Alumni News

NMI Acquires Account-to-Account Payments Infrastructure Innovator Dwolla

NMI Acquires Account-to-Account Payments Infrastructure Innovator Dwolla
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Dwolla
  • Embedded payments infrastructure company NMI has acquired account-to-account (A2A) payment infrastructure innovator Dwolla.
  • The acquisition creates a combined entity that will process nearly $700 billion in annual transaction volume and will fortify NMI’s status as a major embedded money movement infrastructure firm.
  • Dwolla has been a Finovate alum since 2011, winning Best of Show honors in its appearances at FinovateSpring 2011 and FinovateSpring 2012.

Embedded payments infrastructure company NMI has acquired account-to-account (A2A) payment infrastructure provider Dwolla. The acquisition combines NMI’s payment acceptance, channel distribution, onboarding, and merchant lifecycle management with Dwolla’s capabilities in account-to-account infrastructure, real-time payments, open banking, and many-to-many funds flow. NMI will benefit from additional payment acceptance, orchestration, and money movement capabilities, enabling its ISO, ISV, and SaaS platform clients to accept, manage, and move money across a greater number of rails and use cases via a single infrastructure provider.

“This acquisition is a continuation of our strategy to build the most robust, white-label, embedded payments platform for our channel and enterprise partners,” NMI CEO Steve Pinado said. “Dwolla gives us modern, API-first, A2A infrastructure that strengthens our ability to help businesses accept, manage, and move money across more uses cases and more rails.” Pinado also noted that the acquisition will enable NMI to be a player in the emerging generation of money movement technologies and solutions including agentic payments and stablecoin-enabled settlement.

The acquisition creates a combined entity that will processes nearly $700 billion in annual transaction volume and fortify NMI’s status as a major embedded money movement infrastructure firm. NMI currently supports more than 6,000 technology partners with its modular, white-label platform, enabling them to provide seamless, scalable payment experiences across online, in-app, brick-and-mortar, mobile, and unattended channels. Courtesy of the Dwolla acquisition, NMI’s partners will be able to build on NMI’s capabilities to offer bank and real-time payments, and other sophisticated payment flows such as marketplace seller payouts, loan disbursements, payroll, supplier payments, and more. This will enable these companies to serve firms in industries ranging from insurance and lending to property management and healthcare.

In a statement, Dwolla CEO Dave Glaser noted how Dwolla has helped companies operate bank payments at scale thanks to an API-first infrastructure layer that unifies ACH and real-time rails while standardizing status, exception handling, and reporting. He also outlined how he thinks the combination of Dwolla and NMI will improve the payments process for businesses. “By joining NMI, we can bring those capabilities to a broader ecosystem of partners, while giving Dwolla customers access to NMI’s omnichannel payment acceptance capabilities through a single, flexible, white-label platform. Together, we can help software companies, payment professionals, and fintech innovators deliver more ways to pay and move money with less complexity.”

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, Dwolla has been a Finovate alum since winning Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2011. A pioneer in peer-to-peer (P2P) and account-to-account (A2A) payments, Dwolla was among the first fintechs to offer lower-cost money transfers, direct ACH connectivity, and a developer-friendly, API-first strategy that enabled companies to embed payment capabilities into their platforms. Ahead of its time then, Dwolla has since benefitted from a surge in interest in account-to-account payments and embedded finance, facilitating more than 126 million transactions a year with an annual transaction value of more than $82 billion.

Schaumburg, Illinois-based NMI was founded in 2000. The company offers a modular payment acceptance platform and gateway that enables SaaS platforms, ISOs, banks, and other financial institutions to leverage payments to boost growth, drive loyalty, and develop new revenue streams. NMI’s technology serves more than 1.2 million active merchants, more than 235,000 connected devices, and features 150+ processor connections to give its partners flexibility to design the payment experiences that best suit their unique needs and business models. Dwolla is NMI’s most recent acquisition, having acquired Sphere Commercial Division in 2023 and Finovate alum Agreement Express in 2022.

Photo by Rihards Sergis on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Xero Announces Integration with Anthropic’s Claude

Xero Announces Integration with Anthropic’s Claude
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Xero
  • Small business management and accounting platform Xero has launched its live integration with Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude.
  • The integration comes less than a month after Xero announced its multi-year partnership with Anthropic. It will enable users to leverage real-time financial intelligence to gain insights into revenue, profit, contacts, receivables, as well as financial health and cash position.
  • Founded in 2006, Xero has been a Finovate alum since 2011. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is CEO.

Small business management platform Xero announced its live integration with Anthropic, the AI company behind AI assistant Claude.

The live integration follows the company’s multi-year partnership announced in March. The goal of the partnership is to integrate Claude’s AI directly into Xero and to bring Xero’s financial data and tools into Claude.ai. The partnership will give small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping teams the ability to put real-time financial intelligence to work managing their company’s finances.

“Every day, millions of small business owners ask the same questions: Why is cash tight this month? Which invoices are overdue? Can I afford to hire?” Xero Chief Product & Technology Officer Diya Jolly said. “To run their business efficiently, small business owners and their accountants and bookkeepers need to be able to answer these questions and act on them in real time, whether using Xero or Claude. This partnership delivers on that.”

The integration marks the first time that Xero customers will be able to work with their financial data inside an AI platform. It will reduce the amount of time spent doing manual work, from pursuing invoices to compiling cash flow across multiple reports, and will proactively surface insights that would otherwise be time-consuming to discover. The integration will also provide a new way for Claude to power financial workflows for small businesses at scale.

Users with active Xero subscriptions can take advantage of the integration immediately, bringing their financial data directly into their Claude discussions without having to change tools. Insights generated by Claude are delivered directly to Xero customers, enabling them to take actions such as reviewing the complete report or invoice detail to uncover total earnings, discover outstanding payments, and gain visibility into business health via insights into assets, liabilities, and cash flow.

“When customers engage in wide-ranging conversations with Claude about their business strategy or day-to-day operations, they can now use Claude to instantly pull up their cash position, check overdue invoices, or see how profit is tracking, all without breaking their flow of work,” Jolly added. “That’s what it means to have Xero wherever you work, and it’s part of our commitment to ensuring customers can leverage Xero at every point in their decision-making process.”

A Finovate alum since 2011, Xero serves more than 4.9 million customers around the world with its small business accounting platform. The company’s technology offers all-in-one paperless record-keeping, automated bank reconciliation and invoice reminders, as well as smart data and insights such as trend analysis and customizable reporting. The platform connects to more than 1,000 third-party apps to deliver an integrated, streamlined business solution. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is CEO.

Photo by João Marcelo Martins on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Apex Fintech Solutions Forges Partnership with Plaid to Streamline Account Transfers

Apex Fintech Solutions Forges Partnership with Plaid to Streamline Account Transfers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Apex Clearing Corporation, Plaid
  • Apex Fintech Solutions and Plaid have teamed up to streamline account transfers and boost digital capabilities for brokerage firms.
  • The partnership combines Plaid’s secure connectivity and data validation with Apex Fintech Solutions’ ACATS infrastructure and risk engine to bring greater efficiency to the fund transfer process.
  • Apex Fintech Solutions’ subsidiary Apex Clearing made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2015. Plaid has been a Finovate alum since 2014.

A new partnership between Apex Fintech Solutions and Plaid will enable Apex to offer Plaid’s suite of financial data products to streamline account transfers and help brokerage firms improve their digital capabilities. The partnership combines Plaid’s secure connectivity and data validation with Apex’s ACATS infrastructure and risk engine to reduce the number of errors and delays in the fund transfer process while also boosting efficiency for brokerages and their customers.

ACATS stands for Automated Customer Account Transfer Service, a system managed by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) that automates and standardizes asset transfers from one account to another. Apex’s ACATS infrastructure delivers reliable processing and conformity with ever-changing industry protocols and, together with Plaid’s expertise in financial data connectivity, supports an account transfer experience that is more comprehensive than either company would produce on their own.

“For too long, account transfers have been a source of frustration for investors and a missed opportunity for firms to grow,” Apex Chief Customer Officer Connor Coughlin said. “Plaid brings world-class account connectivity, and we bring proven ACATS infrastructure—together we’re delivering something neither of us could build alone. Now firms can offer a transfer experience as modern as the rest of their platform—and focus on building relationships with investors instead of chasing down paperwork.”

Key capabilities of the integration include automated account linking via Plaid with secure connections that eliminate manual data entry errors and common rejection triggers, and real-time processing and event-driven updates to provide status updates as soon as changes are announced. The integration will also deliver simplified infrastructure that consolidates multiple endpoints into a single API endpoint, unified audit trail interface and operational visibility, and day-one alignment with new protocols, including a fully configured simulator environment to facilitate transfer testing before going live.

“Transferring assets between investment accounts is still far too manual, slow, and error-prone for investors,” Plaid Head of Partnerships Adam Yoxtheimer said. “By integrating Plaid’s Investments Move with Apex’s clearing infrastructure, we’re delivering a first-of-a-kind, end-to-end ACATS solution. The solution can deliver a better transfer experience that gets investors’ assets into their new accounts faster with reduced error rates. We’re excited about what we can continue to build together.”

Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Apex Fintech Solutions enables hundreds of clients to launch, scale, and support digital investing for tens of millions of investors. The company provides infrastructure and an ecosystem of cloud-based solutions to enable and streamline trading, wealth management, tax reporting, and more. The firm serves wealth management firms, full-service broker-dealers, startups, banks and credit unions, cryptocurrency trading platforms, corporate treasury managers, and through its subsidiary Apex Clearing, also offers custody and clearing services.

Apex’s partnership with Plaid comes less than a month after the firm announced that it had forged a new data relationship with real-time financial news and market data provider Benzinga. Apex is making Benzinga APIs available to its network of financial platforms, brokerages, and developers, enabling them to integrate real-time market intelligence structured financial datasets directly into their offerings.

A Finovate alum since 2014, Plaid offers a data network that enables users to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services that help them manage and improve their financial lives. The company’s network covers more than 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, the UK, and Europe. Plaid’s partnership announcement with Apex is just one of a number of announcements the San Francisco-based company has made in recent weeks. Plaid recently announced an expansion of its Bank Intelligence solution with four new capabilities across two areas: Fraud Insights and Loyalty Insights. The enhanced offering will bring stronger fraud defense to the open finance channel and enable firms to better understand where their customers are in their financial lives.

Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Boku Goes Live with Popular Payment Option Pix in Brazil

Boku Goes Live with Popular Payment Option Pix in Brazil
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Boku
  • Global paytech Boku announced that it is live and transacting with Pix in Brazil.
  • Pix is Brazil’s default payment method with more than 150 million Brazilians—approximately 70% of the population—using the technology. Boku was granted its payment institution license from the Brazilian central bank in April 2025, becoming a Regulated Pix Participant.
  • Headquartered in London, Boku made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2011. Stuart Neal is CEO.

International local payments partner Boku announced this week that it is live and transacting with Pix in Brazil. Boku secured its payment institution license from the Central Bank of Brazil last spring, allowing the company to enable merchants to access local payments. The default payment method for more than 150 million Brazilians, Pix is used by 70% of the Brazilian population and processes more transactions in the country than both Visa and Mastercard combined.

“Boku is now live and open for business in Brazil,” Boku CEO Stuart Neal said in a statement on LinkedIn. “This is an important milestone for our merchants and for any global business looking for a regulated, scalable route into Brazil. Pix has become a must-have payment method in Brazil, and it also reflects a much bigger shift in global payments. Governments, regulators, and consumers are increasingly backing domestic payment infrastructure that is fast, secure, and built around local needs. That movement towards payment sovereignty is reshaping how global merchants need to operate.”

Via Boku, merchants will be able to offer account-to-account (A2A) payments through the Sistema de Pagamentos Instantâneos (SPI) network to millions of Brazilian consumers. Boku will also support one-time Pix payments, with both local and cross-border settlement. Additionally, the launch will make it easier for Boku to take advantage of future innovations in Pix, such as tokenized recurring payments. In its statement, the company previewed further capabilities including Pix Automatico for recurring payments and Pix JSR which enables Pix without redirection.

“By connecting through Boku, merchants can access one of the world’s most successful real-time payment systems through a regulated partner that understands both global commerce and local payment infrastructure. As Pix expands into recurring payments, cross-border flows, and new credit use cases, Boku is well positioned to help merchants capture the next generation of payment growth in Brazil,” Neal added.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in London and San Francisco, Boku is an international provider of localized payment solutions. With a global payments network featuring more than 200 local payment methods worldwide, Boku offers digital wallets, direct carrier billing, and both account-to-account and real-time payment schemes that reach more than seven billion consumer payment accounts in 60+ countries. Making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2011, Boku now serves popular brands including Spotify, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, and Tencent.

Photo by F Cary Snyder on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Credit Karma Opens Platform to America’s “Credit Invisibles”

Credit Karma Opens Platform to America’s “Credit Invisibles”
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Credit Karma
  • Credit tracking platform Credit Karma will offer memberships to credit invisible or “thin file” customers, a new policy from the financial wellness firm.
  • In a statement, the company highlighted a number of solutions on its platform that will help these thin file customers build their credit and boost their financial literacy, including its Credit Spark and Credit Builder tools.
  • Acquired by Intuit in 2020, Credit Karma won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2008. The company was founded in 2007.

Financial wellness and credit tracking platform Credit Karma has announced that it is offering memberships to the 17 million Americans who do not have a credit score. These “credit invisible” or “thin file” adults have been unable to open a Credit Karma account up until now. A newly announced reversal of this policy will now enable these individuals to sign up for an account and take advantage of Credit Karma’s tools to help them build their credit and enhance their financial literacy.

“As these members begin building their financial identity, Credit Karma will serve as both the starting point and foundation for their journey,” the company noted in a statement. “We’ll help them achieve their first score while building financial literacy and equipping them with the tools to manage and grow their money, access better financial products, and make financial progress year-round.”

Credit Karma’s policy shift comes at a time when millions of American adults are considered “credit invisible” or “thin file.” This means they have no significant credit history and are unable to generate a valid credit score. This can prevent individuals from participating in major financial milestones, from securing a first apartment to buying a car to landing a mortgage for a new home. Credit Karma noted in its policy announcement that credit invisibility is more problematic for individuals who are just beginning their adult financial lives, reporting that nearly half (46%) of 18- to 24-year olds feel at a financial disadvantage because they do not have a credit history.

In its statement, Credit Karma highlighted three tools in particular that will be helpful for these new “thin file” members. These include Credit Spark, a free, automated solution that transforms on-time payments for existing services such as utilities and phone bills into credit history; and Credit Builder, which offers a locked savings account to help members make more consistent payments. Credit Karma also offers credit-building card options such as secured credit cards that provide credit invisibles with a safe, structured way to use credit and build a positive credit profile.

“Until now, individuals who were credit invisible couldn’t access Credit Karma’s tools and guidance to help them start building their credit,” the company added. “Today, that changes. We are proud to announce that credit invisible individuals can now create Credit Karma accounts and take their first steps towards building a credit score and achieving their financial goals.”

Founded in 2007, Credit Karma is among Finovate’s earliest alums, earning Best of Show in its FinovateFall 2008 appearance. Headquartered in Oakland, California, the company today serves more than 130 million individuals with free access to credit scores and reports from VantageScore, TransUnion, and Equifax, as well as daily monitoring, financial wellness tools, tax filing, bill tracking, and more. Credit Karma was acquired by Intuit in 2020 for approximately $7.1 billion in cash and stock, combining Intuit’s tax and financial management tools with Credit Karma’s consumer-based platform.

Photo by Ronan Furuta on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FIS to Streamline Reconciliations for Australia’s CommBank

FIS to Streamline Reconciliations for Australia’s CommBank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, FIS
  • Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) announced a new partnership with FIS.
  • The Sydney-based financial institution will use FIS Data Integrity Manager to enhance its reconciliation operations.
  • FIS Data Integrity Manager processes more than 150 million transactions per day, and uses real-time visibility and insights to improve decision-making and deliver automated alerts to resolve issues in minutes rather than hours.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) has turned to FIS to enhance its reconciliation operations. The institution, working with FIS, will leverage the fintech’s FIS Data Integrity Manager to consolidate and automate reconciliation across the bank.

“By bringing reconciliation onto a single, intelligent platform, we are enabling CommBank to unlock seamless integration and operational efficiency while ensuring the stability, security, and compliance essential to supporting Australia’s largest bank,” said FIS President of Capital Markets Andrés Choussy. Choussy referred to the technology as a “cutting-edge reconciliation solution that meets the demands of a rapidly evolving financial landscape.”

Able to process more than 150 million transactions daily, FIS Data Integrity Manager is a modern platform that supports the automation and management of all reconciliations across the business. The solution leverages real-time visibility and insights to deliver more informed decision-making, providing automated alerts to surface discrepancies and a unified view across business lines. This enables teams to identify and resolve issues quickly.

FIS Data Integrity Manager is available as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution via Microsoft Azure, with upgrades managed by FIS to ensure faster delivery of new capabilities. The partnership will also enable CommBank to leverage FIS’ enterprise-grade risk, security, and compliance capabilities—including SOC1 and SOC2 certification—as well as support the institution’s federated software architecture.

“This implementation reflects our focus on investing in technology to continue to strengthen operations to ultimately benefit our customers,” Commonwealth Bank General Manager of Financial Control & Transformation David Pont said. “With FIS Data Integrity Manager as a strategic partner, we gain a platform that can scale with our business and support our continued growth.”

An Australian multinational bank with operations in New Zealand, Asia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Commonwealth Bank of Australia delivers retail, business, and institutional banking services to more than 20 million customers. Founded in 1911 in Melbourne and currently headquartered in Sydney, CommBank recently opened a San Francisco Technology Hub to enable its Australian technology team to connect with leading AI partners. The institution reports that 70% of its engineering teams use AI tools.

FIS helps institutions and businesses leverage financial technology to bring innovation to payments, investment, savings, and more. The company’s technology supports more than 73 billion transactions a year, servicing more than $8 trillion in assets. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, FIS serves 95% of the world’s leading banks and more than 4,900 financial services companies and credit unions with digital banking solutions, payment processing, lending, treasury management, investment, and data-based services.

FIS’s partnership announcement with CommBank comes days after the fintech reported that it was working with Anthropic to bring agentic AI to banking. The initial project will feature the development of a financial crimes AI agent that combines Claude’s reasoning with FIS’s banking data and regulatory infrastructure. The agent will accelerate Anti-Money Laundering (AML) alert and case investigations, reduce false positives, and boost investigative and SAR narrative quality. Two institutions—BMO and Amalgamated Bank—are in development with the new agent; general availability is planned for the second half of 2026.

“Every bank in the world wants AI that acts, not just assists,” FIS CEO and President Stephanie Ferris said. “The future is about a trusted provider who manages the data, who governs the agents, and who stands between your customers and the AI making decisions about their money.”

Photo by Joey Csunyo on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Eleos Life Raises $3 Million in Media-for-Equity Investment

Eleos Life Raises $3 Million in Media-for-Equity Investment
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Eleos, Funding
  • Eleos Life, an insurtech based in the UK that expanded to the US last year, has secured a $3 million media-for-equity investment.
  • The investment came courtesy of Mercurius Media Capital (MMC), a US-based, media-for-equity venture fund, and will help accelerate brand awareness for Eleos in the United States via national television, digital, and cinema advertising.
  • Eleos Life was founded in 2023. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2024 in London. Kiruba Shankar Eswaran is Co-founder and CEO.

UK-based insurtech Eleos Life has raised $3 million from Mercurius Media Capital (MMC), a US-based media-for-equity venture fund. The investment, a media-for-equity transaction, will help boost Eleos’s brand awareness in the United States through MMC’s network of national television, digital, and cinema advertising.

“Our investment in Eleos Life represents a perfect alignment of innovative technology and strategic storytelling,” MMC Founding Partner Piyush Puri said. “By bridging the gap between Eleos’s seamless digital platform and our vast network of national TV and cinema assets, we are creating a fast track for their US expansion. We aren’t just investors; we are partners in scaling their visibility across every screen in America.”

Eleos makes insurance coverage accessible with user-friendly, jargon-free, fully digital applications. Currently available in the UK, Eleos has embedded insurance coverage into the digital journeys of its bank and fintech partners, reaching nearly five million customers through more than 10 platform integrations.

As a media-for-equity investor, MMC will deploy national television, digital, and cinema inventory through outlets such as Sinclair Broadcast Group, TelevisaUnivision, and Atmosphere TV, providing Eleos with a sustained, multi-screen presence. In his statement, Eleos Life CEO Kiruba Shankar Eswaran underscored the value of this coverage.

“This partnership with Mercurius Media Capital isn’t just about funding; it’s about visibility,” Eswaran said. “This investment allows us to tell our story on the biggest screens in the country, ushering in the next era of growth for Eleos in the United States.”

As part of the investment, MMC will also provide Eleos with operational support through its network of partners specializing in creative services, AI-driven content, and go-to-market execution.

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in London, Eleos Life made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2024. At the conference, the company, which directly serves more than 30,000 customers across the UK, demonstrated how its life and income protection insurance can be embedded into consumer brands and integrated into online journeys.

Last month, Eleos Life announced a community-driven collaboration with Land Trust Alliance, a national network and voice of the land trust community dedicated to supporting private land conservation across the US. Courtesy of the partnership, Eleos policyholders will be able to designate the Land Trust Alliance as a beneficiary on their life insurance policies. Eleos began the year with the launch of its AI Agent Desk, a free specialized AI-powered chat assistant that enables P&C brokers and agents to deploy an intelligent chat widget on their platform.

Photo by Natalya Zaritskaya on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

nCino Brings its Lending Platform to Austrian Banking Cooperative

nCino Brings its Lending Platform to Austrian Banking Cooperative
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, nCino
  • Agentic banking innovator nCino has teamed up with Austrian banking cooperative Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich.
  • The financial institution will use nCino as its unified lending platform, supporting the complete financing lifecycle from initial application to final disbursement.
  • Founded in 2012 and headquartered in North Carolina, nCino made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Sean Desmond is President and CEO.

Agentic banking platform provider nCino announced a new partnership with Austrian financial institution Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich. The company, one of the largest cooperative banking institutions in Europe, will use nCino as its unified corporate lending platform to support the entire financing lifecycle, including origination, underwriting, pricing, compliance, and portfolio monitoring.

“Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich is aware of its responsibility towards society and provides strong momentum for the promotion of the regional economy,” Chairman of the Raiffeisen Kooperationsgenossenschaft, Reinhard Schwendtbauer, said. “Raiffeisen focuses on long-term customer relationships, which are always built on trust—trust between our eight Raiffeisenlandesbanken, our local Raiffeisenbanken, and the communities they serve. nCino gives us the modern foundation to honor the trust of our customers and our responsibility towards them—with a platform designed specifically for how we work.”

The nCino platform spans financing products from current account credit to term loans. The platform’s features include Banking Advisor, an AI chat interface that generates credit memo narratives and application summaries, and standardizes documentation, while Priority Manager tracks file completion. The platform also offers mortgage lenders a multilingual AI chat interface, Mortgage Advisor, that provides 24/7 guidance and Doc Validation that accelerates document collection and classification. Combined, these automation tools help financial institutions lower costs, accelerate speed-to-close, and provide positive borrowing experiences for customers.

“In the DACH region, Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich is a powerful example of what’s possible when a traditional cooperative banking institution decides to modernize at scale,” nCino Managing Director of EMEA Joaquín de Valenzuela said. “They bring a century of community banking expertise to this partnership and nCino brings the platform and the cooperative banking expertise to help them take it further. We look forward to working alongside their team to bring a new standard of efficiency and innovation to corporate lending across Austria.”

One of Europe’s largest and most complex cooperative banking institutions, Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich has eight regional Raiffeisenlandesbanken that serve as central financing institutions for 270 local Raiffeisenbanken throughout Austria. The institution has its origins in the Raiffeisen movement in Germany and Austria in the 1880s, which was a cooperative banking initiative based on the ideas of mutual aid, self-help, and community solidarity. The movement was designed to address the financial challenges faced by farmers and others in rural communities, providing them with affordable financial services. Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich’s international operations are consolidated under Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), which is owned by Raiffeisenlandesbanken. The group reported assets of €404.5 billion ($445 billion) as of the end of 2024.

Founded in 2012, nCino made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Today the North Carolina-based fintech has more than 2,700 customers around the world—including community banks, credit unions, independent mortgage banks, and other financial services providers. The company’s dual workforce of AI agents and human teams helps financial institutions become more efficient, make more informed decisions, and deliver better outcomes for their customers.

nCino is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ under the ticker NCNO. The company has a market capitalization of $1.97 billion.

Photo by Pierre Blaché on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

SumUp Expands its Small Business Product Suite

SumUp Expands its Small Business Product Suite
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SumUp
  • SumUp is expanding its platform in the US with an all-in-one small business offering, combining POS Lite, a handheld terminal, card readers, and invoicing into a single ecosystem.
  • Today’s expansion of services comes 10 years after the company initially launched in the US.
  • The strategy reflects fintech’s rebundling, moving beyond payments to unify operations, sales, and business management tools in one platform.

Payment acceptance company SumUp is expanding its core product ecosystem in the US to give small business owners an integrated suite of tools to run their operations.

The new ecosystem breaks down into two categories: the first aims to help users run their business while the second helps them with payment acceptance. Combined, the tools offer business owners a complete set of business management tools in a single platform.

The first category offers businesses access to POS Lite, a point-of-sale solution built for merchants who need a fast, lightweight way to manage sales without the overhead of a full system; and SumUp Terminal, a handheld device that combines full POS functionality, payment acceptance, and business management tools in a single standalone unit.

SumUp has offered payment acceptance tools since it was founded in 2011. The fintech’s new business suite will include portable, plug-and-play card readers that accept chip and PIN, contactless, and mobile wallet payments; as well as an invoicing tool that generates professional invoices with built-in payment links.

“Small businesses shouldn’t have to stitch together five different tools just to run their day,” said SumUp USA Head of Product Ben Brazier. “We built this ecosystem around how merchants actually work—starting with payments, and layering in the management tools they need to stay on top of their business. The Terminal is the clearest expression of that philosophy: one device, everything you need, nothing you don’t.”

SumUp’s expansion echoes the wider “rebundling” trend that is taking place in fintech right now. Instead of offering fragmented point solutions, SumUp is bringing businesses a set of unified tools that bring payments, operations, and business management in a single platform, raising the bar for what small businesses expect from their financial and operational partners.

SumUp has more than four million merchant clients across the globe. Today’s expansion of services comes 10 years after the company initially launched in the US and five years after the fintech acquired payments and marketing platform FiveStars, a move that helped SumUp scale in the region. Overall, SumUp operates across 37 markets on four continents.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

KeyBank Deepens Ties with Qolo to Launch New Virtual Card Program

KeyBank Deepens Ties with Qolo to Launch New Virtual Card Program
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Qolo

KeyBank is launching a new commercial card program this week. The Ohio-based bank is deepening its partnership with card issuing company Qolo to launch its Key Virtual Card (KeyVC), a virtual commercial card program that helps businesses manage and track payments. 

“KeyVC is designed to reduce that complexity by allowing clients to use virtual cards alongside other treasury tools, with consistent reporting and simplified reconciliation across payment types. Businesses want payment tools that fit naturally into how they already operate,” said Qolo Chief Operating Officer Rouzbeh Rotabi. “Working with KeyBank, we’ve built a virtual card solution that feels like a seamless part of the treasury environment–giving finance teams more flexibility, stronger controls, and clearer insight into their spending.”

KeyVC will enable KeyBank’s commercial clients to create and manage virtual cards within the bank’s Virtual Account Management platform (KeyVAM). Adding virtual cards to their existing treasury management tools will offer KeyBank’s commercial clients a way to pay suppliers while maintaining oversight of spending and facilitating reconciliation.

“Commercial clients are increasingly looking for simpler and more controlled ways to manage payments,” said KeyBank Head of Commercial Cards John Withrow. “By expanding our partnership with Qolo, we’re making virtual cards easier to use within our existing treasury platforms, helping clients streamline accounts payable, improve visibility, and maintain better control over how and when money is spent.”

Qolo, which demoed at FinovateFall 2022, was founded in 2018 with the aim of simplifying payments through a unified infrastructure layer. Its platform combines an embedded ledger, card issuing, money movement, real-time reconciliation, and cross-rail connectivity into a single API. Rather than requiring banks to replace legacy cores, Qolo overlays its technology on top of existing systems, enabling institutions to deploy new payment capabilities in months, not years.

In an interview at FinovateFall last year, I sat down with Patricia Montesi, Qolo Founder and CEO, to discuss how the company helps modernize payments infrastructure. “We set out to build an entire, comprehensive payments stack that includes ledger, card, payments, virtual account management—everything all available through a single API served up to you so that you can then focus on your customers,” said Montesi.

Qolo and KeyBank have worked together since 2024, when the two launched KeyVAM. Expanding this partnership will enable KeyBank to prioritize embedded payment experiences inside treasury workflows, rather than offering standalone payment tools. Qolo’s API-based approach will allow KeyBank to avoid a core overhaul while still providing modern card-based capabilities.

Embedding virtual cards within treasury environments shifts competition from facilitating payments to providing a more holistic workflow solution. The integrated approach brings payment tools directly into how finance teams manage liquidity, reconcile transactions, and control spend.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Vernon Building Society Partners with FintechOS to Power New Mortgage Platform

Vernon Building Society Partners with FintechOS to Power New Mortgage Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, FintechOS
  • Vernon Building Society has partnered with FintechOS to power its new mortgage platform.
  • The new platform spans the entire mortgage origination workflow and will run above the building society’s core infrastructure, making a system replacement unnecessary.
  • Headquartered in London, FintechOS most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2021 in New York.

Vernon Building Society has teamed up with FintechOS to power its new unified mortgage platform that spans the complete origination workflow. From initial inquiry and decision-in-principle to application, underwriting, offer, and completion, the platform will run above Vernon’s current core infrastructure, alleviating the need for a system replacement.

Powered by FintechOS 8, the new unified system will feature decision workflows, as well as built-in compliance rules. Vernon’s financing teams will be able to use no-code configuration and AI-enabled capabilities to design and launch new mortgage products, and to respond more quickly to evolving customer preferences and shifting market conditions. Additionally, the platform unifies product and pricing governance with origination execution. This enhances the ability of Vernon to configure and evolve business rules, eligibility criteria, and construction logic within a governed layer above the core system. With versioning and auditability supporting consistent outcomes for both brokers and advisor workflows, the platform reduces redundant tasks while providing greater flexibility.

“A common misconception is that financial institutions have an AI problem; in reality, their challenge is largely an operationalization one,” Founder and CEO of FintechOS, Teo Blidarus, said. “We built FintechOS 8 around a simple premise: AI in financial services only works when it is grounded in real product data, real workflows, and real governance. This release makes data and AI operational for financial institutions, not experimental.”

FintechOS 8 also features FintechOS Dex, an AI copilot that provides in-context guidance for all roles across the product lifecycle. The copilot helps users navigate cases, access needed data faster, and apply governed generative assistance within approved workflows. The technology also supports AI-enabled document ingestion and data extraction to manage document-heavy processes. It limits automation to those high-friction activities such as capturing and validating data and routing exceptions for review to ensure human oversight, traceability, and audit readiness. The new platform will give brokers a dedicated portal that will enable them to track cases in real time. Borrowers will benefit from a shorter path from application to offer, and financing teams will be relieved from manual, repetitive tasks, enabling them to focus on personal service and human decision-making.

“This is what pragmatic modernization looks like—modernize the core, unify product and pricing logic with origination execution, and move faster without the risk and disruption of full system replacement,” Blidarus said.

Based in Stockport, Cheshire, Vernon Building Society offers mortgages, savings, and investment products to savers and homebuyers in the Greater Manchester area. The institution is also a leading provider of bespoke or specific-need mortgages to customers throughout England and Wales. Vernon has total assets of £534m ($667.5 million), a year-over-year gain of 5.4%, and recently reported growth in its mortgage book (4.6%) and its retail savings balances (6.2%). Founded in 1924, the institution today has more than 24,000 members across the UK.

Headquartered in London, FintechOS made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021 and most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2025 in New York. Founded in 2017, FintechOS enables banks, credit unions, building societies, and other financial institutions to modernize the way they build, launch, and manage financial products and services by running them above their current core systems. FintechOS has more than 60 customers across North America, Europe, and APAC, and manages assets exceeding $100 billion.

Photo by Balazs Bezeczky from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Pioneering Online Lender LendingClub to Rebrand as Happen Bank

Pioneering Online Lender LendingClub to Rebrand as Happen Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Lending Club
  • LendingClub, a pioneer in online lending, is rebranding to Happen Bank.
  • Expected to launch in the summer of 2026, Happen Bank combines LendingClub’s track record as a personal lender with an embrace of digital banking supported by LendingClub’s acquisition of Radius Bank, completed in 2021.
  • Headquartered in San Francisco, California, LendingClub made its Finovate debut in 2007. The company was founded by Renaud Laplanche.

A Finovate alum since 2007, LendingClub is becoming a bank.

Pioneering online lender LendingClub announced this week that it is rebranding to Happen Bank. The rebrand signals the company’s evolution beyond personal loans and into the world of full-service digital banking, leveraging LendingClub’s acquisition of Radius Bank.

“The LendingClub name no longer fits with everything we offer today,” CEO Scott Sanborn said. “The Happen Bank brand reflects both our expanded banking capabilities and our core mission: to clear the way for people going places. Our members are goal-oriented and know what they want to achieve. They’re not looking for marketing fluff; they want products that deliver reliable value, are easy to understand, and are effortless to use. That’s exactly what we’re built to deliver—and how we help them make it happen.”

The new brand is expected to launch this summer. The name of the bank was chosen to reflect “action, progress, and forward momentum,” the company noted in a statement, pledging that while the name and visual identity of the company will change, “there is no change to our award-winning products and services.”

“Our members don’t want banking to slow them down,” Chief Customer Officer Mark Elliott said. “The Happen Bank brand reflects how we show up for them—clear, human, and action-oriented. It’s about making financial products feel intuitive and supportive, so people can spend less time navigating banking and more time moving their lives forward.”

The company’s rebrand comes six years after it acquired online-only Radius Bank for $185 million. At the time, the acquisition was seen as an embrace of digital banking that would help LendingClub not only grow its membership base, but also better engage with its existing customers. The rebrand positions the business to compete more directly with rivals such as SoFi, Ally Financial, and Capital One in areas including retail banking, deposits, and personal lending. It will be worth watching to see whether Happen Bank can build on LendingClub’s track record as a pioneering online lender to find success in an increasingly crowded field of banks, neobanks, and fintechs.

Founded in 2007 by Renaud Laplanche, LendingClub caters to a community it calls the “Motivated Middle.” These individuals are high-FICO, above-average income, digitally savvy consumers who actively manage their financial lives. With more than five million members using its platform to access credit, personal and banking services, investing, and more, the company recently reported total net revenue growth of 23% and growth in loan originations of 40% relative to last year. Deposits were also up year-over-year by 8%.

Photo by Brett Jordan

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook