CPI Card Group Teams Up with Rippleshot for Fraud Prevention

CPI Card Group Teams Up with Rippleshot for Fraud Prevention
  • Fraud prevention company Rippleshot has forged a strategic alliance with paytech CPI Card Group.
  • CPI Card Group will leverage Rippleshot’s AI, machine learning automation, and predictive analytics to prevent credit and debit card fraud.
  • Chicago-based Rippleshot made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014 and returned later that year to demo its technology at FinovateFall.

A strategic alliance between payment technology company CPI Card Group and fraud prevention specialist Rippleshot will help the paytech proactively defend itself against card fraud.

Headquartered in Littleton, Colorado, CPI Card Group offers a range of credit, debit, and prepaid solutions, as well as complimentary digital solutions and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) instant issuance. The company’s partnership with Rippleshot will enable its customers to take advantage of the fraud prevention firm’s technology that leverages AI, machine learning automation, and predictive analytics to identify and stop credit and debit card fraud.

“Our partnership with CPI furthers our commitment to collaborating and helping financial institutions better protect their revenue and their account holders,” Rippleshot Co-Founder and CEO Canh Tran said. “Keeping up with evolving fraud trends is complex, labor intensive, and impossible to tackle alone. We’re excited to team up with CPI and their partners to help financial institutions proactively transform fraud prevention with a data-driven fraud management approach.”

Rippleshot’s fraud analytics platform spots fraud patterns and creates intelligence and rules to proactively identify emerging fraud risks and stop fraud incidents before they take place. With the backing of an expansive data consortium of 5,000+ financial institutions, the platform also enables banks and financial institutions to block merchants deemed “high risk” and limit the potential damage from major data breaches.

Rippleshot clients using the platform on a consistent basis have experienced a decrease in fraud activity of up to 35% a year. These clients have also identified 10x more compromised incidents compared to average network alerts. Thanks to Rippleshot’s risk score-based reissuance strategies, the fraud prevention process does not create additional friction for the client; institutions report 5x less disruption to customers’ transactions with Rippleshot’s technology.

“Rippleshot is a technology-forward solutions provider with a human-centric approach to decreasing fraud,” CPI Card Group VP of Business Development and Digital Solutions, Rob Dixon, said. “Through this partnership, our customers will be able to reduce costs associated with fraud loss, chargebacks, and manual monitoring while increasing profits and retaining top-of-wallet status with their cardholders.”

Founded in 1982 as Colorado Plasticard, CPI Card Group today is the largest manufacturer of credit, debit, and prepaid cards. The company went public in 2015, trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker PMTS, and has a market capitalization of $303 million. CPI Card Group began the year with the appointment of its new President and CEO John Lowe.

Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and founded in 2012, Rippleshot made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014. The company returned later that year to demo its fraud prevention technology at FinovateFall in New York.


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Visa and Revolut to Offer Real Time Cross-Border Transactions

Visa and Revolut to Offer Real Time Cross-Border Transactions

Financial services giant Visa and Revolut have teamed up to offer real-time cross-border transactions for Revolut’s business customers.

Specifically, Visa’s Visa Direct will enable Revolut’s business customers to initiate instant card transfers. Visa launched Visa Direct in 2011 to serve as a real-time payments platform that enables both retail and commercial customers to send money across the globe to cards, bank accounts, and other end points. Customers can use Visa Direct to send person-to-person payments, business payouts, and cross-border remittances.

“We’re delighted that Visa Direct’s global reach, security, and reliability will enable Revolut’s business customers to move money worldwide with speed and confidence,” said Visa Senior Vice President, Global Clients Mark Jamison. “This step deepens our collaboration with Revolut to continue their impressive track record of growth and product differentiation.”

By leveraging Visa Direct, Revolut can now allow its commercial clients to send money across international borders in real time. With only their card number, business customers can send funds to payees in 78+ countries and in more than 50 currencies in 30 minutes or less.

“We’re excited to launch Instant Card Transfers in the U.K. and E.E.A., providing businesses with a simple, instant, and secure way to pay employees, contractors, and customers globally by supporting major card schemes,” said Revolut Business General Manager James Gibson.

Originally founded in 2015, Revolut launched its Revolut Business product in July 2017. Today, the commercial banking platform offers businesses a range of financial tools and solutions, including multi-currency accounts, payment processing, treasury management, and expense management aimed at helping businesses manage their finances more efficiently on a global scale.

U.K.-based Revolut has had a summer full of milestones. In July, the fintech earned its banking license from the U.K. Prudential Regulation Authority after first applying for the license in 2021. Then, earlier this month, Revolut signed agreements with investors to provide liquidity to its employees through a secondary share sale that valued the company at $45 billion.


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HDFC Bank Turns to Zeta to Power its Credit Line on UPI Offerings

HDFC Bank Turns to Zeta to Power its Credit Line on UPI Offerings
  • Next-generation banking technology company Zeta has partnered with India’s HDFC Bank to power its Credit Line on UPI (CLOU) solutions.
  • The bank will leverage Zeta’s Digital Credit as a Service technology, which enables banks to manage a credit product from origination through processing without requiring multiple integrations.
  • Zeta won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at our all-digital fintech conference in 2020.

Banking technology provider Zeta has inked a partnership with India’s HDFC Bank to power its new Credit Line on UPI (CLOU) solutions. Announced by India’s National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) in 2023, the CLOU scheme will make it easier for individuals to access credit and help banks leverage the UPI ecosystem to reach a significantly wider audience. HDFC’s partnership with Zeta will enable the bank to use the CLOU scheme to launch a range of new credit products by connecting pre-approved credit lines to the UPI user base.

Zeta Co-Founder, Global CTO, and CEO APAC Ramki Gaddipati referred to CLOU as “a credit superhighway.” He added, “Our solution is architected to leverage its innovative capabilities across the entire credit distribution lifecycle spanning underwriting, origination, distribution, usage, repayments, collections, and more.” Gaddipati emphasized that Zeta’s solution was built to fit the new technology, saying it would deliver a “UPI-first, mobile-first, and cloud-native credit products ecosystem.”

HDFC’s CLOU offerings will be powered by Zeta’s Digital Credit as a Service (DCaaS) solution. Unveiled earlier this year in India, Zeta’s technology enables banks to manage a credit product from origination to processing–as well as rewards, customer services, and more–without having to integrate multiple software packages and services. DCaaS also provides specific product blueprints to streamline the development of different types of credit lines on UPI products.

The technology was developed as Zeta recognized that the growing popularity of UPI was putting a strain on core banking systems–and that this strain could impact credit lines on UPI, as well. The company believes that CLOU will become a $1 trillion opportunity for banks by 2030.

The CLOU announcement is only the latest achievement of the partnership between Zeta and HDFC Bank. This spring, the bank announced that its PayZapp mobile app–developed in partnership with Zeta–had won the Celent Model Bank Award 2024. The app notched more than seven million customers since its launch in March 2023, and is among the top-rated apps in the Finance section on Indian app stores.

“We are glad to develop the Credit Line on UPI offering with Zeta enabling our customers to enjoy the benefits of an affordability program combined with the ease of doing a UPI transaction,” HDFC Bank Sr. EVP Rajanish Prabhu said.

HDFC Bank offers a wide range of banking products and solutions, including consumer, commercial, private, and investment banking; investment, asset, and wealth management; insurance; credit cards; and more. As India’s leading private sector bank, the Mumbai-based institution is the 10th largest bank by market capitalization ($145 billion), and the 16th largest employer in India.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Zeta won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at our all-digital conference in 2020. The company returned the following year to demo its modern, cloud-native, omni stack banking platform at FinovateFall 2021. Zeta achieved unicorn status that year courtesy of a $250 million round led by SoftBank.


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Themis and Sei Leverage AI to Enhance Marketing Compliance for Banks

Themis and Sei Leverage AI to Enhance Marketing Compliance for Banks
  • Governance, risk, and compliance platform Themis has partnered with regulatory compliance company Sei.
  • The partnership integrates Sei’s marketing compliance engine into Themis’ platform to enable financial institutions to maintain marketing compliance across all channels.
  • Themis won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. Neepa Patel is founder and CEO.

A partnership between regtech Themis and AI-powered regulatory compliance company Sei will provide financial institutions and fintechs with new tools to manage their marketing compliance operations. Integrating Sei’s marketing compliance engine into Themis’ platform will help institutions remain compliant across multiple marketing channels.

Sei’s technology leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to convert regulations into actionable code. This can be used by compliance and risk teams to automate a variety of complex tasks. The integration of Sei’s AI agents into Themis’ platform will enable companies to screen partner websites and social media, automate the review of marketing content before it is shared with the public, and identify potential compliance issues.

Financial institutions and fintechs will benefit from access to advanced AI models that detect compliance issues across text, image, audio, and video. Sei’s AI agents support multiple languages, and are enabled with contextual understanding to ensure that only the most relevant issues are flagged.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Themis, the leading GRC platform for banks and fintechs, to offer Sei’s Marketing Compliance AI agent,” Sei founder Pranay Shetty said. “Together, we aim to improve consumer protection and help companies navigate an increasingly complex regulatory environment.”

Backed by Y Combinator and PayPal, Sei offers AI agents that work with risk and compliance teams to boost their efficiency, impact, and ability to scale. Founded in 2023 by Ramkumar Venkataraman, the New York-based company serves customers across three continents with solutions for marketing, customer support, and communications compliance, and regulatory change management.

Headquartered in New York and founded in 2021 by CEO Neepa Patel, Themis made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. The company won Best of Show for its demo of its GRC solution that serves as a one-stop shop for compliance. In addition to managing internal compliance workflows, Themis’ GRC solution can also be used to help banks and other financial institutions accelerate their partnerships with fintechs by examining their compliance controls in real-time.


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InvoiceASAP Teams Up with Adyen to Offer Instant Payouts

InvoiceASAP Teams Up with Adyen to Offer Instant Payouts
  • InvoiceASAP has partnered with global payments platform Adyen to facilitate instant access to deposited funds.
  • The partnership combines InvoiceASAP’s Invoice to Pay solution with Adyen’s Instant Payouts and Cash Out functionality to enable businesses to better manage cash flow.
  • Oakland, California-based InvoiceASAP made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2013.

A partnership between invoicing and payments solutions provider InvoiceASAP and business payments platform Adyen will enable InvoiceASAP to offer its users instant access to deposited funds. This is a critical issue for InvoiceASAP’s small- and medium-sized business customers, who often require quick and ready access to capital to better manage their expenses.

“InvoiceASAP is building the most advanced Invoice-to-Pay solution,” company CEO Paul Hoeper said. “Adyen gives us access to the most advanced payment products and tools, including FedNow for Instant Deposits. We are fully focused on providing the fastest velocity of bank deposits for our over 23,000 merchants. By combining Adyen’s Instant Payouts and new Cash Out functionality, we can provide our users with unmatched velocity.”

InvoiceASAP will take advantage of Adyen’s global solution – Adyen for Platforms. The offering enables users to sign up, sell, and get paid through a single solution. The company will also leverage Adyen’s Cash Out feature to provide its users with instant access to pending funds, without having to wait multiple days.

“Our partnership with InvoiceASAP underscores Adyen’s commitment to continued innovation,” Adyen North America President Davi Strazza said. “Our FedNow certification allows for instantly-available deposits and cash advances, enabling InvoiceASAP users to better manage cash flow, scale operations, and invest in the tools they need to thrive.”

With customers ranging from Microsoft and Meta to Uber and H&M, Adyen provides end-to-end payments capabilities, data-driven insights, and financial products to businesses around the world. Headquartered in Amsterdam, Adyen processed more than €970 billion in payment volume in 2023. This month, in addition to its partnership with InvoiceASAP, Adyen announced a collaboration with PayPal to offer its Fastlane product on the Adyen platform. Also in August, Adyen reported that it has extended its partnership with BMW and expanded its operations in India. The publicly traded firm has a market capitalization of $45 billion.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Oakland, California, InvoiceASAP made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2013. In the years since then, the company has grown into a major, fully-integrated mobile invoicing solution provider with more than 400,000 customers in 120+ countries. InvoiceASAP enables merchants to generate and pay invoices on the go using either a smartphone or a tablet. The company’s technology connects with major accounting platforms, including QuickBooks and Xero, to ensure compatibility with the merchant’s accounting software.


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LenderLogix Integrates with Truv to Enhance the Borrower Applicant Verification Process

LenderLogix Integrates with Truv to Enhance the Borrower Applicant Verification Process
  • Consumer-permissioned data platform Truv announced an integration with mortgage point-of-sale (POS) and automation software provider LenderLogix.
  • The integration will enable mortgage lenders to more easily verify income and employment data from mortgage applicants.
  • Truv was founded in 2020 and made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022.

Making it easier for lenders to access the data they need in order to provide credit to worthy borrowers is one of the key promises of open finance. A new integration between consumer-permissioned data platform Truv and mortgage point-of-sale (POS) software provider LenderLogix will leverage open finance to enable lenders to more easily and accurately verify income and employment information from mortgage applicants. The integration will enable mortgage lenders to access Truv’s platform via LenderLogix’s point-of-sale system LiteSpeed to secure direct-to-source income and employment verification.

“With the integration of Truv’s verification capabilities and LiteSpeed, lenders can now enjoy a streamlined workflow that reduces administrative tasks and frees up resources for improved customer service,” LenderLogix Co-Founder and CEO Patrick O’Brien said. “This powerful combination eliminates the need for third-party verification services, leading to significant cost savings and lower overall loan processing expenses. Additionally, the automation speeds up loan approvals, allowing lenders to close loans faster and optimize their operational throughput.”

Lenders will benefit from Truv’s coverage of 96% of the U.S. workforce and the immediate access to data through LenderLogix’s LiteSpeed. This will accelerate the mortgage application process by removing manual document collection and by being able to access more data-rich, complete loan files at the point of application. For borrowers, the partnership will provide an application process that is faster and more straightforward, with fewer touchpoints.

“Our integration with LenderLogix marks a significant advancement in our mission to revolutionize the mortgage origination process,” Truv CEO Kirill Klokov said. “By combining our strengths, we are providing mortgage lenders with the tools they need to deliver exceptional service to their clients while improving operational efficiency.”

Founded in 2020, Truv made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demonstrated its income and employment verification and direct deposit switch technology. The company’s income and employment verification solution delivers verified identity, income, and employment data points within 60 seconds. Truv credits its direct deposit switch solution for enabling institutions to increase direct deposits by up to 65%.

This spring, Truv teamed up with digital mortgage automation solutions provider Floify and with point-of-sale (POS) mortgage lending platform – and fellow Finovate alum – BeSmartee. Truv has raised more than $28 million in funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins and NYCA.

Are you an innovative fintech with new technology that’s ready for prime time? Join us in New York next month for FinovateFall and take advantage of the opportunity to showcase your solution before an audience of 2,000+ decision-makers.


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PayQuicker Teams Up with Thunes to Boost e-Wallet Payout Capabilities

PayQuicker Teams Up with Thunes to Boost e-Wallet Payout Capabilities

International payouts orchestration company, PayQuicker, has forged a partnership with cross-border payment infrastructure firm Thunes to expand its e-Wallet payout capabilities around the world.

The integration is designed to better serve the growing demand for diverse and flexible payout methods. This demand is especially acute in emerging markets, where access to traditional banking is limited and tools like e-Wallets play a major role in helping individuals manage finances and make payments. McKinsey estimates that up to 60% of those in emerging markets prefer to use e-Wallets instead of traditional banks.

Integrating enhanced e-Wallet capabilities into its global payouts solutions mix will help PayQuicker fulfill its objective of providing faster, easier payouts around the world. The company said that it will offer access to more than 120 e-Wallets in key emerging markets, courtesy of the new partnership. Among the e-Wallets that will be accessible are popular e-Wallets such as the Philippines’ GCash, China’s Alipay, and both Orange Money and M-Pesa of Africa.

“Digital wallets are transforming the way people manage their finances, especially in regions where traditional banking infrastructure is lacking,” PayQuicker CEO Paul Beldham said. “By teaming up with Thunes, we’re further enabling millions of people around the world to receive their funds faster and more securely, providing the flexibility of a bank alternative. This not only empowers individuals to better manage their day-to-day finances but also supports the economic growth of emerging markets by facilitating more reliable transactions.”

Headquartered in Rochester, New York, PayQuicker made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demoed its Payouts OS solution, which packages the company’s payments technology into a payouts payment orchestration platform that intelligently determines and facilitates the fastest, most cost-effective payouts across 200+ countries in 40+ currencies.

Thunes was formed in 2019 when Finovate alum TransferTo rebranded as two separate businesses: one, Thunes, focusing on cross-border payments and the other, DT One, focusing on mobile top-up and rewards. Earlier this month, Thunes announced a partnership with Alipay+ to enable merchants in Paris to accept payments from 15 international e-Wallets and mobile partnerships. In July, Thunes added cross-border payment service provider LianLian Global to its global network.


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Gridspace Unveils Emotional Intelligence Capabilities for Virtual Voice Agent Grace

Gridspace Unveils Emotional Intelligence Capabilities for Virtual Voice Agent Grace
  • Conversational AI technology company Gridspace announced new emotional intelligence capabilities for its virtual voice agent Grace.
  • The update enables Grace to respond more swiftly and empathetically, and enhances the agent’s ability to express its own emotional states.
  • Gridspace made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.

Voice technology and AI software innovator Gridspace unveiled new emotional intelligence capabilities for its virtual voice agent Grace. The new capabilities enable Gridspace’s voice agent for business to respond faster and more empathetically to the speaker’s emotions. The enhancements also improve Grace’s ability to express its emotional states.

“Grace’s new emotional intelligence capabilities make voice calls with Grace even more natural,” Gridspace CEO Evan Macmillan said. “We are excited to further advance customer satisfaction with voice agents and make it even easier for businesses to deploy them.”

Bringing emotional intelligence capabilities to voice agents is a major advance in spoken dialog systems, according to Gridspace. Because so many contact center interactions involve customers experiencing frustration, being able to respond appropriately is paramount. Grace’s enhancements will enable the voice agent to manage more complex interactions with greater nuance, and also act as a buffer for high-volume contact centers. To this point, human agents working with Grace have reported not only being able to spend more time on complex calls, but also are experiencing less stress, lower burnout rates, greater productivity, and higher job satisfaction.

Founded in 2012, Gridspace made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. The California-based company was created through a collaboration between SRI Speech Labs – the entity behind Siri – and a diverse team of designers and engineers. Gridspace has been innovating in fields such as high-performance voice telephony, automated speech recognition (ASR), hyper-realistic TTS (text-to-speech), low-latency spoken dialog systems, as well as tools and solutions to help institutions deploy and manage conversational AI.

Gridspace has raised more than $27 million in funding and includes Private Investors and USAA among its investors.


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SigFig Brings AI to its Financial Advisor Collaboration Platform Engage

SigFig Brings AI to its Financial Advisor Collaboration Platform Engage
  • Wealth management solutions and technology company SigFig has added a number of new capabilities to its financial advisor collaboration platform, Engage.
  • The new capabilities include a range of AI-powered tools and solutions to enhance client engagement and boost efficiency for advisors and their teams.
  • San Francisco-based SigFig has been a Finovate alum since its FinovateFall debut in 2011.

Digital wealth management solutions and technology provider SigFig announced a range of new capabilities for its financial advisor collaboration platform, Engage. These new capabilities include AI-powered tools and solutions that boost the effectiveness of advisors and their teams. SigFig also has added enhanced core integrations with leading industry systems to promote greater efficiency. Together, the new functionalities enhance the digital experiences available via the platform and deepen client engagement.

“AI has the ability to dramatically increase financial advisor productivity and effectiveness,” SigFig founder and CEO Mike Sha said. “We know that advisors need to be able to focus on fostering impactful relationships with their clients, truly understanding their pain points and goals. Engage acts as a hub to drive richer, more personalized client experiences, taking care of those time-consuming, but necessary, administrative tasks, so advisors can do exactly that.”

The new AI capabilities include AI-powered smart tips, including in-meeting prompts and customized recommendations based on real-time conversation analysis. Engage will now also feature proactive surfacing of the right content, tools, paperwork, and workflows, all based on an analysis of real-time discussions. Other new AI-driven additions include automated transcripts, meeting summaries, and post-meeting notes.

Streamlining integration with systems from Salesforce, Docusign, Microsoft, and Google is another major platform enhancement announced by the company late last week. The CRM integration, for example, creates a bi-directional data synch that enables advisors to view client data on the Engage platform as well as sync meeting notes, client details, meetings, and other tasks into Salesforce. This not only helps advisors provide more personalized advice, but also helps advisors accelerate the sales process as well as client conversions.

SigFig made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2011. In the years since then, the company has grown into a comprehensive digital wealth solutions business with nearly 1.5 million customers and 6,000+ advisors on its platform. The firm, founded in 2006 and headquartered in San Francisco, counts financial institutions such as UBS, Wells Fargo, and Scotiabank among its partners.

Are you an innovative fintech with new technology that’s ready for prime time? Join us in New York next month for FinovateFall and take advantage of the opportunity to showcase your solution before an audience of 2,000+ decision-makers.


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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Finovate’s Fintech Rundown is here with a look at some of the top fintech headlines. From startups emerging from stealth flush with capital to the launch of new AI-powered fraud fighting technologies, we’ve got you covered. Be sure to check back all week long for the latest updates.


E-commerce

E-commerce payments solution provider Klarna acquires New Zealand’s Laybuy.

Regtech

Risk and compliance company Unit21 introduces new anti-fraud technology for ACH transactions.

Payments

Uruguay-based cross-border payment platform dLocal forges strategic partnership with Uphold’s onramp service, Topper.

PayPal integrates with payroll provider UKG to offer early wage access.

Payments company D24 forges a strategic partnership with payments orchestration platform Yuno.

Nigeria-based B2B payments and liquidity platform for emerging markets businesses Waza emerges from stealth with $8 million in funding.

Identity management

Biometric authentication solutions company IDEX Biometrics names Catharina Eklof as its new CEO.

Crypto / DeFi

Romania-based AI and blockchain technology provider Humans.ai acquires TensorChain creator Starfish Technologies.

German neobank N26 expands its cryptocurrency trading product, N26 Crypto, to five new European nations: Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and Switzerland.

Worldwide Stablecoin Payment Network (WSPN) raises $30 million in seed funding.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) risk management platform Chaos Labs secures $55 million in Series A funding.

Stablecoin-to-fiat money transfer app Sling Money locks in $15 million in funding.

Lending

ABN AMRO forges partnership with nCino to enhance its corporate lending operations.

Embedded finance fintech Amount secures $30 million to fuel its expansion into the credit union industry.

Digital banking

Challenger bank Starling Bank launches its first savings account offering 3.25% interest.

Wealth management

Cloud-based wealth management solution provider FusionIQ partners with wealthtech provider interVal to deliver new technology solutions to financial advisors.

Open banking

Open banking payments company Trustly announces strategic partnership with food delivery service company foodora.

Financial literacy

Northern Trust teams up with Greenlight Financial Technology to give its clients access to Greenlight’s finance app and debit card.

Embedded finance

Regtech Kobalt Labs joins the Treasury Prime Partner Marketplace.

Three Finovate alums – ASA Financial, Eko Investments, and upSWOTearn finalist spots in the 2024 NXTSTAGE Financial Technology Pilot Competition.

Accounting and taxes

Automated accounting and tax solution for “solopreneurs,” Lettuce, raises $15 million in Series A funding.

Fraud and financial crime prevention

Digital identity and fraud prevention innovator Mitek Systems expands its partnership with Alogent.


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3 Ways Fintechs are Helping Financial Institutions Fight Fraud

3 Ways Fintechs are Helping Financial Institutions Fight Fraud

The battle against fraud is a never-ending one. And recent fintech news headlines have helped remind us all of how broad the frontlines are. From the challenge of AI-powered deepfakes to the sad fact that many of our own bad habits continue to keep fraudsters in business, fintechs are busy developing solutions to help us get and stay at least one step ahead of the bad guys. Here are a trio of stories highlighting the latest efforts by fintechs to combat financial crime.


Digital identity verification innovator Socure has unveiled its Selfie Reverification solution. The new capability provides a way to validate return consumers online in less than two seconds with just a selfie. The technology matches incoming selfies with previously verified ID headshots, and features a true match rate of 99.9%. Built on the company’s Document Verification (DocV) solution, Selfie Reverification also detects signs of deepfaking, and readily identifies age discrepancies between the photo and the credential.

“Identity verification isn’t a one-time event. As consumers interact with an online service over time, their risk profile can change. That’s why it’s important to determine you are still who you say you are, without going through the full verification process again,” explained Socure Chief Product and Analytics Officer Pablo Abreu.

Selfie Reverification prompts the user to take a selfie, and sends real-time feedback on positioning, angle, and lighting. Once taken, the selfie undergoes a Level 2 NIST PAD compliant liveness check to prevent spoofing, as well as Socure’s injection attack detection process which makes sure that a fraudster has not injected a false or altered credential into the session. Lastly, the selfie is compared against a set of hundreds of thousands of curated deepfake samples created by more than 20 different AI generators.

The technology leverages biometric analytics to evaluate more than 80 facial features, from eye distance and nose width to jawline contours and emotional expression, to create a facial map and ensure an accurate match. Use cases for Selfie Reverification include preventing account takeover, securing high-risk transactions, streamlining account recovery and re-verification/re-validation, and more.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Incline Village, Nevada, Socure most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall 2017. Today, the company has more than 2,500 customers, including four of the top five banks, the top credit bureau, and 400+ fintechs. Businesses ranging from Capital One and SoFi to DraftKings and the State of California rely on Socure’s technology for accurate identity verification and fraud prevention. Johnny Ayers is Socure’s founder and CEO.


Digital banking solution provider Alkami has added credential stuffing protection to the challenge-response authentication process for its digital banking platform. The new functionality automatically checks for human behavior in the background, but does not require visual puzzles or any additional time spent by the user.

“This enhancement in Alkami’s platform has given us the ability to provide an additional layer of security for our account holders,” Quontic Bank SVP of Digital Banking Grace Pace said. “The secure and seamless login experience has contributed to reducing potential fraudulent activities, offering our customers greater peace of mind without added complexity.”

Credential stuffing refers to a type of cyberattack in which a hacker uses credentials obtained through data breaches or purchased from the dark web in order to attempt to access another service. A typical case of credential stuffing, for example, could involve a hacker using the credentials from a breach at a retail store to attempt to log into a bank’s website.

Credential stuffing is a common attack in part because it takes advantage of the tendency of individuals to reuse usernames and passwords. But its commonality takes nothing away from the damage these attacks do. One estimate determined that credential stuffing costs businesses $6 million a year on average, to say nothing of the negative reputational impact that often accompanies it.

The addition of credential stuffing protection is the latest example of Alkami’s layered approach to fraud detection and prevention in digital banking. “Alkami continues to evolve its platform as the security threats change for our customers, and we’re proud to integrate credential stuffing as part of our standard solution for everyone,” Alkami Director of Product Management Brad Cranford said. “Our goal is to help our customers manage security while providing the best experiences for their account holders.”

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Alkami made its Finovate debut in 2009 as “IThryv.” Alex Shootman is CEO.


Data and technology company Experian is adding behavioral analytics to its fraud detection capabilities courtesy of a newly announced acquisition of NeuroID.

More specifically, Experian is looking to bolster its defenses against AI-generated fraud threats. With their ability to apply fraud detection strategies to key vulnerabilities such as origination and account management, insights from behavioral analytics can help mitigate fraud in real time and defend users against a range of malevolent actions including identity theft, account takeover, bot attacks, and fraud rings.

“Our acquisition of NeuroID highlights our commitment to provide our clients with world-class data, analytics, and insights to prevent fraud,” said President of Experian’s North American Identity & Fraud business, Robert Boxberger. “Together with NeuroID, we’re excited to build new blended offerings that detect risk but also empower businesses to confidently navigate the online landscape and trust in their transactions.” He added, “In today’s highly competitive and digital-first world, the use of behavioral analytics is now vital for innovating for the future of fighting fraud.”

NeuroID’s solutions are now available via CrossCore on the Experian Ascend Technology platform. The integration will enable platform users to use a single service provider to monitor and analyze real-time digital activity.

“NeuroID unlocks a new view into a user’s riskiness based on behavioral interactions,” NeuroID CEO Jack Alton said. “This view arms companies with a proactive, first line of defense to detect sophisticated fraud rings and bot attacks. By joining forces with Experian, we’re looking forward to helping companies confidently navigate this new era with solutions that enable more secure and frictionless experiences.”

A Finovate alum since 2011, Experian most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall in New York in 2018. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, the company employs more than 22,000 people, including more than 9,000 technologists and product developers, working in 32 countries.

Are you an innovative fintech with new technology that’s ready for prime time? Join us in New York next month for FinovateFall and take advantage of the opportunity to showcase your solution before an audience of 2,000+ decision-makers.


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Lucinity and Knights Analytics Leverage AI to Enhance Financial Crime Compliance

Lucinity and Knights Analytics Leverage AI to Enhance Financial Crime Compliance
  • Financial crime compliance platform Lucinity announced a strategic partnership with AI data management company Knights Analytics.
  • The partnership will bring advanced AI-powered data management capabilities to bear to fight financial crime.
  • Lucinity made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2023 in San Francisco.

Lucinity has forged a strategic partnership with Knights Analytics, bringing advanced AI data management capabilities to its financial crime compliance platform.

The integration will enable Lucinity customers to consolidate, standardize, and reconcile their data within Lucinity’s unified Case Management system. The strategic partnership will also introduce additional ways to deploy Generative AI capabilities, including entity resolution, network analysis, and automated data extraction from documents. Users can also engage with their data via Lucinity’s AI copilot Luci, which offers actionable insights that are both intuitive and fully explainable.

“We are thrilled to simplify the ability to integrate more data within Lucinity’s platform,” Knights Analytics CEO Alex Ridden said. “Combining our data matching and entity resolution solutions with Lucinity ensures financial institutions make the most of their data. Financial institutions these days are sitting on a wealth of information that they don’t utilize effectively.”

Knights Analytics helps companies extract insights from large and siloed datasets. The firm specializes in combining graph analytics and AI, transforming structured and unstructured data into a high-quality, unified data layer. Leveraging innovations in data linkage and entity resolution technologies, Knights Analytics enables businesses to build a solid data foundation from which they can accelerate business processes and derive actionable insights.

“Partnering with Knights Analytics will take the Luci AI copilot to the next level by enhancing data accuracy, reducing manual analysis, and increasing the reliability of financial crime investigations through advanced data linkage and profile analysis,” Lucinity CEO Guðmundur Kristjánsson said. “This integration will unlock new use cases like on-demand entity resolution, enabling AI-driven automations and insights to streamline case investigations.”

Lucinity made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateSpring 2023. At the conference, the Reykjavik, Iceland-based company demonstrated its AI-powered copilot, Luci. Luci can conduct internet searches, background checks, fraud detection, sanctions screening, and more. This ability to manage and streamline tedious and time-consuming tasks enables compliance professionals to focus their decision-making on more complex issues.

Lucinity was founded in 2018. The company has raised more than $25 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Keen Venture Partners and Experian are among the firm’s investors. Last month, Lucinity won the 2024 ICA Award for Innovation in Financial Crime Prevention for its Luci copilot. The company has also received accolades in recent months from Chartis Research and Microsoft, which named Lucinity one of its partners of the year for both its technological innovation and its commitment to “significant social impact and growth.”

Read our profile of Lucinity from earlier this year.


Photo by Vlada Karpovich