Alumni News

Anodot Unveils CostGPT to Help Businesses Better Manage Cloud Costs

Anodot Unveils CostGPT to Help Businesses Better Manage Cloud Costs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Anodot, Daily news
  • Analytics and monitoring solutions company Anodot has launched CostGPT to help businesses monitor cloud costs.
  • Anodot’s CostGPT leverages AI to enable business managers to learn about and manage their cloud costs data conversationally via chat.
  • Headquartered in Virginia, Anodot made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateEurope in London.

Advanced analytics and monitoring solutions provider Anodot has unveiled its latest solution, CostGPT. The new AI-powered offering enables cloud users to access accurate and personalized analysis of their cloud costs. With CostGPT, users will be able to better address everything from complex pricing models to cloud resource allocation with a simple query.

In addition to being able to ask the platform questions about cloud costs via chat, CostGPT provides optimization recommendations to help users better understand their cloud spending. The technology helps businesses avoid unnecessary costs, optimize resource utilization, and leverages real-time, intuitive data visualizations to make analysis, planning, and decision-making easier.

“This feature enables users to interact with their cloud cost data conversationally, making it more accessible and effortless than ever before,” Anodot Head of Product Limor Tepper said. “It’s all about ensuring that our users have the answers they need at their fingertips. And it doesn’t stop at text responses; it supplies the answers with graphical results that are easy to understand at a glance.”

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia, Anodot made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022. At the event, the company demoed its Payments Monitoring Tool. The technology leverages AI to monitor and correlate payments activity and business performance. This enables Anodot to spot potential issues and provide users with actionable alerts and forecasts in real-time. Businesses use Anodot to monitor a wide range of operations from front end applications to APIs to payments. Anodot says it has helped companies cut the time-to-detection of revenue-critical issues by up to 80%.

Anodot has raised $64.5 million in funding from investors including Alicorn Venture Capital and Redline Capital. Also last month, Anodot announced a “long-term strategic partnership” with DevOps and FinOps services Automat-IT. The partnership is designed to help consumers maximize their deployments on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Over the summer, Anodot released its annual State of Cloud Cost survey. The report highlighted trends such as the rise of third-party solutions and the challenge of cloud cost transparency.

Photo by Timur Saglambilek

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Intuit QuickBooks Launches QuickBooks Bill Pay

Intuit QuickBooks Launches QuickBooks Bill Pay
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Intuit, QuickBooks
  • QuickBooks launched QuickBooks Bill Pay to bring accounts payable automation and processes to small business clients.
  • The new product is integrated into the QuickBooks platform and aims to help users manage bill payments to vendors and contractors.
  • The announcement comes after the company ended a long-standing relationship with Bill.com.

Intuit’s QuickBooks unveiled QuickBooks Bill Pay today to bring accounts payable (AP) automation to its business users.

Aimed at small-to-mid-sized businesses, the new bill pay tool will help Quickbooks’ clients track and automate their bill payments within its platform. The new tool also includes a suite of financial and accounting tools such as digitized record-keeping, vendor management, and advanced controls with customizable permissions for teams.

By integrating a bill payment tool into its existing platform, the company makes it easier for business users to manage bill payments to vendors and contractors. Additionally, by bringing AP processes into a single solution, businesses will have better cash flow and money movement visibility and may mitigate missed and late payments.

“Across the QuickBooks platform, we’re revolutionizing money movement to improve the number-one problem small businesses face – cash flow – which impacts their success rates,” said Intuit Senior Vice President of the QuickBooks Money Platform David Talach.

With Bill Pay, businesses can:

  • Set permissions and rules to customize the bill approval process for different team members
  • Import vendor invoices and to automatically create a bill
  • Keep digital records of bills and payments in one place
  • Send electronic payments or paper checks without issuing and mailing them
  • View and file 1099s for vendors

“QuickBooks Bill Pay is a key addition to our ecosystem as we aim to deliver a singular, end-to-end financial solution for small businesses to manage their money. Integrating Bill Pay with our other money offerings enables our customers to leverage game-changing automation capabilities and have the visibility and clarity they need when it comes to their finances,” added Talach.

QuickBooks has a three-tiered pricing plan for the Bill Pay tool, ranging from free to $45 per month. The base level includes five free ACH payments per month while the upper tiers include more ACH payments per month, custom bill approval workflows, unlimited 1099s for vendors, and predefined team permissions.

Founded in 1983, QuickBooks is one of the oldest fintech solutions for small businesses. The company has undergone recent friction when it comes to integrated bill pay, having leveraged a partnership with Bill.com for several years, and later ending that relationship in favor of a partnership with Melio.

QuickBooks is owned by Intuit, a public company that trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker INTU and has a current market capitalization of $151 billion.

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Stash Secures $40 Million in New Funding, Introduces First Independent Audit Chair

Stash Secures $40 Million in New Funding, Introduces First Independent Audit Chair
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Stash
  • Investment app Stash announced a $40 million investment on Friday. The investment was led by T. Rowe Price Investment Management.
  • The New York-based company also announced that former New York Stock Exchange CFO Amy Butte was joining the company as its first-ever independent audit chair.
  • Stash made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateFall.

Finishing the week with a bang is investment app Stash, which announced a new $40 million investment and first-ever independent audit chair on Friday.

The investment comes courtesy of T. Rowe Rice Investment Management, as well as a combination of strategic and existing investors including Goodwater Capital and Union Square Ventures. The first-ever independent audit chair comes courtesy of former NYSE Chief Financial Officer Amy Butte.

“The addition of Amy, who is amongst the most accomplished leaders in the financial services space, plus a new round of financing from marquee investors, are clear indicators of the strength of Stash’s business,” Stash CEO Liza Landsman said. “It also signals our widely ambitious future.”

A recognized leader in financial services, Butte has taken companies public as a director, advisor, and CFO, including the IPO of the New York Stock Exchange. Butte currently sits on the boards of Bain Capital Specialty Finance and DigitalOcean, and served on the boards of BNP Paribas and Fidelity Strategic Advisers Funds for seven and six years, respectively. In a statement, Butte underscored Stash’s unique approach to helping individuals get started on the road to investing.

“(Stash) is not a tool – it is a business,” Butte said. “It is not simply replicating a traditional workflow online. Rather, it is encouraging and teaching an underrepresented (traditionally ignored) customer segment about the value of investing through a subscription model. It is leveraging technology to make finance both accessible and also understandable.”

A Finovate alum since 2017, Stash offers an investing app that helps users build long-term wealth. With automated investment plans starting as low as $3 a month, Stash helps users build diversified investment Smart Portfolios – that offer exposure to stocks, ETFs, and even cryptocurrencies. Stash also offers personalized investment advice, automated recurring investing, and dividend reinvestments. Stash’s “Stock-Back” debit card solution enables users to earn up to 3% back in stock from regular purchases like gas and groceries.

In the past year alone, Stash has topped $100 million in annual revenue and now includes two million active subscribers on its platform. These subscribers have set aside nearly $3 billion due to regular, automated deposits averaging just $33.

Stash’s fundraising news comes just a few months after the company introduced new Chief Technology Officer Chien-Liang Chou, as well as launched its Internal Developer Portal (IDP), Elevate. Headquartered in New York, Stash was founded in 2015.

Photo by Steven Arenas

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Lendscape Teams up with Lenvi to Enhance Digital Risk Management

Lendscape Teams up with Lenvi to Enhance Digital Risk Management
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Lenvi
  • Fraud analytics and risk management company Lenvi has partnered with secured finance technology provider Lendscape.
  • The integrated platform will help lenders identify fraud faster, and provide better, more seamless experiences for customers.
  • Headquartered in Leeds, U.K., Lenvi made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope.

Here’s some news that slipped under the radar in recent days and weeks. Lenvi, a Leeds-based fintech that made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year, has announced a partnership with secured finance technology provider Lendscape. Together, the two companies are offering enhanced digital risk management for lenders. The integrated platform will help lenders identify fraud faster, and provide better, more seamless experiences for customers.

“This collaboration, and the integration of our revolutionary mix of workflow technology and next-level credit risk analytics with Lendscape’s powerful lending technology, represents a major step forward in advancing the commercial finance industry’s capabilities,” Lenvi Chief Executive Officer Richard Carter said.

Lenvi brings an advanced, real-time credit risk analytics solution to the partnership. Combined with Lendscape’s lending technology, the joint offering will help lenders establish creditworthiness faster and more accurately. The collaboration will also support smarter lending decisions throughout the entire loan lifecycle – from application to servicing.

“This partnership allows us to give providers a more holistic view of creditworthiness, empowering them to work smarter, optimize their lending operations, or ultimately unlock more working capital for their SME customers,” Lendscape CEO Kevin Day said.

Lendscape provides 120+ banks and lenders with an end-to-end platform that enables them to offer a wide range of financing products. Both institutional and SME lenders can benefit from the ability to build and deliver innovative financing solutions by using Lendscape’s technology. Lendscape was founded as general IT services provider Hill Price Davison in 1972. The company changed its name to HPD Software in 2000, and rebranded as Lendscape two years later. In July of this year, Lendscape announced that it had secured a “significant investment” from private equity firm Bowmark Capital.

In its Finovate debut in March, Lenvi demonstrated its new loan management platform, PF1. The solution supports a wide range of lending types – from mortgages to unsecured loans. PF1 combines a broad and extendable API-first party support, along with comprehensive lending functionality. This allows for feature toggling along with a fully automated online deployments. At the same time, a React user interface and APIs give users the ability to take advantage of a highly configurable workflow engine while remaining compliant and secure.

Founded in 1988, Lenvi works with more than 150+ lenders, providing lendtech solutions in loan software and risk analytics. The company has managed more than $122 billion (£100 billion) in credit assets on behalf of clients, and processes a new loan application every five seconds on its platform.

Photo by John Escudero

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Fiserv Offers More Than 3,000 Institutions Access to Plaid’s Network

Fiserv Offers More Than 3,000 Institutions Access to Plaid’s Network
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Fiserv, Plaid
  • Fiserv has partnered with Plaid to offer its bank clients API-based connectivity to third-party applications on Plaid’s network.
  • The agreement leverages Fiserv’s AllData Connect to allow credential-free data sharing.
  • Fiserv has signed a similar consumer-permissioned data sharing agreements with Akoya, MX, and Finicity.

Digital banking and payments solutions company Fiserv has partnered with financial infrastructure fintech Plaid this week. The two have formed a data-sharing agreement that will offer Fiserv’s 3,000 bank and credit union clients API-based connectivity to the 8,000+ applications on Plaid’s network.

The data-sharing agreement, which will leverage Fiserv’s AllData Connect, will ultimately benefit the end consumer. The deal will help consumers who bank with Fiserv clients share their financial information with third-party financial apps and services such as Venmo, Chime, SoFi, and Betterment.

“Our partnership with Plaid allows banks and credit unions to empower consumers to access their financial information beyond the financial institution, while maintaining their trusted role at the center of people’s financial lives,” said Fiserv President of Digital Payments Matt Wilcox. “By facilitating access to a broad range of capabilities and experiences through third-party apps and services we are charting a course towards an open finance ecosystem that prioritizes data privacy, consumer access, and choice.”

Data sharing via API connectivity instead of an alternative such as screen-scraping offers end users a more seamless way to integrate their financial data into third-party platforms. The API connection also provides consumers more security than screen-scraping, a process that requires them to share their bank login credentials with a third party, which may not have the same level of security as a bank. The data sharing will be secure, transparent, and compliant with the anticipated regulatory guidance outlined by Dodd Frank 1033.

FDX Managing Director Don Cardinal called the relationship between Fiserv and Plaid “a leap forward for direct data sharing and great news for the ecosystem.”

Fiserv’s AllData Connect launched in 2020 and is part of the company’s AllData Aggregation product suite, a set of tools that enables credential-free data sharing. AllData Connect validates the consumer with their respective financial institution and issues a token employed by third parties to access and update that consumer’s data via the AllData Connect platform.

Fiserv signed a similar consumer-permissioned data agreement with Akoya in August and has also partnered with MX and Finicity for data sharing.

Fiserv was founded in 1984 and offers solutions that are used in nearly six million merchant locations and almost 10,000 financial institution clients. The company powers 12,000 financial transactions each second. Fiserv is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker FI and has a market capitalization of $68.8 billion.

Plaid helps 12,000+ financial institutions offer their customers access to its network of 8,000+ third party financial services via a suite of APIs that connects consumers, financial institutions, and developers. The company also offers identity verification, balance checks, risk assessment scoring, transaction analytics, and more. Plaid was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

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DataVisor Launches AI Co-Pilot to Enhance Real-Time Fraud Defense

DataVisor Launches AI Co-Pilot to Enhance Real-Time Fraud Defense
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DataVisor
  • Fraud and risk platform DataVisor launched its new AI Co-Pilot solution to enhance real-time fraud defense.
  • AI Co-Pilot includes AI-automated rule tuning, feature generation and automated debugging, and improved explainability among its features.
  • DataVisor made its Finovate debut last month at FinovateFall in New York.

Less than a month after making its Finovate debut at FinovateFall, fraud and risk platform DataVisor has launched AI Co-Pilot. The new offering is a generative AI-facilitated fraud solution designed to catch fraud 20x faster than traditional methods.

AI Co-Pilot helps financial institutions detect fraud in real-time while at the same time reducing the number of false positives. This enables financial institutions to provide effective fraud defense without compromising the user experience with excessive friction.

DataVisor co-founder and CEO Yinglian Xie noted that innovation in the payment space required innovation in the fraud prevention space, as well. With bank transfer and payment fraud losses in the U.S. topping $1.58 billion last year, concerns over fraud risks can serve as an impediment to many financial institutions – especially smaller FIs and credit unions – when it comes to embracing instant payments and other new services that their customers and members want.

“Built on groundbreaking Generative AI technology, DataVisor’s AI Co-Pilot gives financial institutions better intelligence and automation for more effective fraud detection and prevention,” Xie said. “This innovative solution is more accurate, reacts to fraud trends much faster, and improves user experiences and customer support.”

Among the new capabilities delivered by DataVisor’s AI Co-Pilot are AI-automated rule tuning to accelerate the fraud response and improve accuracy, feature generation and automated debugging, and improved explainability to ensure transparency.

“(AI Co-Pilot) considerably reduces the need for analyst resources,” Xie added. “This advancement signifies a pivotal step toward enhanced security and efficiency across the industry.”

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Mountain View, California, DataVisor demoed its fraud and risk platform at FinovateFall last month. At the event, DataVisor’s Ryan Nichols and Kevin McWey showed how the technology’s rules engine, device intelligence, decision engine, and case management combine to enhance fraud detection and minimize losses.

DataVisor has raised more than $94 million in funding. The company includes CMFG Ventures and NewView Capital among its investors. Last month, DataVisor introduced new Chief Revenue Officer Kevin McWey. In July, the company announced that it had partnered with cyber and fraud threat intelligence specialist Q6 Cyber.

Photo by Scott Webb

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Data Intelligence Startup Curinos Teams Up with Capital Markets Technology Firm Polly

Data Intelligence Startup Curinos Teams Up with Capital Markets Technology Firm Polly
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Curinos, Daily news
  • Data intelligence startup Curinos announced a new strategic collaboration with mortgage capital markets technology company Polly.
  • Polly will integrate Curinos’ market pricing data into its Product and Pricing Engine (PPE).
  • Curinos made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring.

Data intelligence startup Curinos has forged a new partnership with Polly, a company that provides mortgage capital markets technology. Polly will integrate Curinos’ market pricing data into its Product and Pricing Engine (PPE) to produce what both companies are calling the largest competitive dataset gathered from industry third parties.

“Our partnership will enable clients to seamlessly analyze their market position and support effective margin decisions without leaving their pricing engine,” Curinos EVP of Real Estate and Consumer Lending Brandonn Dukes explained. “These benefits will allow users to establish proactive margin management processes and remain competitive in any market environment.”

A product of the combination of Novantas and Informa’s FBX business, Curinos offers technology that helps financial institutions make better, faster, and more profitable data-driven decisions. Curinos’ technology facilitates access to comprehensive datasets and analytics, smart technologies, and connected behavioral insights, and can be applied across financial services ranging from deposits to lending.

A new Finovate alum, Curinos made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Amplero Personalization Optimizer. Designed for high-impact use cases, the technology leverages innovations in marketing automation to deliver hyper-personalized omnichannel experiences in minutes, rather than months. Founded in 2021, Curinos also forged a partnership earlier this year with customer intelligence technology and service provider Touchpoint Group.

Polly Chief Revenue Officer Parvesh Sahi highlighted the way the new integration will help lenders, as well as enable Polly to accelerate its own efforts with regards to business intelligence. “Not only does this collaboration enable lenders to optimize their operations and maximize profitability with new data and services today, but it also lays the groundwork for Polly’s long-term data and analytics strategy,” Sahi said.

Founded in 2019, Polly helps banks, credit unions, and mortgage lenders automate and optimize the entire capital markets value chain. From rate lock to loan sale and delivery, Polly offers a vertically integrated capital markets solution that helps lenders scale their mortgage operations. The company is based in San Francisco, California. Adam Carmel is founder and CEO.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

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Thomson Reuters Launches E-Invoicing Tool

Thomson Reuters Launches E-Invoicing Tool
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Thomson Reuters

Content and technology company Thomson Reuters launched an e-invoicing product called ONESOURCE E-Invoicing this week, a tool that marries e-invoicing and tax compliance.

The new offering will be added to Thomson Reuters’ ONESOURCE software suite. It will not only help users manage global tax compliance– which is already available within the ONESOURCE software line– but will also bring in e-invoicing compliance by connecting financial systems and ERP systems.

Thomson Reuters has partnered with Pagero to leverage its Smart Business Network that connects buyers and sellers to exchange orders, invoices, payment instructions, and other business documents. Pagero will help automate the process and ensure compliance.

“Compliance with e-invoicing mandates is accelerating as a key priority, and historically it has not been an easy task, with regulations varying significantly across regions,” said Thomson Reuters Head of Product, Transactional Compliance Ray Grove. “We’re excited to be able to support businesses in overcoming these challenges with ONESOURCE E-Invoicing. This helps them accurately and efficiently meet compliance obligations – increasing confidence and peace of mind on what can be a daunting and ongoing task.”

ONESOURCE E-Invoicing offers a single location where customers can manage e-invoicing compliance across networks and borders with ERP and API integrations, and save time with automated e-invoice validation. In addition to e-invoicing and tax support, the ONESOURCE software suite also provides tax determination, indirect compliance, and a certificate manager.

The Canada-based firm, which is known for its news and media content as well as for its legal, tax, and compliance support, recently acquired Casetext, an AI-powered legal research technology company, for $650 million.

Thomson Reuters has demoed at two Finovate events– showcasing its App Store solution at FinovateFall 2012 and at FinovateSpring that same year. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TRI and currently has a market capitalization of $57.33 billion.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

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Jumio Extends Strategic Partnership with Data Services Provider NextWealth

Jumio Extends Strategic Partnership with Data Services Provider NextWealth
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Jumio
  • Identity verification, risk assessment, and compliance solutions company Jumio has announced an expanded strategic partnership with NextWealth.
  • A data services provider, NextWealth will provide identity verification services and manage back office operations for Jumio.
  • A Best of Show winner and Finovate alum since 2013, Jumio has processed more than one billion transactions spanning 200+ countries and territories.

Identity verification and compliance solutions provider Jumio has expanded its strategic partnership with data services provider NextWealth. The move comes as the risk assessment company seeks to add to its ability to combat increasingly sophisticated fraud and financial crime challenges. Via the enhanced relationship, NextWealth will provide identity verification services for Jumio. This will include taking the lead role in back office operations for Jumio as the company looks to scale its business, while providing the same level of secure service.

“Now more than ever, when our automation and quality rates have reached record levels, partnering with NextWealth enables us to focus on our core business and technology objectives and support our customers wherever they do business across the globe,” Jumio Chief Technology Officer Stuart Wells explained.

NextWealth CEO Mythily Ramesh said that the expanded partnership would “further cement our position as one of the largest, pure play, AI/ML-driven data services players in the country.” Founded in 2009, the Bengaluru, India-based company serves businesses in fintech, e-commerce, healthcare, and other verticals. With seven centers in four states, NextWealth delivers more than 300 million data transactions.

A Finovate Best of Show winner and long-time alum, Jumio has processed more than one billion transactions from 200+ countries and territories. With its Jumio KYX Platform, the Sunnyvale, California-based company offers advanced identity proofing, risk signals, and compliance tools that help businesses establish and maintain customer trust. Jumio leverages a wide variety of enabling technologies – including automation, biometrics, AI, machine learning, liveness detection, and no-code orchestration – to enable its clients to better deal with the evolving nature of financial crime.

Last month, Jumio was named a Representative Vendor in the Gartner Market Guide for Identity Verification for a fifth consecutive time. Earlier this year, the company forged partnerships with Philippines-based Java developer Exist Software Labs, and composable frontend platform company Modyo.

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Stockpile Taps Green Dot to Offer Debit Cards for Kids

Stockpile Taps Green Dot to Offer Debit Cards for Kids
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Green Dot, Stockpile
  • Stockpile is adding a kids debit card as part of its retail investing product suite for minors.
  • The debit card will be powered by Green Dot’s banking-as-a-service tool.
  • The card will have built-in parental controls and oversight.

Youth-focused brokerage company Stockpile is adding a new product to its lineup this week. The company will begin offering minors a debit card as part of its retail investing product suite.

The payment card, which will be powered by Green Dot’s banking-as-a-service, will have parental spending controls. Parents can set up debit cards for their kids, set and control the access they’d like their kids to have, and maintain oversight over their spending.

“Green Dot’s depth of experience embedding seamless, innovative and value-driven financial tools into their partner ecosystems, along with their passion for providing accessible financial services to consumers and businesses, make them a great fit for Stockpile’s long-term vision and growth trajectory,” said Stockpile CEO Victor Wang. “Partnering with Green Dot adds a new dimension to Stockpile’s hands-on financial learning and access, and will deliver a seamless and responsible debit card experience as an educational stepping stone to investing.”

Stockpile plans to add more tools and functionality to its product suite in the future. Based on competing payment tools for minors, such as Greenlight and GoHenry by Acorns, Stockpile may add budgeting tools, giving options, and a savings account.

Founded in 1999, Green Dot offers direct-to-consumer digital banking tools as well as a B2B banking-as-a-service offering. According to the release, Stockpile is among the first of Green Dot’s partners to build and operate from its cloud-native banking-as-a-service platform.

“We’re proud to partner with Stockpile to embed powerful financial tools and experiences that fuel engagement and value for their customers,” said Green Dot Head of Enterprise Business Development, Embedded Finance Simran Singh. “We’re passionate about giving people and businesses access to seamless, affordable banking and financial tools that build financial confidence and prosperity, as well as partnering with companies like Stockpile that share our values, purpose and vision.”

Notably, this announcement comes the same week that Acorns unveiled a new premium tier that includes access to GoHenry in the U.S. and two months after Greenlight launched a new solution to help teens build credit.

Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash

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Digital Banking Software Provider ieDigital Acquires U.S.-Based Connect FSS

Digital Banking Software Provider ieDigital Acquires U.S.-Based Connect FSS
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, ieDigital, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • ieDigital, a digital banking software company based in the U.K., has acquired U.S.-based digital banking technology company Connect FSS.
  • Terms of the deal were not immediately available.
  • ieDigital made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2018.

U.K.-based digital banking software company ieDigital announced a major acquisition this week. The firm will acquire its U.S.-based counterpart, digital banking technology company, Connect FSS. Terms of the transaction were not immediately available, but the deal will make ieDigital one of the biggest digital banking software providers in the world.

The acquisition comes at the end of ieDigital’s multi-month search for a business partner that would help the company meet its growth goals, especially with regard to increasing ieDigital’s international reach. The company noted in a statement that the acquisition will bring greater scale and more resources to bear on the challenges facing business customers. The acquisition will also help accelerate innovation as teams from both companies begin to collaborate and work together to design and market new, enhanced digital solutions.

“Joining forces with Connect FSS will enable us to support a broader range of customers in different geographies that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to reach, and strengthen our technology with insight from our new colleagues in the U.S.,” ieDigital CEO Jerry Young said. Connect FSS President and CEO Grant Parry added that the partnership with a “natural next step” in Connect FSS’s evolution. “Our joint ambition is to provide excellent customer service and tailored solutions to clients,” Parry said.

For now, both ieDigital and Connect FSS will retain their brand identities in their respective markets. The firms will sit as part of a new ieDigital Group in which ieDigital’s Young will serve as CEO while Connect FSS’s Parry will serve as EVP of Strategy.

Founded in 1984, ieDigital made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2018. At the conference, the company demoed its Money Fitness solution which helps users better manage their day-to-day finances. In the years since, the company has grown into a major fintech in the U.K. financial services ecosystem. ieDigital has partnered with four of the five largest banks in the U.K., and has provided digital software solutions to more than 50 financial services businesses.

This spring, ieDigital announced that Suffolk Building Society has chosen the company as its partner for its eSavings platform. The offering will give Society members access to online savings products and will be powered by ieDigital’s Interact software. Interact is a suite of digital services that work in concert with a financial services provider’s existing technology.

Photo by Yelena Odintsova

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BHG Financial Turns to Cable for Financial Crime Effectiveness Testing

BHG Financial Turns to Cable for Financial Crime Effectiveness Testing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cable, Daily news, Funding
  • BHG Financial announced a partnership with financial crime effectiveness testing company Cable.
  • BHG Financial will leverage Cable’s technology to enhance its own compliance programs.
  • Founded in 2020, Cable made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall 2022.

Unsecured business and personal loan specialist BHG Financial announced a partnership with Cable this week. The company will use Cable’s financial crime effectiveness platform to improve its own compliance efforts.

Headquartered in the San Francisco, California, Cable gives banks, financial services firms, fintechs, and other organizations the tools they need to enhance their compliance programs. These tools include automated risk assessments, automated assurance, quality assurance, management information, and reporting. BHG Financial’s Director of Financial Crime & BSA Officer Bryan Holloway, stated that the partnership underscored the company’s commitment to regulatory compliance by providing “advanced tooling” for “greater efficiency, visibility, and insights across our business.”

BHG Financial has established one of the largest community bank loan and product networks in the U.S. The company has originated more than $16 billion in loan solutions since its founding in 2001.

“We’re delighted to partner with BHG Financial to bolster their automated financial crime assurance and testing capabilities,” Cable CEO Natasha Vernier said. “With increasing regulatory scrutiny on banking and fintech compliance, it’s a privilege to partner with innovative companies like BHG Financial (that are) taking compliance very seriously and embracing the best tooling available to protect their business.”

Cable made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Automated Assurance solution. This technology enables banks and fintechs to automate their compliance assurance and effectiveness testing. Automated Assurance also allows organizations to discover breaches and control failures in the moment. Additionally, Cable’s technology streamlines a number of manual processes including quality control, stakeholder reporting, and record management.

Founded in 2020, the company raised $11 million in Series A funding in May of this year. Stage 2 Capital and Jump Capital participated, along with existing investor CRV. More recently, Cable announced a partnership with Grasshopper Bank, joined the Banking-as-a-Service Association, and introduced new Chief Revenue Officer Candace Sjogren. Sjogren comes to Cable after serving most recently as SVP, Global Head of Sales at crypto-as-a-service provider Zero Hash.

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