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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Credit Sesame launched a new solution to help individuals improve their credit.
The new offering, Sesame Credit Builder, is a Mastercard debit card designed to make it easier to build positive payment histories.
Today’s launch comes two years after the company first unveiled its credit builder banking technology.
Financial wellness platform Credit Sesame has introduced a new tool to help individuals improve their credit. The new offering, Sesame Credit Builder, is a Mastercard debit card that leverages everyday spending and recurring services to build positive payment histories.
“The new Sesame Credit Builder Mastercard brings inclusion and breaks down the barriers for everyone and (e)specially people with low or limited credit history to build better credit history,” Credit Sesame founder and CEO Adrian Nazari said. “We are making it easy for more Americans to get credit for the money they spend and the payments they make.”
Sesame Credit Builder arrives nearly two years after Credit Sesame first announced general availability of its credit builder banking technology. Today’s offering works like this: individuals must open a virtual secured account with Community Federal Savings Bank (CFSB), which issues the prepaid debit card. Cardholders then begin building credit by depositing money into their Sesame Cash account and making transactions with their debit card. Card purchases create a balance on the cardholder’s virtual secured account. An equal amount of funds is set aside in the cardholder’s Sesame Cash account, which serves as a security deposit to pay off the balance at the end of the month. This approach ensures that cardholders will always have sufficient funds to pay off their balance, thus helping build a positive payment history.
Credit Sesame does not guarantee that any individual’s credit score will improve. The company notes that other factors, including timely bill payments and low credit card balances, also contribute significantly to credit scores.
Nevertheless, according to Tim Montgomery, SVP, Digital Partnerships, North America, Mastercard, technologies like Credit Sesame’s Credit Builder have a significant role to play. “Credit Sesame aims to democratize financial wellness and empower consumers to take charge of their own financial health,” Montgomery said. “Sesame Credit Builder can do just that and help even more consumers improve their credit.”
Founded in 2010, Credit Sesame made its Finovate debut that same year. In the years since, Credit Sesame has grown into a major, financial wellness platform that has helped millions of consumers improve their credit scores and save money on the cost of credit.
Last fall, the company announced a series of major executive hires. Joining the Mountain View, California-based fintech were Bronwyn Syiek as President, Marcus Beisel as Chief Product Officer, Tim Kamienski as Chief Marketing Officer, and David Bagatelle as Chief Banking Officer.
Credit Sesame has raised more than $171 million in funding. The company includes Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) and Menlo Ventures among its investors.
Chriss, who will replace current CEO Dan Schulman, will begin his role on September 27.
Chriss comes to PayPal after a 19-year tenure at Intuit.
Fintech pioneer PayPal is back in the headlines today. After unveiling the launch of its stablecoin last week, the California-based company announced it has appointed Alex Chriss as new CEO.
Chriss will replace Dan Schulman on September 27 of this year. This comes after, earlier this year, Schulman declared his intention to retire. “I’m at a point in my life where I want to devote more time to my passions outside the workplace,” Schulman said in February. He will remain on the company’s Board until May 2024.
After Schulman’s statement, PayPal’s Board of Directors began a six-month long search for a new CEO who could not only drive growth, but also had extensive global payments, product, and technology experience. After an “extensive engagement and evaluation,” PayPal’s Board unanimously agreed on Chriss to lead the company.
“With his depth of experience in product development, his passion for serving customers and his longstanding commitment to empowering and enabling small businesses, and his proven track record of developing and inspiring his team, Alex is the perfect leader to take PayPal forward and accelerate the company’s growth opportunities,” said Chair of the PayPal Board of Directors John Donahoe. “The Board search committee worked diligently and thoroughly to find the right candidate to take PayPal into its next stage of growth and expansion, and we are confident Alex is that person.”
Chriss will join PayPal and its Board from Intuit, where he served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the company’s Small Business and Self-Employed Group. He has been with Intuit for more than 19 years after starting out as a Group Manager of Business Development and Channel Sales of the Quickbase business unit.
During his tenure at Intuit, Chriss grew the Small Business segment’s customers at a 20% CAGR and its revenues at a 23% CAGR. In 2021, he led Intuit’s successful $12 billion acquisition of Mailchimp.
“PayPal is an extraordinary company that plays a critical role in the lives of consumers and merchants all over the world,” said Chriss. “Throughout my career, I have championed small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs, who are the backbone of every economy in the world. I am proud to take the baton from Dan and thrilled to have the opportunity to work with PayPal’s talented and committed team to build on PayPal’s remarkable history and draw on its unique capabilities to deliver outstanding products and services to businesses and consumers.”
Alkami launched a new Engagement Artificial Intelligence (AI) Predictive Model.
The new model helps financial institutions identify accountholders whose behaviors are indicative of retention and account growth.
The Engagement AI Model leverages Alkami’s Key Lifestyle Indicators (KLIs) as well as its AI Predictive Modeling technology.
Everyone knows that it is easier (and less expensive) to maintain an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. So Alkami, which launched a new AI model to help banks retain customers, is likely to garner a lot of attention.
The cloud-based digital banking solutions provider unveiled its Engagement Artificial Intelligence (AI) Predictive Model this week to tackle customer attrition. The solution not only identifies accountholders whose behaviors are indicative of retention and account growth, but it also flags customers who may be at risk of leaving.
The new predictive model leverages Alkami’s Key Lifestyle Indicators (KLIs) as well as its AI Predictive Modeling solution that uses data to identify accountholders’ shifts in spend categories and recognize their financial patterns.
“When we looked at the full spectrum of attrition scoring,” explained Alkami Director of Product Management Mark Leher, “our research showed that attrition is significantly lower among highly engaged account holders, so we developed a model that not only identifies these highly engaged account holders but also layers in Alkami’s KLIs—labels describing the type of transaction or behavior a customer or member engages in—to best predict which behaviors drive incremental engagement.”
The company recently conducted research that found that accountholders who score the highest risk for attrition are, on average, 15 times more likely to leave a financial institution than those who score as highly engaged.
When financial institutions use Alkami’s Engagement AI Model to identify the users that exhibit growth behavior, they can understand where to prioritize spend and what areas they should focus on to grow the customers’ engagement.
“Not only does this save on account acquisition costs, but it also empowers the financial institution to engage with those who are more likely to take action on a targeted campaign,” added Leher.
Alkami was founded in 2009 and went public in 2021. A year later, the company acquired competitor Segmint— and its KLI technology– for $135.5 million. Alkami is currently listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ALKT with a market capitalization of $1.43 billion.
Data analytics and insights platform ForwardLane launched a new generative decision intelligence platform this week.
The new offering, EMERGE, will enable financial professionals to create and interact with client insights while keeping private data private.
ForwardLane made its Finovate debut in 2016. Nathan Stevenson is founder and CEO.
Data analytics and insights platform, ForwardLane launched a new generative decision intelligence platform called EMERGE this week. The technology will help financial services professionals deal with issues of data transparency, privacy, and security within the wealth management and insurance space.
EMERGE gives financial professionals the ability to leverage generative AI to find, create, preview, publish, and interact with new and newly-uncovered insights and data in a manner that is private, secure, and accurate. The technology combines ForwardLane’s composite AI, EMERGE-GPT, with its Visual Insight Generator (ViGOR). Visual Insight Generator is a zero-code tool that enables users to create insights from data using natural language – without requiring any technical expertise in LLM. Along with ForwardLane’s Next Best Action platform, EMERGE provides a complete cycle from insight and orchestration to last-mile delivery, usage, and feedback.
ForwardLane founder and CEO Nathan Stevenson noted that his company has been leveraging AI for several years. “EMERGE is an applied Generative AI solution for financial services that brings together the best functionalities of ForwardLane’s ViGOR and privacy-friendly EMERGE-GPT,” he said. “It gives financial services firms the ability to rapidly activate their existing data and data science investments and deliver insights to their frontline advisory and sales professionals.”
EMERGE will enable financial services professionals to:
Identify opportunities and risks across their client base
Review up-to-date client intelligence and analytcs along with recommended Next Best Actions
Receive Next Best Action recommendations that are integrated via API with workflow links
Accelerate daily workflow with 100x increases in document reading ability
Summarize, interact, and extract insights from PDF, DOC, and other files up to 25,000 pages
EMERGE is available on a white label basis. The technology can be deployed on cloud platforms or hosted by ForwardLane. EMERGE is currently in limited beta testing; the company expects to offer wider availability in the second half of 2023.
Founded in 2015, ForwardLane made its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateSpring. The New York-based company has raised more than $8 million in funding from investors including SixThirty and SEI Ventures. ForwardLane began the year teaming up with InterGen Data to offer predictive life-event driven insights.
Launched in the fall of 2021, Merlin Investor is on a mission democratize access to investment strategies. The fintech offers a while label, multi-asset, educational, strategizing and tracking tool that helps investors accomplish two critical goals: building long-term positive results and limiting potentially catastrophic losses.
Merlin Investor’s technology is compatible with all trading platforms. The technology is suitable for both retail and professional traders, and is available for both the desktop and mobile. Merlin Investor enables users to retrieve market data and sentiment from multiple sources and apply that data to a massive range of tailor-made investment strategies.
With offices in both West Palm Beach, Florida, and Lugano, Switzerland, Merlin Investor made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year. The company returned to the Finovate stage in May for FinovateSpring. We caught up with Merlin Investor founder and CEO Guido Petrelli (pictured) this summer to learn more about the company, its mission to democratize access to investment strategies, and what to expect from the company in 2023 and beyond.
What problem does Merlin Investor solve and who does it solve it for?
Guido Petrelli: Merlin Investor was born as an intelligent protection and conscious guide for a more farsighted management of investments aimed limiting potential catastrophic losses while building long term positive results. Thanks to the Merlin platform, retail investors can educate themselves, study the markets, and create and track their own investment strategies to easily understand, balance and diversify investment risks.
In other words, we help and empower a new generation to invest with strategy in mind. This is the key to becoming successful and is the only factor distinguishing between gambling and investing. As we are on a mission to democratize financial inclusion and investment planning, our technology was built to allow anyone, regardless the level of knowledge or experience, to become independent and the one and only master of their own financial future.
How does Merlin Investor solve this problem better than other companies?
Petrelli: In the retail investor space, we see many companies focusing on execution, meaning focusing on the act of buying and selling assets. But executing without evaluating multiple sources of information first, combined with the lack of a diversified and balanced investment strategy, can lead to uncontrolled and unlimited potential losses because of the market’s ups and downs. While it may imply the chance for quick gains, it’s actually not the norm as wealth is usually built over time by managing a positive-sum game.
That’s why from the very beginning Merlin was designed as a complementary product to a trading platform and not as a substitute solution. Merlin Investor addresses the strategic essence of investing while the majority of the competition just focuses on enhancing the trading experience – which is already well supported by several financial institutions in a pretty similar way.
Who are Merlin Investor’s primary customers. How do you reach them?
Petrelli: Our primary customers are financial institutions focusing on educating a new generation of retail investors and offering the possibility to trade different asset classes through their digital banking platforms. We attend multiple fintech events in several countries that are attended by financial institution decision-makers responsible for delivering an innovative and digitalized experience to their clients. We also analyze the markets to identify those prospect clients we believe to be a fit in terms of services and client base. Then we look for the people focusing on retail digital products and platforms and reach out to them to introduce our company and technology. Last, we work to be featured in fintech-specialized magazines having financial institutions as target audience.
Can you tell us about a favorite implementation or deployment of your technology?
Petrelli: We offer our technology as a white-label solution that financial institutions can easily embed into their own digital platforms through API keys, while having the possibility to customize product’s appearance and features. As result, our product is delivered to the final users in the bank’s name and as a sub-section of the same app/e-banking they are already familiar with. Through our B2B partner’s portal, we grant to financial institutions the flexibility to choose from the full Merlin product those asset classes, sections, features, and contents they intend to integrate based on their own specific needs. In this way, they can design a tailored solution and experience for their own clients, while sticking to the overall structure and design of the banking platform they already offer.
What in your background gave you the confidence to respond to this challenge?
Petrelli: In a nutshell, it was the combination of my knowledge around investing and the problem I personally experienced as a retail investor that led to Merlin Investor. In fact, I was just a teenager when I first started to trade. Then I quickly realized that executing trades “per-se” – meaning the simple action of buying and selling assets – is the less strategic and relevant part to achieve long term positive results. Instead, studying different market sources, and then designing a diversified and balanced investment strategy, are what make the difference in the end. Still, (available) banking and trading platforms were not enough to educate me about investing, or to (help me) design and analyze my own investment strategies.
As a result, for years I was forced to create time-consuming and unfriendly spreadsheets to the point where I couldn’t accept it anymore – not in a world like today’s where we have an app for everything we do! At the same time with trading platforms booming basically everywhere, it became more and more clear that a new generation wants to invest autonomously and in the right way. As I couldn’t find any product in the market like the one I envisioned, I decided to create it. And that’s how Merlin Investor was born.
Merlin Investor founder and CEO Guido Petrelli demoing the company’s technology at FinovateEurope this year.
You recently demoed at FinovateSpring and will be demoing your technology at FinovateFall in September. What brings you back?
Petrelli: This year I’ve demoed the Merlin platform at FinovateEurope and FinovateSpring, so FinovateFall will be my third appearance. So far the experience has been great. We have been able to show our cutting-edge technology to major financial institutions in Europe and North America, while receiving much interest and establishing meaningful connections with decision-makers within the banking industry. The high visibility and key connections with prospect clients are the two main factors which bring us back to FinovateFall. The well-organized events and the team at Finovate are also a plus.
What are your goals for Merlin Investor?
Petrelli: Our goal is to be recognized by the major global banks as the innovative partner to work with when it comes to educating and empowering a new generation of retail investors. We focus on establishing solid and strategic partnerships with a limited numbers of players in the banking industry to achieve our mission of democratizing financial inclusion and strategic planning globally, while helping young investors to reach financial independence and to become the masters of their own financial futures.
What can we expect from Merlin Investor over the balance of 2023 and into next year?
Petrelli: We’ll continue to prioritize continuous and never-ending improvement of our technology by looking to upgrade the experience we offer either to financial institutions and to the final users to whom our product is deployed. We will also continue to work to boost our market presence to make the Merlin platform known to more financial institutions serving retail clients in several countries. We will eventually concentrate on scaling the team and operations to be able to manage expectations. We will accomplish all of this without forgetting our mission to make conscious and strategic investing accessible to anyone through strategic partnerships with financial institutions.
Embedded finance solution provider upSWOT announced a pilot partnership with NerdWallet Small Business.
The partnership will combine upSWOT’s embedded finance tools with NerdWallet Smart Business’ financial guidance.
upSWOT most recently demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2023.
White-label embedded finance innovator upSWOT has teamed up with NerdWallet Small Business. The pilot partnership combines upSWOT’s embedded finance tools with NerdWallet Smart Business’ financial guidance to support small businesses.
“As a platform that provides financial guidance to consumers and small and mid-sized businesses, we recognize the unique challenges small business owners face,” NerdWallet Small Business General Manager Brandon McDonough said. “By partnering with upSWOT through this pilot, we will integrate tools and resources that help simplify small business owners’ financial decisions and fuel their growth and success.”
upSWOT leverages data from more than 200 SaaS business applications and banking platforms to provide its clients with personalized business insights. upSWOT’s embedded finance tools work with banking, ecommerce, payroll, marketing, accounting and other subscription-based technologies typically used by small businesses. The insights derived from these sources enable business leaders to see trends and performance across their customer base. This in turn empowers them to make smart decisions to enhance engagement, build loyalty, and reduce churn.
upSWOT CEO Dmitry Norenko praised Nerdwallet Small Business for its commitment to “transform the way financial services are delivered to small businesses” – a commitment shared by upSWOT. “Together, we will provide small business customers with the tools and resources to thrive in today’s competitive business environment,” he said.
Founded in 2019, upSWOT most recently demoed its technology at FinovateSpring earlier this year. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company announced partnerships with fellow Finovate alums Alkami and Jack Henry in May. This spring, the company announced that it was teaming up with financial data access network Akoya. The partnership with Akoya will link small businesses via secure API to accounts at large U.S. banks. These financial institutions include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, TD Bank, Fidelity Investments, Truist and more.
upSWOT has raised more than $4 million in funding. Common Ocean Ventures and First Southern National Bank are among the company’s investors.
Thought Machine has partnered with SME lending solutions provider Cordada.
Cordada will use the product library of Thought Machine’s Vault Core to offer customized products to SME lenders and fintechs.
Today’s tie-up, along with a recent partnership with C6 Bank in Brazil, strengthens Thought Machine’s presence in Latin America.
Core banking technology provider Thought Machineannounced this week it is partnering with Chile-based Cordada.
Under the partnership, Cordada will use Thought Machine’s core banking platform, Vault Core, to offer Latin American SME lenders and fintechs access to personalized financial tools. More specifically, Cordada will modify and tailor products in Thought Machine’s global product library that contains pre-built, ready-to-use smart contracts. This customization will enable Cordada to offer localized products to its customer base while supporting multi-currency assets.
“Vault Core will enable us to create highly differentiated financing products quickly and effortlessly without depending on the Thought Machine team,” said Cordada Cofounder and CEO Andrés Prats. “This, in turn, will empower the next generation of SME lenders to develop modern solutions as they tackle the great challenge of bridging the $1 trillion financing gap for SMEs in Latin America.”
Cordada, which currently has partnerships in Chile, Peru, and Mexico, will also use Vault Core to expand its services into new Latin American markets. Since it was founded in 2019, Cordada has deployed $3 billion in capital to lenders via 60 lenders and fintechs, ultimately impacting 5,500 SMEs across Latin America.
U.K.-based Thought Machine has raised $563 million in funding since it was founded in 2014. The company offers two main products: Vault Core, a tool that leverages smart contracts to help organizations design and build new financial products; and Vault Payments, a payments processing platform that enables banks to run all payment types for different payment methods, schemes, and regions across the globe.
Among Thought Machine’s clients are Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Curve. Today’s partnership further fuels the company’s presence in the Latin American region, following a recent partnership with C6 Bank in Brazil.
PayPal launched its new stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD) today.
PayPal USD is backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. treasuries, and cash equivalents. The coin is redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars.
The new offering is designed for digital payments and Web3 and will be available on Venmo “soon.”
Fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. treasuries, and cash equivalents, PayPal’s new stablecoin, PayPal USDis now live. The stablecoin – PYUSD – is designed for digital payments, and is compatible with most digital asset exchanges, wallets, and Web3 apps. Eligible U.S. PayPal customers who buy the coin will be able to transfer it to external wallets, send it via P2P payments, and use it to fund purchases at PayPal-supported checkouts. PYUSD holders will also be able to convert their cryptocurrencies into and from PYUSD, which is redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars.
PayPal president and CEO Dan Schulman said that the successful adoption of crypto will need stablecoins like PYUSD. “The shift toward digital currencies requires a stable instrument that is both digitally native and easily connected to fiat currency like the U.S. dollar,” Schulman explained. Moreover, Schulman noted that PayPal – with its “commitment to responsible innovation and compliance” – and powerful brand – is in an ideal position to play this role via its PayPal USD offering. He added that PYUSD will be compatible with Web3 apps from the start and will soon be available on Venmo, as well.
PayPal USD is an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain. The stablecoin is managed by Paxos Trust Company. Paxos has indicated that it will publish a monthly Reserve Report for PYUSD outlining the instruments composing the coin’s reserves. The first such report is expected in September.
PayPal has been a Finovate alum since 2011. In the years since, the fintech has grown into a payments leader with more than 435 million active consumer and merchant accounts, and nearly 30,000 employees. The company has facilitated more than 22 billion payment transactions, representing a total payment volume of $1.36 trillion. Founded in 1998 (as Confinity), eBay acquired the company in 2002 for $1.5 billion. eBay spun off PayPal to its shareholders in 2015, returning the firm to its independent status.
PayPal is a public company, trading under the ticker symbol PYPL on the NASDAQ exchange. The San Jose, California-based fintech has a market cap of $71 billion.
FIS-owned Worldpay is integrating Alipay+ to broaden the payment acceptance tools it offers merchants.
The rollout will begin with AlipayHK, a standalone e-wallet that is limited to Hong Kong dollars.
“By tapping into Worldpay’s market leading footprint, together we can help more merchants globally accelerate their growth journeys and expansion into strategic markets,” said General Manager of Ant Group in Europe and the Middle East Guoming Cheng.
Worldpay revealed its latest partnership today. The FIS-owned electronic payment and banking company announced it will integrate Alipay+ as an option among its e-commerce and POS offerings.
To initiate the rollout, Worldpay will start by enabling its merchant clients to support Alipay’s AlipayHK e-wallet. AlipayHK will be available to Worldpay’s clients in phases. Alipay launched AlipayHK as a standalone app in 2017. The AlipayHK wallet differs from Alipay because, as the name suggests, it is limited to transactions that are made and settled in local Hong Kong dollars.
“To stay competitive, merchants must understand and offer the payment methods that their customers prefer. Local wallet providers are extending their dominance in several APAC markets,” said Worldpay from FIS General Manager for Global E-commerce, APAC Phil Pomford. “We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Ant Group to provide our global merchants access to the Alipay+ platform starting with the AlipayHK wallet.”
Developed by Ant Group, the wider Alipay+ brand provides global cross-border mobile payment tools that help merchants enable Alipay’s one billion active consumers to pay with apps they’re already using, including MPay, Kakao Pay, GCash, and more. Alipay+ also offers merchants digital marketing tools to better target and serve customers.
“The collaborative effort with Worldpay will empower merchants to sell globally and contribute to our mission of providing more open, digitalized, and inclusive financial services to global audiences,” said General Manager of Ant Group in Europe and the Middle East Guoming Cheng. “Alipay+’s suite of innovation solutions is connected with more than one billion consumers worldwide. By tapping into Worldpay’s market leading footprint, together we can help more merchants globally accelerate their growth journeys and expansion into strategic markets.”
Originally acquired in 1971, Worldpay now processes $130 million daily for more than one million merchants across the 146 countries. FISacquired the company in 2019 for an estimated $34 billion. Earlier this year, FIS sold a majority stake in Worldpay to private equity firm GTCR.
Venture investing platform OurCrowd announced an integration with Airwallex.
The integration will make it easier for investors around the world to use their local currency to invest in startups.
Based in Israel, OurCrowd made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016.
Payments and financial platform Airwallex and venture investing platform OurCrowdannounced a new partnership this week. The two companies are combining their efforts to make it easier for both institutions and accredited investors to invest in startups wherever they are and in their local currency – all with a single click.
The integration works with OurCrowd allocating a global account for each investor. Investors can choose to convert their funds into a number of different currency options, including their own local currency. OurCrowd converts the funds to the selected currency at a transparent rate that is typically guaranteed for 24 hours. More than a third of OurCrowd’s FX flow has moved via Airwallex since the company embedded its API in February. OurCrowd anticipates increasing its flow to 90% by the end of the year.
“With the globalization of the startup world advanced fintech which is multi-currency is a game changer,” OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved said. “Now you can be sitting in Israel and invest in a Silicon Valley startup, pay in Shekels with a single click and it is totally transparent.”
Traditionally, investors have had to convert their local funds into U.S. dollars and then send those funds by wire in order to invest in startups. In contrast, the partnership between OurCrowd and Airwallex will provide investors from more than 195 countries with a platform that enables them to use their own currency to invest in startups. Integrating Airwallex’s API into its platform also gives accredited investors access to Airwallex solutions such as Global Accounts, Payouts, and LockFX which offer further opportunities for investors to participate in startup deals.
Pranav Sood, EGM, EMEA at Airwallex, described the partnership as another success for embedded finance. Sood explained that the integration was a “perfect example” of supporting the growth of its end users while simultaneously giving OurCrowd tools to add to the services they are able to offer. “From streamlining payment processes for investors and startups to minimizing FX costs, embedded finance is simplifying the way businesses operate across borders,” Sood explained.
Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Airwallex helps more than 100,000 businesses streamline their international payments and financial operations. The company offers solutions for payments, treasury and spend management, as well as embedded finance, and processes $50 billion in annualized transaction volume. In recent months, Airwallex has forged partnerships with Brex, payments network TrueLayer, business payments platform MODIFI, and Expedia. Founded in 2015, the company has raised more than $900 million in funding at a valuation of $5.6 billion.
OurCrowd made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016. At the conference, the Israel-based company showed how its app provided an interactive investment discovery and review process to help accredited investors make better, more informed decisions. One of the most active venture investors in Israel over the past ten years, according to Pitchbook, OurCrowd has more than $2.2 billion in commitments. The company has deployed capital into more than 420 portfolio companies and 50 funds across five continents. Founded in 2013, OurCrowd has more than 225,000 registered members from 195 countries on its platform today.
Digital mortgage platform SimpleNexus has integrated with Finastra’s MortgagebotLOS.
The bi-directional integration is designed to streamline the home financing process for both home buyers as well as lenders, credit unions, and banks.
Finastra was formed in 2017 as the product of a merger between Misys and D+H.
Digital mortgage platform SimpleNexus has integrated with Finastra’s loan origination system for digital mortgage lending, MortgagebotLOS. The bi-directional integration will streamline home financing for both home buyers as well as the credit unions, banks, and lenders who cater to them. Homebuyers will be able to submit mortgage applications by smartphone or other Internet-connected device, and will benefit from being able to easily and securely scan and upload required documents. Automated mortgage loan milestone updates, courtesy of real-time data syncing between the two systems, notify homebuyers on their progress and point to next steps.
“The integration enables financial institutions to optimize their use of both platforms while providing borrowers with a seamless and supportive mortgage application process,” Finastra director of product management Mary Kay Theriault said. “Our goal is to equip lenders with the tools they need to stay ahead in any mortgage market.”
Ben Miller, SimpleNexus CEO, underscored the importance of the bi-directional integration of the two technologies. Miller noted that both homebuyers and lenders will benefit from improvements in convenience, efficiency, and overall usability with the new “from-anywhere digital mortgage application portal.”
Among the first banks to have deployed the technology are ChoiceOne Bank, based in Michigan, and Flanagan State Bank, based in Illinois. Both institutions have leveraged the integration to improve the navigability of the mortgage process for homebuyers as well as reduce manual and redundant tasks for loan originators and processing teams.
Founded as a merger between Misys and D+H in 2017, Finastra currently serves more than 8,100 financial institutions – including 45 of the world’s top 50 banks -across 130+ countries. The company offers solutions for lending and corporate banking, payments, treasury and capital markets, investment management, and banking-as-a-service.
Last month, Finastra announced a partnership with Open Finance company and fellow Finovate alum MX. The partnership will integrate MX’s PFM, insights, and account aggregation solutions with Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform. Also in July, Finastra announced that it was working with European payments processing startup Salve Financial Hub and specialist mortgage lender and savings provider Melton Building Society.
Headquartered in London, Finastra maintains offices in Canada, Singapore, the UAE, and the U.S. Simon Paris is CEO.
Tradeshift is partnering with HSBC to develop embedded finance solutions.
As part of the partnership, HSBC is contributing $35 million to Tradeshift’s $70 million funding round announced today.
There is limited information about the details of the new joint venture between the two parties, but the announcement said more information will be unveiled ahead of the planned launch slated for early 2024.
Supply chain procurements and payments company Tradeshift is teaming up with HSBC to launch a new business. The jointly-owned business endeavor will focus on developing embedded finance solutions and financial services applications.
As part of the partnership, HSBC is investing $35 million in Tradeshift as part of a round that is expected to close at around $70 million. Existing investors AYTK Limited, LUN Partners Group, Fuel Venture Capital, Doha Venture Capital LLC, Notion Capital, IDC Ventures and The Private Shares Fund contributed to the round.
The round will add to the more than $1.1 billion in funding Tradeshift has amassed since it was founded in 2009.
Details about the new joint venture between Tradeshift and HSBC are sparse. The announcement states that the two will “deploy a range of digital solutions across Tradeshift and other platforms” that will include embedded finance tools for trade, e-commerce, and marketplaces. The new business will enable Tradeshift to globally scale its business commerce network that currently sits at one million users.
Tradeshift expects that the HSBC brand will “bring instant credibility and broad appeal” to the new financial solutions. HSBC currently facilitates more than $800 billion in trade each year.
“The world’s biggest trade bank and the world’s largest trade network are joining forces,” said Tradeshift CEO and Co-founder Christian Lanng. “Our deepening partnership with HSBC delivers a strong foundation from which to scale and accelerate our vision of a trade network that creates economic opportunity for businesses everywhere.”
The two will announce more details about the joint venture ahead of its launch, which is expected in early 2024.
“We are very excited to partner with Tradeshift to help businesses and their suppliers trade more smoothly using world-class technology and solutions that the joint venture will deliver,” said HSBC CEO of Global Commercial Banking Barry O’Byrne.
