Total raised: $2 million
HQ: Roswell, Georgia
Tags: Consumer, insurance, price comparison, lead gen
Source: Crunchbase

Bitwage
Bitcoin-based international payroll
Latest round: $750,000
Total raised: $750,000
HQ: Sunnyvale, California
Tags: SMB, enterprise, payments, human resources, cryptocurrency, payroll
Source: Crunchbase

Stampery
Proof of ownership via the blockchain
Latest round: $600,000
Total raised: $600,000
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: SMB, consumer, blockchain, security, contracts, security
Source: Crunchbase

Fintec Labs
Banking and insurance incubator
Latest round: $350,000 ($2.3 million valuation)
Total raised: $745,000
HQ: South Africa
Tags: Insurance, SMB, startups
Source: Crunchbase

Nous Global Markets
Crowdsourcing financial market predictions
Latest round: $460,000
Total raised: $1.6 million
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Consumer, trading, investing, gamification Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

POM
Secure invoice payment
Latest round: $200,000
Total raised: $200,000
HQ: Viaams-Brabant, Belgium
Tags: SMB, payments, accounting, accounts receivables
Source: FT Partners

ScramCard
Ultra-secure consumer payments device
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Hong Kong, China
Tags: Consumer, B2B2C, credit/debit card, payments, security, token, hardware
Source: Crunchbase

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StockTwits Offers Brokerage Functionality Powered by Robinhood

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 23, 2015
Categories: Stocktwits

StockTwits, a social network for investors and traders, last week announced it has partnered with stock-trading app Robinhood to incorporate brokerage functionality into its iOS app.

The partnership allows users to connect their two accounts, giving Robinhood users access to StockTwits’ stock-tracking tools, and offering Robinhood’s free brokerage service to StockTwits’ users. Highlights of the integration include:

See stocks on their StockTwits’ watchlist that they own in their Robinhood account

Swipe to trade for free with Robinhood without leaving the StockTwits’ watchlist and trending list

Share Robinhood trades within StockTwits’ community

While the new trading functionality is not currently available on Android, StockTwits’ CEO Howard Lindzon notes that a solution is in progress and will be available soon.

StockTwits’ Lindzon presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2014:

http://finovate.wistia.com/medias/mxy40adk50?embedType=api&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=800

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PRUDENA Launches Online Marketplace for Stock Market Research

By David Penn Posted on November 23, 2015
Categories: Prudena

PRUDENA launched its online stock market research marketplace last week, helping retail investors and independent financial advisers access the same kind of quantified stock market research used by institutional money managers for years.

For PRUDENA co-founder and CEO Charlie Strout, the new online marketplace is the latest example of the “sharing economy” applied to financial technology. “Investors love our product because they can essentially hire a talented analyst that previously sold their research only to large institutions,” Strout explained. “Analysts love us because we give them loads of tools to save them time when producing their research and provide a platform where they can better monetize their work.”

Prudena founder and CEO Charlie Strout presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2014.

PRUDENA emphasizes quantitative research because this kind of research is typically too expensive for individual investors and independent financial advisers. Using data aggregation, financial modeling, and report-generation wizards, PRUDENA focuses on behavioral economics and finance, value investing, and quantitative financial analysis to give insights to investors and advisers that differ from the qualitative research many investors rely on. And with more than 500 registered users on its platform, Strout believes PRUDENA’s crowdfunding approach is making this kind of quantitative research easier to get and more affordable.

PRUDENA is available for free and by subscription. Free features include portfolio-monitoring tools and alerts, and modeling for the stocks in the S&P 500 and Dow industrials. Subscription services provide modeling for all stocks, brokerage-account aggregation, and more support options, including email, phone, and a one-on-one “Get Started” session. All subscribers receive a copy of “The Morning Monte” market analysis newsletter, as well.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York City, PRUDENA demonstrated how its platform automates the analysis of financial statements at the inaugural FinDEVr conference in 2014 in San Francisco.

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Finovate Debuts: RedCloud Technology Helps Financial Institutions Build Regulatory Compliant Products

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 23, 2015
Categories: Finovate Debuts, RedCloud

The RedCloud 1 Platform by RedCloud Technologies is a transaction engine and processing platform. By leveraging RedCloud 1, financial service providers can offer regulated digital financial services such as domestic payments, remittances, mobile wallets, lending, savings, and insurance.

The RedCloud 1 solution, which can be co-branded or white-labeled, can act as an end-to-end transaction platform or simply form a new front-end interface to existing backend processes. It is designed to help effectively deal with regulatory constraints.

Front-facing platform

The RedCloud 1 platform offers a simple, omnichannel user experience. For example, when using its remittance capabilities to send money internationally, consumers log in with a unique identifier (for example, email address, phone number, or Twitter account), then enter the amount and their PIN. RedCloud processes all transaction types, including cross-border payments and remittances, in real time with no settlement delay.

Behind the scenes

The RedCloud administration view offers multiple tools, such as a transaction-search capability and a CRM module, that enable service providers to manage the platform.

The analytics suite offers a real-time bank reconciliation view that shows both sides of all transactions. Preconfigured insights are not only useful to service providers, but also to agents and merchant clients, who can use transaction data to drive business strategy.

The company’s configuration tool has a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG interface which enables non-technical employees to bring new products to market with no need for IT involvement.

What’s next

RedCloud is contracting with several organizations across Africa and Asia.

RedCloud founder, Justin Floyd and product manager, Matthew Smith, demoed RedCloud 1 at FinovateFall 2015:

http://finovate.wistia.com/medias/ec4vzxoet0?embedType=api&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=800

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 23, 2015
Categories: Akimbo Financial, Dealstruck, Deluxe, eToro, FinanceIt, Geezeo, Prudena, RAGE, Strands, Temenos, Venmo

On Finovate.com

“Finovate debuts: RedCloud Technology Helps Financial Institutions Build Regulatory Compliant Products”

“PRUDENA Launches Online Marketplace for Stock Market Research”

Around the web

PYMNTS looks at Akimbo’s next venture, Akimbo Now.

Dealstruck crosses the $100m mark.

Deluxe Corporation celebrates its 100th birthday by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

PYMNTS interviews Michael Garrity, co-founder and CEO of Financeit.

Inside Big Data interviews Dr. Venkat Krinivasan, CEO of RAGE Frameworks.

The Financial Brand’s Ron Shevlin takes a look at the future of Venmo.

InvestinGoal provides a free eToro base course to help introduce new investors to social trading.

Strands brings its PFM solution to Temenos Connect and Mobile Internet Banking.

Geezeo builds custom financial event app: Life by Geezeo.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Blooom Named “One in a Million” in Kauffman Foundation Startup Competition

By David Penn Posted on November 20, 2015
Categories: blooom

Just over a month after securing $4 million in an investment round led by QED Investors, 401(k) innovator Blooom has been named “One in a Million” in the startup competition sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation.

“All of the finalists were incredibly talented,” said Chris Costello, Blooom CEO. “I was humbled to be considered among the best from across the nation. And we are very proud to have won in our hometown.”

Blooom beat out more than 350 startups to win the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s “One in a Million” competition this week. The company will take home a grand prize of $10,000.

Blooom co-founders (left) Chris Costello and Randy AufDerHeide demonstrated the Blooom platform at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

Wendy Guillies, Kauffman Foundation president and CEO, said that the competition was designed to highlight companies that participated in the Foundation’s “1 Million Cups” events, which showcase entrepreneurs from a variety of fields.

“We created the 1 Million Cups program to help educate, engage, and connect entrepreneurs within their own communities,” Guillies explained. The program holds events weekly in more than 70 communities in the United States, culminating with the “One in a Million” contest held as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Learn more about the Kauffman Foundation.

Earning a second place prize of $5,000 was David Naumann, founding partner of wet phone rescue kiosk maker, DryBox. Third place and $1,000 went to Matthew Rooda, founder of SwineTech, which uses technology to help keep “piglets from being crushed by their mothers.”

Blooom calls itself a “new way to 401(k).” Taking advantage of the fact that 401(k) owners can be among the least engaged in their own investment finances, blooom has created a platform that essentially provides roboadvisory services specifically for 401(k) and other employer-provided retirement accounts. Signing up for the service is easy, and accounts stay at their current institutions. Blooom provides free 401(k) analysis and charges $1 per month on accounts less than $20,000 and $15 per month for larger accounts.

Founded in February 2013 and headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, blooom demonstrated its platform at FinovateFall 2014.

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Coinbase Unveils America’s First Bitcoin Debit Card

By David Penn Posted on November 20, 2015
Categories: Coinbase

It may be fashionable these days to praise the blockchain while dismissing bitcoin. But the news today that Coinbase is launching a new bitcoin debit card in the United States is a reminder that bitcoin is alive, well, and working its way closer to the mainstream economy.

Coinbase’s new The Shift Card is the product of a partnership between Coinbase and Shift Payments. The card can be used in 24 states in the United States and at more than 38 million merchants around the world. There is a $10 issuance fee with no additional fees “for a limited time.” Cards will begin arriving after November 20th.

Coinbase Business Development Managers Nahid Samsami and Roger Gu demonstrated Coinbase Instant Exchange at FinovateSpring 2014.

Adam White, Coinbase VP for business development and strategy, called the Shift Card “a key element” in making bitcoin easier to buy, sell, and transact with. Both Coinbase and Dwolla accounts are supported. Users in eligible states can order the card by connecting to their Coinbase account, and authorizing the fee (paid in bitcoin). Shift relies on Coinbase Connect which provides integration, permissions, and authentications to more than 2.8 million Coinbase users.

The Shift Card is accompanied by the Shift app that provides account balances and transactions. Available in iOS and Android, the Shift Card works anywhere Visa is accepted. Plans are to enable cardholders to connect to banks, airline miles and other alternative-currency accounts in the near future.

Shift Card’s fee structure includes a 3% fee for international transactions; $3.50, international ATMs; $2.50, domestic ATMs. There is no annual fee and no charge for domestic transactions. There is a daily spending limit of $1,000 and daily ATM withdrawal limits of $500 from Dwolla accounts and $200 from Coinbase accounts. More information on fees is here.

Coinbase has had a busy autumn. In November alone the company announced a partnership with Fidelity Charitable to enable bitcoin contributions to donor-advised funds, launched mobile price charts, international translations, and consolidated accounts for bitcoin, and teamed up with USAA to make it easier for members to use bitcoin. Coinbase also added support for 3D Secure credit and debit cards in October and launched in Singapore in September.

Founded in July 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, Coinbase demonstrated its Instant Exchange technology at FinovateSpring 2014. Brian Armstrong is CEO. The company has raised more than $106 million in funding and includes Andreessen Horowitz, BBVA Ventures, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) among its investors.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 20, 2015
Categories: Arroweye Solutions, blooom, Cardlytics, Coinbase, DriveWealth, Entrust Datacard, LendingRobot, Markit, Prosper, Signifyd

On Finovate.com

“Coinbase Unveils America’s First Bitcoin Debit Card”

“Blooom Named “One in a Million” in Kauffman Foundation Startup Competition”

Around the web

Cardlytics ranked 25 on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500.

Entrust Datacard’s Kurt Ishaug named one of 24 CFOs of the year by the Minn./St. Paul Business Journal in the “large private company” category.

Prosper Marketplace announces mobile SDK for the marketplace lending industry.

DriveWealth adds Carlo Macchi as director of global institutional accounts. See DriveWealth at FinovateEurope 2016 in London in February.

PYMNTS.com interviews Arroweye Solutions’ President and CEO Render Dahya on payment trends in 2015.

TRADE names Markit to its Hall of Fame.

Signifyd releases extension for the Magento 2 platform.

LendingRobot to bring its automated robo-investing to Funding Circle’s small-business lending marketplace.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Personal Capital Lowers Investment Minimum From $100,000 to $25,000

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 19, 2015
Categories: Betterment, Personal Capital, Wealthfront

Robo-advisers have been on a roll. By year-end they are expected to amass $53 billion under management, up more than 3x from $16 billion last year. While these numbers are dwarfed by the $20 trillion wealth-management market, robo-adviser growth has garnered much attention.

In an effort to capture more of that growth, Personal Capital is lowering its minimum investment from $100,000 to $25,000. The San Francisco-based company expects the lower threshold will help tap into its 850,000 users who track their investments with its free online platform. About half of these users are eligible to meet the new $25,000 investment minimum.

Lowering the minimum will also help Personal Capital compete with Wealthfront which requires a minimum of $500, and Betterment which does not have a minimum investment requirement.

The New York Times recently reported stats from three robo-advisers:

Company	Min. Investment Req’d	Users	AUM	Average AUM/ User
Personal Capital	$25,000	6,000	$1.6 billion	$260,000
Wealthfront	$500	37,400	$2.6 billion	$70,000
Betterment	$1	118,000	$3 billion	$25,000

Personal Capital most recently presented to a crowd of developers at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco. The company launched One Click Investment Proposals at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

Betterment last demoed its multiple goals feature at FinovateFall 2011, and before changing its name in 2010, Wealthfront launched as KaChing at FinovateSpring 2009.

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Finovate Debuts: DriveWealth Brings U.S. Stocks to Overseas Investors

By David Penn Posted on November 19, 2015
Categories: DriveWealth, Finovate Debuts

For the majority of people living in the developing world, it is easier to buy a pair of Nike shoes than it is to buy a share of Nike stock.

DriveWealth is changing this dynamic through its retail investing platform, designed to give consumers around the globe access to the U.S. stock market. DriveWealth calls its full-stack platform, “Brokerage-As-A-Service” because it can handle the entire customer lifecycle from onboarding to trade execution. “No middle men, no friction,” explained Michael Fitzgerald, DriveWealth’s head of corporate strategy, during the week of FinovateSpring 2015. Among other things, lack of a middle man enables DriveWealth to provide B2C pricing of $2.99 per trade.

At Finovate, DriveWealth demonstrated its BaaS platform, reminding attendees that with most of the retail wealth coming from developing markets, the opportunity is wide open to provide investors in emerging markets with the ability to trade in stocks of some of the best-known—and most successful—companies in the world.

Company facts:

founded in May 2012
headquartered in Chatham, New Jersey
raised more than $10 million in funding
serves more customers in more than 140 countries
Robert Cortright is CEO

How it works

DriveWealth works by partnering with global companies to offer their customers access to U.S. stocks on their platform. “Historically,” Fitzgerald pointed out, “only the wealthiest foreign investors could access these stocks.” DriveWealth provides the widget, and companies using the platform get to use their own brand and interface.

Michael Fitzgerald, DriveWealth head of corporate strategy, demonstrated the DriveWealth Brokerage-as-a-Service platform at FinovateSpring 2015.

Getting started on DriveWealth is straightforward, with investors able to fund their accounts through a wide variety of methods: credit, debit, SafetyPay, wire transfers, paper checks—even using the services of fellow Finovate alums like Dwolla and TransferWise.

As a trading and investing platform, DriveWealth is available as a white-label service, and can be deployed in a day or two. Using a mock-up brokerage in their demo, Taj Mahal Securities, we can see an example of the interface. Investors can see which stocks are available for investment, review favorite lists, analyze metrics about the underlying company, study charts of price action and, ultimately, buy shares.

Technically, DriveWealth provides its partners with both low-level APIs and high-level HTML5 widgets. APIs are available as RESTful APIs, which provide login, accounts, orders, and trades functionality, as well as fully FIX-compliant APIs for those FIs familiar with the FIX protocol. Both APIs support order types such as market, stop, and limit.

For FIs seeking an even greater level of integration, DriveWealth provides a set of embeddable HTML5 widgets. These widgets can be embedded into websites or trading apps to provide functions such as reporting, funding, trading, and onboarding.

The future

DriveWealth is most interested in meeting global financial service companies with large customer bases who offer local securities and want access to the U.S. equity markets. The company recently launched with a Chinese partner with more than 100 million customers. And Fitzgerald also mentioned the Indian stock market as a very actively traded market where Indian investors would likely take advantage of access to U.S. stocks. He also notes that global payment providers are also potential partners with DriveWealth. “We’re going for the other 99%, including the mass retail investor,” Fitzgerald explains, “and a lot of them are looking to start with a few thousand dollars rather than $100,000, so low-cost payment-transfers matter.”

“We are also interested in meeting fintech companies with products available here in the U.S., but who want access to global retail customers,” Fitzgerald said, noting that the DriveWealth platform can be leveraged for other purposes, other services. “We have a partnership structure as a B2B platform,” he said. “(Our partners) don’t have to be brokerages. They can be customer-centric companies that just want to provide the access.”

Currently in the pipeline are plans to launch with a number of large global partners. DriveWealth is also planning to offer fractional shares for investors, supporting the company’s focus on retail investors. “People can put $100 a week or a month aside and build their portfolio that way,” Fitzgerald said.

Looking further into the future, DriveWealth is interested in initiatives such as expanding aftermarket trading, which Fitzgerald says is “key for international trading and investing.” He added that DriveWealth is also looking to expand the ways investors can fund their accounts. “Debit cards, Dwolla, bitcoin …” he offered. “We want to remove as much friction as possible.”

DriveWealth will be among the more than 70 companies demonstrating their technologies at FinovateEurope 2016 in London in February. For more about our upcoming conference in the United Kingdom, visit our FinovateEurope 2016 page.

Check out the video from DriveWealth’s FinovateSpring 2015 demonstration.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on November 19, 2015
Categories: CardFlight, Coinbase, CR2, DriveWealth, Entrust Datacard, Intuit, Personal Capital, Taulia, Thinking Capital, TSYS, Xero

On Finovate.com

“Finovate Debuts: DriveWealth Brings U.S. Stocks to Overseas Investors”

“FinovateEurope 2016 Presenting Companies Announced“

“Personal Capital Lowers Investment Minimum from $100,000 to $25,000″

Around the web

Intuit teams up with Kiva to provide small business financing via QuickBooks financing platform.

National Bank of Abu Dhabi, (Nbad) Egypt, to deploy BankWorld from CR2.

Xero announces new partnerships with Bigcommerce and KPMG.

Open Bank Project partners with Ulster Bank to organize Hack Make the Bank, Jan 29 thru 31, 2016.

CIBC and Thinking Capital partner to expand SMB lending in Canada.

Entrust Datacard releases Datacard MX Series Laser 350 that provides new personalization features.

CardFlight announces EMV approval and certifications via TSYS for mPOS solution.

Taulia joins the OFS portal community.

Fidelity Charitable partners with Coinbase to allow people to contribute bitcoin to their donor-advised funds.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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