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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Payments leader Visa launched its Subscription Manager service this week.
The new offering enables financial institutions to give Visa cardholders an easy way to track and manage their subscriptions.
Visa made its first Finovate appearance at FinovateSpring in 2010.
Expected to reach $406 billion by 2025, the international subscription economy has been an increasingly attractive opportunity for fintechs and financial services companies alike. The growth of the subscription economy has meant a surge in demand for solutions to help consumers deal with their ever-growing reliance on subscription services. Among Finovate alums alone, firms from Minna Technologies to Subaio have demonstrated leadership in this “subscription management” space.
As such, it is little surprise to learn that global payments leader Visa is getting into the game. The company announced the launch of its Subscription Manager service this week. The new offering will enable financial institutions to provide Visa cardholders with an easy way to track and manage their subscriptions.
“Managing subscriptions can often feel like a maze, with consumers sometimes feeling trapped in a cycle of confusing charges,” Visa Global Head of Issuing Solutions Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore said. “Our goal is to make this process simpler and ensure cardholders know exactly where their money is going, and when.”
Visa’s Subscription Manager streamlines information on recurring payments, locating that data in one place to make it easy for cardholders to see where their card details are stored, view the recurring payments that are on each card, and to stop recurring payments where services are no longer wanted. Whether the subscription type is a streaming service, a gym membership, or a utilities payment, Visa’s Subscription Manager gives its cardholders a new level of convenience and control when it comes to ensuring that they are only subscribed to the actual services they want and use.
Currently available as a pilot project in select regions, Subscription Manager is the latest addition to Visa’s Digital Enablement product suite. The suite includes a set of tools and solutions designed to enable issuers to offer better digital experiences for their cardholders.
Visa has been a Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateSpring in 2010. A leader in digital payments, Visa facilitates transactions across more than 200 countries and territories. The company is publicly traded on the NYSE under the ticker “V” and has a market capitalization of $556 billion. Ryan McInerney was appointed CEO in February 2023.
Interested in demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May? We are happy to read applications from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateSpring hub today to learn more.
Indiana-based New Washington State Bank (NWSB) has selected Apiture’s Digital Banking Platform to power its online and mobile banking solutions.
The community bank will also deploy Apiture’s Account Opening and Data Intelligence solutions to onboard customers faster and to offer tailored campaigns.
Apiture made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. The company is headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina.
New Washington State Bank (NWSB), a community financial institution serving Southern Indiana for 116 years, has partnered with Apiture to power its online and mobile banking offerings. The bank will deploy Apiture’s Digital Banking Platform, and implement the fintech’s Consumer Banking, Business Banking, Account Opening, and Data Intelligence solutions.
“With integrations to more than 200 best-of-breed fintech partners and an API-first approach that enables rapid innovation, the Apiture Digital Banking Platform will empower NWSB to provide the unified, intuitive banking experience today’s technologically savvy customers expect,” Apiture CEO Chris Babcock said.
The partnership follows the bank’s decision to migrate from a multi-vendor strategy to a single platform for both its online and mobile banking operations. NWSB Chief Strategy Officer Chris Bottorff said that providing a “cohesive and consistent digital experience” is a priority for the institution as it seeks “to improve the financial lives of those living and working in the communities we serve.” Bottorff praised Apiture as a partner that will help the Indiana-based bank better engage its existing customers as well as attract new ones.
To this point, NWSB underscored its readiness to take advantage of two of Apiture’s solutions in particular: Account Opening and Data Intelligence. The former enables customers to open and fund accounts in minutes. The latter provides tools to build personalized campaigns to better engage both individuals and businesses.
Headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, Apiture made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 and returned the following year to demo at FinovateFall 2023. At the conference, Apiture showed how its AI-based solution, Sensei, provides a real-time assessment of an individual’s finances. The technology analyzes a variety of data sources, including account balances and transaction histories, to provide proactive insights into the ways the individual can improve their financial wellness.
Apiture’s partnership news with NWSB comes just a few weeks after the fintech reported that Edwards Federal Credit Union (Edwards FCU) of California had selected its Consumer Banking solution. Like NWSB, Edwards FCU will also deploy Apiture’s Data Intelligence solution as part of its data strategy. Apiture began 2024 by teaming up with Redwood Capital Bank, which chose Apiture’s Digital Banking Platform to power its online and mobile banking operations.
Apiture has raised $69 million in funding. The company includes T. Rowe Price and Live Oak Bank among its investors.
Visa and Mastercard have reached a settlement that will lower interchange fess for U.S. merchants.
The settlement, which still must be approved by the court, calls for a five-year reduction in fees as well as changes that will enable greater optionality for merchants when it comes to credit card transaction surcharging.
U.S. merchants stand to save more than $29 billion over the next five years due to the settlement.
Chalk one up for U.S. merchants.
There are many factors that drive innovation in financial services: technological change, competition, regulatory adjustments … this week, recalled a fourth, less common method: the lawsuit.
Visa and Mastercard announced that they have reached a major settlement with merchants in the U.S. that will see interchange fees both lowered and capped. The settlement is the end result of a lawsuit that extends back to 2005. The lawsuit alleges that merchants paid excessive fees to accept Visa and Mastercard credit card transactions. Further, the suit claims that both companies and their member banks were in violation of antitrust laws in doing so.
Per the settlement, these interchange fees – also known as swipe fees – will be lowered and capped until 2030. Hilliard Shadowen, the law firm that represented the merchants in the case, estimates that U.S. merchants will save more than $29 billion over the next five years. Additionally, the settlement will also mark the end of “anti-steering restrictions” and potentially pave the way for more competitive pricing with regards to swipe fees.
Steve Shadowen, founding partner at Hilliard Shadowen, said the settlement represented “comprehensive market-based solutions to too-high swipe fees” as well as “immediate fee relief to merchants as they make these new competitive tools work for them.”
Looking under the hood, the settlement calls for a reduction in swipe fees of at least four basis points (0.04 percentage points) for three years. At the same time, these fees must be at least seven basis points below the current average for the next five years. These changes are still subject to court approval, and Mastercard has suggested that, once approved, they still would not go into effect until late this year or early next.
“This agreement brings closure to a long-standing dispute by delivering substantial certainty and value to business owners, including flexibility in how they manage acceptance of card programs,” Mastercard Chief Legal Officer, General Counsel and Head of Global Policy Rob Beard said.
“We are making these concessions while also maintaining the safety, security, innovation, and protections, rewards, and access to credit that are so important to millions of Americans and to our economy,” Kim Lawrence, President, North America, Visa, said in a statement.
The actual impact of these changes on consumers using credit cards is uncertain. The settlement will enable merchants to add surcharges to cards with higher swipe fees. This could discourage the use of some premium cards that are attractive to consumers because of their robust rewards, but can be costly to merchants, who may pay swipe fees of as much as 4% per transaction according to the National Retail Federation. Swipe fees currently average approximately 2% per transaction. Merchants will also be able to offer incentives and discounts to encourage consumers to use credit cards with less expensive fees.
Additionally, the settlement includes an allocation of $15 million for an independent merchant education program. Available for free, the program will help ensure that all merchants are aware of new changes.
The first week of April begins with a resolution in the Sam Bankman-Fried saga as the former FTX founder and infamous crypto entrepreneur receives a sentence of 25 years in prison.
Crypto
Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for its role in the FTX scandal.
Fraud and risk platform DataVisor launched its anti-money laundering (AML) solution this week.
The new offering combines fraud fighting and anti-money laundering operations in a unified, approach that helps institutions better deal with emerging threats and evolving regulations.
DataVisor made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall last September.
AI-powered fraud and risk platform DataVisorlaunched its end-to-end anti-money laundering (AML) solution this week. The technology leverages sophisticated machine learning and AI to cover the entire AML process without disrupting the customer’s existing workflows.
Natively integrating with DataVisor’s fraud platform, the new offering enables a unified fraud and anti-money laundering (FRAML) strategy. This enhances defense against new financial crime threats and helps institutions align themselves with the trend toward combining fraud fighting and AML operations. DataVisor’s AML technology is customizable, supports a wide range of AML risk profiles and programs, and improves efficiency by reducing the number of false positives.
More specifically, DataVisor’s new AML solution provides:
Comprehensive end-to-end functionality: including customer risk rating, CDD, EDD, sanction/watchlist screening, transaction monitoring, case management, and automated SAR filing.
Enhanced detection and reduced false positives: leveraging robust data orchestration to provide a holistic view of customer profiles for more effective risk assessment.
Increased operational efficiency and reduced costs: courtesy of Generative AI-powered automation which triages alerts and automates manual processes.
Centralized insights and monitoring: using enhanced task prioritization to deliver insights into AML alerts, case statuses, and the progress of review teams.
Fast and flexible integration: via a cloud-based solution that integrates with existing fraud workflows for fast implementation.
“The substantial interest we’ve seen from financial institutions highlights the imperative need to address the challenges posed by outdated, legacy AML technology,” DataVisor co-founder and Chief Product Officer Fang Yu said. “FIs partnering with DataVisor are already witnessing the benefits of our industry-leading FRAML solution. Our focus on continued innovation ensures that we not only meet the current compliance demand but also remain agile to anticipate and counteract future financial crimes.”
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, DataVisor made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall. At the conference, the company showed how its platform provides a comprehensive, AI-powered fraud and risk platform for the entire fraud workflow in a single, self-serve solution. DataVisor demonstrated the platform’s ability to integrate any data source – including third party data sources – and apply its rules engine, device intelligence, decision engine, and case management to improve fraud detection.
Founded in 2013, DataVisor began this year with an announcement that the company’s platform had secured PCI compliance. A month later, the company unveiled a new solution to give sponsor banks better ability to monitor and manage Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) compliance and transaction fraud patterns. The solution also enables institutions to conduct a comprehensive customer risk assessment in partnership with fintechs.
According to Crunchbase, DataVisor has raised more than $94 million in funding. The company includes TruStage Ventures and NewView Capital among its investors. Co-founder Yinglian Xie is CEO.
Anti-fraud platform Feedzai has teamed up with account-to-account (A2A) platform Form3.
Courtesy of the partnership, Feedzai will power Form3’s new authorized push payment fraud (APP) fraud prevention solution.
Founded in 2011, Feedzai made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2014.
Anti-fraud and financial crime software company Feedzai will power the new authorized push payment fraud (APP fraud) prevention solution from account-to-account (A2A) platform Form3. Built with supervised machine learning, the new offering from Form3 takes advantage of collaborative intelligence to determine the risk of a payment in real-time by understanding the behavior of both the sender and the recipient.
The technology acknowledges that understanding the recipient of a payment is just as important as understanding the sender when it comes to preventing fraud, particularly APP fraud. This is because APP fraud involves fraudsters tricking legitimate accountholders into sending payments to illegitimate accounts owned or accessed by the fraudster.
Feedzai CPO Pedro Barata explained that both regulation and emergent fraud threats are driving innovation in the payment fraud space. Barata noted in particular new regulations later this year that will mandate reimbursement for victims of APP fraud. He underscored that this would provide additional incentive for banks to embrace new anti-fraud technologies. “By combining the expertise of Feedzai and Form3, we can drastically reduce the level of vulnerability in the payment process and give our customers the real-time intelligence that they need to stop fraudsters in their tracks.”
The innovations in fraud prevention are also being driven by positive developments in fintech like real-time payments. As more fraudsters see real-time payments as a potential way to target consumers, businesses need to respond with technologies and anti-fraud solutions that close security gaps and respond to emerging threats like APP fraud.
“The best way to tackle the rise of APP fraud is the use of collaborative intelligence and cutting edge technologies that allow the real-time identification of scams within the payment message,” Form3 CEO Mike Walters said.
A Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateEurope in 2014, Feedzai today counts 80% of the world’s Fortune 500 among its customers. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, Feedzai now has more than 600 employees, maintains 10 offices around the world, and supports operations in 190 countries. The risk management tool provider has raised more than $277 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Nuno Sebastiao is CEO.
Finland-based SkenarioLabs and Sweden’s Econans announced a collaboration this week.
The partnership will provide financial institutions with a number of new green finance tools.
SkenarioLabs made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope. Econans demoed its technology at our online European fintech conference in 2021.
SkenarioLabs, a predictive data analytics solution provider for the real estate industry, has announced a new partnership with fellow Finovate alum, Econans. The collaboration between SkenarioLabs and the Swedish financial advisory platform will give banks a range of new green finance tools.
The joint venture between the two companies will help financial institutions navigate regulatory trends based on concerns over climate change. These trends include the EU Taxonomy for sustainable activities, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) – among others. The partnership between Skenario Labs and Econans will provide institutions with a future-proof, end-to-end solution that helps them meet reporting obligations and supports building energy transition.
“We’re thrilled to announced our partnership with Econans – Energy Transition Unlocked – a pioneering Swedish finance advisory platform,” SkenarioLabs shared in a post at LinkedIn. “Together, we strive to pave the way for a more resilient future in real estate – exciting times ahead!”
Founded in Finland in 2015, SkenarioLabs made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope 2024 in London. At the conference, the company demoed two solutions. The first was its green finance offering that analyzes the potential for enhancing energy performance. The solution then recommends financing options that help reduce carbon emissions. The company also demoed its climate resilience solution. This technology helps institutions understand and manage the impact of climate change – as well as emerging laws and regulations – on their real estate portfolios.
Econans made its Finovate debut three years ago at our online European fintech conference in 2021. The company, founded in Sweden in 2018, offers digital simulation and automated advice to help people better manage their personal finance journey through major life events such as buying a home, having children, and planning for retirement. Econans’ technology helps boost consumer’s confidence in their financial services partner and delivers higher conversion rates for banks and real estate companies. The firm’s white label solutions are easy to integrate and currently have more than 500,000 end users per month in Sweden.
Digital identity solutions provider Signicat has acquired fraud prevention firm SmartWorks. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition expands Signicat’s presence and reach in Iceland, where SmartWorks is headquartered.
Signicat made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateEurope.
Digital identity solutions provider Signicat announced its sixth strategic acquisition since 2019 this week. The Norway-based company has acquired fraud prevention innovator SmartWorks. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Headquartered in Iceland, SmartWorks is the largest provider of e-signatures and anti-fraud solutions in the country. The company’s customers include Íslandsbanki, Brimborg, and the City of Reykjavik – where SmartWorks was founded in 2016.
“Electronic signatures are widely adopted and already a business standard in Iceland. However, trust services extend far beyond signatures with authentications, identity proofing, validations, trust orchestration and many other related services,” SmartWorks CEO and founder Olafur Pall Einarsson said. “This union puts us in the position to shape the future of digital identity in Iceland and to partner with all key stakeholders to define how the market will evolve.”
Signicat plans to leverage the acquisition to expand its presence in Iceland. The company is particularly eager to market its Dokobit by Signicat solution in the country. Secured via an acquisition in 2021, Dokobit provided cross-border signing capabilities and gave Signicat the ability to expand into the Baltic markets, including Lithuania where Dokobit was founded in 2008.
As part of this week’s acquisition, the entire SmartWorks team will join Signicat. SmartWorks’ Einarsson will continue on as Signicat Country Manager Iceland.
“We are highly enthusiastic about this acquisition as SmartWorks is the market leader in Iceland when it comes to fraud and digital identity,” Signicat CEO Asger Hattel said. “We can now further leverage SmartWorks’ expertise and resources to sell our portfolio of digital identity solutions across the Icelandic market.”
Norway-based Signicat has more than 13,000 customers in 44 countries, representing organizations in payments, digital wallets, and insurance, as well as in government entities. The company’s technology supports more than 130 data verification sources – including national eIDs – to identity both businesses and individuals. Signicat also enables companies to securely scan international identity documents using video-based verification for AML, KYC checks, and more.
Signicat finished 2023 topping the NOK 1 billion ($93 million) mark in revenue and more than one billion transactions. The transactions number represented a gain of more than 25% over 2022.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global features the latest fintech news from Germany, where investors are backing innovations in embedded finance, payments companies are taking advantage of open banking, and the green shoots of crypto spring are growing ever more apparent.
Solaris secures funding
Germany’s embedded finance platform Solarissecured $103 million (€96 million) in a Series F round this week. The investment was led by SBI, one of Solaris’ earliest investors, with other existing investors also participating. Solaris will use the additional capital, which takes the firm’s total funding to more than $486 million (€450 million), to onboard its ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club) credit card program, strengthen its core capital, and invest further in its platform.
“This is a significant milestone for Solaris on our path to sustainable, profitable growth,” Solaris CEO Carsten Höltkemeyer said. “The funding underlines the high level of confidence our investors have in the transformation of our company.”
In addition to the investment, the Series F also included a financial guarantee of up to $108 million (€100 million) capital equivalent.
A pioneer in the banking-as-a-service business for nearly a decade, Solaris has grown into a major banking and technology provider with more than 750 employees at ten locations in both Europe and India. The company’s BaaS solution enables businesses to embed digital banking services – including payments, lending, and identity verification – directly into their platform. In addition to making it easier for companies to launch customized financial products and services, Solaris has secured the requisite licensing – including an e-money license for both the UK and EEA – to help companies navigate the regulatory complexities of doing business across the region.
Headquartered in Berlin, Solaris realized net revenues of $140 million (€130 million) in 2022. Last fall, the company issued a study – Disrupting the value chain for financial services – How to drive revenue growth with embedded finance – that highlighted “easier access to services” as a major driver of demand for embedded financial solutions.
Micropayment partners with Tink for Pay by Bank
Berlin-based payment processor Micropayment has turned to open banking platform Tink to add Pay by Bank to its payments offering. Live in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, Micropayment’s Pay by Bank enables consumers to initiate payments directly from their bank account to the seller’s account when purchasing goods and services. A growing preference for both merchants and consumers, account-to-account (A2A) payments provide a secure and streamlined experience for customers and lower costs for merchants.
“The DACH region is a key market for us, and Tink’s dedication to serving merchants across various industries has been invaluable,” Micropayment CSO Thomas Knoth said. “Their payment method offers consumers the speed, reliability, and security they expect, making it a seamless experience for both merchants and consumers.” In a statement, Micropayment noted that it plans to take further advantage of Tink’s pan-Europe connectivity in the future.
Founded in 2005, Micropayment is a full-service payment provider that provides its customers with software implementation, payment processing, detailed analysis, and more. The company offers nine different payment options designed specifically for e-commerce and paid content services. Micropayment customers can integrate the technology via ready-made payment windows and preconfigured shop logins, as well as white-label APIs and interfaces.
“Collaboration with Micropayment has got off to an excellent start and we are gaining traction in a highly competitive landscape, by offering merchants a payment method that offers everything a consumer has come to expect – familiarity, speed, reliability, and convenience,” Tink DACH Payments Director Thomas Gmelch said.
A Finovate alum since its Best of Show winning debut in 2014 at FinovateEurope, Tink returned to the Finovate stage three years later to earn its second Best of Show award. Most recently, the Sweden-based company announced a partnership with German modern mobility sharing services provider Deutsche Bahn. The company will deploy Tink’s Account Check solution to enable instant, secure account onboarding.
Crypto spring is alive and well in Europe as the region’s most prominent digital bank, N26, announced that its first cryptocurrency product, N26 Crypto, will be available to its customers in France. N26 began the year with the unveiling of its new Stock and ETF trading product – and the bank’s crypto solution already has been available in seven of N26’s 24 European markets. This week’s announcement adds French traders and investors to the ranks of those N26 customers who will be able to transact in nearly 200 cryptocurrencies on the N26 app.
N26 Crypto will be available to all eligible customers in France, or at least with a French or a German IBAN. All membership tiers will be able to access the technology, including customers using free accounts. There will be no additional charge for using N26 Crypto, which the bank says will offer the broadest range of cryptocurrencies for trading and investing compared to all other European banking apps.
“Last summer, we installed our local French Iban to be able to accelerate the deployment of the global banking offer that we want to provide to our approximately 3 million customers in France,” N26 General Manager France & Benelux, Jérémie Rosselli explained. “With this, customers can go beyond managing their money simply and intuitively on their smartphone to also invest within the N26 ecosystem,” Rosselli said.
The new offering is made possible via a partnership with Bitpanda GmbH, which manages the execution of trades as well as the custody of coins. With only €1 to get started, N26 Crypto users pay 1.5% in fees on Bitcoin and 2.5% on other cryptocurrencies. Users can upgrade to N26 Metal to take advantage of reduced transaction fees, as well as other perks.
Founded in 2013 by Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal, N26 has eight million customers and operates in 24 different markets. The bank’s crypto product announcement follows a slew of recent headlines from the German bank. These include the launch of its Instant Savings solution in 13 new markets, and the appointment of Mayur Kamat as new Chief Product Officer.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Central and Eastern Europe
German challenger bank N26 launched new cryptocurrency trading product N26 Crypto.
Flowpay, a Czech-based fintech that provides financing for small businesses, raised $2.3 million (€2.1 million) in seed funding.
German embedded finance platform Solaris raised $103 million (€96 million) in a Series F round led by SBI Group.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Israel-based BioCatch and Google Cloud partner to bring fraud prevention solutions to expanding markets.
UAE-based Tungsten secured a license from the FSRA to operate at the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).
Bahrain’s Eazy Financial Services joined forces with Tabby to provide BNPL services via its EazyPay POS terminals network.
Central and Southern Asia
Business Recorder’s Syed Yousuf Raza looked at how Pakistan’s banking and fintech industry is dealing with evolving fraud threats.
The Indian government signed a $23 million loan agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to enhance access to fintech education, research, and innovation at the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City.
FinTech Alliance Nepal joined the Asia FinTech Alliance.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Colombian fintech Addi secured $86 million in a combination of equity and debt financing.
Uruguayan digital payments firm dLocal anticipates record total payment volumes in 2024.
Nubank Brazil CEO Livia Chanes talked with Bloomberg News about the state of fintech in Latin America.
Asia-Pacific
Singapore-based cross-border payments company Thunes expanded its strategic partnership with Visa.
Australia’s HeirWealth integrated with Envestnet | Yodlee to bring open banking data sharing to its wealth register for high net-worth families.
HSBC and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks startup hub announced the first “public-private cooperation between the city’s largest innovation and technology ecosystem and leading global bank.”
Sub-Saharan Africa
Ethiopia’s Cooperative Bank of Oromia partnered with Temenos to launch its CoopApp and CoopApp Aluhuda for both conventional and Islamic digital banking experiences.
dLocal teamed up with Ebury to bring African customers optimized payment solutions.
Safaricom, a telecom based in Kenya, partnered with Onafriq to offer remittance services to Ethiopia.
Business banking account ANNA has acquired enterprise spend management platform GetCape. Terms were not disclosed.
The acquisition is ANNA’s first and marks the U.K.-based fintech’s entry into the Australian market.
ANNA made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin, Germany.
Business banking account ANNA has acquired GetCape, a business spend management platform based in Sydney, Australia. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition, ANNA’s first, will further the company’s goal of creating a new SaaS category that competes with Australia’s “Big Four” banks for market share in the expense management and corporate card business.
“This acquisition is a monumental step in our journey and we’re so excited to be joining Australia’s dynamic startup landscape,” ANNA co-CEO Eduard Panteleev said. “Entering the Australian market with GetCape at our side empowers us to bring our award-winning financial services to Australia’s vibrant business community and help them to thrive.”
Awarded “Most Innovative Expense Management Software Developer” at the Wealth & Finance 2023 Global Fintech Awards, GetCape is an Australian business spend management platform that issues corporate cards to help businesses better manage their cash flow. GetCape’s technology gives companies complete visibility and control over business purchases, enabling them to spot and eliminate wasteful spending and become more efficient in their spend management.
Ryan Edwards-Pritchard, who founded GetCape in 2020 and will serve in the new role of CEO of ANNA Money Australia, called the acquisition a “huge step forward.” He noted, “integrating our software IP with their trusted platform means we can create the ultimate B2B payments solution. This will all be delivered via a best-in-class ChatGPT-style AI assistant that provides business owners with the power of a finance team in the palm of their hand, just without the unnecessary headcount.”
Headquartered in the U.K., ANNA made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin, Germany. At the conference, the company demoed its Automated Tax Calculation solution which sorts self-assessment and VAT returns, automatically categorizing and reconciling expenses, and calculating VAT and tax in real time. The app also completes and submits tax and VAT returns to HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs) with support from a certified accountant.
In addition to its newly-announced partnership with GetCape, ANNA also recently teamed up with embedded finance and payment solutions provider Sonovate. In February, ANNA unveiled its new expense card which provides perks such as low-cost travel and improved cashback offers.
This week in Tales from the Crypto we look at the boom-induced traffic jam in crypto coin trading, new funding for a blockchain payment network in the developing world, and a pair of new crypto-friendly alums that demoed at FinovateEurope last month.
Base Backup as Bitcoin Booms
The renewed boom in bitcoin is not without its discontents. A spike in network activity on Coinbase’s layer-2 blockchain Base has resulted in service disruptions ranging from transaction fee increases leading to “stuck” transactions to the inability to cancel transactions.
Why does this matter? For crypto traders and investors, Base – launched in August 2023 – offers a way to transact on Ethereum at a lower cost, among other attractive features. But even more critically, the third largest layer-2 network on Ethereum has also seen its transaction volume surge by 3x over the past few weeks due something called “Base season.” This occurs as crypto influencers and traders promote a variety of Base tokens to their followers.
Most of these tokens are meme coins, but the volumes have been significant enough to serve as “stress tests” for a number of these systems – and for their users who have complained of transaction fees 5x normal levels. It should be pointed out that Base has not been the only network to have felt the impact of rising trading volumes for all forms of crypto – including the current meme coin mania. Layer-1 blockchain Solana has experienced service issues as well.
The traffic tie-ups are likely to be temporary, the company noted. It also encouraged users cancel and resubmit transactions where possible and to wait for the traffic to subside if cancellation was not possible. Most importantly, Coinbase assured customers that their funds are safe. There’s a saying that if you are sitting in your car complaining about traffic, it is worth remembering that you, too, are traffic. A new round of cryptocurrency traders and investors is learning that lesson as crypto winter turns toward crypto spring.
In other Coinbase news, the company announced the launch of its Prime Sweeper solution this week. Prime Sweeper is a reference app that automates digital asset transfer between trading balances and vault wallets in Coinbase Prime. The no-code solution is designed for institutional clients and provides robust logging and status updates at every stage of the transfer process.
In an oversubscribed seed funding round, African blockchain payment network Zone has secured $8.5 million. VC firms Flourish Ventures and TLcom Capital led the investment. Other firms participating in the fundraising were blockchain-focused outfits Digital Currency Group, Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures, and Alter Global.
Zone is the first regulated blockchain network for payments in Africa. The company has already signed agreements with 15 of the largest banks and fintechs on the continent, and Zone CEO and co-founder Obi Emetarom said that funding will fuel expansion of the company’s network domestically. Zone will also leverage the new capital to support a cross-border payments pilot program scheduled for 2025.
“As we step into this new phase at Zone, we are re-energized and our commitment to transforming Africa’s payment infrastructure is renewed,” Emetarom said. He praised the firm’s new and existing investors not only for their financial support, but also for their “deep expertise.” Flourish Ventures, for example, will bring both a global perspective as well as a network of industry influencers and Africa fintech expertise to help Zone reach new markets. For its part, TLcom Capital will provide “essential local credibility” and an “understanding of the African tech space.”
Founded in 2022, Zone is headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria.
FinovateEurope: Bringing Compliance to Crypto and Web3 Gamification
FinovateEurope last month showcased two companies, FRNZX (pronounced “forensics”) and Tradelite Solutions, that are innovating in the crypto space.
Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel and founded by experts in cryptocurrencies, AML, and intelligence, FRNZX offers a way to achive AML compliance in cryptocurrency transactions. The company offers a holistic AML navigator that makes it easier to integrate cryptocurrency transactions into the bank’s existing AML framework. At FinovateEurope, FRNZX co-founder and CEO Nevo Lapidot demonstrated how the technology streamlines AML operations from onboarding to monitoring, reporting suspicious activity and helping ensure that financial institutions meet regulatory requirements. FRNZX was founded in 2022.
The other crypto-friendly demoing company from FinovateEurope this year was Tradelite Solutions. Dedicated to promoting financial inclusion, Tradelite Solutions offers a web3 financial education game called Mogaland. In addition to gamification, Mogaland leverages a token economy and data-driven financial behavioral IDs in order to make financial literacy accessible, enjoyable, and – courtesy of web3 – monetizable for all, as well. Founded in 2020 by Tracy Chang (CEO) and Matthias Kröner (CFO), Tradelite Solutions is headquartered in Munich, Germany.
ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood on Crypto in 2024
One of the biggest defenders of cryptocurrencies in mainstream finance is ARK Invest CEO and CIO Cathie Wood. In addition to her advocacy for emergent and disruptive technologies, Wood has also advocated on behalf of cryptocurrencies. Just six months ago, she explained why she believed that bitcoin is the currency for AI.
Above is a more recent interview with Cathie Wood, conducted by Schwab Network’s Oliver Renick. In this conversation, Wood discusses recent price gains for Bitcoin, the debut of spot Bitcoin ETFs, and more.
Figure Technologies launches crypto exchange
An “everything marketplace”? A sole platform where traders and investors can buy and sell a variety of blockchain-native assets including cryptocurrencies, alternative investments, and stocks? Figure Technologies is on it.
This week, the San Francisco, California-based company announced the launch of Figure Markets. The new entity will introduce a new decentralized custody crypto exchange and blockchain-native security marketplace. Importantly, the marketplace will incorporate Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology. The use of MPC-based wallets, the company noted in a statement, will help avoid the single-point-of-failure risks common to centralized exchanges. MPC wallets use private keys that are distributed across a decentralized network and must be multi-party approved for each movement.
Figure Markets also announced raising more than $60 million in Series A funding. Jump Crypto, Pantera Capital, and Lightspeed Faction led the oversubscribed round. Distributed Global, Ribbit Capital, CMT Digital, among others, also participated.
“This funding validates our vision to redefine capital markets with blockchain technology,” Figure Markets CEO Mike Cagney said. “Figure Technologies is capturing real benefits by employing blockchain in its lending and capital markets operations. Our goal is to extend the benefits of blockchain to a broader range of assets – including crypto and securities. It’s ironic that the largest crypto exchanges aren’t on blockchain – we aim to change that.”
Digital fraud detection innovator BioCatch has forged a partnership with Google Cloud.
The two companies will leverage their new relationship to bring fraud prevention solutions to expanding markets, starting in Southeast Asia.
Israel-based BioCatch made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2014.
A new partnership between financial crime prevention specialist BioCatch and Google Cloud will help extend fraud prevention solutions into emerging markets, starting with markets in Southeast Asia. The move comes in the wake of a report from the digital fraud detection innovator that noted rapidly growing incidents of financial cybercrime in the APAC region. BioCatch’s 2023 APAC Digital Banking Fraud Trends Reportunderscored one threat in particular: authorized push payment (APP) attacks – which the report noted accounted for 54% of all confirmed fraud cases.
APP fraud occurs when a fraudster fools a victim into transferring money to an account controlled by the fraudster. Social engineering-based fraud such as APP has grown in recent years. This is due to both the rise in popularity of peer-to-peer payment networks, as well as successful efforts to defeat previously dominant forms of fraud such as remote takeover of victim devices.
“The APAC market has seen a massive rise in advanced financial cybercrime, with criminals adopting sophisticated social engineering tactics that have proved difficult to foil in real-time with legacy security controls,” BioCatch’s head of the APAC market Richard Booth explained. “Pre-crime logistics visibility and criminal network intelligence are vital to combatting these threats.”
BioCatch helps companies deal with this shifting landscape of digital fraud threats. The company leverages behavioral biometric intelligence and machine learning to deliver real-time threat detection and prevention. Its signature solution, BioCatch Connect, offers integrated digital fraud, AML, and impersonation detection to help banks and financial services companies detect and identify both traditional and emerging fraud threats.
BioCatch Connect works on three levels. First, the solution’s fraud telemetry collection includes thousands of app, behavioral, device, network, and transactional signals from more than eight billion individual user sessions. Second, continuous behavioral sequencing applies advanced cognitive behavioral science, data modeling, and deep learning algorithms to analyze and score data from the solution’s fraud telemetry collection. Third, BioCatch Connect leverages predictive intelligence using AI models to validate user motivation and identify the risk of potentially fraudulent activity.
Headquartered in Israel, BioCatch made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2014. In the years since, the company has grown into a leader in digital fraud detection and a pioneer in applying behavioral biometric intelligence, cognitive science, and machine learning to the challenge of fighting financial crime. More than 30 of the world’s biggest 100 banks and 180+ of the biggest 500 banks use BioCatch’s technology to manage fraud risks, facilitate digital transformation, and better engage their customers. Gadi Mazor is CEO.
