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Hip Pocket Introduces its New PFM Solution, Hip Money

By David Penn Posted on October 12, 2015
Categories: Hip Money, Hip Pocket

What do you put in a Hip Pocket?

Hip Money, of course!

Hip Money is the new PFM solution designed by the company that brought us Hip Pocket, the mortgage-rate-comparison calculator. We wrote a few weeks ago in our Finovate Debut conversation with Hip Pocket founder and CEO Mark Zmarzly that the company would be looking to expand into other related markets. With the introduction of Hip Money, that expansion has begun.

Hip Pocket debuted its new solution at the inaugural Fincon Fintech Startup Competition in Charlotte, North Carolina, last month, picking up a runners-up award of $1,500 in cash. (Note that the first prize was a tie between two other Finovate alums: FamZoo and TickerTags!)

From left: Todd Cramer, head of digital experience/design, and CEO Mark Zmarzly, founder, presented Version 2.0 of Hip Pocket at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

Hip Money is a personal finance-management app that seeks to complement human behavior in pursuit of higher savings rates rather than change it. According to reporting in Bank Innovation, Hip Money’s signature feature, Swipe to Save, enables users to set aside a certain amount for saving with a simple swipe when prompted. Savings goals can be personalized by target amount and date. According to Zmarzly, it works because it requires minimal user action and leaves “the math” to the app.

Those interested in Hip Money can leave their email address at the website in order to be notified when the app is ready. The solution will be available on a white-label basis, and can be included as part of a bank’s existing mobile app.

Hip Pocket, developer of Hip Money, was founded in June 2013 by Mark Zmarzly and is headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

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FinDEVr Newcomer Praesidio Rakes in $3 Million Investment

By David Penn Posted on October 12, 2015
Categories: Praesidio

If you were a cybersecurity startup making your first appearance at a FinDEVr event, what would you bring to your debut?

How about more than $3 million in new funding?

Seattle-based Praesidio now has total capital of more than $5 million, courtesy of a new investment of $3.1 million led by Praesidio Chairman Jeff Lunsford and Vice Chairman Harold Brewer. Also participating in the round were Citizens National Bank, Live Oak Bank, and Washington Trust, which are customers of Praesidio as well as investors.

Praesidio Chief Technology Officer Sean Cassidy presented at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.

Praesidio’s solution provides banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions with the ability to turn security-related Big Data into actionable intelligence. The technology uses machine learning to aggregate information from all of the institution’s security tools into a single, real-time management and reporting platform. This helps bridge the gap between IT and management, giving decision-makers the ability to clearly monitor and respond to potential security events wherever they appear on the network.

Talking about the company’s technology, Live Oak Bank president Neil Underwood said that deployment of Praesidio’s platform turned his bank’s security response from “reactive to proactive.” The deployment saved the bank “tens of thousands in hard expenditures instantly, averting fraud that could have had massive systemic and enterprise impact, with losses in the millions,” Underwood said.

Founded in May 2014 by CEO Edgardo Nazario, Praesidio made its FinDEVr debut last week in San Francisco. The company has 21 employees.

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Updated: IBSSMail Brings Multifactor, Biometric Authentication to Email

By David Penn Posted on October 12, 2015
Categories: Internet Biometric Security System

Updated with New Code (see below)

Internet Biometric Security Systems (IBSS) is offering a 30-day free trial of its biometric email communication technology, IBSSMail. The service manages both legal and biometric identification of all email account holders, and uses multifactor authentication to ensure that only the intended recipient can read the email as well as any attachments.

IBSS President David Ackerman said, “We are extremely excited about this new base product, which is a significant advancement in e-mail technology privacy protection.”

To take advantage of the free trial, use the promo code: [email protected].

IBSSMail prevents unauthorized access to, and forwarding of, confidential and proprietary e-mail. The service’s multifactor authentication includes human-voice identity, facial recognition, real-time legal identification of all account holders, and other technologies. Email accounts can be set up and secured within minutes, and the service is easy to use. IBSSMail is also offering a feature specifically geared toward the financial services companies: biometric, point-to-point encryption with a click of a button, without any additional setup required.

The company announced that IBSSMail will soon feature new solutions for e-mail printing, conferencing, and multimedia communication, as well. Also in the “coming soon” category is IBSSMail’s patent-pending, real-time online biometric document-signature solution for loan applications, tax returns and other financial services documents. “Our biometric document-signature solution will include content document risk assessment for veracity, resulting in a reduction of human resource costs, and fraud deterrence,” Ackerman said.

Founded in May 2005 and headquartered in San Diego, California, Internet Biometric Security Systems demoed Genesis Enterprise Edition, its biometric identification management system, at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Francisco.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on October 12, 2015
Categories: App Annie, Avalara, Cachet Financial Solutions, Credit Karma, Currency Cloud, Expensify, Hip Money, Hip Pocket, MX, Praesidio, Ripple, Thomson Reuters, Twilio, Wealthfront, WorldPay, Xero

On Finovate.com

“Hip Pocket Introduces its New PFM Solution, Hip Money“

“FinDEVr Newcomer Praesidio Rakes in $3 Million Investment”

Around the web

Cachet Financial Solutions to deploy its Select Mobile Money platform with a global payment solutions provider seeking U.S. expansion.

Currency Cloud launches its Payment Engine Two API to enable faster payments and greater scalability.

D+H Global PayPlus teams up with Ripple, integrating its payment-services hub with Ripple’s distributed-ledger technology.

Thomson Reuters announces content update to its Checkpoint Catalyst FASB reporting solution.

Ahead of its impending IPO, Worldpay firms up IPO price range.

Self Lender names MX as one of three startups “absolutely crushing it” in fintech.

Wealthfront lists App Annie, Avalara, Credit Karma, and Twilio on its list of career-launching companies.

Expensify launches new integration features for Xero.

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: 22 Companies Raise $590 Million Week Ending 9 Oct 2015

By Jim Bruene Posted on October 9, 2015
Categories: Uncategorized

The fourth quarter began with a burst of funding: $585 million, including $254 million in debt, raised across 22 companies worldwide. The total included four Finovate and/or FinDEVr alums: CardFlight, $4.2 million; Ripple, $4 million; Praesidio, $3.1 million; and Spreedly, $500,000.

Almost 40% of the total—$223 million—went to Chinese real estate marketplace FangDD which is not universally classified as fintech. Excluding FangDD, the weekly total was $362 million.

That brings the total raised YTD to more than $15 billion.

Here are the deals from 2 Oct through 9 Oct 2015, listed by size:

FangDD
Consumer real estate platform
HQ: Shenzhen, China
Latest round: $223 million
Total raised: $303 million
Tags: Consumer, home purchase, mortgage
Source: Crunchbase

ZestFinance
Consumer credit underwriting
HQ: Los Angeles, California
Latest round: $150 million Debt
Total raised: $262 million (including $150 million debt)
Tags: Consumer, lending, underwriting, big data, credit scoring, anayltics
Source: Crunchbase

Balance Credit (SunUp Financial)
Consumer alt-lender
HQ: Irving, Texas
Latest round: $100 million Debt
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Consumer, unsecured lending, loans, underwriting, payday
Source: Crunchbase

InvestCloud
Investment management platform
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $45 million Series B
Total raised: $54.1 million
Tags: Enterprise, advisers, investing, trading, custodial
Source: Crunchbase

Paga
Mobile payments
HQ: Lagos, Nigeria
Latest round: $13 million Series B
Total raised: $13+ million
Tags: Consumer, remittances, mobile, P2P, merchants, SMB
Source: Crunchbase

Hixme
Health insurance for employees
HQ: Agoura Hills, California
Latest round: $10.5 million Series A
Total raised: $10.5 million
Tags: Consumer, insurance, benefits, B2B, small business
Source: Crunchbase

Censio
Usage-based insurance tools for vehicles
HQ: Allston, Massachusetts
Latest round: $10 million Series A
Total raised: $13 million
Tags: Consumer, automobile insurance, mobile, telematics, usage-based insurance
Source: Xconomy

VouchedFor
Marketplace for financial advisers and other professional services
HQ: Twickenham, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: $5.4 million
Total raised: $7.7 million
Tags: Consumer, investing, lead gen, wealth management
Source: Crunchbase

CardFlight
Developer tools for mobile card acceptance
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $4.2 million Series A
Total raised: $6.55 million
Tags: B2B, credit cards, payments, mobile, card processing, API, Finovate/FinDEVr alum
Source: Finovate

Ripple
Global payments network
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $4 million
Total raised: $38.4 million
Tags: Consumer, payments, bitcoin, cryptocurrency, blockchain, currency exchange, remittances, P2P, Santander (investor), Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

MPOWER Financing
Marketplace lender for international student loans
HQ: Washington D.C.
Latest round: $4 million Seed
Total raised: $4 million
Tags: Consumer, international college students, loans, lending, P2P, peer-to-peer
Source: Crunchbase

Praesidio
Cybersecurity tools for banks and credit unions
HQ: Seattle, Washington
Latest round: $3.1 million
Total raised: $5 million
Tags: Security, enterprise, FinDEVr 2015 alum
Source: Geekwire

Honest Dollar
Retirement benefit alternative for employers
HQ: Austin, Texas
Latest round: $3 million Debt
Total raised: $3 million
Tags: Consumer, retirement planning, investing, 401(k), SMB, benefits
Source: Crunchbase

HonkMobile
Mobile payments for parking lots
HQ: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Latest round: $3 million Seed
Total raised: $3 million
Tags: Consumer, payments, mobile
Source: Crunchbase

Paribus
Tool to automatically find refund opportunities from retail purchases
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $2.1 million Seed
Total raised: $2.22 million
Tags: Consumer, PFM, credit/debit cards, transaction, cash back, receipts
Source: Crunchbase

MoneySmart
Financial services price-comparison portal
HQ: Singapore
Latest round: $2 million Series A
Total raised: $2 million
Tags: Consumer, lending, banking, insurance, credit cards, lead gen
Source: Crunchbase

Spark
Curated stock and market ideas
HQ: San Diego, California
Latest round: $1+ million Seed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Investing, trading, mobile, Howard Lindzon (investor)
Source: Product Hunt

Toast (formerly Cryptosigma)
Money-transfer service
HQ: Singapore
Latest round: $850,000 Seed
Total raised: $866,000
Tags: Consumer, payments, funds transfer, remittances, cryptocurrency, P2P, person-to-person
Source: CoinDesk

Spreedly
Payment software for marketplaces and platforms
HQ: Durham, North Carolina
Latest round: $500,000
Total raised: $2.7 million
Tags: Credit cards, processing, SMB, merchants, developers, API, Finovate/FinDEVr alum
Source: Crunchbase

Clark
Digital insurance platform
HQ: Berlin, Germany
Latest round: Not disclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Consumer, insurance
Source: FT Partners

ClickPay
Payment software for commercial real estate
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: Undisclosed Series B
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Payments, SMB, real estate, B2B
Source: FT Partners

Olpays
Online payments and collections platform
Latest round: Not disclosed; $3 million valuation
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: SMB, merchants, payments, acquiring
Source: Crunchbase

—–

Image source: 1934 $10,000 bill from wikipedia

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Ripple Labs Makes Waves: Raises $4 Million, Rebrands & Launches Interledger

By David Penn Posted on October 9, 2015
Categories: Ripple

I suppose we should not be surprised when a company like Ripple Labs makes big waves.

An innovator in the field of distributed ledgers and alternative currencies, the company has raised $4 million in funding from Santander InnoVentures. Santander InnoVentures is the venture capital arm of the Spanish financial services giant. The investment completes a $32 million series A round, and brings the Ripple Labs’ total capital to more than $41 million.

InnoVentures managing partner Mariano Belinky said, “We think that the distributed ledger is a technology that will significantly disrupt many processes within a bank.”

And by Ripple Labs, I mean Ripple. The company this week announced it was omitting the word “Lab” from its name. The company is now simply “Ripple,” a name representing the technology’s emergence as an enterprise-grade solution and the debut of two new products for banks: Cross-Currency Settlement and FX Market Making.

Quoted at the Ripple blog, company CEO Chris Larsen referred to both new solutions as part of his team’s effort to modernize payment infrastructure for banks, thereby increasing efficiency and lowering costs.

It is hard to believe, but outmoded payment infrastructure forces banks and their corporate customers to pre-fund foreign accounts for international payments, but then provides few assurances that cross-border transactions will actually settle. With Ripple’s new solutions, banks can now achieve real-time, certain settlement at the lowest total cost possible.

Cross-currency settlement provides for fast, direct, bank-to-bank settlement that is an alternative to correspondent banking. Use-cases for the technology include:

Remittance service for retail customers
International transaction banking service
International corporate payments
Cross-border intra-bank currency transfers

FX Market Making enables banks to use Ripple’s global payments market to provide liquidity for cross-currency trading and real-time settlement. The technology enables both in-house and third-party market-making for banks.

In addition to the investment, Ripple also announced a new partnership with Accenture. Ripple will be offered as a payment option for Accenture customers who are expressing increased demand for blockchain-related products, according to Tim Summers, Accenture managing director for connected commerce.

This week also marks the launch of Ripple’s Interledger Protocol (ILP) to help banks take advantage of blockchain technology. The interledger protocol serves as an arbiter, or what Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas told CoinDesk was a “top-level cryptographic escrow system” that would enable funds to be transferred securely from ledger to ledger. The protocol, explained Thomas in an abstract on the technology, “removes the need to trust the connectors.” He wrote:

Removing the need to trust the connector enables anyone with accounts on two or more ledgers to make connections between them. Connectors can be composed to make payments and the financial system more accessible, competitive and resilient.

Ripple currently has 30 banks experimenting with its technology. Fellow Finovate/FinDEVr alum Fidor Bank AG was the first bank to deploy the technology, announcing in May 2014 that it was using Ripple to move money in three different countries. The company was highlighted by Let’s Talk Payments this August as one of “9 Remittance Startups to Watch Out For,” the same month Ripple was named a 2015 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

Founded 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, Ripple demonstrated its technology (as OpenCoin) at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Francisco.

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CardFlight Scores $4 Million in Series A Funding

By David Penn Posted on October 9, 2015
Categories: CardFlight

In a round led by Dan Henry and MATH Venture Partners, mobile card payment solutions provider, CardFlight has raised $4.2 million in Series A investment. Founder and CEO Derek Webster called the funding a validation of his company’s leadership role in the mobile payments space. He added that the capital would help the company build its engineering team and speed up deployment of CardFlight’s EMV-enabled payment-acceptance technology in the United States.

“We’re excited to be adding investors with such deep experience growing and scaling startups in the payment industry,” Webster said. The investment takes CardFlight’s total capital to more than $6 million.

CardFlight CEO Derek Webster and VP of Engineering Elie Toubiana demonstrated the CardFlight SDK for Mobile Payments at FinDEVr2014 in San Francisco.

Also participating in the round were Silicon Valley Bank, ff Venture Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, Plug & Play Ventures, and Apostolos Apostolakis.

CardFlight was the first mobile service provider to process EMV-enabled credit card payments in the U.S. Last month the company announced that its solutions had been certified by First Data to accept EMV chip-card payments. For fintech developers, CardFlight offers a fully customizable SDK to allow them to integrate card-present payment-functionality to mobile apps. For acquirers and merchant service providers, CardFlight provides technology such as SwipeSimple, a turnkey-hosted mPOS solution.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York City, CardFlight demoed its platform at FinovateSpring 2013, and the technology behind its solution at FinDEVr 2014.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on October 9, 2015
Categories: CardFlight, Emida, MasterCard, Nymi, Ripple, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

“Ripple Labs Makes Waves: Raises $4 Million, Rebrands as Ripple, Launches Interledger”

“CardFlight Scores $4 Million in Series A Funding”

Around the web

MasterCard unveils Identity Check, a suite of solutions that includes biometric and SMS-based, one-time passwords to improve security for online consumers.

KPMG introduces KPMG Fintech 100 to recognize the world’s most disruptive and fast-emerging innovation companies in financial services. Nominations end 31 October 2015.

Santander invests in Ripple as startup expands services.

ThreatMetrix to scale global data center capacity to 200 million+ daily transactions.

Nymi recruits CEO John Haggard; Karl Martin will now serve as CTO.

Emida acquires giftcard-platform specialist Quippi Corporation for an undisclosed amount.

Kristo Kaarmann, co-founder of TransferWise, confirms via Twitter that former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit participated in the company’s $58 million funding round this year.

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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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 8, 2015
Categories: Backbase, BizEquity, Doxo, Forte Payment Systems, Insuritas, Internet Biometric Security System, Internet Biometric Security Systems, Lending Club, Linkable Networks

On Finovate.com

“IBSSMail from IBSS Brings Multifactor, Biometric Authentication to Email”

Around the web

Hudson River Financial FCU ($51 million assets) hires Insuritas to launch insurance agency.

BizEquity partners with Entrepreneur to create a new valuation and performance center for its business community.

Intech Worldwide and Forte Payment Systems form partnership.

Linkable Networks launches a fully digital shopper-attribution solution to bridge digital and in-store.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte opens new Backbase U.S. headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche named to Bloomberg Markets 50 Most Influential list.

doxo wins 2015 Washington Excellence Award for Consumer Payments and Customer Service.

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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FinDEVr Live: Build Blockchain 2.0 Apps with Technology from Blockstack.io

By David Penn Posted on October 7, 2015
Categories: Blockstack, Blockstack.io, FinDEVr 2015, FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco

Blockstack.io | @blockstackio

Blockstack.io is an enterprise software company that sells infrastructure for financial services and other enterprises to create blockchain 2.0 applications quickly and easily. The San Francisco-based company has taken the underlying technology of Bitcoin and sells a hosted, private sandbox to accelerate application development and prototyping. Here is the company’s perspective on blockchain technology for financial services:

Our company’s perspective on blockchain technology for financial services

Blockchain technology for financial services is at the bleeding edge. The enormous potential has increased interest in the technology and created many questions, as well. There are many factors to consider: the technical foundation, the application, the participants, the legal and regulatory frameworks, etc. Blockstack.io shares some thoughts on which areas are important to understand this new and exciting field of blockchain infrastructure.

Key takeaways:

Blockchain is infrastructure technology.
Infrastructure must be flexible and rigid in the right places.
Ecosystems win, not technology alone.

Presenters:

Peter Shiau, CEO, Co-founder
LinkedIn | @petershiau | [email protected]

Lior Saar, CPO, Co-founder
LinkedIn

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FinDEVr Live: OpenTok from TokBox Enables Developers to Add Live Video, Voice, and Messaging to Apps

By David Penn Posted on October 7, 2015
Categories: FinDEVr 2015, FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco, TokBox

tokbox.com | tokbox.com/blog | @tokbox

TokBox, a Telefonica company, develops and operates OpenTok, the leading cloud platform for embedding real-time video, voice, messaging, and screen sharing into websites and mobile applications. Our comprehensive API offers a suite of advanced capabilities, including interoperable mobile and web SDKs, archiving, security, 1:1 and multiparty calls, and more.

The first platform to incorporate support for WebRTC, OpenTok caters to enterprises, entrepreneurs, and developers with powerful APIs. OpenTok has been used to add real-time communications by companies including Mozilla, Royal Bank of Scotland, Valspar, MLB, Ford, Doritos, Bridgestone Gold & Double Robotics.

How to use WebRTC to build engaging fintech applications
For all the efficiency and convenience that technologies have brought to financial services, a key challenge continues to be their impact on customer satisfaction rates. How can organizations provide topnotch service when most customers, especially millennials, experience services through a website or mobile application and have never set foot in a branch?

Enter WebRTC, the HTML5 standard making it possible to embed secure live video, voice, and text communications directly into the context of your website or application. Learn about the development challenges, best practices, and how fintech companies are already integrating WebRTC into OTT services today.

Key takeaways:

What WebRTC is and how it can transform fintech applications
How financial service companies can leverage WebRTC to bring the same high-quality customer service from brick-and-mortar stores online
The development challenges and best practices for building with WebRTC

Presenter:
Badri Rajasekar, CTO
@baddn

Rajasekar is the CTO and SVP of engineering at TokBox, the provider of OpenTok, the leading real-time communications platform. He leads the core engineering and operations teams and is responsible for end-to-end service delivery, including product development, quality engineering, and customer solutions.

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FinDEVr Live: Checkbook Introduces API for Digital Checks

By David Penn Posted on October 7, 2015
Categories: Checkbook.io, FinDEVr 2015, FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco

checkbook.io | @checkbookio

Businesses and individuals are still writing paper checks. Checkbook is solving the problem of paper checks by introducing digital checks. The company has built a way for individuals/businesses to send and receive digital checks without the need for signing up.

Checkbook’s API provides merchants with a way to accept digital checks on their websites with a couple lines of code. Digital checks can do real-time balance verification, thus minimizing NSF risk present in ACH. We charge a flat fee of $1 per check or less for businesses, and it’s free for individuals.

API for digital checks
Our presentation will show both a business and an individual sending a digital check using a browser. It will be an end-to-end experience with the beneficiary receiving and depositing the check.

Additionally, we will demo a site using our API to receive digital checks and go over the API integration.

Key takeaways:

Digital checks
API for digital checks
UI/UX for digital checks

Presenters:

PJ Gupta, Founder
LinkedIn | [email protected]

Gupta is a techie with an entrepreneurial spirit who lives and breathes payments. He is the former chief network architect at VISA.

Tim Kay, Technical Staff
LinkedIn | [email protected]

Kay built—all by himself, before it was easy—a check-printing system to solve the problem of paper checks. He holds a doctorate in computer science from Caltech.

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