Feature Friday: Umpqua Showcases the Closest Branch on its Website

Feature Friday: Umpqua Showcases the Closest Branch on its Website

umpqua_personal_home

I’m not a fan of bank branches (except Chase’s Northeast Seattle outpost, Hi Ben). In my view, 80% of what goes on there is better done remotely, and the other 20% just doesn’t provide enough ROI. But if you do have good branches, you should at least use your digital presence to showcase them.

Probably the best example of growing a franchise using branching—at least in the United States over the past 20 years—is Umpqua Bank. It grew from a small community bank to a West Coast regional on the back of its innovative branching strategy. (Warning! Do not try to copy this strategy; it’s not 1995 any more.) So, it’s no surprise that Umpqua is one of the more adept FIs in showcasing their local, branch-based services.

Most large banks require users to enter a ZIP code to personalize the website experience. But even then, you generally have to go to an ATM/branch finder to locate the closest branch. Umpqua wisely automates this process on both its desktop and mobile website, though it works more seamlessly on the desktop (see desktop example, above).

umpqua_open_signThe bank uses visitor IP addresses to showcase branches in their city, but it goes one step further (at least in Chrome), by asking permission to use your location. If granted, Umpqua shows the exact branch closest to you. The branch name, address, and contact info are showcased right across the top of the screen. Finally—and I love this little touch—during open hours, there is an old-school “Open” sign in the right-hand corner. They could go one step further and add the temperature and maybe the time right below.

Those personalization techniques, while quite simple, makes prospective customers feel confident that the bank has a local orientation and really desires their business, whether it be digital or branch-focused.

Not everything Umpqua does is perfect. The bank also attempts to showcase local events on the left-hand column. But in my testing today, they were wildly off base. For instance, it listed a farmers market that was 40 miles away and didn’t mention the one within walking distance.

TIO Networks Garners $1.7 Million From Secondary Stock Offering

TIO Networks Garners $1.7 Million From Secondary Stock Offering

TIONetworkHomepage

TIO Networks, which went public in 2000, recently issued a non-brokered private placement of up to 2.1 million common shares. Each share is priced at $0.82 USD ($1.08 CAD), and gross proceeds will total up to $1.7 million USD ($2.2 million CAD).

The Vancouver-based company did not disclose much about how it plans to use the proceeds, other than for “general working capital purposes.”

TIO Networks’ cloud-based bill-payment-processing solution enables bill issuers to provide payment services for their underbanked customers. Earlier this summer, the company acquired Softgate Systems, a consumer bill-payment solutions-provider, for $31 million USD.

At FinovateSpring 2012, the company debuted TIO MobilePay, a mobile app that enables customers to make same-day payments for their utility bills with their Visa or MasterCard credit/debit card.

Finovate Debuts: FundAmerica Helps Crowdfunders Stay Compliant

Finovate Debuts: FundAmerica Helps Crowdfunders Stay Compliant

FundAmerica_homepage_Aug2015

 

Ask FundAmerica founder and CEO Scott Purcell what his company’s services are and who they are for, and his answer is refreshingly simple: “Anyone raising money online needs to use our services,” Purcell says with a smile. “We’re the guys that keep you from going to jail.”

Put a little less colorfully, FundAmerica provides an API- and browser-based compliance platform for crowdfunders. FundAmerica’s back-end compliance solutions include everything from AML and escrow services, to payment processing and state dealer representation; in short, all that is needed by investment advisers, broker-dealers and others to raise capital pursuant to 506(c), 506(b), Reg A+, and rule 4(a)(6) crowdfunding regulations.

FundAmerica_stage_FS2015

FundAmerica founder and CEO Scott Purcell demonstrated FundAmerica’s API for crowdfunding platform compliance at FinovateSpring 2015.

At FinovateSpring 2015, FundAmerica demonstrated its API for crowdfunding platform compliance. Purcell noted that in a few years “every business, every real estate developer, anyone looking for capital will be doing so online. And that presents a very complex set of problems so it can be done effectively and safely.”

Fortunately for crowdfunders, there’s FundAmerica.

Company facts:

  • Founded in November 2011
  • Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Raised $2.25 million in angel investment
  • Signed 125 crowdfunding platforms
  • Opened more than 40 escrows in the first three months
  • Scott Purcell is founder and CEO

How it works

FundAmerica’s platform ensures that crowdfunders are doing everything correctly and in a compliant manner. This begins with collecting issuer information, and associated persons such as executive officers, directors and major shareholders. This ensures that the AML process is off to a compliant-start, including background “bad-actor checks” with the SEC.

Details of the offering can be recorded on the platform for ready provision to the registered transfer agent. This takes account of both basic information, legends or restrictions, as well as whether the offering is equity or debt.

InvestNow_ART1

Once all the information is entered into the system, the subscription and escrow agreements are generated for investors to sign. At this point, Purcell explained, “The transaction is in the system, it’s registered, AML has been run, due diligence has been looked at. Everything is ready for this issuer to now conduct a compliant online fund-raise—either by themselves or through a crowdfunding platform.”

Potential investors visiting the crowdfunding platform see information about the company, its leadership, background, metrics, and so on. The difference is that with FundAmerica, each offering will include an “Invest Now” button that, when pressed, fast-tracks the process.

InvestNow_ART2

A pop-up menu allows investors to enter in their name, contact details, amount of investment and payment method. Then, relevant documents to facilitate the transfer, such as an electronic ACH debit-authorization form and a substitute 1099 form, appear automatically for completion and electronic signing.

All completed documents are stored online for compliance and emailed to the investor for their records.

InvestNow_ART3

“The idea is to make it as easy and as friction-free as possible for the issuer to get the money into escrow,” said Purcell. “For the back-end service providers to do the AML checks [necessary] on the issuer; to [ensure] the funds that are going to transfer, are settled and cleared; and that all of the blocking and tackling on the banking ecosystem is able to happen.”

On the issuer side, the system provides an alert that lets him or her know both when new funds have been pledged as well as when they actually arrive in escrow. Simultaneously, the back-end processes ensure everything is happening in the proper sequence: AML is conducted before the securities are actually sold, and funds are settled and cleared before anything is released from escrow and transferred to the issuer.

“That’s what FundAmerica does,” Purcell said. “We package the ecosystem—the plumbing—for the crowdfunding industry.”

The future

“People are excited that someone is doing what FundAmerica is doing,” Purcell said. “There’s no one else doing it.” FundAmerica combines technical knowledge with a strong compliance-oriented management team, a good place to be “when a company’s security attorneys come to us,” Purcell says. “We’re good, authoritative people for them to talk to. We give out a lot of free advice.”

Since its Finovate debut, FundAmerica launched its “flex” payment-processing feature, which allows platforms to separate their share from an issuer payment and forward the rest to investors. The feature is available through both the online portal as well as the API, and serves as a boon for platforms that earn revenues from the difference between the rate a sponsor or developer pays and the rate paid out to investors.

InvestNow_ART4

June 2015 marked the month FundAmerica unveiled its FundAmerica Stock Transfer (“FAST”) service, a registered transfer agent for Reg A+ and 506b/c. Using RESTful APIs to make it easy to integrate into crowdfunding platforms, FAST helps with investor records management and other tools to manage changes in ownership, payment histories, vesting details, and more.

New initiatives aside, FundAmerica has just begun a Series A funding round, so the company is actively looking for and talking with investors. Beyond that FundAmerica is eager to make strategic partners. “We are the Intel Inside for crowdfunding platforms,” Purcell said. “We build solutions to help crowdfunders conduct a compliant operation with the least amount of investor friction.”


Check out the FinovateSpring 2015 demo video for FundAmerica below

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Finovate Debuts: Emailage Detects Fraud Through User’s Email Address”
  • “Finovate Debuts: FundAmerica Helps Crowdfunders Stay Compliant”
  • “TIO Networks Garners $1.7 Million From Secondary Stock Offering”

Around the web

  • CashStar names Katherine Edenbach as its new corporate controller.
  • E-SignLive by Silanis picked as a KMWorld Trend-Setting Product of 2015.
  • CIO cites Avoka’s win of most innovative customer solution during Citi’s demo day in London.
  • Aquiline Capital Partners reveals an investment in Fenergo, an Irish-client, lifecycle-management specialist.
  • Intuit to sell off Quicken with no plans to divest Mint or Mint bills.
  • Holvi launches app for iOS and Android.

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.

Fintech Fundings: 27 Companies Raise $1.6 Billion Week Ending Aug 21

Man_moneyFintech funding records continue to fall. Last week was the record number of deals with 27. This week it was the biggest total dollars raised at $1.6 billion, from 27 companies again. The vast majority of the money ($1.5 billion) went to three online lenders (Sofi = $1 billion; Avant = $340 million; Dianrong = $220 million). As private companies, there is not a lot of transparency about deal-terms in these three mega-rounds. However, we expect most, if not all, of the funding was structured as debt.

One Finovate alum was in the mix this week: Tio Networks picked up $1.7 million in a secondary stock offering. So far this year, 94 Finovate alums have raised $2.9 billion, about a quarter of the $11.9 billion raised by the entire fintech sector (weekly detail).

Here are the deals by size from 14 August to 20 Aug 2015:

SoFI (Social Finance)
Student loan marketplace lender
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $1 billion ($4 billion valuation)
Total raised: $1.75 billion (at least $400 million is debt)
Tags: Student loans, credit, underwriting, refinance, crowdfunding, P2P, investing
Source: Wall Street Journal

Avant
Alt-consumer lending
HQ: Chicago, Illinois
Latest round: $339 million (Debt)
Total raised: $1.43 billion ($1.1 billion debt, $330 million equity)
Tags: Consumer credit, underwriting
Source: Fortune

Dianrong
Marketplace lender and digital banking solutions provider
HQ: Shanghai, China
Latest round: $207 million Series C ($1 billion valuation)
Total raised: $219 million
Tags: Lending, digital banking, P2P, credit, consumer, SMB, underwriting, Standard Charter (lead investor)
Source: FT Partners

LaunchPoint
Health care payments and analytics software
HQ: Goleta, California
Latest round: $22.5 million
Total raised: $26 million
Tags: Payments, insurance, BI, analytics, enterprise
Source: FT Partners

Revel Systems
iPad-based point-of-sale system
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $13.5 million ($500+ million valuation)
Total raised: $129 million
Tags: Merchants, SMB, card acquiring, POS, mobile, tablet
Source: Crunchbase

GroupLend
Canadian marketplace lender
HQ: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Latest round: $10.2 million
Total raised: $10.2 million
Tags: Lending, consumer, credit, loans, underwriting, investing, P2P, crowdfunding
Source: FT Partners

MarketInvoice
Marketplace lender for invoice-backed, small-business loans
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: $9.3 million Series A
Total raised: $20 million
Tags: SMB, crowdfunding, P2P, factoring, investing
Source: FT Partners

GuiaBolso
Brazilian personal finance service
Latest round: $7 million
Total raised: $7 million
Tags: PFM, personal finance, money management
Source: FT Partners

Guideline Technologies
401(k) solutions
HQ: San Mateo, California
Latest round: $2 million Seed
Total raised: $2 million
Tags: Investing, retirement, wealth management
Source: Crunchbase

nVoicePay
B2B payments network
HQ: Portland, Oregon
Latest round: $1.8 million
Total raised: $8.0 million
Tags: Payments, invoicing, accounts payable, accounting, receivables, SMB
Source: FT Partners

Tio Networks
Cloud-based billing services
HQ: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Latest round: $1.7 million Secondary Stock Offering
Total raised: $22.7 million
Tags: Billpay, payments, SMB, accounts payable, invoicing, Finovate alum
Source: FT Partners

HouseHappy
Residential real estate marketplace
HQ: Portland, Oregon
Latest round: $1.3 million
Total raised: $5.0 million
Tags: Home buying, mortgage, lending
Source: Geekwire

CreditPoint Software
Risk metrics for B2B credit
HQ: Owasso, Oklahoma
Latest round: $890,000
Total raised: $1.05 million
Tags: Commercial lending, underwriting, SMB, credit report
Source: WhoGotFunded

Capital Match
Peer-to-peer lending marketplace for small businesses
HQ: Singapore
Latest round: $710,000
Total raised: $710,000
Tags: Credit, P2P, lending, underwriting, investing, SMB
Source: Crunchbase

Simply Wall Street
Mobile investment research and management tool
HQ: Sydney, Australia
Latest round: $600,000
Total raised: $700,000
Tags: Investing, trading, research, valuations, stock market, mobile
Source: FT Partners

Awamo
Microfinance management for the institution
HQ: Frankfurt, Germany
Latest round: $550,000
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Lending, micro-credit, underwriting, servicing
Source: WhoGotFunded

Agio Technologies
Currency exchange app
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: $235,000
Total raised: $430,000
Tags: Mobile, fx, remittances, payments, funds transfer
Source: Crunchbase

Captain401
Easy 401(k) solutions
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $120,000
Total raised: $120,000
Tags: Y Combinator (YC S15), investing, retirement, wealth management
Source: Bank Innovations

Drip Capital
Online small-business lender
HQ: Sunnyvale, California
Latest round: $120,000
Total raised: $120,000
Tags: Y Combinator (YC S15), SMB, lending, credit, underwriting
Source: Techcrunch

Greenshoe (Saida)
Microlending in emerging markets
Latest round: $120,000
Total raised: $120,000
Tags: Y Combinator (YC S15), lending, underbanked, underwriting, consumer, credit
Source: Bank Innovations

SericaPay
Online and mobile payment platform
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $120,000
Total raised: $120,000
Tags: Y Combinator (YC S15), payments, acquiring, merchants, SMB
Source: Bank Innovations

Tab
Mobile payments geared to travelers

HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: $120,000
Total raised: $120,000
Tags: Y Combinator (YC S15), payments
Source: Bank Innovations

Tesorio
Accounts receivable financing
HQ: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Latest round: $120,000
Total raised: $120,000
Tags: Y Combinator (YC S15), payments, acquiring, merchants, SMB
Source: Bank Innovations

Vest
Simplified stock-hedging via options
HQ: McClean, Virginia
Latest round: $120,000
Total raised: $120,000
Tags: Y Combinator (YC S15), investing, trading, options, stock market
Source: Dealbreaker

Xendit
Mobile payments
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $120,000
Total raised: $120,000
Tags: Y Combinator (YC S15), payments, mobile, wallet, Indonesia (market)
Source: Techcrunch

We Are Briqs
Digital banking solutions
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Online, mobile banking
Source: FT Partners

Moneytis
Low-cost money-transfer service
HQ: Paris, France
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Payments, blockchain, remittances, FX
Source: Crunchbase

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Gro Solutions

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Gro Solutions

GroHomepage

 

The Sneak Peek series looks at the innovators demoing live on stage at FinovateFall 2015. Be sure to pick up your tickets to our annual autumn conference, and we’ll see you in New York!

GroSolutionsLogoGro Solutions’ Gro Account Opening helps financial institutions present a mobile front door that meets and exceeds the mobile expectations of the new customer.

Features:

  • Embraces what mobile does well and minimizes its shortcomings
  • Streamlines data-entry to reduce abandonment rates
  • Introduces entirely new account-origination system: new process and experience

Why it’s great
With Gro Account Opening, financial institutions are seeing their mobile account opening abandonment rates dramatically fall, below even those of the typical online rates.

GroPresenter1Presenters

David Eads, CEO
Eads is a frequent industry speaker and veteran of the mobile banking industry, previously with mFoundry (now FIS) and Kony.
LinkedIn

GroPresenter2Paul Mackowick, CRO
Mackowick has 25+ years in enterprise marketing and sales with IBM, Oracle, mFoundry (now FIS) and Mitek.
LinkedIn

 

 

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Kapitall

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Kapitall

KapitallHomepage

The Sneak Peek series looks at the innovators demoing live on stage at FinovateFall 2015. Be sure to pick up your tickets to our annual autumn conference, and we’ll see you in New York!

NewKapitallHoldingsLogoKapitall, a unique and gamified investing platform, presents Kapitall—an exciting, savings-first app modeled on the globally successful concept of prize-linked savings accounts.

Features:

  • Good financial behavior earns cash rewards
  • Save money, pay down debt or take personal finance quizzes to play
  • Win prizes based on how much you save, pay down debt, and improve financial knowledge

Why it’s great
Good financial behavior earns you cash rewards.

Presenter

Jeremy Pink, CEO LinkedIn
Jeremy also serves as a consultant to global technology, media and financial companies. Previously, Jeremy was a top executive at CNBC.

 

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Voitrax

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Voitrax

VoitraxHomepageThe Sneak Peek series looks at the innovators demoing live on stage at FinovateFall 2015. Be sure to pick up your tickets to our annual autumn conference, and we’ll see you in New York!

VoitraxLogoVoitrax is the only complete solution to comply with Dodd-Frank trade reconstruction requirements. It links and tags all of your trade communications exactly as regulators want them.

Features:

  • Unified communications ready for regulatory reporting as they happen
  • Ability to identify suspicious transactions in real time
  • A complete Trade Reconstruction solution, simplified and delivered

Why it’s great
Voitrax solves one of the toughest requirements in Dodd-Frank. We use a proprietary algorithm to index and tag all of your communications.

VoitraxPresenter1Presenters

Levi Orbach,CEO, Co-founder
Orbach has more than 25 years of Wall Street experience. Mr. Orbach is one of the world’s leading experts in compliance.
LinkedIn

VoitraxPresenter2Craig Eagle, COO, Co-Founder
Eagle is a renowned technology and project-management expert who has produced cutting-edge software for many Fortune 500 companies including some of the world’s largest banks.
LinkedIn

Moshe Rayman,CTO, Co-FounderVoitraxPresenter3
Rayman is a Wall Street technology veteran of more than 20 years, with vast experience in developing real-time systems for the trading floor.
LinkedIn

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: TransferTo

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: TransferTo

TransferToHomepage

The Sneak Peek series looks at the innovators demoing live on stage at FinovateFall 2015. Be sure to pick up your tickets to our annual autumn conference. We’ll see you in New York!

TransferTo FinovateTransferTo operates a global Mobile Money Hub, enabling organizations to transfer money in real time to mobile phones. The company expects 1 billion mobile money-accounts by 2020.

Features:

  • Faster – real-time transfer to even the most remote locations
  • Better value – lower costs
  • More secure – strong compliance engine screens each transaction

Why it’s great
TransferTo helps businesses offer mobile money, goods and services, and airtime top-ups around the world in real time. TransferTo will launch its Mobile Money Hub at Finovate Fall.

Presenters

TransferToPresenter1Eric Barbier, CEO
Barbier founded TransferTo in 2005. He previously co-founded Mobile 365—the global leader in mobile messaging interoperability of SMS—which was acquired by Sybase in 2006 (for $425 million USD).
LinkedIn

TransferToPresenter2Charles Damen, EVP Global BD, Mobile Money
Damen is responsible for the development of Mobile Money and its strategic partnerships. Charles was a founding member of Mobile 365 and his previous positions include head of global payments at Badoo.com
LinkedIn

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: RedCloud

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: RedCloud

RedCloudHomepage

The Sneak Peek series looks at the innovators demoing live on stage at FinovateFall 2015. Be sure to pick up your tickets to our annual autumn conference, and we’ll see you in New York!

RedCloudLogoRedCloud’s RedCloud 1, launching in November, is a distributed, cloud-based platform used by banks and fintech companies to deliver the next generation of financial services.

Features:

  • Increased speed
  • Greater interoperability
  • Near real-time customization

Why it’s great
With RedCloud 1, banks and fintech companies are ready for the next era in payments. RedCloud 1 empowers clients to build for a Global Marketplace with ease, no matter what size.RedCloudPresenter1

Presenters

Justin Floyd, Founder
Floyd is an entrepreneur and investor, currently serving as a board director and CEO of RedCloud Technologies.
LinkedIn

RedCloudPresenter2Soumaya Hamzaoui, Chief Product Officer
Hamzaoui is an entrepreneur, investor and chief product officer, most recently involved with RedCloud as their product leader in the company’s global market development.
LinkedIn

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Ethoca

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Ethoca

EthocaHomepage

The Sneak Peek series looks at the innovators demoing live on stage at FinovateFall 2015. Be sure to pick up your tickets to our annual autumn conference, and we’ll see you in New York!

EthocaLogoEthoca Alerts helps merchants eliminate chargebacks through a global collaboration network that provides the industry’s largest source of confirmed fraud and customer dispute data.

Features:

  • Eliminate chargebacks
  • Mitigate fraud loss
  • Increase card acceptance

Why it’s great
Ethoca is the world’s largest global collaboration network, connecting 30+ issuing banks and over 2,100 merchants worldwide.

Presenters
EthocaPresenter
Julie Fergerson, SVP, Industry Solutions
Fergerson is a leading expert on internet payments fraud with more than 20 years’ experience in the online payments and fraud management industry.
LinkedIn

EthocaPresenter2Steve Durney, SVP, Issuer Relations
Durney has two-plus decades of experience in assessing and implementing a wide range of loss mitigation, cost efficiency, and process solutions.
LinkedIn

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Finovate Debuts: Emailage Detects Fraud Through Users’ Email Address

Finovate Debuts: Emailage Detects Fraud Through Users’ Email Address

 

EmailageHomepage

Emailage is a unique fraud prevention company. Its global risk assessment service helps companies underwrite risk simply by analyzing email addresses, with no further personal information required.

Emailage facts:

  • Saved companies over $140 million last year
  • Is used on every continent except Antarctica
  • Has offices in Sao Paulo, Brazil and London

Emailage has access to more than 4 billion email addresses, 25 million of which are associated with fraud. If an email address in a client’s list is associated with fraud, Emailage flags it and assigns a risk score.

The company’s fraud-prevention solution applies to any situation where an email address is provided. Examples include:

  • Account onboarding
  • P2P money-transfer
  • Account maintenance for existing customers
  • Ecommerce transactions

Additionally, Emailage has partnered with other fraud-prevention solutions to provide an added layer of protection.

How it works

URLEMAILIP1) Receive email addresses
Clients upload batches of email addresses to check for fraud. Multiple ways to upload include:

  • Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer
  • Rest API
  • Web portal
  • Batch processing
  • Secure file transfer protocol (SFTP)
  • URL/ HTTP Get calls

2) Evaluate risk
Emailage validates the emails and collects data associated with them. In real time, its algorithm alerts clients of any fraudulent activity associated with the addresses. It uses machine learning, so fraud alerts improve with every use.

3) Assign risk score
Emailage sends clients a risk score for each email address, along with the data, such as domain information, accompanying each.

EmailageOutput

The fraud-risk output is easy to understand. Businesses can customize the data by adjusting the scoring system to suit their preferences. Emailage’s algorithm detects 50% of all fraud problems with a 30% hit ratio. Its scoring system ranges from 1 to 1,000:

Emailageriskscore

In January, Forbes listed Emailage as one of 100 of America’s most promising companies of 2015.

Emailage debuted its browser extensions at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose. Check out the demo video below.