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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Mastercard and upSWOT announced an open banking partnership this week.
The collaboration will enable upSWOT’s small business customers to access actionable insights and more readily secure financing.
upSWOT made its Finovate debut in 2020 and returned to the Finovate stage in 2022 for FinovateFall.
A collaboration between Mastercard and North Carolina-based fintech upSWOT will help banks better serve their small business clients by providing them with actionable insights and easier access to capital. Courtesy of Mastercard’s open banking platform and services delivered via its subsidiary Finicity, the partnership will bring open banking capabilities to upSWOT’s platform. This will enable SMEs on upSWOT’s platform to connect owner-permissioned financial data to 200 API-enabled apps, providing services such as accounting, payroll, e-commerce, CRM, and more.
“SMBs have long been accepted as the engines of economic growth and development but at times are underserved,” upSWOT CEO Dmitry Norenko said. “We believe that fintech innovation can dramatically reshape the success of SMBs.”
In a statement, upSWOT and Mastercard said that they will promote the new joint offering to their customers and to U.S. banks. The new features of the combined solution include:
Credit Boost: Enables businesses to share data with credit bureaus to potentially increase credit scores
Insights: Analyzes multiple data streams to suggest actions businesses can take to improve operations and profitability
Cash Flow Forecasts: Provides visibility into expected cash flows using sensitivity analysis and modeling
Bank reconciliation, cash management, business valuation, funding access, and ecommerce performance are also part of the new solution’s feature set.
“We are excited to partner with upSWOT to make it easier for financial institutions to offer their small business customers the ability to benefit from their financial data to make decisions, demonstrate their ability to manage a loan, and run their businesses more efficiently,” Mastercard EVP of U.S. Open Banking Andy Sheehan said.
Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Charlotte, upSWOT made its Finovate debut at our all-digital conference in 2020. The company returned to the Finovate stage last September for FinovateFall. Since then, the company has announced partnerships with Standard Chartered (SC) to launch a pilot project in Singapore and with fellow Finovate alum Cion Digital to bring embedded finance tools to more SMEs.
upSWOT has raised more than $5 million in funding from investors including Common Ocean Ventures.
The jury is still out on whether or not January is officially Financial Wellness Month. But savings platform Plinqitisn’t waiting around for any verdict. The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based fintech announced this week that it has partnered with SUMA Federal Credit Union to help give the institution’s 7,000+ members the resources they need to become better savers.
The partnership will enable SUMA FCU’s members to access tools such as Plinqit’s Build Skills solution. Build Skills provides users with content that helps them build their personal finance awareness and savings skills, and then pays them for learning new skills. In turn, the funds earned from learning more about financial wellness can help propel users toward their Plinqit savings goals. SUMA FCU members will be able to access the functionality via SUMA FCU’s digital banking platform, thanks to Plinqit’s integration with Jack Henry’sBanno Digital Toolkit.
SUMA FCU expects the new technology will help attract new members to the credit union as well as enhance the banking experience for existing members. The institution serves communities in Yonkers and Spring Valley, New York, as well as New Haven and Stamford, Connecticut. Both regions feature sizable populations of Ukrainian immigrants and parishioners of St. Michael’s Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church. Established more than 55 years ago, SUMA FCU has more than $400 million in assets today.
“Credit unions are known for having strong relationships with their member base and SUMA Federal Credit Union has exemplified this for decades,” Plinqit CEO and founder Kathleen Craig said. She highlighted SUMA FCU’s support of local institutions, including churches, Ukrainian youth groups, and other cultural organizations. “Plinqit is proud to partner with an institution that consistently strives to make a meaningful impact in its community,” Craig said.
Plinqit made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019 in New York. At the conference, Plinqit demoed its Build Skills offering – “created by Millennials for Millennials” – which aligns data, behavior, and incentives to make savings goals easier to set and attain. Last year, the company secured $5 million in Series A funding. The round, co-led by Fintop Capital of Nashville, Tennessee, and JAM FINTOP of New York, took Plinqit’s total funding to nearly $10 million.
Plinqit’s partnership announcement comes just a week after the company released its latest State of Savings Report. This survey, which measures top savings priorities for consumers, showed that 43% of consumers are actively contributing to an emergency fund for both short-term and long-term potential expenses. “While the price increases for everyday necessities leave many U.S. households with financial stress, consumers remain focused on building up their emergency savings even in these trying times,” Craig said. “Providing tools to help them be successful in their savings goal is critical for financial institutions.”
KYC/KYB specialist Kyckr has agreed to be acquired by tech entrepreneur and billionaire Richard White.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Kyckr is an alum of our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, where the company presented “Corporate Identity on the Blockchain.”
Kyckr, a technology company that provides corporations with authoritative real-time data on potential and existing customers and suppliers, has agreed to be acquired by Richard White, an Australian technology entrepreneur. White, who founded Australian technology company WiseTech Global in 1994, will acquire the company via his personal investment vehicle RealWise KYK AV Pty Ltd. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
“The Kyckr team is delighted to have the strategic guidance, support, and vision that successful tech-entrepreneur and founder Richard White provides,” Kyckr CEO Ian Henderson said. “We are embarking upon an exciting evolution of our powerful offering to broaden its scope by building an integrated global software solution to enable businesses to navigate the highly complex and dynamic compliance and counterparty risk challenges that they face in an increasingly interconnected and digital marketplace.”
Kyckr specializes in providing businesses with real-time access to aggregated corporate Know Your Customer/Know Your Business (KYC/KYB) and Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) data from more than 300 company registries and primary sources worldwide. This reach enables Kyckr to conduct real-time due diligence on more than 120 million companies around the globe. White noted that this capacity was especially important in a world with ever-expanding compliance laws and regulations on one hand and innovative financial criminals on the other. He described the contemporary challenge of KYC/KYB compliance as “increasingly high-risk, complex, time-consuming, and costly.”
White’s WiseTech Global bills itself as the “operating system for global logistics.” In a statement, White compared Kyckr’s ability to automate manual processes and aggregate data from real-time sources to the way WiseTech’s CargoWise solution has replaced legacy logistics systems with integrated technology. Both solutions, White indicated, are designed to “drive productivity, reduce compliance risk, and facilitate planning, visualization, and control.”
A Finovate alum since its appearance at our developers conference FinDEVr SiliconValley in 2016, Kyckr has raised more than $18 million in funding to date. The company maintains offices in the U.K., Ireland, and Australia.
Splitit partnered with Alipay to power the firm’s Pay After Delivery payment option.
Splitit is leveraging Checkout.com’s payment-acquiring capabilities to facilitate Alipay’s Pay After Delivery.
Splitit was founded in 2012 as PayItSimple. The company rebranded in 2015 under its current name.
Installments-as-a-service company Splititannounced a new tie-up with global payments platform Alipay this week. Under the partnership, Splitit will power Alibaba Group-owned AliExpress’ Pay After Delivery.
The new payment option enables shoppers to pay after delivery using their existing credit card. Pay After Delivery leverages Splitit’s Installments-as-a-Service platform that embeds a branded experience within AliExpress’ checkout flow.
Splitit, which leverages Checkout.com’s payment-acquiring capabilities to offer the new installment service, was founded in 2012 as PayItSimple. Splitit’s Installments-as-a-Service tool is similar to well-known buy now, pay later (BNPL) technologies in that it enables consumers to pay for a good or a service in installments, interest-free.
Splitit’s tool differentiates itself from BNPL, however, because it is completely white-labeled and offers customers a merchant-branded experience. Because of this, during the checkout flow, customers are not redirected to a third party. What’s more, because Splitit relies on a consumer’s existing credit card, the company does not require additional credit checks. All of this results in less friction for the customer and better control over customer relationships for the merchant.
“Our work with Alipay is a testament to the flexibility of Splitit’s platform and the strength of our new partnership with Checkout.com. Together we are providing a valuable resource for sellers and shoppers by powering payment after delivery,” said Splitit CEO Nandan Sheth. “We are thrilled to collaborate with two exemplary companies like Alipay and Checkout.com. I look forward to building on this initial launch by expanding into other markets in the future.”
Splitit is based in Atlanta with offices in London and Australia, as well as an R&D center in Israel. The company is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) under ticker code SPT and also trades on the US OTCQX under ticker SPTTY and STTTF. Splitit has partnered with both Stripe and Shopify in recent years to act as an installments-as-a-service option for their merchant clients.
Denmark-based Subaio announced this week that it was teaming up with fellow Danish fintech – and fellow Finovate alum – Aiia. Subaio will leverage its partnership with Aiia to better assess creditworthiness for its new white label offering. The collaboration will streamline creditworthiness assessment through a combination of Aiia’s access to financial data and Subaio’s recurring payments detection technology.
“To create automation and a product that works for solid credit scoring across industries, we need as solid and deep quality of data as possible to label the transactions and categorize them afterwards,” Subaio Chief Commercial Officer Soren Nielsen said. “That’s why we chose Aiia to help us bring this next exciting step in the Subaio journey up to speed.”
In some ways, partnerships like this are being encouraged by regulatory decisions. The EU’s revised Consumer Credit Directive of 2021 mandates that financial services firms document customer income and recurring expenses before offering financing to help lower the number of non-performing loans.
“With Aiia, Subaio will be able to offer their customers a hassle-free, cost-efficient and data-driven solution to assess creditworthiness,” Aiia SMB & Fintech Director Tanya Slavova said. “With our high quality data in mind, this open banking empowerment will grant borrowers better loan assessments based on the accurate overview of the consumer’s actual financial situation.”
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Denmark, Subaio made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin. At the conference, the company demoed its white label subscription management service, which gives customers a comprehensive overview of their recurring payments, helps them cancel unwanted subscriptions, and provides notifications to enable customers to avoid “subscription traps.” The company returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateEurope 2022 in London with a demo of its automatic creditworthiness assessment solution.
Subaio has raised $4.9 million in funding from investors including Global PayTech Ventures. Thomas Laursen is CEO.
Making its Finovate debut at our all-digital FinovateEurope 2021 conference, Copenhagen, Denmark-based Aiia was launched in 2017. A leading open banking platform in Northern Europe, the company demoed its account-to-account payment services at FinovateEurope 2021, showing how the technology facilitates everything from one-off payments for ecommerce to bulk payments for SMEs using a single API. Aiia was acquired by Mastercard in the fall of 2021 for an undisclosed amount. Rune Mai is CEO and co-founder.
In other fintech news from the Nordics, Boost.ai, a Finovate alum from Norway, announced that it will bring its conversational AI technology to Nordic bank DNB. Specifically, DNB will use Boost.ai’s technology to automate more than half of the bank’s chat traffic with its Aino virtual agent. Aino presently automates upwards of 20% of the bank’s customer service requests. According to DNB, more than one million of its customers have interacted with Aino.
Boost.ai VP of EMEA Sanjeev Kumar praised DNB has “one of the many forward-thinking organizations that are reaping the benefits of embracing a conversational AI solution.” Kumar highlighted the fact that conversational AI helps free up staff to enable them to focus on higher-order and more complex customer service tasks. Headquartered in Oslo, DNB is the largest financial services group in Norway. DNB offers a full range of financial services, including loans and savings, insurance and pension products, as well as advisory services for both retail and corporate customers.
“Artificial intelligence is an important part of our digital strategy,” DNB SVP and Head of IT Emerging Technologies Jan Thomas Lerstein said. “In leveraging AI, our aim is to revitalize our value chains, creating better service for our customers and, of course, value for the bank.” Lerstein added that DNB is evaluating other AI-enabled solutions including voice APIs to help the bank reach “higher levels of personalization.”
Boost.ai made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in New York in 2019, demoing its virtual agent technology. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Sandnes, Norway, the company introduced a new CEO – Jerry Haywood – in the fall of 2022. Haywood took over the position from founder and previous CEO Lars Selsås, who will focus on product development and innovation going forward.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Middle East and Northern Africa
UAE-based Careem Pay teamed up with Lulu Exchange to offer international remittances.
American Express agreed to acquire Israel-based B2B payments automation company Nipendo.
Spanish fintech Divilo partnered with financial crime prevention specialist ThetaRay.
Divilo will deploy ThetaRay’s SONAR platform, a SaaS-based AML transaction monitoring and sanctions list screening solution.
ThetaRay made its Finovate debut in 2015 at FinovateFall in New York.
A partnership between Spain-based fintech Divilo and ThetaRay will enable the B2B financial services provider to better defend itself against money laundering, sanctions violations, and other financial crimes. Divilo will deploy ThetaRay’s SaaS-based AML transaction monitoring and sanctions list screening platform, SONAR. The technology is capable of detecting the earliest indications of sophisticated money laundering activity infiltrating the domestic and cross-border payments process.
“Our advanced AI solution also makes the entire process of transaction monitoring much more efficient and effective, while improving customer satisfaction, reducing compliance costs, and increasing risk coverage with safe and secure payments,” ThetaRay CEO Mark Gazit said.
SONAR leverages advanced AI, as well as proprietary and patented algorithms, to identify anomalies in data sets to detect potential cases of money laundering. SONAR delivers transaction monitoring with very low (“virtually no”) false positives, giving firms like Divilo the ability to provide trusted and reliable payment services to the SMEs and self-employed professionals it serves.
“Divilo is a fintech leader providing valuable and innovative payment solutions that are growing the global financial system,” Gazit said. “ThetaRay is thrilled to provide Divilo with technology that instills trust into cross-border payments, enabling revenue growth by opening doors to business with new customers and financial partners.”
Founded in 2020, Divilo offers a complete payments, collections, and accounting services for small businesses and freelancers. The company offers payments cards, facilitates money transfers and, offers technology to enable businesses and freelancers to manage payments through mobile devices courtesy of PINs or QR codes. In 2022, Divilo launched a new solution called Diveep that enables charging via mobile device simply by tapping a card or another mobile device.
“Divilo is on a mission to transform payments and collections by providing greater agility, a better user experience, high-security measures, transparency, and simplicity,” Divilo founder and CEO Juan Guruceta said. “Using ThetaRay’s AML solution, we will be able to grow our network of relationships and increase business internationally with the assurance that next-generation AI detection will provide enhanced coverage and highly accurate alerts to allow businesses to focus on what really matters.”
ThetaRay made its Finovate debut in 2015 at FinovateFall. In the years since then, the company has grown to support more than one billion users, and its platform monitors more than $15 trillion in transactions every year. ThetaRay closed out 2022 with a pair of partnership announcements, teaming up with mobile banking solution NOW Money and partnering with fintech platform Ontop, both in December.
Digital identity solutions company Jumioannounced yesterday that Singapore car-sharing company GetGo has selected its technology to help onboard new drivers.
As one of the largest car-sharing services in Singapore, GetGo seeks to offer a user-friendly online ecosystem that promotes shared and sustainable mobility. The company was founded in 2020 to help users rent and share cars, enabling users to book a car using their mobile phones. GetGo focuses on simplicity, flexibility, and accessibility. These three attributes add up to one thing– customer centricity.
In order to help drivers onboard to the GetGo platform, GetGo will leverage Jumio’s identity verification tools that leverage biometrics and AI to automatically authenticate GetGo users. Jumio will help GetGo protect its fleet of 1,700 vehicles against theft by requiring drivers to provide a valid government-issued ID and a selfie. The partnership will reduce the time it takes GetGo customers to onboard down to minutes.
“Jumio’s facial verification technology allows GetGo to simultaneously raise its trust and safety standards while enhancing its customer onboarding experience,” said GetGo Product Lead Lionel Fong. “GetGo looks forward to a long-term partnership with Jumio in pushing the boundaries on bringing a reliable and frictionless verification experience to the masses.”
Jumio was founded in 2010 and came close to collapse when it filed for bankruptcy in 2016. After restructuring, Jumio sold to Centana Venture Partners, which acquired the company for $850,000 two months after its bankruptcy filing.
Jumio has come a long way since its dip in 2016. The company has processed over one billion transactions from over 200 countries and territories. What’s more, Jumio acquired KYC and anti-fraud solutions company 4stop in 2021 and compliance firm Beam in 2020. The company’s most recent funding round took place in March of 2021 when it closed a $150 million round from Great Hill Partners, bringing its total funding to $255 million.
Tax Status announced a partnership with authID this week.
The partnership will give Tax Status’ customers access to authID’s Human Factor Authentication (HFA) technology to better protect sensitive data and fight fraud.
Based in Texas, Tax Status made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall.
Tax Status, a Texas-based fintech company that offers a digital IRS account monitoring solution, has announced a partnership with identity authentication solutions company authID. The collaboration enables Tax Status to go live with the full range of authID’s identity authentication technologies, including authID’s Human Factor Authentication services (HFA). These resources will enable Tax Status’ enterprise partners to better protect sensitive tax data, as well as prevent password compromise and ensure secure account onboarding for new customers.
“authID’s innovative biometric authentication has proven to be a cut far above other identity management solutions,” Tax Status CEO and founder Charles Almond said. “We are proud to offer the most fortified fraud prevention and enterprise security technology on the market, without compromising on convenience and user experience.”
authID’s Human Factor Authentication enhances the online customer onboarding process by leveraging strong identity and document authentication to eliminate fraud. HFA relies on FIDO2 passwordless authentication that provides seamless login across devices. The technology also offers an unphishable authentication protocol of passkeys and device biometrics for high-risk transactions or transactions that mandate an audit trail.
“Our next-gen Verified platform, which prioritizes ethical, consent-based biometrics, provides Tax Status and their clients with a comprehensive fraud prevention solution and ‘unphishable’ authentication that is more secure than legacy MFA,” authID CEO Tom Thimot explained.
Founded in 2017 and based in Frisco, Texas, Tax Status made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall. At the conference, the company demoed its Tax Status Platform, a fully-automated IRS account monitoring solution that provides continuous access to official IRS financial data for use in real-time income, account status, and compliance verification. Tax Status works with companies in a wide range of verticals – from wealth management to lending to accounting – providing critical notifications and insights to help them make more informed decisions.
Tax Status ended 2022 with a partnership with Morningstar. The collaboration will enable Morningstar to offer Tax Status to enterprise wealth management firms and fintechs via Morningstar’s Dynamic Services APIs. By automating the collection and maintenance of client tax data – including income, social security tax withheld, and capital gains and losses – companies will be able to better apply this information to not only client onboarding, but also to investment and financial planning, as well.
2023 is only a few days old but the merger and acquisition action in the fintech industry has already begun.
2022 featured a number of major fintech acquisitions – from Vista Equity Partners $8 billion purchase of tax compliance specialist Avalara to Technisys’ $1.1 billion acquisition of SoFi to Fiserv’s$650 million deal with Finxact. As the new year begins amid economic uncertainty and a technology industry that is contracting, will 2023 produce more deal-making activity in fintech or less?
With this question in mind, here’s a look at recent year-ending and year-beginning M&A activity from a pair of our Finovate alums: TipRanks and TreviPay.
We learned last week TipRanks had agreed to acquire real-time financial news digital provider, The Fly. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in New Jersey, The Fly is a leading digital publisher that offers a live-streaming subscription service featuring short form stories and content on publicly-traded companies.
“TipRanks is a natural home for The Fly,” company President Ron Etergino said. “Both companies strive to level the playing field for investors and TipRanks’ institutional-grade research tools and data will enhance The Fly’s financial news products.”
With its technology that provides market research tools to retail investors and traders, TipRanks took Finovate audiences by storm in its debut appearance in 2013. The New York-based company won Best of Show at both FinovateSpring in May of that year and again at FinovateFall in September.
More recently, the Tel Aviv, Israel and New York-based company launched a new solution that determined risk factors for publicly traded companies, as well as a tool that analyzes publicly traded companies’ online traffic. In 2021, the company raised $77 million in funding in a round led by Prytek. Last year, TipRanks introduced country-specific websites for Australia, Canada, and the U.K.
TipRanks’ acquisition of The Fly is designed to further the company’s mission of becoming a “one-stop-shop platform for the retail investor,” according to CEO Uri Gruenbaum. “We see a lot of synergy between our companies and are excited that we can expand our offerings to provide breaking news – one of the top requirements of our Enterprise customers and end users,” Gruenbaum said.
Subject to customary closing conditions, the transaction is expected to close in Q1 of this year.
Amid the flurry of year-ending news, one alumni acquisition we missed was TreviPay’s decision to acquire payments platform Apruve early last month. Headquartered in Overland, Kansas, and making its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall, TreviPay supports B2B commerce with its payments and invoicing network designed to optimize transactions between buyers and sellers. The company’s acquisition of payment platform Apruve is designed to help complement and add to TreviPay’s current order-to-cash technology and merchant invoicing solutions.
“The acquisition of Apruve will accelerate our advancement in the technology manufacturing vertical and expand our geographic reach into key Asian markets,” TreviPay CEO Brandon Spear said.
Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed, but all Apruve employees will be retained post-acquisition. Apruve was TreviPay’s second acquisition of 2022, having purchased B2B invoice payments network company BATON Financial Services in February.
With 90,000 buyers and 80,000 seller locations around the world, TreviPay automates the order-to-cash process via omni-channel checkout options, localized B2B invoicing, managed receivables, and fraud and risk management. The company’s tailored payments and invoicing networks enable merchants and suppliers alike to develop more profitable and enduring trade relationships. TreviPay processes $7 billion in transaction volume across 32 countries and 19 different currencies.
Founded in 1980, TreviPay demoed its Small Business Supplier Network (SBSN) at FinovateFall 2022. The offering gives banks the ability to grow its small business product offerings by enabling them to tap into the small business B2B trade credit market.
Income data verification company Argyle has secured accreditation from the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA).
The 880+ membership organization was founded in 2003 and helps keep screening firms up to date on new legislation and industry best practices.
Argyle made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in May of last year.
Real-time income data platform Argyle has received accreditation from the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA). This accreditation provides Argyle with a “seal of approval” as well as “national recognition” that its income data verification technology complies with industry standards with regards to both compliance and consumer protection.
“Argyle is committed to automating employment verifications in the background check industry,” Argyle CEO Shmulik Fishman said. “For our consumers and end users, we operate under rigorous standards and don’t compromise or cut corners. We’re pleased PBSA’s accreditation confirms those commitments.”
PBSA Executive Director Melissa Sorenson credited Argyle for joining the 880+ member organization and for supporting the PBSA’s efforts to “advance excellence within the background screening industry.” Founded in 2003, PBSA helps keep member firms in the United States and abroad informed about legislation that potentially impacts screening, as well as helps companies access practical guidance on industry best practices, news, and trends. The organization’s member organizations are defined as “consumer reporting agencies” under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and are regulated by both the FTC and CFPB.
Making its Finovate debut last year at FinovateSpring, Argyle is a New York-based technology company that enables consumers to connect their employment records to companies’ apps and websites. This secure connection allows businesses to access the income and identity data required in order to offer and deliver a range of digital experiences. At the same time, consumers benefit from access to more financial products and total control over the use of their data.
At FinovateSpring in 2022, the company demoed a design update for its Link technology to improve the tool’s usefulness for end users. Link is the front-end interface that lets consumers grant access to their payroll information. The 4.0 upgrade demoed last spring is designed to make it easier for users to connect their accounts, reduce drop-off rates, and improve the overall look and feel of the solution.
Argyle was founded in 2018. The company has raised more than $77 million in funding from investors including Bain Capital Ventures and SignalFire. Last fall, Argyle announced a partnership with Dallas, Texas-based payments company Highline to give lenders across the U.S. access to payroll-linked lending and billpay functionality.
“True financial inclusion begins with the recognition that there is a shortage of non-predatory options available for many Americans who need access to relatively small dollar loans,” Highline CEO Geoff Brown said. “The team at Argyle recognizes this as well and, like Highline, is committed to helping more consumers gain access to credit in a way that also makes sense for lenders and fits their business objectives.”
Many of Finovate’s most storied alumni made their Finovate debuts at our European conference, FinovateEurope. Next year at FinovateEurope (March 14 through 15) we will feature the event’s alums in a special showcase called Alumni Alley. For those companies that first demoed their innovations at FinovateEurope, Alumni Alley is a great opportunity to show the world their latest innovations and accomplishments.
Is Alumni Alley for you? Visit our Alumni Alley hub today and find out!
This week, we shine a light on another set of three companies that made their first Finovate appearances at our first FinovateEurope conference in 2011: a digital advertising platform for banks, an innovator in data-driven digital banking, and an e-billing/billpay pioneer.
Cardlytics Delivering Relevant Rewards Before it was Cool
Cardlytics was a young company when it made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in London in 2011. The Atlanta, Georgia-based firm already had gained significant traction for its technology: a transaction marketing platform that helped banks and retailers offer rewards to customers based on their individual buying behavior. During its demo, Cardlytics noted that its technology reached tens of millions of consumers via hundreds of retailers in the U.S. who were leveraging the platform to deliver what have now become table stakes in the loyalty and rewards business: precise targeting and highly relevant offers. Cardlytics returned to the FinovateEurope stage a year later, earning a Best of Show award for its latest loyalty management solution.
From a company with 100 employees and more than $27 million in funding in 2011, Cardlytics has grown into a leading advertising platform for banks and other financial institutions. The company boasts more than 184 million bank customers on its platform and more than $650 million in customer rewards paid. Cardlytics went public in 2018, and currently trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker CDLX. The company has a market capitalization of more than $169 million.
Scott Grimes and Lynne Laube, Cardlytics’ first and second CEOs, demonstrating the company’s technology at FinovateEurope.
“We delivered solid double-digit growth despite the serious challenges present in the economy,” Cardlytics CEO Karim Temsamani said in November when the company shared Q3 financials. “While the economy may be uncertain, I believe there is inherent resiliency in platforms that prove return on ad spend, and I am positive we can grow profitably.” Temsamani joined the company as CEO this summer, taking over from co-founder Lynne Laube who is retiring from the leadership post. Temsamani comes to Cardlytics from Stripe, where he worked as Head of Global Partnerships and, before that, Head of Banking and Financial Products.
Lodo Software, D3 Technology, and the Road from PFM to Data Driven Digital Banking
These days, the idea of fintechs coming from places other than Silicon Valley is increasingly commonplace. But in 2011, there was something more than a little novel about the fintech innovation that was coming out of places like Omaha, Nebraska – courtesy of startups like Lodo Software.
Making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2011, Lodo Software demoed a cross-selling solution that helped banks leverage the data gathered by the PFM component of the platform to personalize offers and marketing campaigns. The product, OurCashFlow, organized and analyzed customer data to ensure that financial institutions are sending the right messages to the right customers at the right time. The platform’s messages and notifications are scheduled within the platform and are delivered to customers via their PFM dashboard.
D3 Technology CEO Mark Vipond demoing the company’s technology at FinovateEurope 2011 in London.
Lodo Software rebranded as D3 Technology in 2014 in a move that CEO Mark Vipond said reflected “the company’s evolution from a personal financial management software provider to the creator of one of the market’s only true omnichannel, data driven digital banking solution.” The company created D3 Banking to help financial institutions deliver a consistent, personalized, banking experience anywhere, at any time, and on any device. Five years later, in the summer of 2019 , fellow Finovate alum NCR announced that it would acquire the company.
“NCR is a great fit for D3 and the timing is right for us to combine forces to create a powerful digital transformation platform for large financial institutions,” Vipond said when the acquisition was announced. “This transaction enables us to capitalize on new market opportunities and bring top-tier capabilities to our mutual and future clients.”
AcceptEasy: A Pioneer in E-Billing and Billpay via Email
Enabling secure and straightforward e-billing and payments via email was the innovation championed by Netherlands-based fintech AcceptEmail at FinovateEurope in 2011. Founded in 2006 and launching its solution less than a year later, AcceptEmail offered a three-click process for customers to pay bills directly from their email accounts without requiring manual data entry and re(entry). The company’s technology brings convenience to the billpay process for consumers and helps billers realize lower DSO (days sales outstanding) due to more customers paying their bills faster as well as less collection activity. The platform also supports credit management (notifications and reminders) as well as smart SEPA Direct Debit notifications.
AcceptEmail (now AcceptEasy) CEO Peter Kwakernaak introducing his company to Finovate audiences at FinovateEurope 2011.
The company was acquired by Serrala in February 2020 for an undisclosed amount and announced a rebrand to AcceptEasy. The rebranding was designed to reflect the fact that the company had evolved beyond email to become a bill service provider that enables payments in all digital channels. “The flexibility and architecture of our technology is perfect for all sorts of transactional messaging,” AcceptEasy CEO Peter Kwakernaak explained. “The payment moment is becoming a personalized and interactive contact moment .. (it) is one of the most important steps in the customer journey.” He added, “Our services make it possible for enterprises to provide consumers and small businesses an optimized brand experience and save costs in the process.
Wealthfront originally tapped Green Dot in 2020 to use the company’s banking-as-a-service tools to offer its Cash Account clients access to checking features. Today, the two announced they are continuing the relationship.
Wealthfront’s Cash Account leverages Green Dot to offer features competitive with other digital banks, including the ability to receive direct deposits up to two days early, pay bills, send and deposit checks, and use a debit card to access cash at ATMs. The account requires a $1 initial deposit, offers unlimited free transfers, automated savings features, near-instant transfers into Wealthfront’s Investment Accounts, and more.
Additionally, Wealthfront’s Cash Accounts pay a 3.80% APY, a huge improvement over what most firms were offering during the recent near-zero interest rate environment. The competition among digital banking providers has intensified, and competing on interest rates will be a good way for these newcomers to gain new customers and increased deposits. That’s because many large traditional banks are paying an average of just 0.24% APY.
Other players in the wealth management space are also currently offering high interest rates on their checking accounts. Personal Capital just announced it will pay 3.85% and Betterment is paying 3.75% on its high-yield account.
“Today’s investors want smart saving and investing products that help them build wealth in all market conditions, which is why we’re proud to offer the Cash Account to help our clients earn more on their uninvested savings,” said Wealthfront VP of Product Dave Myszewski. “With one of the highest rates on the market plus checking features powered by Green Dot, we’re able to provide a best-in-class Cash Account that is far superior to what a traditional bank can offer, so our clients can grow their long-term wealth easily and conveniently.”
Wealthfront had a hopeful start to 2022 when UBS agreed to acquire the California-based company for $1.4 billion in January. Nine months later, however, UBS called off the agreement because of “unspecified regulatory concerns.” Along with the termination, UBS gave Wealthfront $70 million in financing at a $1.4 billion valuation. “With this fresh round of funding under our belt along with the ability to begin self-funding the business, we are committed to building a lasting company that positively impacts the lives of our clients for decades to come,” said Wealthfront Chief Executive Officer David Fortunato.
