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Alumni News– December 10, 2014

By David Penn Posted on December 10, 2014
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Backbase, Dwolla, eMoney Advisor, Entersekt, Kasasa, Lendio, MasterCard, Mitek, Motif Investing, Payfone, PayItSimple, PayPal, PayStand, Receivables Exchange, Temenos, Wealthfront, Xero

NCR to sell new mobile imaging solutions from Mitek.

Backbase teams up with Accenture to help FIs improve customer engagement through digital channels.

Dwolla announces role as payment partner for Microsoft for Government initiative.

Australia-based ME Bank deploys core banking system, business intelligence, and anti-money laundering solutions from Temenos.

MasterCard launches MasterPass in France and Russia.

Finovate Debuts: eMoney Advisor Provides Financial Advisors with a Suite of New Planning Tools.

Independent Financial Advisor takes a look at Motif Investing and Wealthfront.

Xero reaches 400,000 paying customers.

Entersekt responds to FIDO Alliance’s U2F specifications with its FIDO U2F-enabled authentication solution, Transakt.

Fintech for the Rest of Us blog mentions PayStand over PayPal and Stripe for bitcoin payments.

PayItSimple integrates with 30 more payment gateways in collaboration with Spreedly now integrated with approximately 70% of all gateways in the US.

Payfone and Early Warning partner on mobile authentication.

Marlborough Savings Bank now offers Kasasa to enhance checking account offering.

Spend Matters reports: Receivables Exchange the largest of the Online Invoice Auction Exchanges.

Arxan announces enhanced mobile runtime app self protection (RASP) capabilities.

Lendio named One of Utah’s Best Companies to Work For in 2014.

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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BehavioSec Lands $6 Million Led by Northzone and Octopus Investments

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 9, 2014
Categories: BehavioSec, Funding

In the past few years, we’ve witnessed the evolution of security beyond usernames and passwords. Founded in 2009, BehavioSec is one of the forerunners of this trend; making security invisible to the end user.

Today, the Swedish company announced $6.2 million (€5 million) round led by Northzone and Octopus Investments. Existing investors, Conor Venture Partners and Partner Invest Norr, also contributed.

A 2011 installment of $500k and a 2008 round of $1.2 million bring BehavioSec’s total funding to almost $8 million.

BehavioSec plans to use the funds to:

Accelerate international growth
Expand presence in the U.K. and U.S.
Support existing clients
Invest further in existing products

The uptick in recent security hacks has brought about increased approval for the use of biometrics. From Apple’s TouchID to Nymi’s Nymi Band, companies and customers are growing accustomed to using physical assets for authentication. BehavioSec takes a slightly different approach. Instead of authenticating using a person’s physical attributes, it verifies an identity by passively observing how they interact with their device.

This week, BehavioSec welcomes three new board members: Simon Andrews of Octopus, Bjorn Stray of Northzone and Chris Barchak of Conor Venture Partners.

BehavioSec has won awards most recently at FinovateEurope 2014 and FinDEVr. It has won Best of Show at FinovateAsia 2013 and FinovateSpring 2012.

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Alumni News– December 9, 2014

By David Penn Posted on December 9, 2014
Categories: Actiance, App Annie, Betterment, Blackhawk Network, Cachet Financial Solutions, CrowdFlower, Dashlane, iQuantifi, Klarna, Knox, Mitek, Personal Capital, SecondMarket, SigFig, Trustev, Wealthfront, Yodlee

Cachet Financial Solutions to offer Mitek’s Mobile Photo Account Opening SaaS suite.

CrowdFlower CEO Lukas Biewald writes personally about the relationship between startups and their boards of directors.

Investor Junkie reviews roboadvisor, iQuantifi.

Knox Payments partners with ChangeTip to support bitcoin transaction via ACH.

CardNotPresent takes a look at Klarna’s US expansion plans.

Yodlee introduces transaction data enrichment service.

Fox News compares funding of Wealthfront, Personal Capital, Betterment, and SigFig.

Blackhawk Network’s closed loop gift cards available at some USPS locations.

VentureBeat: App Annie now tracks stats from Windows and Windows Phone stores.

SecondMarket wins 48,000 Bitcoin in U.S. Marshals auction.

Actiance extends security capabilities to email.

TechCrunch: Trustev Uses Fraud Detection Software to Crack Down on Internet Trolls.

Dashlane launches one-click password changer.

BehavioSec Lands $6 Million Led by Northzone and Octopus Investments.

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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MasterCard Leads $70 Million Investment in Dynamics

By David Penn Posted on December 8, 2014
Categories: Dynamics, MasterCard

“There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?”

–Walter Brooke, The Graduate

Dynamics announced today that it had completed a Series C investment round, raising $70 million from new and existing investors. Along with MasterCard is new investor, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, both of which teamed up with existing investors, Adams Capital Management and Bain Capital Ventures.

The total capital for Dynamics is now more than $110 million.

In addition to the investment, MasterCard will enter a joint commercial initiative with Dynamics to bring the company’s cards to businesses in Mastercard’s global payments network as well as CIBC’s customers.

It is interesting to hear the way MasterCard and CIBC executives talk about the card technology from Dynamics. For these companies, as far as commerce is concerned, plastic cards and smart devices have more in common than some may think.

Carlos Menendez, group executive for global credit and debit products for MasterCard talked about the importance of turning “every device” into a “commerce device.” “This not only includes a shift to mobile-based payments but also a move from ‘static’ plastic to ‘dynamic’ interactive payment cards and systems,” he said. A senior executive with CIBC added that the partnership with Dynamics was “already having a positive impact.”

What makes Dynamics unique is the fact that the company is the definition of a one-stop shop. As CEO Jeff Mullen explained from the stage at FinovateFall 2014 in New York last September: “We have the only facility in payments that actually does device design, device manufacturing, PCI compliant network-certified processing personalization fulfillment all under one roof.”

(Above: Jeff Mullen, CEO of Dynamics at FinovateFall 2014)

“And when you can do it all under one roof,” he said. “You start to see things, and it allows you to really take innovation to the next level.”

Dynamics innovations have included a battery-powered card that enabled consumers to change the data stored on their EMV chip simply by pushing buttons on the card itself, a system that provides loyalty rewards on credit transactions faster by using the credit transaction data itself and, most recently, the first multi-network card that combines both innovations.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dynamics has won multiple Best of Show awards for its card technology. The company’s last Finovate appearance was at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

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Alumni News– December 8, 2014

By David Penn Posted on December 8, 2014
Categories: Azimo, Bolstr, FIS, Misys, Nymi, On Deck Capital, TD Ameritrade, TSYS, VerifyValid, WePay

Fifth Third Bank chooses FIS’ C2P Open Payments Platform.

Misys unveils FusionRisk Limits.

Azimo announces £1 instant money transfers to 15 countries in Latin America.

Mobile Payments Today takes a look at the mobile checkbook app from VerifyValid.

WePay picks Google Cloud Platform as its new hosting provider.

VentureBeat features Nymi as a physical password solution.

Small Business Trends features Bolstr.

TSYS recognized in The Civic 50, an initiative that recognizes companies for improving the quality of life in their communities.

OnDeck ranked 21 on Crain’s NY Business Best Places to Work 2014.

Huffington Post interviews OnDeck’s Andrea Gellert.

TD Ameritrade has the #1 trading app in the Apple app store.

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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Finovate Debuts: SAS Games Helps Kids Save for College by Playing Games

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 5, 2014
Categories: Finovate Debuts, SAS Games

The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. Today’s feature is SAS Games, which demonstrated its TiViTz College $avings Game-a-thon at FinovateFall 2014.

SAS Games’ TiViTz College $avings Game-a-thon offers a way for kids to save for college tuition by playing fun, math-based games.

The game-a-thon works similar to a walk-a-thon. Kids ages 6 to 18 solicit pledges from friends and family, whose total contribution is based on the child’s performance. To redeem the pledges and add the money to their college savings account, the child is challenged with TiVitz math games online.

Aside from bolstering funds in existing accounts, the games encourage families without a college savings fund to open one.

Stats:

$5+ million in funding raised
10 employees
10,000 teachers use TiVitz
400,000 children use TiVitz
TiVitz game has won awards from:

Parent’s Choice
Dr. Toy
National Parenting
Creative Child

How it works:

1) Kids set up their TiViTz account online
The registration process requires student and parent information, along with a $10 annual registration fee.

2) Link an existing college savings account or establish a new one
Through SAS Games’ partnership with TrustEgg, parents of children without a savings account can open one in minutes (watch TrustEgg’s debut at FinovateSpring 2013).

3) Request pledges from friends and family
Kids set up their own personalized pledge page and send the link to friends and family. They may also send donation requests via email, text, social media, and printed flyers.

4) Play the game
In the TiVitz game, kids challenge each other or a computer. The difficulty of the game scales for grade levels 1 to 12.

Players customize their avatar and choose among 7 themes, such as Safari or Baseball. Once the game has ended, they tally their score by computing the equations on the board.

5) Collect pledges
When the child finishes the required number of games, TiVitz automatically invoices the friends and family members who pledged. Occasionally, companies and financial institutions match donations to help kids reach their goals faster.

6) Track college savings
The dashboard displays the total amount raised from friends and family, along with matched charity contributions. From the home screen, kids can personalize their pledge page, view the number of pledges requested and received, and more.

The TiVitz online Game-a-thon is held once a year, around the holidays. Kids play 5 to 16 games each, depending on the amount of their pledges. Other activities around the TiVitz game include:

TiVitz Tournaments
Boeing, Lockheed, NASA, National Hockey League, SeaWorld, and Major League Baseball sponsor tournaments where kids win college scholarships

TiVitz Tuesdays
SAS Games is partnered with McDonald’s in Florida which hosts kids every Tuesday to practice for TiVitz tournaments

Benefits

For families and children:

Encourages them to open a new savings account
Helps them save more money for college
Augments math and critical thinking skills

For banks:

Provides access to new clients
Has potential to add new savings accounts for existing customers
Adds more funds to existing savings accounts
Enhances Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) efforts in local communities

SAS Games demonstrated its TiVitz College $avings Game-a-thon at FinovateFall 2014.

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ebankIT to Help Banks Embrace Massively MultiChannel Banking

By David Penn Posted on December 5, 2014
Categories: ebankIT, ITSector

You met them as IT Sector Group. Now say hello to the company’s very own multichannel banking solution provider, ebankIT.

ebankIT was created in January 2014 by IT Sector Group, just weeks before its FinovateEurope debut. The mission? Building truly multichannel banking solutions that embrace trends both social (a Facebook banking app) and technological (Internet banking for Google Glass). And it will be interesting to see just how far they’ve come when they return to the Finovate stage in February.

“Our presentation at FinovateEurope 2015 aims to maximize the interaction of financial institutions and clients by extending the concept of omnichannel and social banking,” said ebankIT Marketing and Communications Director, Lis Ferreira. In a conversation a few days ago, Ferreira highlighted the company’s initiatives over the past several months. Specifically, she pointed to the launch of the first Portuguese banking app for Google Glass, released last month by Banco Big. And in October, the release of PIM – Personal Investment Manager, a mobile trading app for stocks and other financial instruments.

At the same time, the company has picked up a number of clients, including financial institutions in Poland, Mozambique, and Angola.

Activo Bank
Atlantico (Lisboa)
Caixa Geral de Depositos (Portugal)
Millennium Bank (Poland)
Millennium BIM (Mozambique)
Standard Bank (Mozambique)

Specific deployments have varied. But each represents a step forward in engaging banking customers on their preferred channels. ebankIT’s solutions include not just novel solutions for wearables and social banking, but self-service banking kiosks, contact centers, account management, branch front desk services, as well. The company also provides tools for financial professionals such as Commercial GPS (demoed at FinvoateEurope 2014), which makes it easier for sales executive to manage deals at the desk or on the go.

(Above: IT Sector’s Joao Pinto, Director, and Vitor Barros, IT Architect, demonstrating Commercial GPS)

Ferreira admits that many of the bigger banks can be “afraid to open up to new companies.” But eBankIT has been fortunate in that clients have been proactive in contacting them. Additionally, there are some areas, such as the Iberian Peninsula and Eastern Europe, where interest is very high. Ferreira singled out Poland, where its solution for Millennium Bank was ranked as an “Internet banking leader” by Newsweek magazine, for especially high praise: “Polish bankers are some of the most eager of those looking for innovation. They are constantly changing. Whatever is new they want to have it.”

Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to find out what’s new from ebankIT. The company will be demoing its latest technology at FinovateEurope 2015 February 10 & 11.

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Fintech Fundings: 20 Companies Raise $840 million Week Ending Dec 5

By Jim Bruene Posted on December 5, 2014
Categories: Uncategorized

Apparently the cyber-monday excitement carried over into the fintech VC sector, as they pulled out their checkbooks in record amounts this week. Counting direct digital financial plays (AvantCredit and Atom Bank), $538 million in equity and $300 million in debt were raised the first week of December.

Even without Avant and Atom, a $288 million in equity investments flowed in, the third highest week since we began tracking in August. That total included two Finovate alums: SocietyOne ($20 million) and iQauntify ($1 million).

Fundings from Nov. 29 to Dec 5 by size of deal:

AvantCredit

Direct online lender

Latest round: $525 million ($225 million equity, $300 million debt)

Total funding: $1.03 billion ($334 million equity, $700 million debt)

Tags: Credit, underwriting, lending, sub-prime, near-prime, alt-lending, Chicago, Illinois