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New OBR Published: Mobile Banking Security

By David Penn Posted on March 17, 2014
Categories: Online Banking Report

What do financial institutions need to keep in mind when it comes to mobile security?

Our latest report Mobile Banking Security examines how banks and other financial institutions can balance safety and convenience in pursuit of a seamless and secure mobile experience for their consumers and clients.

We list fifteen different themes that will dominate the conversation on mobile banking security in 2014. From authentication to premium products for niche markets, we look at the innovations and the actual deployments that are providing safer networks for e-commerce and financial transactions for the increasingly “mobile-only” user.

Will the “wild west” that is the Android app ecosystem ever be won? How does the rise of the mobile channel make biometric security almost inevitable? Will promising security startups continue to be the target of larger tech acquirers in 2014 as they were in 2013?

These are a handful of the questions we provide answers to in our latest report on mobile banking security from OBR.

About the report

Mobile Banking Security (link)

The new channel is a boon for improving security, both real and perceived

Author: David Penn

Editor: Jim Bruene, Editor and Founder

Published 14 March 2014

Length: 28 pages

Cost: No extra charge for OBR subscribers, USD $395 for others (here)

Report excerpt:

#6 See Me, Hear Me: Senses in the Service of Mobile Security

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Finovate Alumni News– March 17, 2014

By David Penn Posted on March 17, 2014
Categories: Dwolla, Heckyl Technologies, Ripple, rplan, SmartAsset, Zopa

rplan announces new “simple, transparent” charging structure.

Crypt.la lists its top 10 most interesting Ripple protocol services.

Tech Cocktail Austin interviews Dwolla COO, Charise Flynn.

SmartAsset launches Retirement Planning Tool, Announces 40% Month-Over-Month Growth.

The Tally focuses on India-based Heckyl Technologies.

Zopa embraces ThoughtWorks technology to improve data analysis capability.

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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Yale Microfinance Program to Deploy Mambu Platform

By David Penn Posted on March 14, 2014
Categories: Mambu

You know what kids love these days? Microfinance.

At least that’s true of the kids at Yale University’s student-run micro finance program, the Elmseed Enterprise Fund. The fund supports local entrepreneurs with advice and micro loans. In 2013, the program provided consulting for 38 clients and provided more than $13,000 in loans to five.

The student volunteers at Elmseed also love a good deal when they see one. And when they went looking for a better way to handle their customer data., the solution they found was Mambu.

Fund CEO Jadon Montero said, “Mambu’s platform will help us manage our client information better, which means our volunteer advisors can spend more time helping clients and less time worrying about the paperwork.”

The Elmseed Enterprise Fund was founded in 2001 with an award of $10,000 from a contest held by the Yale Entrepreneurial Society. As part of the arrangement with Mambu, the Fund will deploy the company’s Software-as-a-Service platform and receive a service credit of $100,000.

CEO and co-founder of Mambu, Eugene Danilkis said, “Programs such as Elmseed Enterprise give the next generation of micro finance professionals the opportunity to develop their skills and give something back to their local community at the same time.”

Working with micro finance organizations is nothing new for Mambu. The company recently announced a partnership with Mexican micro-lender Kueski, following up on a September deployment with another micro lender from the area, CrediPeso. Mambu is a member of the SEEP Network, a global network of more than 100 international practitioner organizations focused on alleviating poverty through financial inclusion.

Mambu demoes its native, cloud-based, SaaS banking application at FinovateAsia last November. See the technology at work here.

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SaaS Markets Acquired by Sysnet Global Solutions

By David Penn Posted on March 14, 2014
Categories: SaaS Markets

Enterprise app store platform SaaS Markets has been acquired by Sysnet Global Solutions. Terms of the deal were not available.

“The sale of SaaS Markets represents the next phase of growth for our platform.” said SaaS Markets CEO and Founder, Ferdi Roberts. “And Sysnet (is) the perfect partner to enable us to do this.”

Gabriel Moynagh, Sysnet Global Solutions CEO, said that clients of both businesses will gain from the acquisition. The two companies have been partners for the past two years; Sysnet having incorporated SaaS Markets’ MarketMaker platform into its own Sysnet.air platform.

Founded in 2011 and based in San Mateo, SaaS Markets made its last Finovate appearance at FinovateEurope 2014, where it demoed its Enterprise Cloud Marketplace Platform. We took a Behind the Scenes look at SaaS Markets shortly after the conference.

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SmartAsset Launches Retirement Planning Tool, Announces 40% Month-Over-Month Growth

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 14, 2014
Categories: SmartAsset

SmartAsset, which originally launched as a tool for home buying, is making its platform more robust this week with the launch of its retirement planning tool.

The New York-based company, which has a user base that’s growing by 40% month-over-month, aims to bring transparency to retirement by giving users personalized answers to their questions about implications of taxes and social security.

What’s most notable about the launch is the partnership with eTrade, which provides resources and tools for SmartAsset users.

SmartAsset will be launching its latest development at FinovateSpring next month in San Jose. To see the live demo on stage, get your ticket here to join our audience.

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Klarna Raises £90 Million to Finance Sofort Acquisition

By David Penn Posted on March 14, 2014
Categories: Klarna

With the company’s founders leading the way, Klarna has raised £90 million to finance the acquisition of Sofort.

Klarna scooped up Sofort in December 2013 in a deal reportedly worth $150 million. The additional capital marks the completion of the acquisition and the formation of the Klarna Group. Also participating in the fundraising were existing investors Atomico, General Atlantic, and Sequoia Capital.

CEO and co-founder of Klarna, Sebastian Siemiatkowski said, “(This) is a vote of confidence in Klarna’s long term vision to become the world’s favorite way to buy. Together with Sofort we are the leading European alternative payment provider.”

Klarna is one of Europe’s biggest players in the mobile payments market. The company’s approach separates “buying from paying” by allowing consumers to do the former with just an e-mail address and post code, and the latter by a variety of different methods, from invoice to credit card to bank transfer.

The results is a frictionless buying experience for the consumer, with lower abandonment rates and easier payment management for the merchant (“one contract, one contact, one payment file”).

A few Klarna Group metrics:

More than 1,000 employees
Active in 14 European markets
Serves 25 million consumers
Works with 45,000 online merchants
Has processed more than 140 million transactions

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Klarna was among 19 Finovate alums to be selected for the 2014 European FinTech 50 awards.

Klarna demoed its technology at FinovateSpring in 2012. See the company in action here.

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Finovate Alumni News– March 14, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 14, 2014
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Dynamics, Guide Financial, Klarna, Mambu, Mitek, On Deck Capital, Realty Mogul

Arxan Technologies wins in the Products and Services Excellence category of the Infosecurity Global Excellence Awards.

OnDeck’s CEO Noah Breslow appears on CNBC Squawk Box.

Mitek opens mobile imaging platform to developers.

Klarna raises £90 million to finance acquisition of Sofort.

Collision features Realty Mogul in its selection of “10 Top Startups with Powerful New Ideas.”

OnDeck tops $1 billion in small business loans.

CBS News features Dynamics‘ Hidden card, interviews CEO Jeff Mullen.

Yale microfinance program to deploy Mambu platform.

FPPad Bits and Bytes <a features Guide Financial in its latest video review.

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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Cachet Financial Solutions Acquires Moneto from DeviceFidelity

By David Penn Posted on March 13, 2014
Categories: Cachet Financial Solutions, DeviceFidelity, Mitek

Finovate alum Cachet Financial Solutions (FinovateFall 2012) has announced its acquisition of Moneto, the prepaid mobile platform, from another Finovate alum, DeviceFidelity.

Calling prepaid “one of the fastest growing financial product sectors,” Cachet CEO and President Jeffrey Mack said, “This acquisition is a perfect complement to Cachet’s current RDC mobile prepaid offering and demonstrates our strategic evolution to a more comprehensive mobile offering.

While Moneto is the main prize in the acquisition, there is more to the package than the prepaid mobile platform alone. Cachet Financial will also gain a core VISA prepaid mobile money platform, and strategic relationships with partners like Navy Federal Credit Union, MasterCard, and Moneygram.

The Moneto platform provides clients with a variety of features including:

card loading
card balance and history
loyalty and rewards
person-to-person (P2P) transfers
expedited bill pay and remittance
instant “Good Funds” to load card by check

Moneto also enables contactless payments for both iOS and Android smartphones. The mobile app allows the user to access his or her prepaid card from their mobile device, as well.

Cachet Financial is known for its remote deposit capture (RDC) technology, which leverages technology from Mitek (yet another Finovate alum) to provide solutions for financial institutions, credit unions and consumers alike. The company is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was founded in 2010.

See DeviceFidelity demo moneto in the video from the company’s FinovateSpring appearance in 2012 here.

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Moven Partners with MoneyDesktop to Enhance Account Aggregation

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 13, 2014
Categories: MoneyDesktop, Moven

Last week, Moven launched its mobile money management platform to the public. Apparently, the New York-based startup has been busy because today it announced that its partnering with MoneyDesktop, which is known for its PFM platform that is so visually appealing it will make bankers drool.

This new partnership is all about the magic that happens on the backend. Moven will be using MoneyDesktop’s API to aggregate external accounts. Benefits of using MoneyDesktop’s API include:

Better account aggregation
More accurate transaction categorization
Faster transaction updates

This is good news for me personally since I’ve had difficulty syncing two of my outside bank accounts with Moven (see below).

MoneyDesktop takes pride in its account aggregation. I caught up with MoneyDesktop’s Matt West last week at the Bank Innovation conference in Seattle, and he asserted that, regardless of what the front end of MoneyDesktop’s budgeting platform looks like, the real value is in the integration. MoneyDesktop is able to compete with giants like Intuit and Yodlee because it categorizes 98%* of the transactions correctly.

Moven joins the 400+ other financial institutions and the 29 online banking, core and payment network providers that use MoneyDesktop’s API for account integration.

To see the companies in action, check out Moven’s FinovateSpring 2013 demo and MoneyDesktop’s most recent demo from FinovateFall 2013.

*This number represents the success rate of transactions being categorized correctly after they’ve gone through MoneyDesktop’s complete system. It comes from a sampling of transactional data pulled from across the U.S.

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Finovate Alumni News– March 13, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 13, 2014
Categories: Azimo, BBVA, BBVA Compass, Cardlytics, Kashoo, mBank, Narrative Science, PayPal, Tink

Payments News: MasterCard, Fiserv partner on Debit EMV for Accel Network.

Xero named top choice in the list of “favorite online-based business accounting apps” by both PCWorld and Macworld.

Tate Design blog features BillGuard.

Credit Karma brings in $85 million in financing led by Google Capital.

Compliance Week reports: Actiance’s partnership with Shoutlet provides companies with compliant social marketing.

Expensify integrates with NetSuite and Stripe, raises maximum expense report amount, and more.

Cardtronics announces agreement with BBVA Compass for branded ATMs in Texas H-E-B stores.

PayPal’s Pamela Rice joins OnDeck as SVP of Technology.

Azimo raises $10 million in round led by Greycroft Partners.

Freshminds explains how Tink, mBank and BBVA are “redefining customer centricity.”

Kashoo earns spot on ICT 2014 Ready to Rocket list.

Smart Data Collective highlights Quill from Narrative Science in a column on the business applications of artificial intelligence.

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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Credit Karma Brings in $85 Million in Financing Led by Google Capital

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 12, 2014
Categories: Credit Karma, Funding

What do Lending Club, Survey Monkey, and Credit Karma have in common? Answer: they’ve all received financing from Google Capital.

That’s exactly who led Credit Karma’s most recent $85 million financing round. Other investors include:

Tiger Capital
Susquehanna Growth Equity
Ribbit Capital

TechCrunch reports that, of the $85 million in total funding, $60 million is going directly to Credit Karma, while the remaining $25 million is going to provide liquidity to shareholders and employees.

This round brings Credit Karma’s total funding to $118.5 million for its B2C-play credit score reporting and management platform. In the future, it seeks to be the Kayak for financial services and is looking to partner with banks to be a recommendation engine to help consumers better manage their debt.

Credit Karma last demonstrated at FinovateStartup 2009, where it debuted its Debt Manager.

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Expensify Integrates with NetSuite & Stripe, Raises Max Expense Report Amount, and More

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 12, 2014
Categories: Expensify

Expensify, the startup behind the expense reporting process that “doesn’t suck,” reported a few updates yesterday.

Here are some highlights:

1) The new NetSuite integration enables users to import their categories and employees, export reports, and more.

2) The new Stripe integration allows users to accept credit card payments through Expensify’s invoicing platform. Uses can enable this feature in their policy settings (see below):

Here’s what the client sees, when prompted to pay the invoice via Stripe:

3) Expensify raised the maximum reimbursable amount on expense reports that are repaid via direct deposit. Now users can reimburse up to $20k per expense report via direct deposit, and can request exceptions for larger amounts on a case-by-case basis.

What’s next? Expensify is working on a major overhaul with QuickBooks and should have updates soon.

To learn more about Expensify, check out its FinovateSpring 2013 demo where it debuted invoicing capability.

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