Alumni News

Glia Unveils Unified Interactions Index Online Calculator

Glia Unveils Unified Interactions Index Online Calculator
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Glia
  • Customer interaction technology company Glia launched its Unified Interactions Index Online Calculator this week.
  • The new offering is based on the company’s Unified Interactions Index, and enables financial services companies to benchmark the quality of their customer interactions against that of their peers.
  • A multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Glia most recently demoed its technology at Finovate’s all-digital conference in 2021.

Leave it to customer interaction technology innovator Glia to take the idea of “Knowing Your Customer” to another level.

This week, Glia unveiled its Unified Interactions Index Online Calculator. Based on the company’s Unified Interactions Index, the new tool enables financial services companies to benchmark themselves against more than 500 peer companies in terms of the efficiency, effectiveness, and overall experience in customer interactions.

“Customer interactions are the new litmus test for loyalty, but until now financial institutions haven’t had an accessible way to compare their interaction strategy with peers and relate it to tangible KPIs,” Glia Co-Founder and CEO Dan Michaeli said.

Glia’s calculator gives financial institutions apples-to-apples benchmarking data on how they compare against peers and competitors. From the answers to 14 questions, the calculator provides a score that categorizes respondents into one of three areas –front runner, pacer, or straggler — based on the efficiency, effectiveness, and experience of their customer interaction strategy. With this information, Glia provides customer recommendations to help the institution improve its interaction strategy, and improve business results based on their own unique circumstances.

“Our calculator offers a quick, simple way to evaluate where an institution stands and then provides actionable steps on easy areas of improvement,” Michaeli added. “This ultimately helps deliver the information and tools necessary to modernize and enhance customer interactions and drive successful business outcomes.”

Headquartered in New York, Glia made its Finovate debut (as SaleMove) at FinovateFall in 2015, earning its first of several Best of Show awards. Most recently, the company demoed its technology before Finovate audiences at our all-digital conference in the spring of 2021. Today, Glia has partnered with more than 500 banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and other financial institutions around the world to help them improve the customer experience, boost loyalty, and drive revenues. The Glia Interaction Platform unifies voice, digital customer service, and AI in an architecture that eliminates data siloes and enables companies to shift traffic between channels, enabling customer interactions to evolve naturally.

The launch of Glia’s new offering follows the introduction of the company’s ChannelLess AI-powered Interactions for Financial Services experience. This platform, in the words of Glia Chief Product Officer Jay Choi, combines a best-in-class virtual assistant, back-end AI tools, and a data analysis solution for managers to help them “find new ways to drive efficiency, performance, and increase the value delivered by the contact center.”

Photo by Yan Krukau

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Plaid Introduces Pay-by-Bank for Billpay

Plaid Introduces Pay-by-Bank for Billpay
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Plaid
  • Plaid has launched a pay-by-bank tool for bill payments in the U.S., allowing consumers to securely pay bills directly from their bank account without manually entering their account details.
  • The tool provides offers billers cost savings and lower risk with fewer returned payments through its risk engine, Signal.
  • Plaid’s pay-by-bank tool is already being used across industries like telecommunications and property management, integrating seamlessly with existing payment processors like Adyen, Nuvei, and Checkout.

Pay-by-bank is back in the news cycle today– this time in the United States. Fintech infrastructure player Plaid unveiled a pay-by-bank tool for billpay.

The new tool, which is powered by Plaid’s network, provides businesses with a lower cost, more secure option for consumers to pay bills directly from their bank account with less friction. Because it leverages Plaid’s bank network, the new pay-by-bank tool does not require consumers to find their checkbook, manually enter their account and routing numbers, and wait for verification. Instead, the solution, which is embedded into a biller’s existing payments flow, connects to consumers’ accounts by securely entering their bank login credentials.

“Plaid provides both market-leading authentication through online banking and traditional account and routing number validation in the background,” the company explained in a blog post. “There’s no need to stitch together multiple vendors, so no matter how the user prefers to pay with their bank account, Plaid’s end-to-end Pay by Bank solution can securely accept it. Plaid Pay by Bank is available across all channels: online, in-app, in-store, and hosted contact center solutions.”

Plaid’s pay-by-bank is available as an all-in-one solution that includes processing, or it can be integrated with a biller’s existing payment processor such as Adyen, Nuvei, Checkout, and others.

Pay-by-bank offers two major benefits to billers. The first is cost savings. Plaid estimates that payments made directly from the consumer’s bank account offer a 40% lower processing cost when compared to credit card payments. The second benefit is lower risk. Plaid’s risk assessment results in fewer returns for recurring payments.

To decrease the risk of returned payments, Plaid leverages Signal, its risk engine that uses machine-learning-driven network insights that mitigate failed payments, connecting to closed accounts, or accounts with insufficient funds. Signal offers a feature called Smart Retries that provides guidance on when to retry failed payments. Plaid reports that this decreases non sufficient funds (NSFs) on first payments by up to 80%.

Plaid’s pay-by-bank tool is already in use with a handful of customers across telecommunications, property management, insurance, automotive, and other industries. One such company, a digital rent payment business Domuso, has integrated Plaid’s new bill pay experience into its existing payments platform.

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Alloy Helps Commercial Lenders, Embedded Finance Providers Fight Fraud

Alloy Helps Commercial Lenders, Embedded Finance Providers Fight Fraud
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alloy, Alumni News, Daily news

Back before regtech was cool, a Brooklyn, New York-based company called Alloy was introducing Finovate audiences and others to its technology that enables banks and other financial institutions to build fully-customizable APIs for customer identification and compliance. Even more, the company demonstrated how its graphical rules engine implements compliance rules in a way that actually optimizes conversions and coverage. Alloy’s technology empowers companies to choose which data sources are used and how they are applied. This lets companies decide how to customize and optimize this aspect of their own onboarding processes.

We first met Alloy in 2016, when the company demoed its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley. In the years since then, Alloy has grown into an end-to-end identity risk management platform with more than 600 banks, credit unions, and fintechs using its technology to manage fraud, credit, and compliance risks. The company has raised more than $207 million in funding according to Crunchbase. Glia most recently secured an investment of $52 million in follow-on Series C funding in September 2022 from Avenir, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and other investors.

Alloy was founded in 2015 by Tommy Nicholas (CEO), Laura Spiekerman (President), and Charles Hearn (CTO) who met while working at a payments startup. In their mission statement they note that, in the company’s early days, they faced skepticism from investors, but were heartened by client feedback, which they said was “overwhelmingly positive” and inspired the founding trio to forge ahead.

These days, more and more companies are getting the message. In the past few days, Alloy announced partnerships with commercial lending platform Numerated and embedded finance and payment solutions provider Sonovate.

Alloy’s strategic partnership with Numerated will enable the latter’s customers to conduct robust fraud checks seamlessly from within their own lending operations. The partnership will bring streamlined onboarding, enhanced fraud prevention, and a unified digital experience to Numerated’s platform. This will help Numerated’s customers capture deposits and offer competitive lending products to their SME and commercial borrowers.

“Fraud prevention and lending automation are crucial in today’s financial landscape,” Numerated CEO Dan O’Malley said. “By partnering with Alloy, we are ensuring that our platform not only meets but exceeds the expectations of financial institutions looking for secure, scalable lending solutions. This partnership allows us to deliver the best of both worlds — top-tier risk management combined with the efficiency and speed of automation.”

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Numerated leverages advanced data and AI to help companies automate their business lending operations — from application to closing. With 500,000+ businesses and 30,000+ lenders among its customers, Numerated processes $400 million in loan volume every hour and, since inception, has processed more than $50 billion in loans on its platform.

With Sonovate, Alloy’s identity risk technology will be deployed to help the company combat rising fraud trends in the U.K. as it seeks to scale its operations. In a statement announcing the partnership, the companies noted a report from UK Finance that underscored the challenge of more sophisticated, AI-powered tools that fraudsters are using against financial institutions. The report discovered that $1.5 billion (£1.17 billion) was lost to financial criminals in 2023 alone.

“With its network of data sources, Alloy gives us the power to protect our business and customers from financial crime and the flexibility to make adjustments as needed as our business scales,” Sonovate Global Head of Risk and Compliance Tom Wilson said. “We are excited for this next step in our global growth.”

U.K.-based Sonovate serves recruitment businesses, consultancies, and labor marketplaces with embedded finance and payment solutions for their workforces. Sonovate provides swift credit decisioning, same-day funding, credit insurance, collection services, and both timesheet and workflow automation. Founded in 2014, the company has funded nearly $8 billion in invoices, supporting 3,300 businesses and 50,000 workers in 44 countries.

In addition to its partnerships with fintechs, Alloy announced last month that it was working with Meridian Credit Union, to help Canada’s second largest credit union enhance its user experience and reduce fraud risk for its 380,000+ members. Also this year, Alloy published its 2024 State of Embedded Finance report which examines trends in embedded finance risk management and compliance.

Photo by Soloman Soh

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Chimney Joins the Jack Henry Digital Banking Platform

Chimney Joins the Jack Henry Digital Banking Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Chimney, Daily news, Jack Henry
  • Property data innovator Chimney announced a new collaboration with digital banking solutions provider Jack Henry.
  • The collaboration will make Chimney’s product suite available on Jack Henry’s digital banking platform.
  • Chimney won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2023 in New York. Previously known as Signal Intent, the company also won Best of Show at our online FinovateSpring conference in 2021.

A collaboration between property data innovator Chimney and Jack Henry will help financial institutions empower their homeowners with actionable advice about their home value, home equity, borrowing power, and more. That’s because Chimney has made its product suite, including its latest offering Chimney Home, available via Jack Henry’s digital banking platform.

Chimney’s embedded financial tools enable banks and other financial institutions to engage more account holders digitally, generate more deposits, and fund more loans by leveraging intelligent recommendations to guide customers to the products that are most appropriate for them. Chimney Home, the company’s latest product, gives homeowners actionable information about the value of their home, potential borrowing power, and the availability of pre-qualified offers — all embedded within the bank’s digital channels.

“For many years, financial institutions have lacked the resources needed to personalize product recommendations for homeowners,” Chimney Co-Founder and CEO Matthew Covi said. “At the same time, getting approved for a home equity loan is a big feat, sometimes taking months and causing frustrations for many consumers. That’s why we created Chimney Home.”

Among the financial institutions currently using Chimney’s tools via Jack Henry’s digital banking platform is Financial Plus Credit Union. The technology will help the institution better serve members who are homeowners with the data they need to maximize their home’s value and equity. Chimney’s offering also replaces the credit union’s previous, more cumbersome cross-departmental strategy in favor of an omni-channel approach that makes access easier for homeowners and the process more efficient for the credit union’s mortgage services team.

“By combining financial health data and blending it with a homeowner’s property data, we’re empowering financial institutions to make more personalized loan recommendations in the fiercely competitive home equity space and allow account holders to take action on those recommendations right within their digital banking app,” Covi said.

Chimney won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2023 in New York. Previously known as Signal Intent, the company won Best of Show in its debut at our online FinovateSpring conference in 2021. Headquartered in New York, the company announced this spring that it had topped the 30 bank-client milestone.

Jack Henry first demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall 2010. Today, the Monett, Missouri-based company provides banks and credit unions with an ecosystem of modern technology solutions developed internally as well as the ability to integrate with leading fintechs. Founded in 1976, Jack Henry is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ under the ticker JKHY. The company has a market capitalization of $13 billion.

Photo by Pixabay

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Tyfone Teams Up with FinGoal to Help Banks Personalize their Products

Tyfone Teams Up with FinGoal to Help Banks Personalize their Products
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, FinGoal, Tyfone
  • Tyfone has partnered with FinGoal to deliver personalized banking solutions.
  • Tyfone will leverage FinGoal’s Insight Platform to help its clients transform transaction data into detailed personas and next-best actions for users.
  • FinGoal’s Next Best Actions has already been adopted by a portion of Tyfone’s clients, and more plan to join soon.

Digital banking solutions provider Tyfone has teamed up with FinGoal this week to help banks deliver personalized products and tools to account holders.

Tyfone will leverage FinGoal’s Insight Platform that turns transaction data into detailed personas and offers next-best actions for each account holder. Specifically, Tyfone clients will have greater access to FinGoal’s Next Best Actions, a tool that increases conversion rates, lifetime value, and engagement. Currently, a portion of Tyfone’s client base is already using Next Best Actions, and more plan to join soon.

Showcased at FinovateSpring 2023, FinGoal’s Next Best Actions can help increase conversion rates, lifetime value, and engagement across digital banking solutions by leveraging digital banking and personal financial data. With that data, FinGoal’s clients can better understand users and provide actionable insights.

“Today’s account holders want more than just banking—they’re looking for personalized insights and a seamless experience that helps them make better financial decisions,” said Tyfone Director of Strategic Partnerships Jared Kopelman. “By integrating FinGoal into our platform, we’re equipping our clients with powerful tools like transaction cleansing and categorization and clear merchant logos. This partnership empowers financial institutions to deliver a more intuitive and tailored experience that helps institutions better understand its customers and deepen relationships.”

Tyfone was founded in 2004 and provides digital banking and payment solutions. The Oregon-based company’s digital banking solution, nFinia, is an enterprise solution that allows CFIs to deliver a hyper-personalized digital banking experience to both retail and commercial customers. The configurable solution offers more than 300 financial functions and provides an open ecosystem with direct integrations with more than 160 players.

Headquartered in Colorado, FinGoal was founded in 2018. In addition to its personalized offers technology, the company offers transaction enrichment and account aggregation and verification tools.

“The better an institution knows its users, the better it can serve those users,” said FinGoal CEO David Nohe. “Tyfone is known for its modern and sophisticated banking solution, and this partnership gives banks and credit unions a modern platform with actionable insights to power better engagement. FinGoal will arm our joint clients with data analytics and enhanced user experience.”

Photo by Jopwell

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Hastings Direct Loans Partners with IDVerse

Hastings Direct Loans Partners with IDVerse
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, IDVerse
  • Identity verification solution and infrastructure company IDVerse announced a partnership with Hastings Direct Loans.
  • The U.K.-based lender will leverage IDVerse’s technology to enhance the accuracy and reliability of its identity verification process.
  • IDVerse, as OCR Labs, won Best of Show at FinovateAsia in 2017. The company rebranded to IDVerse in 2023.

Hastings Direct Loans is working with IDVerse to further automate the customer journey by adding IDVerse’s identity tools to its offering. The lender will put IDVerse’s identity tools to work to boost the accuracy and reliability of its identity verification process.

Calling IDVerse’s technology a “perfect match,” Hastings Direct Loans Head of Digital, IT and Change, Sam Kerr added, “Hastings prides itself on giving our customers a fair, easy to understand loan process by implementing innovative technology solutions into our stack, which also enable our ambitious growth plans. The API approach from IDVerse has allowed us to ingest more data to further insights in our decision process leading to better outcomes for our customers and business.”

IDVerse’s tools and infrastructure empower businesses to verify identities within seconds using only their face and smartphone. IDVerse’s identity verification technology covers more than 16,000 identity documents, and works with more than 140 different languages and typesets to produce face matching accuracy of 99.998%. Equipped with Zero Bias AI Tested technology, IDVerse enables businesses to verify a wider range of identities, ensuring greater accessibility, for example with those with disabilities.

Additionally, the technology leverages light refraction analysis to determine liveness, removing the need for users to turn or move uncomfortably or endure unnatural lighting in order to establish their identity. Zero Bias AI also means normalizing user photos to account for individuals that may not have the most modern smartphone camera technology or high-speed data connection. In addition to integrating and testing within a month, Hastings Direct Loans noted that it had experienced a 4x ROI within a month of launch based on the amount of fraud the company has caught.

IDVerse Commercial Director Adam Desmond complimented the Hastings team for its eagerness to embrace enabling technologies. “They understand the need for fintechs to use the latest technology and data to drive improved outcomes in customer experience – which led to better business outcomes. Being able to exchange information at speed during the integration has allowed us to show the true value of the tech (in) near instant time.”

Headquartered in the U.K., Hastings Direct Loans has offered personal loans to consumers for more than three years. To date, the firm has financed nearly $655 million (£500 million) for more than 50,000 customers, and currently processes more than $39 billion (£30 billion) worth of loan quotes per month. Hastings Direct Loans is part of the Hastings Group, a U.K.-based digital insurance provider with more than 3.1 million live customers policies.

Founded as OCR Labs, the company won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateAsia 2017 in Hong Kong. The firm rebranded as IDVerse in May 2023. More recently, the company has forged partnerships with data and compliance infrastructure company Prembly, age and identity verification solutions provider Veratad Technologies, and identity verification and fraud prevention specialist TrustID.

Last month, IDVerse announced the beta launch of its real-time face matching solution, Face Access, that offers 99.998% accuracy and instant, secure user authentication. Face Access features both Zero Bias AI and the company’s Deepfake Defender protection, which provides 100% liveness video fraud assessment with ISO 30107-3 compliance for presentation attack detection (PAD).

IDVerse has raised $45 million in funding according to Crunchbase, and includes Equable Capital and OYAK among its investors. The company is headquartered in London. John Myers is CEO.

Photo by Yoss Traore

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FIS Launches Digital Trading Storefront to Upgrade the Trading Experience

FIS Launches Digital Trading Storefront to Upgrade the Trading Experience
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, FIS
  • FIS has launched its Digital Trading Storefront, enabling banks, brokers, and fund managers to offer a customizable digital trading experience with real-time execution and enhanced personalization.
  • The new Digital Trading Storefront is built on FIS’s Cross-Asset Trading and Risk Platform.
  • The new tool supports both buy-side and sell-side strategies while helping firms manage trading volumes and mitigate regulatory compliance risks.

Payment, banking, and investment systems provider FIS unveiled its Digital Trading Storefront today. The new tool enables banks, brokers, market makers, and fund managers to offer their customers a new digital trading experience.

The new Digital Trading Storefront builds upon FIS’ existing Cross-Asset Trading and Risk Platform. Formerly known as Front Arena, FIS Cross-Asset Trading and Risk Platform helps firms enter new markets quickly and support strategies for both the buy side and sell side. FIS’ Digital Trading Storefront enhances this by offering a suite of digital tools that allow for personalization and real-time trade execution.

Firms can customize their Digital Trading Storefront by integrating their own front or back-end components, and tailoring the design and customer experience to suit their brand. The platform facilitates more accessible trading in real-time, while helping mitigate regulatory compliance risk with APIs. When firms move their cross-asset trading platforms into the digital platform, they are better able to manage trading volumes at scale.

“Providing a competitive digital trading experience has become crucial for financial institutions who want to help customers be smarter when putting their money to work,” said FIS President, Capital Markets Nasser Khodri. “With this launch, FIS is unlocking financial technology that enables banks, broker dealers and wealth managers worldwide to deliver more modern experiences to their customers when their money is at work.”

FIS was founded in 1968. Headquartered in Florida, the firm offers a wide range of products and tools for its 15,000 clients across the globe, processing $50 trillion annually. In addition to wealth management tools, FIS also offers payment capabilities, risk management tools, customer communications products, and more.

In recent months, FIS has expanded its reach in the fintech and banking sectors through new offerings and partnerships. In July, FIS teamed up with Lendio, a fintech known for its lending technology, to launch a new SMB Digital Lending solution to support SMBs in need of financing. In August, Commerce Bank selected FIS to implement a loyalty program management platform.

Photo by Pixabay

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Cardlay Teams Up with Visa to Enhance Spend Management

Cardlay Teams Up with Visa to Enhance Spend Management
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cardlay Payment Solutions, Daily news, VISA
  • Cardlay Payments Solutions has inked a partnership with Visa.
  • The collaboration combines Cardlay’s spend management technology with Visa’s payment network, data capabilities, and market position to drive innovation in spend management for commercial card issuers and their customers.
  • Headquartered in Denmark, Cardlay made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring.

Danish fintech Cardlay is collaborating with digital payments leader Visa to power innovations in the spend management space for commercial card issuers and their clients. The two companies’ new referral relationship combines Cardlay’s white label spend management platform with Visa’s market position, payment network, and data capabilities to provide fully embedded commercial cards and spend management solutions to their clients.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Visa, a highly respected leader in the digital payments industry,”  Cardlay CEO Jørgen Christian Juul said. “To be able to fuel our product and commercial growth further together with Visa is great and the collaboration will help bring our vision to life: delivering fast and effortless spend management to commercial card issuers.”

Cardlay leverages the integration of virtual and plastic payment cards, card management, and expense management (including automated VAT reclaim) to help companies automate key business processes. A strategic partner to banks, fintechs, card issuers and processors, as well as other financial institutions, Cardlay also runs its own virtual card program to complement its software suite.

Cardlay’s technology enables commercial card issuers to enjoy a fast time-to-market and ROI, as well as benefit from data capabilities such as real-time virtual credit cards and Visa’s Fleet 2.0 data. These capabilities provide greater efficiency via access to data and insights, facilitate cost reduction, and help support sustainable transportation and mobility budgets.

“We’re delighted to have partnered up with Cardlay and look forward to our work together, helping to streamline financial operations for businesses, providing them with greater transparency and control over their spending,” said Helen Jones, Executive Director, Visa Commercial Solutions, Visa Europe.

Headquartered in Denmark and founded in 2020, Cardlay Payment Solutions made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring earlier this year. At the conference, the company demoed its bank-integrated, real-time expense management solution, Cardlay Expense. More than 500 companies and 5,000+ users in 10 markets around the world are taking advantage of the technology to simplify and streamline the spend management process.

Cardlay has raised more than $29 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company’s investors include Global PayTech Ventures and SEB Venture Capital.

Photo by Stefan Grage

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Mastercard Acquires Minna Technologies

Mastercard Acquires Minna Technologies
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MasterCard, Mergers & Acquisitions, Minna Technologies
  • Mastercard has agreed to acquire subscription management platform Minna Technologies. Terms were not disclosed.
  • Minna Technologies offers technology that enables users to manage their subscriptions from within their bank app or website, saving users millions of dollars in spending on unwanted subscriptions.
  • Minna Technologies made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2019. The company is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Terms were not disclosed. But Mastercard announced today that it has agreed to acquire Swedish subscription management platform Minna Technologies. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, will bring greater simplicity and clarity to the subscription process and help enhance the engagement between merchants and their customers.

“This is significant recognition of the strength, growth, and impact of Minna Technologies in powering the global subscription economy, partnering with top-tier banks, fintechs, and subscription businesses,” Minna Technologies CEO and Chair Amanda Mesler said. “We look forward to joining Mastercard’s world-class team and helping businesses to empower consumers with control, convenience, and flexibility in managing their subscriptions and recurring payments.”

Minna Technologies offers banks and other financial institutions a subscription management platform that enables users to take control over their subscriptions via an automatically generated overview of all the user’s recurring expenses. Individuals can use Minna to cancel unwanted subscriptions as well as identify and quickly switch to new utility service providers. Mastercard’s acquisition comes as the number of subscriptions globally has climbed to 6.8 billion, with analysts at Juniper Research expecting that number to climb to 9.3 billion by 2028.

That said, the experience of our subscription economy can be a mixed one for consumers. Changing, extending, or canceling a subscription is often much more difficult than it needs to be. Additionally, the proliferation of subscription-based services means that many people have trouble keeping track of what they subscribe to, and when those subscriptions will be renewed. In the U.S., for example, the average person has 4.5 subscriptions. Additionally, more than 85% of Americans say that they have at least one paid subscription that goes unused each month.

Minna provides a payment-scheme agnostic service that empowers subscribers to manage their subscriptions from within their banking apps and websites. Bringing this technology into Mastercard’s suite of offerings is yet another example of how some of the biggest companies in financial services are leveraging acquisitions to add new solutions – from account-to-account payment functionality to enhanced cybersecurity – to their product mix. To that point, just last week, we shared news that Mastercard rival Visa had agreed to acquire fraud prevention company (and Finovate alum) Featurespace.

Founded in 2014, Minna Technologies demoed its technology at FinovateEurope in 2019. Today, the Sweden-based company has connected with more than 22,000 subscription businesses, served more than 120 million retail bank and fintech users, and saved customers more than $1 billion in spending on unwanted subscriptions.

Photo by Shvets Anna

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Kani Payments Teams with Card Issuing and Acquiring Company Cardaq

Kani Payments Teams with Card Issuing and Acquiring Company Cardaq
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Kani Payments

Fintech reporting and reconciliation company Kani Payments has tied up with card issuing and acquiring company Cardaq.

Cardaq has selected Kani for its data reporting SaaS platform. Specifically, Kani will provide Cardaq clients with regulatory and compliance reporting, reconciliations, QMR reporting, Mastercard fee and invoice analysis, as well as interchange and acquiring fee analysis. Kani’s technology helps businesses complete multiple weeks’ of complex transaction reporting and reconciliation work in under 30 seconds.

“The partnership between Kani Payments and Cardaq addresses significant industry challenges, including the implementation of automating reconciliations at pace, effective regulatory compliance, and fee apportioning. Ultimately, Kani Payments exists to help disruptive fintechs like Cardaq to thrive and grow with our automated data reporting and reconciliation platform that gives it the space it needs to scale,” said Kani Chief Commercial Officer Roger Binks. “By automating manual processes, improving reconciliation accuracy, and providing detailed reporting and analysis tools, we are enabling Cardaq to focus on giving its customers outstanding products and services. We are proud to do the heavy lifting of making complex data simple and standardized.”

The solution, which will initially be available to Cardaq’s U.K. customers, is scalable and offers the potential to expand via deeper integration, advanced reporting, and continuous regulatory compliance needs as Cardaq grows in the future. Cardaq expects that integrating Kani’s SaaS offering will help it comply with regulations and boost growth while providing a better solution for its customers.

Cardaq was founded in 2011 to offer tools to help businesses instantly accept and process payments anywhere across the globe. In addition to its acquiring services, the London-based company also offers card issuing services, allowing businesses to create customized payment cards. Businesses can choose from a full cycle of services, from card issuing to personalization and delivery.

“Kani Payments was the clear choice for us due to its comprehensive and customizable reporting tools, expertise in regulatory compliance, and the ability to automate complex financial reconciliations,” said Cardaq CEO Hugo Remi. “The option to immediately integrate with existing systems and manage a high volume of transactions were added benefits for us and our customers. We are confident that the implementation Kani’s solution will give all our customers a unique service level and the highest accuracy in financial reporting.”

Founded in 2018, Kani has since reconciled more than $26.5 billion (€24 billion) in processed payments volume for fintech players including Sodexo, Pismo, Earthchain, CLOWD9, and Frost. At FinovateSpring 2023, the U.K.-based company demoed how its reconciliation and reporting services automates back office finance processes for banks and fintechs.

In 2022, Kani was accepted into the Mastercard Start Path Global program, and a year later was selected to participate in the FIS Accelerator program as one of 10 high-potential fintech companies.

This partnership showcases how fintechs are relying on other third party players to leverage data reporting and reconciliation solutions to meet evolving regulatory demands. As regulations become increasingly complex, vague, and variable, Kani’s platform helps firms solve key challenges such as automating complex financial reconciliations, ensuring compliance, and providing cost-effective reporting solutions.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

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CRIF Forges Strategic Partnership with Ozone API

CRIF Forges Strategic Partnership with Ozone API
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, CRIF, Daily news
  • Credit bureau, business information, and credit risk specialist CRIF has inked a strategic partnership with open banking API company Ozone API.
  • The collaboration is designed to hep financial institutions enhance data-driven decision-making, streamline operations, and share data safely.
  • CRIF made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2014.

A newly announced strategic partnership between CRIF and open banking API solution provider Ozone API will help financial institutions securely share their data and create new financial solutions that enhance data-driven decision-making, streamline operations, and improve customer satisfaction.

“By partnering with Ozone API, we are combining our strengths to create a seamless and efficient banking experience for our clients,” CRIF Digital Platform Business Development & Ecosystem Strategy Senior Director Andrea Martellone said. “This collaboration aligns perfectly with our mission to innovate and provide advanced solutions that drive growth in the financial sector.”

The partnership combines CRIF’s credit information and decision support systems with Ozone API’s open banking experience and secure, standards-compliant technology. Not only will the partnership assist financial institutions in meeting evolving needs, CRIF and Ozone API will also enable them to provide more personalized and efficient banking services to their customers now.

“This is an exciting partnership for Ozone API, as this will drive financial inclusion by providing the right tools to financial institutions to allow their customers to make more informed decisions about their financial wellbeing and get access to a wider range of financial services,” Ozone API Global Partnership Lead James Bushby said.

Headquartered in the U.K., Ozone API was founded in 2017. The open banking API platform helps banks and financial institutions take advantage of the opportunities of open banking and open finance with its compliant, open API technology. Ozone API’s technology supports all international standards and empowers financial institutions to create real commercial value and monetize open finance globally. The company began 2024 securing $11.3 million (£8.5 million) in Series A funding in a round led by Gresham House Ventures.

CRIF introduced itself to Finovate audiences in 2014 as part of our FinovateEurope conference. The company provides credit information services for business and marketing; business intelligence services, including credit ratings and data analysis; and digital solutions to support business development and open banking. Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Bologna, Italy, CRIF today serves more than 10,000 financial institutions, more than 90,000 business clients, and more than one million consumers. The company operates in 39 countries across four continents.

Photo by Pixabay

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Six Alums Raised More Than $16 Million in Q3 2024

Six Alums Raised More Than $16 Million in Q3 2024
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: 3forge, Alumni News, Dotfile, Funding, Illuma Labs, NYMBUS, Quarterly Funding, ReceiptHero, Scamnetic

According to market intelligence platform Tracxn, funding for U.S.-based tech companies in Q3 of this year fell, both in comparison to the previous quarter as well as when compared to Q3 2023. Tracxn also reported that the number of tech unicorns actually increased this year compared to last year, with 13 new unicorns acknowledged in Q3 2024 compared to just five in Q3 2023. And while the report took this as a positive sign that “investor sentiment is stable,” there are other indications that the much-anticipated return to more robust funding trends for tech companies in general, and fintechs in particular, has yet to arrive.

Laura Bock, partner at QED Investors, was quoted in The Financial Brand back in January saying that “53% of fintechs will be cash out by Q3 2024 if they do not raise or exit.” We have a few more days before some of the research firms begin producing their Q3 reports on fintech funding, but clearly expectations are low.

Looking at our own Finovate alum funding for Q3 2024, we see plenty of evidence of the funding drought. In terms of the number of alums that reported receiving funding, as well as the amounts invested, Q3 alum funding for this year is as low as it has been in quite some time.

Previous quarterly comparisons

  • Q3 2023: More than $293 million raised by eight alums
  • Q3 2022: More than $1 billion raised by eight alums
  • Q3 2021: More than $1.1 billion raised by 14 alums
  • Q3 2020: More than $1.2 billion raised by 21 alums

Top equity investments

The top equity investment for Finovate alums in Q3 2024 was the $9 million raised by Illuma Labs. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, and founded in 2016, Illuma Labs debuted at FinovateSpring 2019 and has been a staple of our Spring and Fall conferences ever since. The company won Best of Show at FinovateFall in September for a demo of its Illuma Shield real-time voice authentication solution, now equipped with the latest deepfake detection technology to help prevent account takeover fraud.

Also noteworthy were the fundraisings from two brand-new alums: Dotfile, a regtech based in Paris, France, which debuted at FinovateEurope in February; and Scamnetic, an AI-powered anti-fraud solution provider that first appeared on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall in New York last month.

Here is our detailed alumni funding report for Q3 2024.

July 2024: An undisclosed amount raised by one alum

August: More than $1.3 million raised by two alums

September: More than $15 million raised by three alums

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the third quarter of 2024 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

Photo by Kindel Media

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