Alumni News

Ping Identity Partners with Device Identification Platform Fingerprint

Ping Identity Partners with Device Identification Platform Fingerprint
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Ping Identity
  • Ping Identity has forged a partnership with device identification platform Fingerprint.
  • The partnership will integrate Fingerprint’s device identification technology into Ping Identity’s identity orchestration service, DaVinci.
  • Ping Identity made its Finovate debut in 2016 at FinovateEurope in London.

Ping Identity, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2016, announced a partnership with U.S.-based identity tech innovator Fingerprint. The collaboration will integrate Fingerprint’s device identification technology with Ping Identity’s DaVinci no-code identity orchestration service to enable users of DaVinci to accurately identify devices and stop fraud.

Fingerprint’s device identification platform provides 99.5% accuracy and, upon integration with PingOne DaVinci, will enable companies to enhance the customer experience by reducing the need for friction-producing multi-factor authentication for known users. The integration will enhance onboarding for new customers, as well. “Our mission is to empower developers to build safe and seamless Internet services,” Fingerprint CEO Dan Pinto said. He said that the partnership with Ping Identity would help show the effectiveness of the company’s device identity technology in a broad range of digital user journeys.

Fingerprint teamed up with Ping Identity as part of the latter’s Global Technology Partner Program. Growing the program and adding companies like Fingerprint is part of Ping Identity’s goal of delivering “better, more frictionless customer experiences” according to company SVP of Product Management Loren Russon. “Our partnership with Fingerprint leverages PingOne DaVinci’s seamless orchestration to ensure dynamic user journeys are delivered quickly and efficiently at every stage of the user journey,” Russon said.

PingOne DaVinci enables users to design secure and seamless customer experiences across an entire technology ecosystem. The platform’s no-code orchestration and drag-and-drop interface mean that anyone who can whiteboard an experience can orchestrate it using DaVinci. Users build, design, and refine workflows, and then easily optimize these workflows with A/B testing and, where necessary, quickly deploy fixes and changes.

Named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Access Management for the sixth consecutive year, Ping One was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The company was acquired by Thoma Bravo last year in an all-cash $2.8 billion transaction. When the deal was closed in October, Ping Identity founder and CEO Andre Durand credited the way that “identity security and frictionless user experiences have become essential in the digital-first economy.” Durand added that, “with the support of Thoma Bravo, Ping Identity can further accelerate innovation to deliver the easy and secure digital experiences customers demand from every industry.”

Photo by Mediamodifier

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Finovate Global Israel: Earnix Introduces New CEO, 40Seas Raises $111 Million, and a Look at Early Stage Startups

Finovate Global Israel: Earnix Introduces New CEO, 40Seas Raises $111 Million, and a Look at Early Stage Startups
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Earnix, Finovate Global, Nubank, Salt Edge

Earnix, an Israel-based company that provides insurers and banks with real-time, dynamic pricing and rating solutions, introduced a new Chief Executive Officer this week. Robin Gilthorpe will take over the top spot at the firm effective February 1st, replacing outgoing CEO Udi Ziv, who served as Earnix’s CEO for six years.

“Today’s end-customer demands unparalleled experience, alongside highly personalized and customizable solutions,” Gilthorpe said in a statement. “Earnix solutions serve as the go-to platform for financial services companies to address the growing demands of the world’s leading financial and insurance companies.”

Gilthorpe is a finance and insurance industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience at firms such as TIBCO, Vertexone, and Watersmart Software. He was most recently Chief Operating Officer at insurtech company Salty where he helped generate a “nine-figure outcome” in the firm’s sale to CDK Global.

Founded in 2001, Earnix made its Finovate debut in 2016 at FinovateSpring in San Francisco. In the years since then, the company has forged partnerships with companies like AI cloud platform DataRobot, cloud insurance software company Majesco and, last fall, J.D. Power. Also last fall, Earnix unveiled its Underwrite-It solution which helps businesses build and manage rules and decision logic to enhance decision-making during the underwriting process.

Earnix has raised more than $100 million in funding. The company includes Insight Partners, Israel Growth Partners, and Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) among its investors.

Israel-based cross-border trade financing company 40Seas secured $111 million in financing this week. The total includes $11 million in seed funding and a $100 million credit facility.

The seed funding round was led by Team8 and featured participation from ZIM Integrated Shipping Services. ZIM also was the entity behind the $100 million credit facility 40Seas received this week. The agreement comes with an option to extend the credit facility to $200 million.

40Seas leverages AI and data analytics to determine creditworthiness, and offers flexible payment arrangements to provide small importers and exporters, freight forwarders, and sourcing agencies with critical working capital. The company made its soft launch in October of last year and says that it already has financed transactions for “dozens of SMEs.”

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that small businesses represent more than 40% of all cross-border trade volume. Nevertheless, compared to large, multinational corporations, SMEs are “seven times more likely to be denied trade financing,” according to the World Trade Organization. Among the obstacles to these firms are siloed banking jurisdictions, working capital constraints, legacy processes, and more. To this end, 40Seas helps exporters get paid as quickly as possible and gives importers payment options that enable them to grow their businesses without incurring sizable additional debt.

“Given today’s harsh macroeconomic conditions, now more than ever, SMEs need easy access to financing to have the best chance of survival,” 40Seas co-founder and CEO Eyal Moldovan said.

40Seas is headquartered in Tel Aviv and has offices in New York City, Toronto, and Shenzhen.

Last month CTech published a short list of what it called the “five most promising early-stage fintech startups” in Israel. The list was based on the opinions of “prominent investors in the Israeli market” and looked at both “business potential” and “managerial depth.”

The businesses represented included travel insurance (Faye), an automated accounting platform (Trullion), a compliance platform (Sedric), a loan exchange for SMEs (Lama AI), and a payments workflow automation company (Nilus). Combined, the five companies have raised more than $47 million in funding from investors including Viola Ventures, F2, Third Point Ventures, Greycroft, Homeward Ventures, StageOne, Foundational Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

We’ll keep an eye on these and other innovative fintechs that are helping build Israel’s unique fintech ecosystem.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Haley Black

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Union Credit Emerges from Stealth to Deliver Perpetual Credit Approval

Union Credit Emerges from Stealth to Deliver Perpetual Credit Approval
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, CUneXus, Daily news, Funding
  • Union Credit is launching out of stealth mode with $5 million in Seed funding led by CMFG Ventures.
  • The startup is launching in an exclusive partnership with CuneXus, leveraging the company’s continuous credit approval that facilitates loans in one click.
  • The partnership with CuneXus will offer Union Credit access to CuneXus’ 250 credit existing clients in the credit union space.

Embedded lending startup Union Credit emerged from stealth today and is launching with an extra $5 million, thanks to a fresh round of seed funding led by CMFG Ventures.

Facilitating today’s launch is a partnership with CuneXus, a company that helps credit unions and community financial institutions offer potential borrowers perpetual loan approval, making it possible for customers to take out pre-approved loans in one click. CuneXus was acquired by CUNA Mutual Group in 2020 for an undisclosed amount. The entity now produces more than $27 billion in loans each year.

“Ending the guesswork of lending and financing is an important step towards financial health,” said CMFG Ventures President and Managing Director Brian Kaas. “Union Credit can create real transparency via perpetual credit access. It’s a model that has the potential to completely change the way credit unions grow, allowing them to compete with fintechs and large financial institutions in their communities during the purchase experience.”

Union Credit’s aim is to help credit unions enter into new markets with a tool that offers borrowers front-end financing via merchant relationships. The company leverages CuneXus’ continuous credit approval that facilitates loans in one click. The company will use today’s investment to “focus on building out its digital lending marketplace, SDK, and a direct-to-consumer app where consumers can manage perpetual offers of credit from local lenders that want to serve them.”

California-based Union Credit was launched by CuneXus Co-founder Dave Buerger and former SVP Barry Kirby, who now serve as Union Credit CEO and CRO, respectively. Because of this tie-in, the company benefits from an exclusive partnership with CuneXus. What’s more, the newly found company will have access to CuneXus’ 250 credit existing clients, which represent 37 million end users.

“Credit unions thrive on their long-lasting member relationships, but acquiring new relationships has always been a challenge,” said Buerger. “Today that ends. Union Credit advocates for credit unions on a national scale, putting them in front of consumers at their point of need. It combines the local, competitive, and advantageous offers that credit unions are known for and gives them the sophisticated platform they need to amplify existing digital services and reach new audiences.”

Union Credit’s continuous credit approval will compete on the same level as buy now, pay later (BNPL) transactions that allow consumers to make purchases and pay for them over time rather than all at once. The company’s approach using CuneXus’ continuous credit approval technology is similar to BNPL purchases in that it makes pre-approved loans available to customers in one click, making it easy for them to access credit when they need it.

Photo by Moe Magners

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Marqeta Unveils its Web Push Provisioning Solution as Mobile Wallet Adoption Rises

Marqeta Unveils its Web Push Provisioning Solution as Mobile Wallet Adoption Rises
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Marqeta
  • Card issuing platform Marqeta launched its new web push provisioning solution.
  • The new offering will enable consumers to pay for products directly from their mobile wallets without having to first download a mobile app – that may be rarely used again.
  • The web push provisioning solution was inspired in part during Marqeta’s Hack Week event back in October 2021.

Modern card issuing platform Marqeta launched its new web push provisioning product this week. The new offering will reduce friction at the point-of-sale by enabling users to pay for purchases directly from their mobile wallets without having to download a mobile app first.

The new web push provisioning product is designed to address a major pain point for consumers: having to download an app – that may be rarely, if ever, used again – in order to complete a given transaction. Marqeta’s solution can help boost conversion rates by eliminating this requirement and thus streamlining the customer experience. Combined with Marqeta’s instant issuance capabilities, this week’s announcement reinforces and adds to the company’s leadership in the payment card tokenization space.

“Growing familiarity with digital wallets created demand for a solution that enables Marqeta customers to quickly and easily provision virtual cards and digital wallet tokens from the web for use with both Apple Pay and Google Pay,” Marqeta Chief Product Officer Simon Khalaf explained. “Our web push provisioning product meets that need and helps enable our customers to deliver a streamlined checkout experience to their end users.”

Marqeta’s offering comes as consumer adoption of digital wallets continues to show strength. According to Juniper Research, global digital wallet transactions are expected to grow 60% by 2026. Additionally, 71% of U.S. consumers in 2022 say that they have used a mobile wallet in the previous 12 months compared to 64% in 2020. Nevertheless, 75% of consumers admit to having abandoned a transaction after being prompted to download a mobile app in order to complete the purchase.

Marqeta’s web push provisioning solution, currently in beta and expected to be generally available later this year, was specifically designed to address this problem. The technology has its origins in a Hack Week event from last year, as members of Marqeta’s team realized the value of enabling brands to provision tokens from a mobile web browser. Built in partnership with both Apple and Google, the web push provisioning technology has been deployed by Bread Financial, which praised the way the product enabled the company to “offer flexible payment options that will keep the merchant’s brand at the forefront a deliver a better experience for the customer,” according to Bread Financial EVP and Chief Commercial Officer Val Greer.

An alumni of Finovate’s developer conference, FinDEVr SiliconValley 2016, Marqeta today is certified to operate in 40 countries around the world. Last fall, the company announced the launch of its Marqeta for Banking offering, which brought new banking capabilities to the company’s card issuing platform. Marqeta has forged partnerships in recent months with Raiffeisen Centrobank to power the institution’s new digital banking brand for customers in Poland and Romania – and with Blockchain.com, to power the cryptocurrency platform’s crypto-based Visa Card.

Headquartered in Oakland, California, Marqeta was founded in 2010. The firm is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ under the ticker MQ, and has a market capitalization of $3.4 billion. Jason Gardner is CEO.

Photo by Porapak Apichodilok

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upSWOT Forges Open Banking Partnership with Mastercard

upSWOT Forges Open Banking Partnership with Mastercard
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MasterCard, UpSwot
  • 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.

Photo by Joe Caltiere

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Savings Platform Plinqit Teams Up with SUMA FCU to Help Members Enhance Financial Wellness

Savings Platform Plinqit Teams Up with SUMA FCU to Help Members Enhance Financial Wellness
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Plinqit

The jury is still out on whether or not January is officially Financial Wellness Month. But savings platform Plinqit isn’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’s Banno 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.”

Photo by Dany Kurniawan

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Australian Billionaire Richard White Acquires KYC/KYB Specialist Kyckr

Australian Billionaire Richard White Acquires KYC/KYB Specialist Kyckr
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Kyckr, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • 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.

Photo by Pixabay

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AliPay Taps SplitIt to Enable Customers to Pay After Delivery

AliPay Taps SplitIt to Enable Customers to Pay After Delivery
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SplitIt
  • 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 Splitit announced 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.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

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Finovate Global Scandinavia: Subaio Partners with Aiia, Boost.ai Brings Conversational AI to DNB

Finovate Global Scandinavia: Subaio Partners with Aiia, Boost.ai Brings Conversational AI to DNB
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Aiia, Alumni News, Finovate Global, Jumio, Scalable Capital, Subaio

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

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Photo by Mihis Alex

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Spanish Fintech Divilo Tuns to ThetaRay for AML Transaction Monitoring

Spanish Fintech Divilo Tuns to ThetaRay for AML Transaction Monitoring
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, ThetaRay
  • 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.

Photo by Alex Azabache

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Jumio Helps Car-Sharing Company GetGo Onboard New Drivers

Jumio Helps Car-Sharing Company GetGo Onboard New Drivers
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Jumio

Digital identity solutions company Jumio announced 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.

Photo by Lisa Fotios

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Tax Status Partners with authID to Protect Tax Data with Human Factor Authentication

Tax Status Partners with authID to Protect Tax Data with Human Factor Authentication
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Tax Status
  • 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.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich

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