Alumni News

Avast to Acquire Identity and Authentication Expert SecureKey Technologies

Avast to Acquire Identity and Authentication Expert SecureKey Technologies
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, SecureKey
  • Avast will acquire SecureKey Technologies in a deal expected to close next month.
  • Czech Republic-based Avast will leverage SecureKey’s North American presence to expand internationally.
  • Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SecureKey Technologies will soon begin its next chapter. The Canada-based digital identity and authentication company recently agreed to be acquired by NortonLifeLock’s Avast, a digital security and privacy firm. Financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.

Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek said that he envisions leveraging SecureKey to create a global and reusable identity framework. “It’s clear that digital identity is the critical enabler for many digital services and SecureKey’s success reflects the growing demand for this from consumers,” said Vlcek. “SecureKey is highly complementary to Avast’s prior work in Identity and together we will take our offer to the next level, accelerating innovation and working to establish a user-focused, global approach that aligns user, business, and government propositions. We are committed to developing offerings that will be fully inclusive for everyone, regardless of their own circumstances.”

SecureKey was founded in 2008 with a mission to simplify consumer access to secure online services and applications using secure, digital versions of the credentials they already have. The company’s digital identity solutions enable over 200 million secure digital ID transactions per year globally.

SecureKey’s flagship tool, Verified.Me, is a digital identity verification network that helps users verify their digital identity and places them in control of what they want to share with whom. Verified.Me, which also comes with a Government sign-in feature, is provided by Interac, which acquired the rights to SecureKey’s digital ID services for Canada last October.

Avast was founded in 1988 and offers tools to help individuals and businesses protect the privacy of their digital lives. Headquartered in the Czech Republic, the company anticipates the acquisition will position it for international expansion. “As the European community is investing in public-private sector digital identity infrastructure in 2022 and beyond, we see Avast well positioned as a collaborative provider of digital trust services for people, digital businesses and government,” said Avast General Manager and SVP of Identity Charles Walton. “Success for us is where digital identity becomes simple, user-centric and portable, and can enable a more trustworthy digital experience and deeper online engagement benefiting both people and business.”

The deal is expected to close early next month. Avast plans to make SecureKey’s products available in the second quarter of this year.

Photo by Thirdman

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Glia Joins Fintech Unicorn Club After $45 Million Funding Round

Glia Joins Fintech Unicorn Club After $45 Million Funding Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Funding, Glia
  • Glia recently raised a $45 million Series D investment round.
  • The round values the company at over $1 billion, making it a fintech unicorn.
  • Glia said the funds “will be heavily allocated toward research and development.”

Digital customer service tools provider Glia is now valued at over $1 billion, making it fintech’s newest unicorn. The company announced earlier this week it closed a $45 million Series D investment, bringing its total funding to $152 million.

Insight Partners led the round, which saw contributions from existing investor Wildcat Capital Management and new investor RingCentral Ventures. Glia will “heavily allocate” the funds into research and development, investing in advanced AI, analytics, messaging, voice, and video capabilities. The company, which has offices in New York and Estonia, also plans to boost international expansion.

“The future of customer service is digital, and those that have yet to take steps to modernize their support and engagement strategies are already behind,” said Glia Co-Founder and CEO Dan Michaeli. “We’re thrilled by our investors’ confidence reflected in the round’s valuation, recognizing that we’ve only scratched the surface of what Glia can accomplish. Our rapid growth and successful relationships with financial services companies of all types demonstrates the urgent need for Digital Customer Service. As we build upon a decade of innovation, this capital will further extend our reach and help even more businesses across the globe reimagine how they connect with customers digitally.”

Glia was founded in 2012 as SaleMove. The company seeks to reinvent how businesses support their customers in a digital world– an imperative tool in today’s digital-first economy. Specifically, Glia offers digital communication choices, on-screen collaboration, and AI-enabled assistance tools. The company has 250 clients across the globe, including banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and other financial institutions.

Glia has won 10 Best of Show Awards– an impressive feat. Check out the company’s latest award-winning demo from spring of last year.

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PayPal’s 3 Moves Help with Humanitarian Efforts in Ukraine

PayPal’s 3 Moves Help with Humanitarian Efforts in Ukraine
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, PayPal
  • PayPal is boosting its humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
  • The payments company is expanding upon its P2P money transfer services, waiving fees, and facilitating funds transfers to payments cards.
  • These efforts are being made in addition to the company’s Cash Pick-Up and Mobile Phone Reload tools.

Citizens across the globe have donated millions of dollars in aid to the people living in Ukraine since the Russia invasion last month. And financial services provider PayPal is paying attention. The San Francisco-based company announced three new moves yesterday that will help people living in the region access humanitarian funds.

Peer-to-peer payments expansion

PayPal is expanding upon its existing money transfer services. The company is enabling Ukrainian PayPal accountholders to send and receive peer-to-peer (P2P) payments in four currencies– USD, CAD, GBP, and EUR.

Waiving fees

PayPal is waiving its own fees until June 30 for customers sending funds to Ukrainian PayPal accounts or receiving funds into Ukrainian PayPal accounts. Additionally, PayPal’s international remittance service, Xoom, is waiving transaction fees sent to recipients in Ukraine.

Funds transfers

PayPal will allow Ukrainian accountholders to transfer funds from their Ukrainian PayPal Wallet to an eligible Mastercard or Visa debit or credit card. Once the transfer has taken place, the money will be available in the currency associated with the payment card.

In addition to these new efforts, PayPal also offers Cash Pick-Up, a feature that enables digital money transfers to be sent to be picked up at physical locations throughout Ukraine such as Oschadbank, Privatbank, and Ukrgasbank; and Mobile Phone Reload, a tool to reload mobile phone airtime at five telco carriers.

PayPal is among many other fintechs making technological efforts to stem the violence in Ukraine and bring aid the country’s citizens. And as Russia’s war crimes continue and the situation worsens, we expect to see more fintechs rise to the occasion.

Photo by Tina Hartung on Unsplash

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Billpay Innovator doxo Raises $18.5 Million in Series C Funding

Billpay Innovator doxo Raises $18.5 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Doxo, Funding
  • Billpay platform doxo has raised $18.5 million in Series C funding.
  • The round was led by Jackson Square Ventures and featured participation from existing investors.
  • Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, doxo will use the capital to grow its platform and expand its team.

In a round led by Jackson Square Ventures, billpay platform doxo has secured $18.5 million in Series C funding. The capital will help the Seattle, Washington-based company further expand its platform, grow its workforce, build out its billpay provider directory, and accelerate its doxoDIRECT platform to enable billers to receive swift and cost-free direct electronic payments.

Valuation information was not immediately available. The Series C investment takes the company’s total funds raised to $37.3 million according to Crunchbase.

“People are shifting to more customer-centered, secure payment methods and billers are looking for ways to improve their payment experience and boost customer engagement,” doxo co-founder and CEO Steve Shivers said. “By meeting these needs, doxo’s growth has accelerated significantly this past year. We’re very pleased to have Jackson Square Ventures as our partner as we continue to scale to meet demand and expand the benefits we deliver to consumers and billers alike.”

doxo’s flagship solutions, doxo and doxoPLUS, enable consumers to send payments to more than 120,000 partnering billers from a single account. Consumers can use a variety of payment methods including credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, as well as their bank account, and payment information is not shared with billers. The technology enables users to set bill reminders, get real-time status updates, and monitor all of their payment history from a single location.

Available as both a free service and as a premium version for $4.99 a month that adds doxo’s Five Protections package (identity protection, overdraft protection, late fee protection, credit protection, and Private Pay protection), doxo’s technology helps consumers save money as well as improve their financial health.

doxo also offers doxoDIRECT for businesses that do not have billpay on their websites, compelling their customers to use other channels – such as mail, bank payments, and cash payments. doxoDIRECT for businesses enables companies to enhance customer engagement and payment convenience by closing this “gap” with a service that enables fast, free direct deposit payments. The company also publishes doxoINSIGHTS, an analysis of U.S. billpay statistics and bill payer behavior.

“We see doxo not just as a best-in-class billpay solution for both consumers and billers, but as an integral part of the overall ecosystem that will modernize the $4.61 trillion billpay industry,” Jackson Square Ventures co-founder and Managing Director Greg Gretsch said.

A Finovate alum since 2011, doxo most recently demonstrated its latest innovations at FinovateSpring 2019. At the conference, doxo showed how its doxoPay with overdraft protection – powered by fellow Finovate alum Plaid – enables users to track their bank account balance as they pay their bills. This helps consumers to better manage their cash flow and avoid overdrafts. Since then, the company has forged partnerships with energy delivery company National Grid, and payments technology company InComm Payments, and earned spots on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, and Inc. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies rosters.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

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Plaid and Green Dot Leverage Open Finance to Help Customers Access their Money

Plaid and Green Dot Leverage Open Finance to Help Customers Access their Money
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Green Dot, Plaid
  • Open finance company Plaid and money management solutions provider Green Dot entered into a partnership this week.
  • Green Dot will help its GO2bank customers connect to more than 6,000 apps and services powered by Plaid.
  • The partnership leverages Plaid Exchange, the company’s open finance API solution.

Open finance expert Plaid and money management solutions provider Green Dot have teamed up this week. The two are tapping the power of open finance to offer GO2bank customers more seamless data connectivity among and between their financial apps.

Leveraging Plaid’s open finance API solution Plaid Exchange, Green Dot will help its GO2bank customers securely connect to more than 6,000 apps and services powered by Plaid. The move ultimately offers end users access to a wider range of financial tools, which is critical for underbanked consumers.

“Our focus at Green Dot is giving all people the power to bank seamlessly, affordably, and with confidence,” said Green Dot Chief Product Officer Abhijit Chaudhary. “Through this partnership with Plaid, we are enabling real change in the industry by delivering an on-ramp for consumers who can benefit from simple, secure access to digital solutions.”

Launched in 2021, GO2bank was created to help Americans living paycheck to paycheck. The digital bank aims to offer a seamless and affordable experience that provides users with tools to serve their unique needs. For example, GO2bank offers up to $200 overdraft protection, high-interest savings accounts, credit building tools, and early wage access.

GO2bank parent company Green Dot was founded in 1999 and has since served more than 33 million customers. The company considers itself a branchless bank with more than 90,000 retail distribution locations across the U.S. In addition to its direct-to-consumer model, Green Dot also offers banking-as-a-service that enables banks and fintechs to leverage its bank charter, APIs, and cash deposit network to build out their own offerings.

With $734 million in funding, Plaid helps 12,000+ FIs offer their customers access to third party financial services via a suite of APIs to connect consumers, financial institutions, and developers. The company also offers a suite of analytics products that provides further insights into transactions. Plaid was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

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Samsung Launches Kiosk-Based Open Banking Payments Courtesy of Moneyhub Partnership

Samsung Launches Kiosk-Based Open Banking Payments Courtesy of Moneyhub Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Moneyhub, Samsung
  • Samsung partnered with Moneyhub to bring open banking functionality to its self-service, point-of-sale retail kiosks.
  • Courtesy of Moneyhub, users of Samsung’s kiosks will be able to make payments directly from their bank accounts to merchant accounts.
  • The first of its kind partnership will help save retailers money by providing an alternative to the card networks.

Electronics manufacturer Samsung has chosen open data and payments platform Moneyhub to bring open banking payments to retail, self-service point-of-sale kiosks.

The partnership is the first of its kind, according to both Samsung and Moneyhub, and is designed to provide new payment options for merchants such as quick-service restaurants, retail stores, stadium events, as well as other hospitality-related venues. Customers using the technology will be able to send funds directly from their bank account to the merchant’s account via bank transfer, leveraging a fast and secure payment method that does not require the customer to share credit or debit card information. Using the kiosks is similarly straightforward. Customers simply use their mobile device to scan the QR code on the kiosk’s screen to make their order and manage their payment.

“We are delighted to achieve a world-first with Samsung by bringing the speed, security and cost effectiveness of Open Banking payments to our increasingly fast-paced world,” Moneyhub CEO Samantha Seaton said. “Payments is the new frontier for Open Banking and it is thrilling to see another necessary and impactful business case that brings together the quality of the Samsung kiosk, with the benefits of this new and exciting way to pay.”

The new payment option also will save merchants money by enabling them to avoid the costs associated with credit and debit cards, fees that can consume as much as 5% of their revenue. Open banking payment fees, by contrast, are typically less than 1% of the transaction value. The combination of open banking payments and self-service POS kiosks also helps support businesses’ digital transformation efforts.

Samsung Head of Display Damon Crowhurst highlighted this benefit of the new offering. “Though our partnership with Moneyhub, we are continuing to bring innovative solutions that help our customers navigate the complex landscape of a fast changing business environment,” Crowhurst said. “Implementing the open banking solution on our kiosk platform helps customers drive increased profitability, through efficient, scalable, and cost-effective solutions that are applicable for retail businesses of all sizes.”

A Finovate alum since 2015, U.K.-based Moneyhub began 2022 with the launch of its open banking and open finance front line support service. The new integrated support service, available on both a standalone basis as well as integrated into the clients’ own customer service platforms, provides expert support directly to end-users to help them manage all aspects of open banking and open finance. The company also announced early this year that it was broadening its platform beyond open banking and open finance to embrace open data. The move, which Seaton called “a natural next step in Moneyhub’s journey,” will give clients consensual access to a wide range of cross-industry data including employment, tax, and flexible benefit data, as well as property valuations, identity documents, carbon footprint information, and more.

“We want to put trust, through control of their data, back into the hands of the consumers,” Seaton said, “and in doing so support them in making better financial decisions.”

Samsung made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateFall. At the event, the company demonstrated its Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone; its biometric authentication solution, Samsung SDS Nexsign; and Samsung DeX which enables users to connect their Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone to a monitor and keyboard for a desktop experience that supports contextual menus, drag-and-drop functionality, and resizable windows.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels

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MeridianLink Acquires Small Business Lending Startup StreetShares

MeridianLink Acquires Small Business Lending Startup StreetShares
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, StreetShares
  • Cloud-based software solutions provider MeridianLink acquired digital lending technology provider StreetShares.
  • MeridianLink will leverage StreetShares’ Atlas Platform, an embeddable digital lending environment for banks.
  • Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cloud-based software solutions firm MeridanLink acquired small business lending technology provider StreetShares this week. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

StreetShares was founded in 2014 to serve as an alternative lending option for military veteran-owned small businesses. In 2019, the Virginia-based company pivoted, launching digital small business lending technology for banks and credit unions after piloting the offering with USAA in 2018.

The new tool, the Atlas Platform, enables banks to embed a digital business lending environment in 45 days or less. The platform enables community lenders to leverage their data to deliver a digital banking product experience to their small business customers. StreetShares built the platform specifically to serve the unique needs of small businesses and assist lenders with challenges such as underwriting.

“StreetShares’ commitment to providing lenders across the U.S. with state-of-the-art business lending capabilities, including business loans, automated decisioning, and business lines of credit, aligns with our focus on empowering more banks and credit unions to better serve consumers and communities,” said MeridianLink CEO Nicolaas Vlok. “Adding the StreetShares team, technology, and strong partnerships with organizations like Fiserv to the MeridianLink family will accelerate our small business lending capabilities and further strengthen our MeridianLink One platform.”

MeridianLink, which is owned by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, was founded in 1998 and offers cloud-based technology to its 1,900 financial institution clients. Nicolaas Vlock is CEO of the firm, which is listed publicly on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker MLNK and has a market capitalization of $1.47 billion.

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Sales Engagement Platform Vymo Raises $22 Million in Series C Funding

Sales Engagement Platform Vymo Raises $22 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Vymo
  • Sales engagement platform Vymo has raised $22 million in Series C funding.
  • The investment round was led by Bertelsmann India Investments, and featured participation from existing investors Emergence Capital and Sequoia Capital.
  • The funding comes after a year in which the San Francisco, California-based company recorded quarterly growth of more than 20% and 142% net revenue retention.

In a round led by Bertelsmann India Investments, and featuring participation from existing investors Emergence Capital and Sequoia Capital, intelligent sales engagement platform Vymo has secured $22 million in Series C funding. The investment takes the company’s total capital to $45 million, according to Crunchbase.

Calling 2021 “a momentous year,” Vymo CEO and co-founder Yamini Bhat pointed to quarterly growth of more than 20% and 142% net revenue retention, as well as new partnerships with Berkshire Hathaway and Max Life Insurance, as examples of the company’s recent success. Bhat added that the Series C funding will help Vymo accelerate its growth plans in markets like the U.S. and Japan. “Sales tech is a $10B+ opportunity in just these two countries,” she said.

A Finovate alum since 2018, Vymo enables frontline sales representatives to report data and learn how to best engage their customers. The company’s app serves as a personal assistant, predicting what the representative should do at key stages of the customer engagement process, detecting whether the recommended action has taken place, and recording outcomes in order to drive better predictions in the future. With more than 200,000 users around the world, Vymo’s activity capture, intelligent nudges, and ability to construct industry playbooks help improve sales outcomes and provide business leaders with insights that help them plan and execute sales and business strategies.

Vymo finished 2021 with the appointment of Deepak Keni as Chief Customer Officer for Asia. The company said that the addition of Keni was “a commitment to deliver real business outcomes from digital transformation projects” in the region. The company also was recognized by Gartner in December as a Representative Vendor in its 2021 market guide for Sales Engagement Applications.

“We started Vymo with a mission to unleash the full potential of each salesperson – to help them become a trusted advisor to their customers and partners,” Bhat said when the company’s inclusion in Gartner’s guide was announced. “After 60+ deployments around the globe, we have demonstrated how bottom-up behavioral changes are integral to driving business outcomes.”

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Vymo was founded in 2013. The company most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage last year at FinovateFall.

Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV from Pexels

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Onfido Brings its Identity Verification and Authentication Technology to Tesco Bank

Onfido Brings its Identity Verification and Authentication Technology to Tesco Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Onfido
  • Identity verification specialist Onfido has teamed up with U.K.-based retail bank Tesco Bank to enhance security of Tesco’s Clubcard Pay+ new account opening process.
  • Tesco made its Clubcard Pay+ offering available to all of its 20 million Clubcard members, following a phased launch that began in March of last year.
  • Onfido made its Finovate debut in 2018.

A new partnership between global identity verification and authentication provider Onfido and Tesco Bank will help secure the application process for Tesco’s Clubcard Pay+ customers. The security upgrade comes as the bank makes the new offering available to all 20 million Clubcard members, following a successful phased launch of Clubcard Pay+ that began a year ago with a limited number of customers and Tesco colleagues.

With Clubcard Pay+, Clubcard members will be able to pay with their Clubcard and earn extra Tesco Clubcard points wherever they shop. Using the Tesco Bank mobile app, users can add funds to their Clubcard Pay+ account from any U.K. bank account as well as ringfence their grocery spend. Additional features of Clubcard Pay+ include the ability to round up purchases to the nearest pound and transfer the difference to their Round Up savings account.

Courtesy of its partnership with Onfido, Tesco will enable customers to apply for the new offering directly from the Tesco Bank mobile app. All that is required is that applicants take a photo of their government-issued ID and a selfie. Onfido’s technology ensures first that the identity document is genuine, and then matches the image on the document with the image on the selfie. This establishes both that the person presenting the ID is the actual owner of the document and that the individual is physically present. The technology helps customers establish their identity anywhere and at any time, easing and accelerating the account opening process.

“By combining decades of banking experience with advanced biometrics and AI technology, Tesco Bank is now able to accelerate the account opening process for new Clubcard Pay+ customers,” Onfido CEO Mike Tuchen explained. “The innovative technology provided by Onfido underpins a seamless and secure application experience that protects customers and provides them with a streamlined access to Clubcard Pay+.”

Founded in 1997, Tesco Bank is the product of a joint venture between the Royal Bank of Scotland and U.K.-based supermarket giant Tesco. With more than five million customer accounts and £5.7 billion in customer deposits, Tesco Bank offers a wide range of banking and insurance solutions for the retail market. In addition to its new Clubcard Pay+ offering, the institution began 2022 with major changes to its C-suite, appointing new interim Chief Risk Officer Debbie Walker and new interim Chief Insurance Officer, Tesco Bank and interim CEO, Tesco Underwriting Gary Duggan.

London-based Onfido entered 2022 in the wake of what the company referred to as a “breakthrough” 2021. The company grew revenues by 90% year-over-year to more than $100 million and reached year-over-year growth of 134% in the U.S. Further, the company expanded its workforce by 50% to 600 employees to better accommodate increased demand for its services, this includes reaching 150 million in digital identity checks.

“Our strong year reflects the continued shift towards the critical adoption of digital environments where businesses are adapting to meet their users online,” Tuchen said earlier this year. He pointed to the $56 billion in identity theft losses consumers endured in 2020, adding “a fast, simple, and secure online journey is imperative when it comes to building customer trust, which is why we are continuing to invest in our workforce, technology, research, and development.”

Onfido has raised more than $188 million in funding from investors including TPG Growth, Augmentum Fintech, and Salesforce Ventures.

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Card Processor Zeta Secures $30 Million in New Funding

Card Processor Zeta Secures $30 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Zeta
  • Finovate Best of Show winner Zeta announced a new partnership with Mastercard.
  • The five-year collaboration included an investment of $30 million from Mastercard and other investors.
  • The funding gives Zeta a valuation of $1.5 billion.

Zeta, which won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateWest Digital 2020, has announced a five-year global partnership with Mastercard. The collaboration, which also featured an investment of $30 million from Mastercard and other investors, will enable the two companies to jointly launch credit cards via Zeta’s full stack, cloud-based, API-ready card processing platform. The two firms plan to issue between 30 and 40 million debit and credit cards over the course of the partnership and process $60 billion in total payment value.

“With Zeta’s next-gen credit card processing platform, we are fundamentally rewiring how issuers launch credit card programs by offering new paradigms over legacy mainframe systems,” Zeta co-founder and CEO Bhavin Turakhia said. He noted that Zeta enables issuers to increase their lending books, reduce costs with pay-as-you-go SaaS billing, improve customer engagement and satisfaction, and leverage the platform to launch new solutions and iterate faster.

The funding gives the San Francisco, California-based fintech a valuation of $1.5 billion, further solidifying the company’s unicorn status it achieved last May when Zeta scored $240 million in a round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Zeta’s flagship solution, Tachyon, is a modern credit processing stack that provides integrated credit and loan processing. The platform spans the entire credit card lifecycle from issuance, core, and payments to BNPL loans, fraud and risk monitoring, rewards, and more. Zeta’s APIs enable issuers to create new revenue lines as BIN/balance sheet sponsors by providing co-brands, fintechs, and affinity partners with a complete banking-as-a-service and embeddable banking platform. The company also provides a suite of managed services including servicing, collections, and more.

Mastercard EVO for Products and Innovation Sandeep Malhotra underscored the capabilities of Zeta’s platform. “By deploying Zeta’s credit processing stack, issuers will have an opportunity to grow their user base, drive higher usage, and enter new geographical markets while accelerating the cashless revolution around the world.”

The relationship between Zeta and Mastercard extends back to 2018, when Zeta entered Mastercard’s Start Path engagement program. More recently, Zeta joined the Mastercard Developers Partner Network, Engage, which will give the fintech access to the Mastercard network. This will enable Zeta to pre-integrate or bundle solutions such as Mastercard’s Digital First and Fintech Express progams that support customer KYC and verification operations, as well as instant digital card issuance and provisioning.

Founded in 2015, Zeta began this year with the announcement that its card processing business grew to more than 10 million cards with more than 300 million transactions a year globally.

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Segmint Partners with Constant Contact to Offer Turnkey Email Delivery

Segmint Partners with Constant Contact to Offer Turnkey Email Delivery
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Segmint
  • Digital marketing solutions provider Segmint is partnering with marketing communications expert Constant Contact.
  • The partnership will enable Segmint to bring a turnkey email delivery solution to its Marketing Automation platform.
  • The offering leverages Segmint’s Key Lifestyle Indicators, which offer insight into customer life events and interests.

Digital marketing solutions provider Segmint is partnering with marketing communications expert Constant Contact. The two are working together to bring a turnkey email delivery solution to Segmint’s Marketing Automation platform, a tool that helps financial services companies create personalized, timely engagement campaigns.

By integrating Constant Contact’s capabilities into its Marketing Automation platform, Segmint will help financial institutions leverage customer insights and personalize individualized, targeted messages to their account holders. Constant Contact will offer banks a turnkey email automation tool that unlocks siloed customer data to deliver highly personalized messages.

Segmint’s Marketing Automation solution leverages the company’s Key Lifestyle Indicators (KLIs). Segmint’s KLIs analyze customer data to gain insights into their life events and interests, as well as to identify cross-sell opportunities, product utilization, and more. The company processes the data in real time to keep the insights relevant and up-to-date.

“The email integration into Segmint’s platform enables FIs to align digital marketing efforts with the full suite of media channels, while most importantly utilizing their own account holder data which allows them to produce insights that deliver the highest level of targeting efficiency and relevant messaging,” said Segmint Chief Product Officer Nate Shahan.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Ohio, Segmint offers financial services companies a range of solutions, including AI-driven predictive models, data cleansing and quality management tools, customer insights, and customer retention tools. Among the company’s recent partnerships are Access Softek, Corelation, and Nymbus.

Photo by Maksim Goncharenok from Pexels

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Innovation Credit Union Teams Up with VeriPark for its New Digital Banking Experience

Innovation Credit Union Teams Up with VeriPark for its New Digital Banking Experience
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, VeriPark
  • Canadian financial institution Innovation Credit Union (ICU) teamed up with digital banking solutions provider VeriPark to launch a new digital banking experience.
  • VeriPark made its Finovate debut in 2019 at our Dubai conference, FinovateMiddleEast.
  • With more than 57,000 members, ICU is the third largest credit union in the province of Sasakatchewan.

VeriPark, a London-based digital banking solutions provider that made its Finovate debut at FinovateMiddleEast in Dubai in 2019, has been selected by Canada’s Innovation Credit Union (ICU) to help it launch a new digital banking experience.

“Innovation has grown to become one of the leading credit unions of Canada,” Innovation Credit Union CEO Daniel Johnson said. “With this enhanced simplified look, our goal was to modernize our visual identity and further align to our purpose of simplifying banking for our current and future members.”

ICU will deploy VeriPark’s VeriChannel internet banking and mobile banking solutions, enabling the Saskatchewan-based credit union’s 57,000+ members to enjoy omni-channel banking experiences with seamless, multi-device functionality. The new platform provides a more convenient digital banking experience along with a new and improved website and a mobile app that is both faster and more intuitive. Savings and mortgage calculators are among the tools available with the new offering, along with other features to help members open and manage their accounts, transfer money, and track requests.

The partnership with VeriPark is no small matter for ICU, which described the collaboration as part of its goal of becoming Canada’s first fully digital credit union. Founded in 2007 by way of a merger between Southwest Credit Union and BCU Financial, ICU is the third largest credit union in the province and the 21st largest credit union in the country with more than $2.4 billion in assets. The institution began its journey to became the third, federally-regulated credit union in Canada after 82% of its members voted in favor of a special resolution in 2017 promoting federalization. This move will enable the credit union to operate nationwide and fulfill its goal of bringing “responsible banking to all of Canada.”

Founded in 1998, VeriPark maintains offices in the U.K., the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The company’s technology helps businesses improve customer acquisition, retention, and cross-selling capacities with the goal of guiding financial institutions on their digital transformation journeys. With secure and scalable solutions for customer engagement, omni-channel delivery, branch automation, loan origination, and more, VeriPark leverages Microsoft’s cloud platforms and Microsoft Dynamics 365 to serve customers in more than 30 countries around the world.

VeriPark began the year earning recognition from Gartner in its 2022 Market Guide for Digital Banking Multichannel Solutions. Last fall, the company leveraged the Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services to create three new apps: a complaints and service requests solution, a financial transactions app, and a Customer 360 app that provides insights into customer balances, transactions, utilized solutions, and more. Özkan Erener is CEO.

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