Alumni News

API Platform Speakeasy Raises $15 Million in Series A Funding

API Platform Speakeasy Raises $15 Million in Series A Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Speakeasy
  • API platform Speakeasy has secured $15 million in Series A funding.
  • The company will use the capital to expand its product offerings, accelerate its roadmap, and hire additional talent.
  • Headquartered in San Francisco, California. Speakeasy made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in New York this year,

In a round led by FPV Ventures, API platform Speakeasy has raised $15 million in Series A funding. Also participating in the investment were Google Ventures (GV) and Quiet Capital. Speakeasy noted that it plans to use the funding to expand its product offerings, accelerate its roadmap, and grow its team.

“Building a really great … modern API is very much undervalued and underestimated at companies,” Speakeasy CEO Sagar Batchu said in a statement on LinkedIn. “Everyone wants to be Stripe or Twilio or GitHub in terms of quality, but to get to that status … takes huge amounts of effort.”

Founded in 2022, Speakeasy offers an API platform designed to give developers the tools they need to build quality, reliable APIs. Concerned over the fact that growing API use among businesses was outpacing the ability of developers to provide them, Speakeasy looks to close the gap with a platform that handles the more cumbersome aspects of API development, freeing developers to focus on higher-order tasks like refining business logic.

Developers can use their favorite API framework to build APIs, and Speakeasy will help ensure APIs adhere to both industry and internal best practices. Speakeasy’s platform automates API testing to avoid shipping unintentional breaking changes, and also automatically generates the SDKs to make API integration easier.

“The Speakeasy team’s past experience building enterprise APIs has given them profound insight into, and empathy for, the struggles engineering teams are facing,” FPV Ventures Managing Partner Wesley Chan said. “They are building a platform that will not only address existing inefficiencies in API development but anticipates future challenges in the ecosystem.”

Speakeasy made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2024 in New York. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its technology enables financial institutions to build robust, well-managed, easy-to-use APIs. With Speakeasy’s API platform, technology teams can automate the creation and maintenance of API documentation and client SDKs that facilitate rapid and seamless API integration. Customers using the platform have been able to boost API user adoption, reduce time-to-integration, and save significant engineering costs. In 2024, Speakeasy noted that nearly 3,000 users have generated 7,250 SDKs.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Speakeasy includes fellow Finovate alums Apex Fintech Solutions and Apiture, as well as API companies Kong, Codat, and Shippo, among its customers.

Photo by mali maeder

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Wise to Power Cross-Border Payments for Standard Chartered

Wise to Power Cross-Border Payments for Standard Chartered
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, TransferWise, Wise

Global bank Standard Chartered unveiled this week that it has teamed up with cross-border payments fintech Wise (formerly TransferWise). The bank has selected Wise Platform, Wise’s global payments infrastructure for banks, to power international payments for SC Remit, Standard Chartered’s cross-border payment service.

Wise will facilitate fund transfers for SC Remit customers in Asia and the Middle East. Users will be able to send money in 21 currencies– including USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, SGD, HKD, and JPY. Wise will send the funds in seconds using its transparent, low-fee pricing model.

“We’re continually improving how we deliver exceptional banking experiences for our clients,” said Standard Chartered Global Head, Wealth Solutions, Deposits and Mortgages, and Chief Client Officer Samir Subberwal. “We chose to partner with Wise Platform due to their extensive currency coverage and stellar cross-border payments experience they are known for. This collaboration is a key step in enhancing our international payment services as we offer an even more seamless, faster, and efficient digital global payments experience to our clients.”

Standard Chartered said that the service will be available for SC Remit customers “in the coming quarters.” The bank also plans to expand the service to include more currencies, as well as into more markets.

Wise has been facilitating cross-border money transfers since it was founded in 2011. Today, in addition to its transparent, direct-to-consumer money transfer capabilities, Wise also offers a multi-currency account that allows users to save and hold funds in 50 different currencies, and send and receive money in 22 currencies. Wise holds more than 65 payment licenses, as well as six direct connections to payment systems.

Wise Platform, the infrastructure that Standard Chartered is leveraging, offers an API that allows banks and fintechs to embed cross-border payments capabilities into their existing website or app, allowing their customers to transfer 40+ currencies in 160+ countries. The majority (63%) of Wise’s cross-border payments are completed in under 20 seconds, while 95% take less than 24 hours. The U.K.-based company processes $154 billion (£118 billion) annually. Among Wise Platform’s customers are Monzo, N26, deel, and Shinhan Bank.

The topic of cross-border payments has accelerated in recent months, with traditional financial institutions and fintechs recognizing the need to compete by offering low-cost, rapid transactions across the globe. The rise of e-commerce, combined with new needs to pay remote workers, has led to a refreshed demand for cheaper, faster international payments. Today’s digital world has prompted consumers and businesses to expect speed and transparency when transacting, and banks are under new pressure to modernize their cross-border payment services to meet those needs.

Another factor that has brought cross-border transactions into the spotlight this year is the rise in stablecoin usage. As stablecoins become more mainstream and integrated into traditional payments infrastructure, they offer an international funds transfer solution that combines speed, cost-effectiveness, and digital accessibility.

Wise, however, currently does not use stablecoins and has not implemented blockchain technology into its operations. Instead, Wise has established a highly efficient, transparent, and compliant platform that meets compliance standards worldwide. It is unlikely that Wise will seek to leverage stablecoins any time soon, though, as adding stablecoins to its strategy could introduce new regulatory and operational complexities, which could potentially outweigh any benefits.

Photo courtesy Standard Chartered

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Agent IQ Partners with Narmi

Agent IQ Partners with Narmi
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Agent IQ, Alumni News, Daily news
  • Digital relationship banking innovator Agent IQ has teamed up with digital banking solutions provider Narmi.
  • The partnership will integrate Agent IQ’s Lynq banking platform with Narmi’s digital banking solutions to enable community banks and credit unions to offer enhanced, more personalized services.
  • Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Agent IQ most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.

A newly announced strategic partnership between digital relationship banking firm Agent IQ and digital banking solutions provider Narmi will help both community banks and credit unions enhance customer engagement across digital channels.

“By integrating our Lynq relationship banking platform with Narmi’s digital banking solutions, we’re equipping banks and credit unions with tools to offer a vastly improved customer experience while also empowering them to be more efficient,” Agent IQ Co-founder and CEO Slaven Bilac said.

Agent IQ specializes in digital relationship banking, providing personalization and customer engagement solutions that help banks and credit unions enhance customer relationships. The firm’s Lynq platform empowers financial institutions to provide proactive guidance and real-time insights to customers by combining human emotion and empathy with the efficiency of computer intelligence and AI. Narmi offers a digital banking platform designed to help community banks and credit unions provide their customers and members with the same kind of digital experience as their larger rivals. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in New York, Narmi boasts that its customers have seen account growth of as much as 3x in less than 30 days and deposit growth of 4x in as little as 90 days.

In a statement, the companies highlighted two major benefits of the partnership. These benefits include seamless digital banking functionality with AI personalization to provide customers with tailored support and consistent engagement, whether opening an account or using mobile banking. Another benefit of the partnership is the ability to enhance customer relationships by allowing customers to make digital transactions while accessing personal guidance from a dedicated banker — all without having to travel to a branch.

“Agent IQ is a perfect complement to Narmi’s digital banking and account opening products,” Narmi SVP of Operations Angela Gentry Yue said. “Together, we’re providing financial institutions with a comprehensive suite of tools that significantly enhance digital engagement and operational efficiency. This collaboration marks a major advancement in our mission to drive innovation in the banking industry.”

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Agent IQ made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2019. The company most recently appeared before Finovate audiences at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. At the conference, Agent IQ demoed its Lynq platform that enables customers to choose a personal banker to help them manage all their financial needs across any digital channel. Lynq leverages built-in augmented intelligence to enable personal bankers to better engage customers and build relationships in the digital space that are as personalized as relationships in a physical branch.

Agent IQ began the year announcing an extension of its integration partnership with fellow Finovate alum Q2. The extension empowers Q2’s sales organization to resell Agent IQ to Q2’s bank and credit union customers. Also in January, the company announced a collaboration with another fellow Finovate alum, ebankIT. Here, the partnership combines ebankIT’s self-service digital channels with Agent IQ’s personal digital engagement platform. “We wish to redefine the digital banking experience, make it more human, and set new benchmarks for customer engagement and satisfaction,” ebankIT CEO Renato Oliveira said when the collaboration was announced.

More recently, Agent IQ made fintech headlines via its work with community banks and credit unions. In July, Stanford Federal Credit Union won the Q2 Innovation Award for the launch of its digital communications channel powered by Agent IQ. The following month, Agent IQ announced a new partnership with the Bank of Utah. The independent community bank leveraged Agent IQ’s Lynq digital engagement platform to launch its new chat solution.

Photo by nagaraju gajula

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Quoroom Merges with Investory.io

Quoroom Merges with Investory.io
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Quoroom
  • Investment management platform Quoroom has merged with portfolio management software company Investory.io.
  • The merger will help streamline the capital-raising process for venture capital funds, angel syndicates, and startup founders.
  • Headquartered in London, Quoroom made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023.

It’s been M&A week here on the Finovate blog! Over the past few days, we’ve highlighted merger and acquisition activity from a pair of alums: nCino’s purchase of Full Circl and Array’s acquisition of fellow Finovate alum, Payitoff. For those looking for a silver lining among the VC funding slowdown in fintech, M&A activity like this might do the trick.

Here’s another fintech M&A announcement that almost slipped beneath our radar. Quoroom, an investment management platform that provides end-to-end fundraising and cap table management software for private companies, has merged with Investory.io.

Investory.io provides portfolio management software that facilitates structured and data-driven communication between investors and startups. With more than 3,000 company accounts and 6,500 investor accounts (including more than 1,000 institutional investors and 4,000 angel investors) on its platform, Investory.io leverages data and AI to enable data-driven portfolio decision-making for investors and simplified investor reporting for startups.

Quoroom’s technology provides an investment workflow that covers every aspect of a company’s lifecycle, from building an investor pipeline to legal completion. By giving investors a singular “source of truth” on deal flow and the metrics of portfolio companies, Quoroom helps companies stand out from the crowd and raise capital faster.

The strategic merger between Quoroom and Investory.io will help unify a fragmented market for venture capital infrastructure and analytics. Quoroom users will be able to leverage the integrated functionality of Investory.io to manage investor updates and cap tables in one place. At the same time, angel syndicates and venture capital funds will benefit from being able to manage fundraising, SPVs, portfolios, and LP reporting from within a single investment management platform.

“With this acquisition, Quoroom users can now manage cap tables, investor relations, and fundraising activities all in one place, making the process more efficient and effective,” the company noted on its LinkedIn page earlier this month when the deal was first announced. Quoroom added separately that it plans to offer “enhanced functionalities in the coming months” to further streamline investment management and make investor relations operations more efficient.

Headquartered in London and founded in 2018, Quoroom made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. At the conference, the company demoed its latest suite of investor relations tools, including enhanced investment recommendations, the ability to automatically visualize company financial metrics, and investor updates to keep shareholders informed during funding rounds.

We interviewed Quoroom CEO and CoFounder Ulyana Shtybel last summer as part of our Finovate Global interview series.

Photo by energepic.com

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

nCino Agrees to Acquire FullCircl

nCino Agrees to Acquire FullCircl
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Mergers & Acquisitions, nCino
  • Cloud banking platform nCino has agreed to acquire Client Lifecyle Intelligence platform FullCircl. The purchase price is $135 million, subject to customary adjustments.
  • The acquisition comes a year after the two first forged a partnership in July 2023.
  • Wilmington, North Carolina-based nCino made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017 in London.

In a deal valued at $135 million, banking solutions provider nCino has agreed to acquire U.K.-based Client Lifecycle Intelligence (CLI) platform, FullCircl. The acquisition comes a year after the two companies forged a partnership that combined FullCircl’s advanced data capabilities with nCino’s cloud banking platform.

“The acquisition of FullCircl is a strategic move for nCino that will not only enhance our data and automation capabilities, but also enables us to expand our reach across the U.K. and more broadly in Europe with an end-to-end experience for full client lifecycle management,” nCino CEO and Chairman Pierre Naudé said. “Having worked closely with the FullCircl team for some time now, we recognized the value our joint technology can deliver, and this acquisition marks an exciting step forward in our mission of driving innovation and powering a new era in financial services.”

nCino and FullCircl first partnered last year to improve the efficiency and profitability of acquiring, onboarding, and servicing SME customers. The collaboration set out to cut onboarding times, increase efficiency in credit operations, accelerate revenue growth, and win and retain more SME customers. Today’s acquisition announcement creates a new, end-to-end client lifecycle management experience that integrates customer acquisition and onboarding, KYC and KYB, as well as rules-based monitoring.

“We have been working with the nCino team for several years, and the close alignment in both organizations across vision, culture, customers, product, and market opportunity have contributed to this exciting acquisition making perfect sense,” FullCircl CEO and Cofounder Andrew Yates said. “We both serve regulated industries who walk a tightrope between a strict operating rulebook and a mandate to deliver growth and shareholder value, all while providing a seamless client experience.”

Founded in 2011, London-based FullCircl offers a Customer Lifecycle Intelligence (CLI) platform that helps companies in regulated industries better manage a variety of key business challenges. Via its applications, proprietary ‘graph’ technology, intelligent rules-based decision engine and APIs, FullCircl derives millions of actionable insights daily on entities from 160 countries. This enables the platform to provide a near real-time record of companies, corporate officers and shareholders, and the relationships between them. With more than 700 customers and 15,000+ users, the firm processes more than 300 million onboarding and monitoring transactions per month and facilitates the onboarding of more than 200,000 customers a year.

nCino made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, and founded in 2012, the company currently delivers innovative banking experiences to more than 1,800 customers around the world, including community banks, credit unions, and independent mortgage banks, as well as some of the largest financial institutions in the world.

nCino began the month inking a partnership with Tokushima Taisho Bank. The Japan-based financial institution chose nCino’s Commercial Banking Solution to bring greater efficiency and increased value to its business lending operations. Other recent partnerships with nCino include the company’s work to enhance corporate lending at Netherlands-based bank ABN AMRO and its agreement to automate loan origination processes and expand portfolio management capabilities for U.K. specialist bank Shawbrook.

nCino is a publicly-traded company on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker NCNO. The firm has a market capitalization of $4 billion.

Photo by Markus Spiske

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Cloud Banking Platform Mambu Inks Partnership with Kuady

Cloud Banking Platform Mambu Inks Partnership with Kuady
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Mambu
  • Cloud banking platform Mambu has teamed up with payments service processor Kuady.
  • Mambu is powering Kuady’s digital wallet offering, which has just launched in Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico.
  • Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Mambu made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia in 2013.

Courtesy of a new partnership with cloud banking platform Mambu, payments service processor Kuady has launched its digital wallet in Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. The launch comes less than nine months after the beginning of the partnership between the two companies, and sets the stage for further expansion in Latin America, as well as in Africa and Europe.

“We’re proud to support Kuady in its mission to enhance financial inclusion and transform how people manage their money,” Mambu Chief Revenue Officer Mark Geneste said. “As the adoption of digital wallets continues to grow globally, consumers are seeking smart alternatives to cash that provide flexible and ready-to-use spending, and we are here to support financial institutions and fintechs looking to expand and innovate in this space. We can offer the speed to market, future-proofing, and flexibility needed to stay ahead of the competition.”

Kuady’s new offering is powered by Mambu’s cloud banking platform and supported by Microsoft Azure. The company’s digital wallet will help consumers readily access their funds and manage their finances. Kuady’s wallet also empowers merchants to easily scale across borders, enabling instant payouts, chargeback protection, and more. Launched in July, the digital wallet arrives at a time when demand for digital wallets is surging. Mambu reported that the digital wallet market, which stood at 2.8 billion wallets and $5.5 trillion in spending globally in 2020, is expected to top $10 trillion in global spending by 2025. “One in every two people will choose to pay this way,” Mambu’s research into digital wallets revealed.

“With the tech foundation provided by Mambu, we’ve experienced incredible speed and flexibility allowing us to launch and expand our digital wallet across key Latin American markets in just under nine months,” Open Payment Technologies Ltd. Managing Director Mario Ricciardi said. Kuady is the registered business name of Open Payment Technologies. “As we look to enter more countries in Latin America and eventually expand across Africa and Europe,” Ricciardi added, “we’re excited about growing our business together with Mambu.”

Mambu made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore, and most recently demoed its technology for Finovate audiences at FinovateFall 2021 and again in partnership with Persistent Systems, at FinovateEurope 2022. In addition to its partnership with Kuady, the Berlin, Germany-based firm this month teamed up with INDEXO Bank. The financial institution, which recently secured a banking license from the European Central Bank, leveraged technology from Mambu to launch banking operations in Latvia.

Photo by Lukas

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Array Acquires Consumer Debt Management Company Payitoff

Array Acquires Consumer Debt Management Company Payitoff
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Array, Mergers & Acquisitions, Payitoff

Array, an embedded consumer products platform, has agreed to acquire embedded debt guidance solutions provider Payitoff. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The deal will build on Array’s position in the intelligent debt management solutions industry, and further equip the company to help financial institutions, fintechs, and digital brands accelerate growth, create new revenue streams, and enhance the consumer experience.

“Financial institutions and other providers of financial products in digital experiences realize that helping their consumers better understand and manage their debt is a powerful way to increase deposits, revenue, and brand loyalty,” Array Founder and CEO Martin Toha said. “We acquired Payitoff because our companies have a shared vision to provide seamless, embeddable products that fuel financial progress. This provides our clients with the best of all worlds: bringing valuable products to market faster without additional resources and overhead.”

Founded in 2020, Array offers a range of embeddable private label products that enable businesses to serve as “one-stop shops” for financial services. The company’s solutions help financial institutions serve a wider range of customers’ financial needs, increasing engagement, and opening up new potential sources of growth. Array’s solutions can be implemented through embedded or private label sites, as well as via its API, and turn 18-month builds into 6-12 week deployments.

Array won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021. The company returned to the Finovate stage the following year at FinovateSpring 2022, taking home its second Best of Show award in as many appearances. Most recently demoing its technology at FinovateSpring 2023, Array introduced its HelloPrivacy and Subscription Manager solutions. HelloPrivacy monitors and removes personally identifiable information (PII) from the web to help defend against identity theft, robocalls, and other privacy risks. Subscription Manager allows subscribers to manage their subscriptions from a single location, as well as cancel unwanted subscriptions and negotiate lower rates on select subscriptions.

Array began 2024 with the appointment of Kew Kelly-Yuoh as Chief Financial Officer, a partnership with digital banking solutions provider Narmi, and a spot on the Fintech Innovation 50 list for 2024. This spring, Array reported that its online privacy solution, Privacy Protect, had surpassed four million in protected users and removed more than 200 million online records on their behalf. Earlier this month, the company announced that Lumin Digital, a provider of cloud-native, digital banking solutions, will offer a suite of Array products including My Credit Manager with Offers Engine, and Identity Protect — along with Privacy Protect and Subscription Manager — as part of its Financial Wellness Monitoring Suite for financial institutions.

Founded in 2018, Payitoff was born out of CEO Bobby Matson’s personal struggle to pay off “six-figure student loans and debt.” After initially launching a student loan management solution, Matson and his team expanded their offerings to include a more comprehensive set of debt management tools. Enabling companies to seamlessly integrate broad debt management functionality into their digital platforms, Payitoff has managed 200,000+ loans valued at more than $1.5 billion.

“The opportunity for impact between Array and Payitoff is massive,” Matson said. “Student loan payments resumed a year ago, and with delinquencies starting to impact borrowers’ credit this month, the timing of this acquisition couldn’t be more critical. Array’s reach, combined with our debt management tools, will empower financial institutions and fintechs to help their consumers manage debt and save thousands — all with a seamless integration.”

Payitoff made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2023. At the conference, the consumer debt management tool provider demonstrated its white label, no code solution that empowers financial institutions to help their customers save money on student loan repayments. Earlier this year, Payitoff was selected to participate in Mastercard’s Start Path Open Banking Program.

Photo by Pixabay

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Socure Acquires Real-Time Risk Decisioning Company Effectiv for $136 Million

Socure Acquires Real-Time Risk Decisioning Company Effectiv for $136 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Effectiv, Mergers & Acquisitions, Socure
  • Socure has acquired risk decisioning company Effectiv for $136 million
  • Socure will integrate Effectiv’s AI-powered orchestration platform into its digital identity verification and fraud solutions.
  • The acquisition will enable Socure to enhance fraud prevention, automate identity verification, and manage risk across onboarding, authentication, payments, account changes, and more.

Digital identity verification company Socure has acquired risk decisioning company Effectiv in a $136 million deal.

The agreement, which is set to close next month, will bring Effectiv’s developer-friendly, AI orchestration and decisions platform into Socure’s digital identity verification and fraud solutions platform. Socure expects the purchase will enhance its customers’ fraud-fighting efforts while offering the ability to verify identities across the entire customer journey.

Socure will use Effectiv to create complex, combinatorial rules that apply not only to its own solutions but also to those from third parties. Effectiv will provide a unified approach to enhancing identity verification for Socure, automating risk and trust decisions across various processes, including onboarding, authentication, payments, account updates, account recovery, and regulatory filings.

Effectiv, which demoed at FinovateFall 2023, was founded in 2021 to provide an open platform that integrates a wide range of risk solutions– including identity and payment fraud controls, underwriting, Know Your Business (KYB) and anti-money laundering (AML) tools– to facilitate decisions in real-time. Using Effectiv’s technology, firms can combat identity theft, account takeover, scams, and real-time payment fraud. Among the company’s clients are Ouro/Netspend, Lightspeed Commerce, Cardless, and Payco.

Today’s move positions Socure in the $200 billion enterprise fraud industry. The Nevada-based company, which currently serves 2,700 customers, will now be able to help its clients tackle payments fraud, credit underwriting, and AML transaction monitoring.

“With a world-class platform from Effectiv and analytics that allows for adaptive and progressive risk decisioning, we will be able to help our partners with a single view of identity to drive instant risk and trust decisions anytime, anywhere,” said Socure founder and CEO Johnny Ayers.

This isn’t Socure’s first time working with the Effectiv team. The company worked with Effectiv founders Ravi Sandepudi, Ritesh Arora, Jonathan Doering, and Anupam Tarsauliya when they worked at fraud prevention platform Simility before it was acquired by PayPal for $120 million in 2018.

Logistically, the Effectiv team will join Socure. The group will work to develop and promote Socure’s platform product, engineering, data science, and will immediately contribute to its enterprise go-to-market strategy.

“Socure has uniquely built everything required to solve for new account opening at the identity level—arguably the hardest problem because it’s the first time you’ve seen the consumer,” said Effectiv CEO and Co-founder Ravi Sandepudi. “Now we can review and analyze the user’s risk profile across transactions and accounts over time, maintaining an up-to-date perspective which was impossible before.”

Sandepudi will become Head of Platform Products at Socure.

Photo by Fernando Arcos

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Mastercard to Offer Real Time Cross-Border Payments for Commercial Clients

Mastercard to Offer Real Time Cross-Border Payments for Commercial Clients
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MasterCard
  • Mastercard launched Move Commercial Payments, a real-time cross-border payments solution that operates 24/7.
  • The new commercial payments tool leverages a multi-rail system that includes SWIFT and Mastercard’s proprietary networks.
  • Move Commercial Payments offers features like liquidity management, integration with existing SWIFT systems, and helps to reduce counterparty risk.

Mastercard unveiled an offering this week that will allow commercial users to make cross-border payments in near-real-time. The payments giant introduced Mastercard Move Commercial Payments today, which facilitates payments 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Mastercard Move Commercial Payments leverages a multi-rail approach that includes SWIFT, and Mastercard’s proprietary networks to facilitate the cross-border payments. Relying on multiple rails enables banks and their commercial clients to send near-instant, transparent, and predictable transactions any time of day, any day of the week.

Cross-border payments have become increasingly crucial for businesses operating in a global economy. According to a 2023 McKinsey study, global payments revenue grew by double digits in both 2021 and 2022. However, many businesses still struggle with cross-border payments, frustrated by hidden costs and unpredictable settlement speed.

Mastercard Move Commercial Payments offers more than just real-time settlement. The tool also includes several features designed to enhance its value for banks. These features include multiple settlement options that improve liquidity management, a multi-party arrangement to reduce counterparty and default risks, integration with existing SWIFT messaging systems, and compatibility with current correspondent banking relationships. These elements help banks maximize operational efficiency while minimizing risk.

“By powering fast, predictable and transparent payments, Mastercard Move Commercial Payments will bring what is already the norm in domestic payments to the commercial cross-border payment space,” said Mastercard Head of Transfer Solutions Alan Marquard. “Our latest product innovation aims to directly address the pain points that are currently affecting the commercial cross-border payments market. By shifting to this new model, they will be empowered to generate new revenue streams while reducing risk and enhancing the offering for their corporate customers.”

Mastercard Move Commercial Payments, which is part of the company’s Move portfolio, was piloted in the U.K. with Lloyds Banking Group and UBS. This initial phase marked an important step in refining the platform’s capabilities for large-scale deployment. By collaborating with major financial institutions, Mastercard was able to validate the efficiency of its multi-rail payment system, demonstrating the platform’s market readiness and paving the way for broader adoption.

Mastercard’s launch competes with Visa’s real-time payments solution called Visa Direct, which enables fast and secure money movement to different endpoints across the globe. Similar to Mastercard’s Move Commercial Payments, Visa Direct also leverages a multi-rail approach that supports card-based and account-to-account transfers that integrate with The Clearing House RTP and FedNow.

Today’s launch comes amid a string of other payments-related news releases this month, as both fintechs and traditional financial services firms seek to capitalize on the recent consumer awareness of real-time payments generated from last year’s FedNow launch. Just last week, for example, we covered news from Worldline, which unveiled an account-to-account transfer tool in Europe, Tyfone’s launch of Payfinia instant payments solution, and Token.io’s real-time payments partnership with Santander.

Photo by Lea L on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Apex Fintech Solutions Acquires FinTron

Apex Fintech Solutions Acquires FinTron
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Apex Clearing Corporation, Daily news
  • Apex Fintech Solutions has agreed to acquire fintech design agency, FinTron. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
  • The digital wealth management company will leverage FinTron’s technology to provide its customers with the ability to create customized user interfaces and experiences.
  • Apex Fintech Solutions’ subsidiary Apex Clearing made its Finovate debut at FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2015.

Digital wealth management company Apex Fintech Solutions has agreed to acquire FinTron, a fintech design agency that creates high-end digital experiences for investors and advisors around the world.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed and the deal is subject to approval by FINRA. Once completed, the strategic acquisition will enable Apex’s customers to deliver customized user interfaces and experiences for brokerage platforms that are pre-integrated into the Apex platform. This will enable them to easily deploy turnkey investing experiences and front-ends from within their current digital footprint, powered by Apex’s custody platform.

“FinTron has revolutionized the process of launching a brokerage or wealth management platform,” Apex CEO Bill Capuzzi said. “Their innovative platform aligns perfectly with our mission to empower the next generation of investors through technology. This acquisition is a significant step in our journey to provide a fully integrated, digital-first platform that meets the diverse needs of our clients.”

Known for its white-label and embedded components, as well as its Software Development Kit (SDK) for mobile and web platforms, FinTron empowers brokerages and wealth management firms to embed self-directed and managed investing functionality into their offering. Apex will leverage its acquisition of FinTron to expand its services to clients ranging from financial advisors and fintech firms to neobanks, insurance companies, and retirement planning companies. In fact, FinTron’s technology already has been integrated into the company’s suite of services to streamline investment processes, enhance the user experience, and bring more advanced investment capabilities to a wider audience of investors.

“We are thrilled to join forces with Apex,” FinTron CEO and Founder Wilder Rumpf said. “Our shared vision of democratizing financial services and providing intuitive, powerful tools to investors will only be strengthened through this partnership. Together, we can make a significant impact on the financial futures of many.”

Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, FinTron was founded in 2017. The company has raised more than $14 million in funding from investors including Connecticut Innovations and Sage Venture Partners. FinTron’s embedded wealth solutions help broker-dealers, community banks and credit unions, investment advisors, and fintechs lower CAPEX and time to market, capture engagement, and offer clients versatile digital wealth experiences.

Apex Fintech Solutions introduced itself to Finovate audiences at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2015, via its subsidiary, Apex Clearing. Recently, the New York-based company launched its real-time cloud-native investment infrastructure, Apex Ascend, and announced a collaboration with wealth management solution provider YourStake. FinTron is Apex’s fourth acquisition; the firm purchased AdvisorArch, its third acquisition, in March of this year.

Photo by Marek Piwnicki

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Worldline Launches Account-to-Account Transfer Tool in Europe

Worldline Launches Account-to-Account Transfer Tool in Europe
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Worldline
  • Worldline has launched Bank Transfer by Worldline, an account-to-account payment tool.
  • The new pay-by-bank solution enables retailers to accept bank draft payments and handle high-value transactions, including B2B payments, across 10 European countries.
  • Bank Transfer by Worldline also facilitates cross-border payments, leveraging Worldline’s open banking network to connect with over 3,500 banks, providing merchants a seamless way to initiate payments directly from customer bank accounts, reducing transaction fees and declines.

Payments services company Worldline is launching yet another payment tool this week. After debuting its embedded payments tool earlier this month, the France-based company is launching Bank Transfer by Worldline, an account-to-account payment method.

The new pay-by-bank solution enables retailers to accept bank draft payments and allows for non-traditional payment methods, including invoices and high-value transactions. Bank Transfer by Worldline boasts many of the same benefits that popular pay-by-bank tools offer.

The solution is notably different from traditional pay-by-bank offerings in the U.S. because it facilitates cross-border payments. This is key for merchants operating across multiple geographies. Additionally, the new payments tool specializes in high-value transactions– including B2B transactions– that typically incur higher fees and reduces the number of declined transactions, since funds are validated directly from the bank account.

“With Bank Transfer by Worldline, we have developed a payment method grounded in trust and simplicity, leveraging existing European payment networks and offering innovative customer experience,” said company Head of Merchant Services Paul Marriott-Clarke. “This launch reinforces our commitment to making payment solutions accessible for all.”

Bank Transfer by Worldline, which went live in August of 2024, allows merchants to accept payments from around 300 million customers. After a nine-month pilot phase, the solution now counts about 500 Worldline merchants clients using Bank Transfer by Worldline’s online payment solutions and pay-by-link services.

“By integrating Worldline’s open banking solution, which connects to over 3,500 banks across European countries, Bank Transfer by Worldline offers merchants a solution that simplifies payment initiation via bank transfer and unifies the customer experience,” said Worldline Head of Financial Services Alessandro Baroni.

The new tool is available for merchants in 10 European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain. The company aims to launch in another four regions– Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary– by the end of 2024. Eventually, Bank Transfer by Worldline will be available to all eligible merchants across the EU.

Photo by Adrien Olichon

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Velera Partners with Arroweye Solutions

Velera Partners with Arroweye Solutions
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Arroweye Solutions, Daily news
  • Payments credit union service organization (CUSO) Velera has turned to Arroweye Solutions for its dual interface debit and credit card portfolio.
  • The multi-year partnership will provide faster speed to market and change orders, as well as zero inventory to avoid having to manage stores of pre-printed cards.
  • Headquartered in Nevada, Arroweye made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2011.

Payments credit union service organization (CUSO) Velera has partnered with Arroweye Solutions to provide card production, personalization, and fulfillment for Velera’s dual interface debit and credit card portfolio.

The multi-year partnership announced this week will enable Arroweye to provide Velera and its financial institution partners with a variety of benefits for their card programs. These include fast speed to market and change orders; dynamic card personalization; zero inventory as cards are manufactured, personalized, and fulfilled as needed; quality materials, vertical or horizontal orientation, and other options.

“Supporting Velera’s card diversification strategy, Arroweye’s capabilities will help Velera enhance time to market and deliver a more seamless, frictionless card personalization experience to our financial institutions’ clients,” Velera SVP for Product Enablement & Growth, Cody Banks said. “We view Arroweye as a true financial services partner and look forward to integrating their suite of capabilities into our core offering.”

Arroweye CEO Dan Oswald praised Velera as a “premier fintech solutions provider for credit unions in North America.” Oswald added, “Arroweye’s solutions and capabilities align perfectly with Velera’s card issuance needs today and into the future, and we look forward to providing Arroweye’s best-in-class services to their financial institutions.”

Created via a merger between PSCU and Co-op Solutions earlier this year, Velera is both a premier payments credit union service organization (CUSO) and an integrated fintech solutions provider. Velera serves more than 4,000 financial institutions throughout North America, offering a product portfolio that features solutions for payment processing, fraud and risk management, data and analytics, digital banking, instant payments, strategic consulting, ATM and POS networks, and more. Charles E. Fagan III is President and CEO.

Founded in 2000, Arroweye Solutions made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2011. In the years since, the Henderson, Nevada-based company has grown into a leading card delivery firm, offering EMV, dual-interface, and magnetic stripe cards approved by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and UnionPay.

This year, Arroweye has formed partnerships with small business financial services platform Affinity Finance and professional banking services provider BankPro, a subsidiary of FxPro Group. The company has raised more than $76 million in funding according to Crunchbase, and includes Multiplier Capital and Landa Ventures among its investors.

Photo by Pixabay

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook