Alumni News

Backbase Inks New Partnership with Boston-based Eastern Bank

Backbase Inks New Partnership with Boston-based Eastern Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Backbase, Daily news
  • Backbase has forged a new partnership with New England-area financial institution, Eastern Bank.
  • Eastern Bank will leverage Backbase-as-a-Service and Backbase Digital Sales technology to streamline its new account opening process, as well as create and release new financial products and services.
  • With $24 billion in assets and more than 120 locations, Eastern Bank serves customers in eastern Massachusetts, southern and coastal New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.

A new partnership between engagement banking innovator Backbase and Eastern Bank will bring a fully digital account opening experience to the Boston-based financial institution’s customers. Eastern Bank ($24 billion in assets) will deploy both Backbase-as-a-Service and Backbase’s Digital Sales solutions, which will give Eastern the technical infrastructure it needs to create and deliver new products and services faster.

The deployment of Backbase’s Digital Sales solution will enable Eastern Bank to combine Backbase’s out-of-the-box accelerators and integrations with solutions from third-party fintechs to offer their customers personalized digital banking services – as well as remove much of the complexity customers encounter when opening new accounts. Eastern Bank expects to offer Backbase’s Digital Sales capabilities in the first half of this year to new retail customers. The bank’s new commercial and business banking customers can expect a similar offering later in 2022.

“We are thrilled Eastern Bank chose to collaborate with us around this commitment to technology and innovation,” SVP of Americas at Backbase Vincent Bezemer said. “Like us, they are passionate about delivering the best digital experience possible for customers.” Bezemer complimented Eastern Bank’s team as “agile and digitally-focused” as well as having a “human-centered approach” to collecting and incorporating customer feedback to ensure high-quality customer experiences.

Founded in 1818, Eastern Bank offers banking, investment, and insurance products and services for retail consumers and businesses in parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The bank earned the 2021 Impact Innovation Award for Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics by Aite-Novarica Group and was a finalist in the Best Small Business Banking Solution category at the 2021 Finovate Awards.

A multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Backbase is one of Finovate’s oldest alums, having made its debut on the Finovate stage in 2009. More recently, the company participated in Finovate’s return to live events last September as part of FinovateFall in New York. At the conference, Backbase demonstrated its complete customer onboarding technology that consolidates customer finances via direct deposit, billpay auto linking, and debit card account opening.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Backbase was named “Best in Class” among digital banking platform vendors in Javelin’s 2021 Digital Banking Platform Scorecard. In addition to its partnership with Eastern Bank, Backbase has collaborated in recent months with Wyoming-based Blue Federal Credit Union and St. Louis, Missouri-based, family-owned First Bank.

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Xignite Introduces its Cryptocurrency Data API, XigniteCrypto

Xignite Introduces its Cryptocurrency Data API, XigniteCrypto
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Xignite
  • Leading market data API company Xignite launched its cryptocurrency API, XigniteCrypto API, this week.
  • The new offering helps wealth managers and brokers serve clients interested in trading or investing in digital assets.
  • The XigniteCrypto API provides real-time and historical data on more than 900 different cryptocurrencies.

Market data API provider Xignite has launched a new solution to help its broker and wealth management customers take advantage of the cryptocurrency revolution. This week, the San Mateo, California-based fintech introduced the XigniteCrypto API, the first API of its kind to combine the large and growing universe of cryptocurrency information with the stock, exchange-traded fund (ETF), and options data that brokers and wealth managers rely upon to serve their clients.

Xignite CEO and founder Stephane Dubois highlighted the challenge of working with cryptocurrencies for the average broker or wealth manager. “Cryptocurrencies tend to operate in their own world,” he explained. “This means that if you want to offer integrated equity, option, and crypto trading or analytics for your clients, you are going to have to cobble up a lot of heterogeneous data from many disparate sources, and that’s a pain.”

The new cryptocurrency API provides real-time and historical quotes for more than 900 different cryptocurrencies, including coins and tokens. The solution features unique API endpoints to help brokers and wealth managers engage digital traders and investors, and provides data and tools such as price alerts, historical charting, currency conversion, and news to help customers make sound trading and investing decisions using cryptocurrencies.

“With our new crypto API, you get the depth of coverage, the quality, and the reliability across all asset classes you need to grow your business – all in one integrated solution,” Dubois said.

A market data innovator for nearly two decades, Xignite launched the first commercial REST API and has since grown into one of the leading providers of market data API solutions to brokers, wealth managers, and fintechs. Today, the company’s APIs are used by 700+ companies more than 500 billion times a month to serve their digital investing clients. A Finovate alum since 2014, Xignite has raised more than $37 million in funding from investors including StarVest Partners and Japan-based QUICK.

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Marqeta Teams Up with Plaid to Simplify ACH Transfers

Marqeta Teams Up with Plaid to Simplify ACH Transfers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Marqeta, Plaid
  • Marqeta and Plaid have teamed up to simplify and streamline the ACH transfer process to enable faster funding of financial accounts.
  • The collaboration is designed to provide both seamless account funding as well as additional security during data transfer.
  • Both Marqeta and Plaid made their Finovate debuts as part of Finovate’s developer conference series, FinDEVr.

A partnership between a pair of Finovate alums – card-issuing platform Marqeta and financial data network Plaid – will simplify ACH transfers to make it easier for customers to authenticate and fund their accounts.

Per the agreement, Marqeta customer cardholders will be able to transfer money seamlessly between customers and external accounts, as well as verify and link to external accounts faster. The company’s customers also will be able to keep cardholders informed on the status of fund transfers via real-time notifications, and better manage issues ranging from initiations to cancellations to return. Enhanced security is another benefit of the partnership. Marqeta customers no longer will need to store sensitive information from cardholders’ external bank accounts – relying instead on tokens while Plaid and Marqeta exchange necessary bank account information in the background.

“We’re making it as simple as possible for consumers to access their bank information from one application, and reduce the time it takes to fund and begin using their account,” Marqeta Chief Operating Officer Vidya Peters explained. “Through our Plaid integration, developers building on Marqeta can authenticate users’ bank accounts without the complexity and extra time associated with traditional ACH processing, creating an overall more seamless experience.”

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Oakland, California, Marqeta is an alum of our developers conference FinDEVr Silicon Valley. The company’s card issuing platform provides businesses with the infrastructure, technology, and tools to build and manage their own payment programs. Last month, Marqeta announced that it has secured certification to operate in three countries in Southeast Asia – Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines – which means the company’s platform is now enabled in 39 countries around the world. Marqeta announced that, with its further expansion into the Asia Pacific (the company is also active in Australia and New Zealand), it will establish an Asia Pacific regional hub in Singapore later this year.

Also a veteran of our developers conference, Plaid began 2022 with the launch of its data privacy solution, Plaid Portal. The new privacy tool is designed for customers who have used Plaid to connect their financial accounts to apps and services in the U.S. Plaid Portal allows account holders to see which apps have accessed their financial data and to control where the data is shared. The company calls the new offering “one of many tools” under development to give customers both greater visibility into and control over how their data is shared. Ideally, this additional transparency will help allay data privacy concerns and provide users with greater confidence when it comes to taking advantage of increasingly open nature of the modern digital financial ecosystem.

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Thought Machine Secures $54 Million Investment from Italian Bank Intesa Sanpaolo

Thought Machine Secures $54 Million Investment from Italian Bank Intesa Sanpaolo
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Thought Machine
  • Core banking technology innovator Thought Machine has signed a partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest bank by total assets.
  • As part of the partnership, the bank has invested $54 million (£40 million) in the U.K.-based fintech.
  • The partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo is the third bank partnership Thought Machine has secured this year.

U.K. based core banking technology company Thought Machine inked its third bank partnership of 2022 this week, teaming up with Italian Bank Intesa Sanpaolo. The collaboration will bring Thought Machine’s core banking engine, Vault, to the Italian financial institution, who will use the technology to power its new digital banking platform Isybank. The new platform will be geared initially toward the bank’s four million mass-market customers in Italy. Beyond that, Intesa Sanpaolo plans to further deploy Thought Machine’s core banking technology into its infrastructure more broadly, swapping out mainframe-based core technology in favor of the cloud.

Pointing to the digital preferences of its younger clientele, Intesa Sanpaolo CEO Carlo Messina said, “this new digital bank will evolve our retail business from incumbent to fintech challenger in the mass market, with the option to expand internationally.”

In addition to the technology partnership, Intesa Sanpaolo announced that it would invest $54 million (£40 million) in the U.K.-based bank technology firm. The funding takes Thought Machine’s total capital to more than $402 million.

“We chose Thought Machine as our partner due to its international standing as a fintech innovator,” Messina added. “We believe so strongly that Thought Machine is the right partners for this transformation that we are also announcing our investment in the company to be a part of its growth story.”

With 13.5 million customers in Italy and 7.1 million customers around the world, Intesa Sanpaolo and its subsidiaries are active in 12 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in Egypt. The bank is the largest in Italy by total assets and one of the 30 biggest banks in the world.

A Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateEurope in 2018, Thought Machine has sealed partnerships with three banks so far in 2022, including Intesa Sanpaolo. Thought Machine began the year announcing that Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia (ARBM) would leverage its technology to build an Islamic digital bank later this year. ARBM is a subsidiary of Al Rajhi Bank of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest Islamic bank by assets. The deployment of Thought Machine’s Vault is part of a multi-year digital transformation project begun last year by ARBM. The bank has credited Vault’s product building functionality for enabling it to create a full suite of Shariah-compliant banking products.

Also this year, Thought Machine announced that U.S. mutual savings bank Mascoma Bank will deploy Vault and migrate its customers to the new technology. A certified B corporation serving customers in the New England states of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, Mascoma Bank will use Vault to both innovate and add new solutions to its product line, as well as provide the institution with a single source of record by housing all of its data in a single location to more easily understand and serve its customers.

“We believe that modern technology is the key to unlocking superior customer service,” Mascoma Bank president and CEO Clay Adams said. “We are proud at Mascoma Bank to be different by design – we are adopting Thought Machine’s modern technology to deliver on our mission of better serving our customers and communities, to offer new products and be a leader in community banking.”

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Payments Orchestration Platform Spreedly Inks Pact with Stripe

Payments Orchestration Platform Spreedly Inks Pact with Stripe
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Spreedly
  • Spreedly announced an integration that will expand the number of local payment methods available via Stripe.
  • Among the supported payment methods are IDEAL, Bancontact, Giropay, EPS, Alipay, Afterpay / Clearpay, Sofort, and Przelewy24, as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
  • Spreedly’s announcement comes in the wake of strong transaction volume growth from its operations in Latin America.

Payments orchestration platform Spreedly and payments processor Stripe have expanded their partnership to enable access to more local payment options. As part of the announcement, Spreedly underscored that its customers will have access to Stripe’s fraud fighting solution, Radar, as well.

“This latest integration allows joint Stripe and Spreedly customers to offer their customers a variety of payment methods and provides access to Radar, helping to manage the fraud risks associated with accepting payments online,” Spreedly Senior Director of Product Andy McHale explained.

By offering customers a broader range of local payment alternatives, merchants are able to reach more customers, bring down transaction costs, and boost conversion rates. Payment orchestration, such as that available from Spreedly, helps provide this flexibility, giving merchants and merchant aggregators the option of not only transacting with a wider variety of gateways and payment services, but also enabling them to test and experiment to find out which services work best for their customers.

First announced in November, access to Stripe’s Radar feature gives Spreedly customers the ability to bring machine learning to bear to detect and block fraud. Radar leverages data across millions of international companies processing billions of payments a year to assign risk scores and block high-risk payments. McHale noted that while many merchants and platforms do integrate fraud fighting solutions, working with companies like Spreedly can provide significant advantages.

“(Integrating) fraud tools and payment gateways via a Payment Orchestration Platform simplifies system complexity by reducing the number of direct vendor integrations and orchestrating them to work together,” McHale said.

This week’s news from Spreedly arrives in the wake of the company’s announcement that European payments company Worldline had joined Spreedly’s Payment Service Provider program. The Durham, North Carolina-based company began the year with news that transaction volume from Latin America had grown by more than 100% year-over-year.

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Betterment Embraces the Cryptocurrency Revolution with Makara Acquisition

Betterment Embraces the Cryptocurrency Revolution with Makara Acquisition
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Acquisition, Alumni News, Betterment, Daily news
  • Investment platform Betterment will acquire cryptocurrency portfolio manager Makara. Terms were not disclosed.
  • The acquisition will enable Betterment to incorporate automated, personalized digital asset investing into its roboadvisory services.
  • Seattle, Washington-based Makara was founded in 2021 and has raised $2.1 million in seed funding.

Mr. Money Mustache may not like it. But the news that online investment platform Betterment has agreed to acquire cryptocurrency portfolio manager Makara is yet another sign that incumbent fintechs are playing a major role in helping crypto go mainstream.

“Crypto is here to stay and Betterment wants to live our promise of long-term diversification and to provide our customers with the best variety of assets in the marketplace,” Betterment CEO Sarah Levy explained. Levy praised the Makara acquisition as a unique opportunity to bring Betterment customers managed cryptocurrency portfolios “combined with the guidance and ease-of-use that have defined Betterment.”

Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Makara was founded in 2021 by Jesse Proudman and Sadie Raney. The company is the first crypto-based roboadvisor to be registered with the SEC, and offers investment exposure to the cryptocurrency market that is both automated and personalized to the investor’s goals and preferences. Makara investors can select cryptocurrencies organized into thematic baskets – Bitcoin, Blue Chip, Decentralized Finance, Ethereum, Inflation Hedge, Metaverse, Universe, and Web 3.0 – that cover the wide (and growing) range of digital asset offerings.

Betterment leverages passive index-tracking and fixed income ETFs to offer goal-based investing strategies via both taxable and tax-advantaged accounts such traditional and Roth IRAs. The addition of Makara will enable the New York-based investment platform to give investors the ability to diversify their accounts without having to worry about selecting individual digital assets. The acquisition will also make it easier for Betterment’s financial advisor customers to offer cryptocurrency exposure to their clients without those advisors having to be experts in the digital asset arena.

The acquisition is expected to close later in Q1 of 2022. Makara’s team of experts and engineers will join the Betterment team at that point.

“We developed Makara to bring an easy and accessible long-term investing approach to cryptocurrencies,” Makara co-founder and CEO Jesse Proudman said. “Combining our crypto expertise with Betterment’s scale will accelerate the growth of the platform with both retail investors and financial advisors.”

Betterment made its Finovate debut in 2010, winning Best of Show for its online savings and investment platform. In the years since, the company has grown into one of the world’s leading digital investment advisors, with more than 700,000 customers and more than $33 billion in assets under management. Last fall, the company announced raising $160 million in funding – including a $60 million in Series F equity investment – earning the New York-based firm a valuation of $1.3 billion.

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American Express Launches Digital Checking Account to Compete with Challenger Banks

American Express Launches Digital Checking Account to Compete with Challenger Banks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, American Express, Daily news
  • American Express is launching a new, digital checking account called Amex Rewards Checking
  • The Amex Rewards Checking account will offer a 0.50% high-yield APY on account balances, along with other membership rewards
  • The new checking account is only open to primary American Express credit cardholders and is limited to individual users.

Financial services giant American Express is expanding its horizons into the crowded world of digital checking. The company is launching Amex Rewards Checking, an all-digital consumer checking account, for eligible U.S. card members.

As an incumbent player, American Express has multiple advantages over the many smaller digital challenger upstarts that have launched in the past two years. That’s because not only does the New York-based firm have credibility and a pre-existing large customer base, it also comes with a reputation for its rewards and perks.

“Our Members want more banking products and services from us,” said American Express Executive Vice President and General Manager of Consumer Banking Eva Reda. “And they want more from their checking account, without giving up the benefits that are important to them. That’s why we built Amex Rewards Checking to deliver more value for Members with the powerful and trusted backing of American Express. It’s digital checking without compromises.”

The checking account product will be a draw to Millennial and Gen Z users, who look for banking products with incentives and rewards. In fact, according to a study from Amex, 35% of consumers rank rewards and offers at the top when considering opening a new account. Given this, Amex packed competitive features into its new checking account. Accountholders can:

  • Earn 0.50% high-yield APY on their account balance, which is 10x higher than the national rate
  • Gain one Membership Rewards point for every $2 spent on eligible debit card purchases. Users can redeem these points for deposits into their Amex checking account
  • Pay no monthly maintenance fees or minimum balance fees
  • Receive purchase protection for accidental damage or theft on eligible purchases
  • Access Amex’s customer care providers 24/7 via phone or chat
  • Receive fraud protection and monitoring
  • Make fee-free ATM withdrawals at 37,000 MoneyPass ATM locations

The new Rewards Checking account is only open to primary American Express credit cardholders who have had their account for more than three months. Currently, the new checking account is limited to individuals and cannot accommodate joint accounts.

The new Amex Rewards Checking is American Express’ first checking account for retail customers. The financial services giant has offered small business checking for a little over a year now. The company acquired Kabbage in 2020 for $850 million and leveraged the purchase to launch a small business checking offering in 2021. That said, it’s worth noting that Amex’s new debit card is not available to its small business checking customers.

American Express, which presented at our developers conference in 2015, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker AXP. The company saw $36 billion in revenue in 2020 and has a market capitalization of $149 billion. Stephen Squeri is CEO.

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Fiserv Agrees to Acquire Finxact in Deal Valued at $650 Million

Fiserv Agrees to Acquire Finxact in Deal Valued at $650 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Fiserv, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Fiserv has agreed to acquire Finxact in a transaction valued at $650 million.
  • The acquisition will help bolster Fiserv’s position as “partner of choice” for firms looking to add to their digital banking offerings.
  • First Data Ventures, the corporate arm of 2019 Fiserv acquisition First Data, was an early investor in Finxact.

Leading fintech and payments company Fiserv announced today that it has agreed to acquire cloud native banking solution provider Finxact. An early investor in the company, Fiserv will purchase the remaining ownership interest in Finxact for $650 million, and will leverage the acquisition to add to Fiserv’s account processing, digital, and payments solutions.

“Through this combination, Fiserv will create a streamlined path for clients to offer digital solutions to their customers,” Fiserv President and CEO Frank Bisignano said. “Finxact also enhances our ability to support a growing number of financial institutions and business clients.”

Jacksonville, Florida-based Finxact offers a core-as-a-service platform that enables financial institutions to innovate and bring new solutions to market without requiring a complete technological overhaul of existing systems. Finxact leverages open banking APIs and the cloud to help firms future-proof and add flexibility to their businesses by abstracting the critical components of core banking from other operations and services – such as mobile banking, communications, and statements. The company’s partners range from financial institutions like Live Oak Bank ($8.2 billion in assets) and Iberiabank’s Virtual Bank to fintechs like Personetics and Anchorage Digital.

Calling the acquisition a “tremendous opportunity” for his six-year old company, Finxact Chairman and CEO Frank Sanchez said, “We recognize that Finxact’s technology can serve to level up the industry’s delivery infrastructure, and crucially at a time when banking is undergoing transformative change. We will be better positioned to serve a far greater number of institutions, of all sizes, when combined with the breadth and depth of Fiserv capabilities.”

Finxact was founded in 2016 and has raised $42 million in funding. The company ended 2021 with the introduction of its no-code visual Product Launchpad, a platform enhancement that brings a visual design experience to the creation and deployment of products on the Finxact core.

The acquisition of Finxact is only the latest fintech deal by Fiserv since its big, $22 billion purchase of First Data Corporation in 2019. Last fall, Fiserv announced the completion of its acquisition of marketing and commerce platform BentoBox. The year before, Fiserv acquired digital card services platform Ondot. Other recent acquisitions include its pick-up of Bypass Mobile in 2020 and NetPay in 2021. The company’s most recent Finovate appearance was at FinovateWest 2020, an all-digital event in which Fiserv demoed its Virtual Banking Assistant. The technology brings AI-driven, conversational experiences to call center operations, boosting customer engagement and reducing costs.

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TickSmith Raises $20 Million in New Funding for its Enterprise Data Web Store

TickSmith Raises $20 Million in New Funding for its Enterprise Data Web Store
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Funding, TickSmith

Canadian fintech TickSmith is ringing in the new year with $20 million in Series A funding. The company will use the additional capital to support marketing of its Data Web Store, a B2B SaaS platform that enables organizations and institutions to generate new revenue streams based on their data.

“Data monetization is no longer limited to large enterprises,” TickSmith CEO Francis Wenzel said. “Selling data should be as simple as selling products in an e-commerce store, and data sellers of all sizes can now benefit from the same tools that power the largest, most robust data marketplaces in the world.”

The Series A was led by Investissement Québec, and featured participation from Fonds de solidarité FTQ, CME Ventures, Databricks Ventures, Anges Québec, Anges Québec Capital, and Illuminate Financial Management. The investment gives the company a total capital of $26.8 million, according to Crunchbase.

Founded in 2012, headquartered in Montreal, Québec, and making its Finovate debut two years later at FinovateFall 2014, TickSmith offers a platform that gives firms the technology they need to prepare, manage, package, and monetize data via private marketplaces. With customers in industries ranging from financial institutions and data providers to exchanges and brokerages, TickSmith helps organizations take advantage of a new world of data types – including alternative data and unstructured data.

The company’s technology also empowers them to enhance and refine existing data, enabling them to offer granular, micro-data services. This, as TickSmith Head of Product Nicolas Doyen, explained in a recent blog post, is allowing data providers to “(offer) more control to the ultimate consumers of their information services.” He added that this “modern approach to the data buying process” not only gives more control to the end-user, but also can help reduce the costs of data by “circumventing the data packaging approach used by traditional data suppliers.”

TickSmith ended 2021 with a collaboration with international cryptocurrency and digital asset technology company BlockFills. Earlier this month, TickSmith announced that IPOhub will use TickSmith’s Data Web Store platform to distribute and securely commercialize SME data from more than 3,000 companies and more than 100 different sources. A pan European investment information platform headquartered in Estonia and founded in 2017, IPOhub is also collaborating with TickSmith and market data specialist EOSE to help take IPOhub data on growth company IPOs to market.

“TickSmith’s technology is making it easy for us to offer our customers a personalized e-commerce data shopping experience with our very own data web store that showcases IPO and European SME data,” IPOhub CEO Silver Laus explained. “Their platform provides an end-to-end data monetization experience and helps us open up an entirely new channel to deliver data to our customers in just a few clicks.”

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HackerOne Scores $49 Million Investment to Advance Ethical Hacking as a Security Strategy

HackerOne Scores $49 Million Investment to Advance Ethical Hacking as a Security Strategy
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, HackerOne

“White Hat” hacker-based security platform HackerOne – which demonstrated its bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure platform at our developers conference FinDEVr in London in 2017 – has secured $49 million in Series E funding. The round was led by GP Bullhound, and gives the San Francisco, California-based firm nearly $160 million in total funding. Benchmark, NEA, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Valor Equity Partners also participated in the investment. HackerOne will use the capital to support research and development and expand go-to-market operations.

“As attack surfaces grow, so does the gap between what digital assets organizations own and what they can protect,” HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos said. “HackerOne is closing that gap and keeping its customers out of harm’s way in a way that no other mechanism can accomplish.”

Mickos noted that HackerOne has identified more than 17,000 high or critical vulnerabilities for its customers over the past 12 months. He underscored 2021 as an especially challenging year, with the firm’s customers announcing a 97% increase in reports for misconfigurations. Additionally, Mickos said that a growing number of institutions are choosing ethical hackers – such as those provided by HackerOne – to defend their digital attack surfaces and help reveal potential vulnerabilities. Specifically, HackerOne has experienced increased adoption of its HackerOne Assessments, Application Pentest for AWS, which was launched in August, and expanded its Internet Bug Bounty program to include vulnerability management in the open source software supply chain.

HackerOne ended 2021 with the appointment of Chris Evans as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Evans brings years of digital security experience from tenures at Oracle Corporation, Tesla, and Google – where he founded the Google Chrome security team and Google Project Zero security research team – as well as Dropbox, where he was Head of Security.

“All software has security vulnerabilities,” Evans said in a statement. “The only way to outpace the cybercriminals is to enlist the help of external security researchers. Across every industry, we’re seeing the most innovative companies and CISOs embrace ethnical hackers to reduce risk.”

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Wealthfront Agrees to Acquisition by UBS

Wealthfront Agrees to Acquisition by UBS
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Acquisition, Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Wealthfront

In one of the first big fintech acquisitions of the year, Wealthfront has agreed to be acquired by global investment bank and financial services company UBS. Valued at $1.4 billion, the all-cash deal represents a premium of at least 2x on Wealthfront’s most recent private market valuations, and underscores UBS’s determination to attract younger, high net worth American investors.

In a blog post at the Wealthfront website, company CEO David Fortunato called the acquisition a “strategic partnership” that will enable Wealthfront to offer new services and give its customers access to “UBS’s industry-leading investing insights and research.” Fortunato praised UBS’s new CEO Ralph Hamers, who was appointed to the top spot in the fall of 2020, as a “digital native” who has put the digitization of the Swiss-based multinational firm at the top of his agenda. Fortunato noted that Wealthfront will continue to operate as a standalone business under its own brand after the acquisition.

“Rest assured that nothing will change with your account or the cost of our service,” Fortunato wrote to the company’s customers. “We will continue delivering great products and features to you, now at a much faster pace. And you’ll get access to even more research and insights that can empower you as an investor.”

Founded in 2008 – and making its Finovate debut as kaChing a year later – Wealthfront has grown into a leading online automated investing platform with $27 billion under management and more than 470,000 clients in the U.S. Earlier this month, the company announced a trio of updates to its Smart Beta service, a feature of the company’s U.S. Direct Indexing offering that helps investors optimize their allocations to individual stocks. Last fall, Wealthfront unveiled its Socially Responsible Portfolio, which leverages Modern Portfolio Theory to give investors the ability to put their money where their values are while still earning returns comparable to those available in its Classic Portfolio.

“Adding Wealthfront’s capabilities and client base to our global investment ecosystem will significantly boost our ability to grow our business in the U.S.” UBS’s Hamers said in a statement. “Wealthfront compliments our core business in the U.S. providing wealth management to high net worth and ultra high net worth investors through trusted relationships with financial advisors, and will enhance our long-term ambition to deliver a scalable, digital-led wealth management solution to affluent investors.”

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H&R Block Unveils Mobile Banking Platform Spruce Designed to Serve Low-to-Moderate Income Americans

H&R Block Unveils Mobile Banking Platform Spruce Designed to Serve Low-to-Moderate Income Americans
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, HR Block

These days, who doesn’t want to be a bank? In recent months and years, we’ve seen industries from Big Tech to Big Retail offer a broader array of banking services. And now the trend has come to “Big Tax.”

H&R Block, which abandoned its banking charter seven years ago, is back in the banking business with a mobile banking platform called Spruce. The company’s new offering is designed to serve the needs of the millions of Americans who are struggling to better manage their spending, saving, and planning for the future. Spruce features a spending account and debit card, as well as a connected savings account that supports budgeting for specific goals.

“Spruce is a financial technology platform that combines the best features of leading neo-banks with H&R Block’s trusted brand, our 66-year history, and the insights we’ve gained from helping millions of customers every year,” H&R Block President and CEO Jeff Jones said. “Our front row seat on American life provides a unique understanding of how to help people get better with money, and we’ve applied those learnings to Spruce.”

In addition to helping users set and meet personalized savings goals, Spruce offers cash back rewards when customers use their Spruce debit cards to shop at qualifying merchants, and a fee-free environment with no monthly fees, no sign-up fees, and no minimum balance requirements. Spruce customers also have access to more than 55,000 ATMs around the country – also fee-free. Additional features include an early paycheck service, credit score monitoring, and overdraft protection. And, unsurprisingly given the business of its parent company, Spruce will also make it easy for users to apply part of their tax refund toward their savings goals.

Spruce’s savings and spending accounts are established at MetaBank, which also issues the Spruce debit card. The new banking services platform joins H&R Block’s other non-tax financial services solutions including its Emerald Prepaid Mastercard program, and its business bank account, payments, and bookkeeping solution Wave Money. Wave Money is a product of software solution provider Wave Financial, which was acquired by H&R Block in 2019.

“We believe in a future with equitable access to easy and affordable banking,” H&R Block Chief Financial Services Officer Les Whiting said. “Our customers already trust us with their most personal financial details when we help them file their taxes, and we created the Spruce solution to help address their unmet banking needs, too.”

The Spruce mobile app can be downloaded from the Apple Store and at Google Play. Users can open accounts via the app or at sprucemoney.com.

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