Alumni News

Eltropy Acquires Collections Technology Provider Lexop

Eltropy Acquires Collections Technology Provider Lexop
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Eltropy, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Eltropy has acquired collections technology provider Lexop for an undisclosed amount.
  • Eltropy will integrate its AI-powered communication solution with Lexop’s compassionate debt resolution technology to help community financial institutions streamline collections, reduce delinquencies, and improve borrower experiences.
  • The combination of Lexop’s self-service payment portal and Eltropy’s communication platform will allow borrowers to easily make payments while enabling lenders to recover debts faster.

Unified conversations platform Eltropy unveiled yesterday that it has acquired collections technology provider Lexop. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Eltropy envisions that by combining Lexop’s collections technology with its own AI-powered communications platform, it can help to modernize debt repayment and collections processes. Ultimately, bringing the two technologies together will help community financial institutions (CFIs) reduce and prevent delinquencies, collect faster, and enhance the user experience for borrowers.

“The world needs a better way for people to pay their debt obligations. Today’s phone-call-driven experiences are extremely inconvenient for the borrower, making it difficult for CFIs to collect debt payments on time,” said Eltropy CEO and Co-Founder Ashish Garg. “By combining Lexop’s people-first collections technology with our AI-driven communications platform, we’re delivering an offering that increases effectiveness with empathy.”

Canada-based Lexop was founded in 2016 to offer a compassionate debt resolution platform for credit unions. The technology automates text, email, and voice payment reminders that meet members in their preferred digital channels. With the collections platform, lenders can allow their members to make payments through a self-service payment portal that is integrated into the lender’s existing website and available 24/7. Eltropy will leverage this self-serve solution to allow its CFI clients to easily make payments with two clicks, helping to prevent avoidable delinquency.

“We built Lexop to create a better past-due member experience,” said Lexop CEO and Co-founder Amir Tajkarimi. “By joining Eltropy, we are reinventing loan repayment and collections, helping credit unions and community banks improve recovery rates while preserving relationships with their members. We have been watching Eltropy take the CFI world by storm and could not be more excited to join hands.”

Today’s deal marks Eltropy’s third acquisition after purchasing POPi/o and Marsview.ai in 2022. Logistically, Eltropy will continue to operate out of its headquarters in Santa Clara, California and Lexop will continue its operations in its headquarters location of Montreal, Quebec.

Eltropy serves over 650 credit unions and community banks in North America with communications solutions that aim to help firms mitigate fraud, grow deposits, facilitate payment reminders, streamline mergers and acquisitions, and more. Since launching in 2013, Eltropy has helped power more than 200 million conversations. The company demoed Eltropy One, its all-in-one omni-channel communication solution, at FinovateFall 2022.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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Axway to Bring Open Banking to Regions Bank

Axway to Bring Open Banking to Regions Bank
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Axway
  • Regions Bank has selected Axway to implement open banking.
  • Regions will use Axway’s Amplify Open Banking solution to enable secure, API-based data sharing for its consumer, corporate, and wealth management clients.
  • With the CFPB’s 1033 rule on the horizon, Regions is getting a head start on compliance, emphasizing customer education and consent management.

Enterprise data integration company Axway announced it is sharing its “open everything” mentality with Regions Bank. The Alabama-based bank has selected Axway to bring open banking capabilities to Regions’ consumer banking, corporate banking, and wealth management customers.

Regions will be using Axway’s Amplify Open Banking solution. Built on Amplify’s API Management Platform, the Amplify Open Banking solution helps firms simplify compliance and integration with its low-code/no-code capabilities that speed up time to deployment.

When the implementation is finalized, Regions will allow its corporate banking clients to leverage Amplify’s Marketplace feature to connect their Regions financial data via APIs. Additionally, the bank’s consumer banking and wealth management clients will be able to select which third parties they’d like to share their financial data with in a process that will remove the need for third-party platforms to save their banking credentials on their own systems. Ultimately, Regions will benefit from a more secure connection between the customer’s bank account and third party platforms.

“At Regions, our focus is on serving customers when and where they want,” said Regions Bank Emerging and Digital Payments Group Manager Tim Mills. “As customers continue to grant access to their financial data to third party applications, this new solution will help capture customer consent, remove the need for credential sharing to third parties, and provide another layer of security to protect customer data. Open banking is the future, and we are pleased to work with Axway to make banking easy for customers who turn to Regions time and again for their banking needs.”

Open banking has become a hot topic in the U.S., now that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has formally issued its 1033 rule that will mandate banks to participate in open banking. Partnering with Axway will offer Regions a head start on the bank’s required adoption date of April 1, 2027. Select smaller firms have until 2030 to comply.

Through Amplify, which is projected to launch in the coming years, Regions customers will receive a one-time prompt from the third-party platforms they use that will reenter information on their accounts.

“We are excited to extend our work with Regions to help provide secure, standardized access to data,” said Axway Vice President for Financial Services and Open Banking Tom Hogan. “This allows their customers to benefit more from the expanding ecosystem of next generation fintechs and third-party data providers.”

Regions also mentioned in today’s release that it will provide educational materials through multiple channels in order to inform customers on the launch. Given that one of the biggest hurdles in open banking adoption is consumer trust, Regions’ proactive approach to educating its customers and offering a consent management portal demonstrates that the bank understands this challenge. By empowering customers with tools to manage their data access, Regions is not only ensuring compliance but is also building the trust necessary for open banking to thrive.

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New Year, New Leadership as Curinos and Finastra Introduce New CEOs

New Year, New Leadership as Curinos and Finastra Introduce New CEOs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Curinos, Finastra
  • Two Finovate alums — Curinos and Finastra — are introducing new CEOs this week.
  • Data, technology, and insights provider for financial institutions Curinos has appointed Jeff Hack as CEO.
  • Financial services software application provider Finastra announced that Chris Walters will replace Simon Paris as CEO.

The new year is bringing new leadership to a pair of Finovate alums: Curinos and Finastra. Both firms introduced new Chief Executive Officers to start 2025.

Curinos, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2023, has appointed Jeff Hack as CEO and member of the company’s Board of Directors. Hack succeeds Craig Woodward, who has led Curinos since 2021. Hack was most recently CEO of software and integrated payments provider Paya and, before that, was Executive Vice President and a member of the Management Committee at First Data (now Fiserv).

“I am excited to be joining the talented team at Curinos,” Hack said in a statement. “Curinos offers market-leading solutions and world-class support to help drive the growth of our financial institution clients. We will build on our strong market position with further investments in technology and talent to provide even more value to our clients.”

Headquartered in New York, Curinos provides data, technologies, and insights to enable financial institutions to make better, faster, and more profitable, data-driven decisions. The company was formed in 2021 via the combination of Novantas and Informa’s FBX business. Today, Curinos is the chosen provider for more than 800 credit union and community banks across the U.S., 42 of the top 50 mortgage lenders, as well as Canada’s “Big Six” banks.

Hack takes the helm at Curinos in the wake of a year in which the company has partnered with Bankrate, earned a spot on the 2024 IDC FinTech Rankings, and entered into an agreement with Databricks Marketplace to make a subset of its data assets on deposits and lending rates available to Databricks Marketplace customers. Also in 2024, Curinos announced a collaboration with fellow Finovate alum FIS and introduced a new AI-powered creative management workflow capability for its Amplero Personalization Optimizer solution.

Financial services software applications provider Finastra has appointed Chris Walters as its new Chief Executive Officer. Walters will replace Simon Paris, who has served as Finastra CEO since 2018, a year after the company was formed.

“I’m excited to join Finastra at this pivotal moment in its journey and am impressed by the significant progress that has been made during Simon’s leadership,” Walters said. “I look forward to working with the talented team to drive sustainable growth and continue to deliver more value to our customers, team members, and investors.”

Finastra was formed via a merger between D+H and Finovate alum Misys in 2017. Walters comes to the company after serving as CEO of technology workforce development company Pluralsight and previously as CEO of Avantax (formerly Blucora Inc.), a tax-focused wealth management solution provider for financial professionals.

Walters has also served in leadership roles including Partner at McKinsey & Company and COO of Bloomberg Industry Verticals Group.

Serving more than 8,000 financial institutions — including 45 of the world’s top 50 banks — Finastra provides financial services software applications across capital markets, lending, payments, universal banking (including retail and digital), as well as treasury. A leader in Open Finance, Finastra has partnered in recent months with DXC Luxoft and RightClick to enhance delivery of managed services, with Vietnam’s Joint Stock Commercial bank (LPBank) to modernize treasury management operations, and with Sonali Bangladesh UK (SBUK) to provide digital banking — including enhanced Shariah-compliant services.

Photo by Anna Tarazevich

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Infinant Secures $15 Million in Series A Funding

Infinant Secures $15 Million in Series A Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Funding, Infinant

Digital banking solutions provider Infinant has raised $15 million in Series A funding. The round was led by FINTOP Capital and JAM FINTOP BankTech, and featured participation from Raido Capital Partners, Woodforest Financial Group, and Bankers Helping Bankers.

“Financial institutions are realizing significant and responsible growth by diversifying their deposit gathering and payment channels by decoupling from the core and distributing their products across new platforms,” Infinant CEO Riaz Syed said. “FINTOP’s and JAM FINTOP’s partnership is a strong market indicator of the solution fit for Infinant in the market and will allow us to continue to grow to meet the needs of financial institutions.”

Infinant offers Interlace: a cloud-based platform that empowers banks to launch and scale their digital and embedded banking solutions. Interlace gives banks and other financial institutions greater operational and regulatory control with a platform — owned by the bank — that allows them to launch their solutions independent of the core provider or a sidecar core. Infinant supports initiatives including launching digital banks in new markets, embedding financial products and services into business applications, delivering new solutions to small businesses and commercial partners through sub-accounting, and more.

John Philpott, FINTOP partner and member of JAM FINTOP Banktech’s investment committee, credited Infinant’s embrace of what he called “a dramatic shift in the market and the approach to embedded banking and banking-as-a-service.” Noting that this new growth opportunity comes with greater oversight requirements for banks, Philpott praised the company for “meeting this need to provide banks with a platform that allows them to scale their programs while aligning to the evolving regulatory landscape.”

Infinant will use the capital to expand its product offering which currently includes Infinant’s Interlace Console for customer and account management, Settlement Ops for ledger and reconciliation management, Payments Hub for centralized payments for ACH, wire, and FedNow, as well as the company’s Card Platform that provides card issuance and processing directly to Visa DPS.

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and founded in 2020, Infinant came to the attention of Finovate audiences courtesy of FinovateFall 2024. Since then, the company has forged partnerships with Missouri-based First Bank of the Lake and, most recently, with North Texas-based Legend Bank. Both financial institutions will deploy Infinant’s Interlace platform to enhance their growth strategies.

“Infinant’s deep experience in banking technology and their advanced platform tailored to bankers were key factors in our decision to select them as our partner,” Legend Bank Fintech Strategic Partnerships Lead John Michael Davis said. “The Interlace platform is flexible and adaptive to a wide variety of business models, yet also minimizes the technical burden upon us as a bank.”

Photo by Danny George

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Finovate Alums Raised More Than $132 Million in Q4; More Than $553 Million in 2024

Finovate Alums Raised More Than $132 Million in Q4; More Than $553 Million in 2024
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Quarterly Funding

Seven Finovate alums raised more than $132 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, and more than $553 million for the full year. The figures trail those from 2023, in which 11 alums raised more than $307 million in Q4 and approximately $1.2 billion for the year. This data also reflects the ongoing funding challenges faced by fintech companies at a time of high interest rates and industry consolidation.

Previous Annual Comparisons

Looking specifically at the fourth quarter of this year, we see a wide range in funding levels, from Wallit’s modest $1.4 million raise to Zopa’s year-ending $87 million score. It is also worth noting that the amount of one investment, the October funding for CardFlight, the level was not disclosed.

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q4 2023: More than $1.2 billion raised by 11 alums
  • Q4 2022: More than $380 million raised by 15 alums
  • Q4 2021: More than $1.2 billion raised by seven alums
  • Q4 2020: More than $472 million raised by 17 alums
  • Q4 2019: More than $876 million raised by 21 alums

This year’s fourth quarter funding tally is the lowest Q4 in many years, representing less than half of what was raised in 2022. Q4 2024 did see a pickup in funding relative to the previous quarter, both in terms of investment total and the number of alums funded, and is slightly higher than the amount Finovate alums raised in the first quarter of the year (nine alums raising more than $113 million).

Top Quarterly Equity Investments

The top three quarterly equity investments for the quarter were Zopa’s $87 million funding in December, interface.ai’s $20 million fundraising in October, and MODIFI’s $15 million fundraising in November. These three investments combined represent more than 92% of the total funding raised by all alums in Q4 2024.

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q4 2024.

October: More than $22 million raised by three alums

November: More than $16 million raised by two alums

December: More than $94 million raised by two alums

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the fourth quarter of 2024, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at [email protected]. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

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DeepTarget Unveils AI-Powered Email Service AImail

DeepTarget Unveils AI-Powered Email Service AImail
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, DeepTarget
  • DeepTarget, a digital marketing services provider for financial institutions, has launched its AI-powered email service AImail.
  • The new offering empowers community banks and credit unions with enterprise-level marketing capabilities to enable them to deliver personalized communications at scale.
  • DeepTarget made its Finovate debut at our all-digital conference FinovateWest 2020. The company is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama.

DeepTarget unveiled its AI-powered email service, AImail, this week. The technology is a full-service solution that provides credit unions and community banks with enterprise-level marketing services to deliver personalized communications at scale.

In a statement, the company highlighted the fact that email remains an important channel of communications between financial institutions and their customers. Email remains the most cost-effective channel for most FIs, helping them reach account holders who may not frequent a brick-and-mortar branch or take advantage of digital banking. At the same time, many community banks and credit unions have struggled to maximize email as a communications channel due to resource challenges, regulatory issues, or inadequate data analysis capabilities.

“While new channels emerge constantly, email remains the most universal and trusted way to reach account holders,” DeepTarget CEO Preetha Pulusani said. “Nearly every adult with a bank account has an email address, and not all of them visit branches or use digital banking. They expect to receive important financial communications through this channel.”

To this end, AImail combines AI technology with deep financial services expertise in the form of fractional digital marketing experts. This enables AImail to deliver compliant personalization and regulator-friendly content, as well as targeted optimization to ensure that marketing campaigns reach the best audiences for maximum impact. AImail embeds banner ads in each email campaign that use GenAI images and messages created by DeepTarget’s ADbuzz technology to enhance engagement. The solution streamlines marketing campaigns, boosting email engagement rates by up to 3x, and provides valuable metrics including built-in ROI tracking and reporting.

“What makes AImail revolutionary is its ability to transform these routine touchpoints into meaningful, personalized conversations that drive engagement and growth,” Pulusani said. “What used to take marketing teams weeks to accomplish now happens with our experts using AImail on behalf of financial institutions, with robust results and strong compliance controls.”

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, DeepTarget made its Finovate debut at our all-digital conference, FinovateWest2020. At the event, the company demonstrated its 3DStoryTeller solution. 3DStoryTeller blends the intelligence and capabilities of the company’s Digital Experience Platform with a 3D user interface that enables financial institutions to offer a unique experience featuring visual stories that engage and entertain customers.

Photo by Pablò on Unsplash

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Capitalise Teams Up with Plaid

Capitalise Teams Up with Plaid
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Capitalise, Plaid
  • Capitalise, a business finance platform based in the U.K., has forged a strategic partnership with data and open finance network Plaid.
  • The collaboration integrates Plaid’s open banking services with Capitalise’s Instant Offers to simplify and streamline small business funding.
  • Capitalise made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2016. Plaid has been a Finovate alum since 2014.

U.K.-based business finance platform Capitalise has announced a strategic collaboration with fellow Finovate alum Plaid. The partnership is designed to simplify business funding, leveraging Open Banking to offer pre-approvals to 150,000 small businesses. Capitalise will integrate Plaid’s Open Banking services into its Instant Offers solution to enable businesses to secure pre-approvals from multiple lenders. Businesses will be able to accept offers and receive funding in minutes rather than days or weeks.

The partnership enhances Capitalise’s lending origination service by removing friction from the funding process. It will also help boost conversions thanks to faster decision-making that relies on accurate, real-time data. The collaboration comes at a time when a growing number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the U.K. are embracing open banking technology. Plaid reported that adoption of open banking by U.K.-based SMEs has increased by 18% year-over-year.

“Open Banking sits at the core of SME credit decisioning and brings confidence to underwriting risk assessments,” Capitalise Co-Founder Ollie Maitland said. “These advances, in tandem with the huge growth in private credit markets, can bring down the high cost of non-bank lending. This is good news for U.K. small businesses.”

Open banking brings faster application processes, access to real-time financial data to accelerate approvals, and the ability to offer personalized rates, which can lower costs for borrowers. Challenger banks and alternative lenders have become huge players in the market for SME lending, representing more than 60% of new SME lending in the U.K. This has led to more options for small businesses looking for funding, and more competition between those looking to fund them.

“Pre-approvals have been the perfect use-case for Open Banking as a win for business owners browsing and great pre-qualification for lenders looking to lend,” Maitland said. “Plaid was a natural choice with their experience in SME lending plus their global presence.”

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Plaid offers an international data and open finance network that helps make payments simpler and lending more accessible. With more than 100 million global users in more than 18 countries, Plaid’s technology helps institutions take advantage of open banking and open finance connectivity to grow revenues and fight fraud. Plaid has partnered with more than 12,000 companies — including members of the Fortune 500 — to help them provide their customers with greater choice and control over their financial lives.

Capitalise made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2016. At the conference, Maitland and co-founder Paul Surtees demonstrated how the company’s platform uses behavioral data to match and rank lenders and algorithms to compare more than 2,500 data points to find the most appropriate funding solutions for businesses. Today, the firm’s lending marketplace features 100 lenders, including 10 integrated Open Finance lenders on its Instant Offers framework.

Interested in demoing at FinovateEurope 2025 in London? Applications are still being accepted from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today to learn more.

Photo by Jaanus Jagomägi on Unsplash

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Mesh Payments Integrates with SoFi’s Galileo

Mesh Payments Integrates with SoFi’s Galileo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SoFi

Travel and expense management company Mesh Payments has selected SoFi as its sponsor bank and has tapped SoFi-owned Galileo Financial Technologies as its payment processor.

Mesh Payments is an all-in-one corporate payments platform for travel and expense that integrates corporate cards, expense management, and travel bookings on a single platform. Mesh Payments offers SaaS enterprises cardless payments capabilities that enable full visibility, control, and intelligence to help them orchestrate, manage, reconcile, and ultimately reduce spending. The company, which processes more than $1 billion in annual payment volume, was founded in 2018.

Under the partnership, Mesh Payments’ expense and card infrastructure will tap SoFi’s financial framework and Galileo’s customizable, API-based payments processing platform. Mesh Payments anticipates that leveraging both SoFi as its sponsor bank and Galileo as its processing platform will help it offer more streamlined enterprise expense management, reduce inefficiencies, and bring solutions to market more quickly.

“We’re excited to partner with SoFi and Galileo, as both companies share our vision of delivering the most modern and innovative financial solutions for businesses,” said Mesh CEO Oded Zehavi. “They are the ideal partners to support our mission to provide companies with an efficient, forward-thinking approach to corporate travel and expense management.”

Founded in 2001, Galileo offers a payment processing platform that allows third-party fintechs and businesses to build and scale their own financial services offerings. The company’s client list includes DailyPay, Bluevine, Dave, MoneyLion, Monzo, and others. Galileo was acquired by SoFi in 2020 in a $1.2 billion deal.

Founded in 2011, SoFi has evolved from a lending platform into a nationally chartered bank that offers checking and savings accounts, investing tools, and insurance plans. The company landed its first sponsor bank deal in April of 2024 when it partnered with small business banking platform Rapid Finance.

“SoFi is proud to provide the financial backbone for forward-thinking solutions like Mesh Payments,” said SoFi Bank President Paul Mayer. “With SoFi and Galileo under one roof, we empower partners like Mesh Payments to harness Galileo’s advanced cloud-based banking core, enabling them to launch new products faster, scale seamlessly, and stay ahead of their customers’ ever-changing needs.”

Photo by Pixabay

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Themis Lands $9.2 Million to Scale its Governance, Risk, and Compliance Platform

Themis Lands $9.2 Million to Scale its Governance, Risk, and Compliance Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Themis

Correction: This post previously incorrectly reported that Atlanta, Georgia-based Themis raised funds. Today’s round is actually attributed to U.K.-based Themis. While both companies operate in the regtech realm, the former, a Finovate alum that recently won Best of Show, offers a platform that streamlines compliance and collaboration between fintechs and banks, bringing regulatory insight to help banks and fintechs more effectively manage compliance. The latter is a digital financial crime platform that helps businesses manage their financial crime risk exposure.

  • Regtech platform Themis raised over $9.2 million (£7.25 million) in its scale-up round.
  • The round, which is expected to close on December 16, 2024, exceeds Themis’ initial target by a significant margin.
  • Themis will use the funds to leverage AI to continue to democratize due dilligence.

Regtech is rising across the fintech sector, and to prove it, financial crime risk management platform Themis has pulled in more than $9.2 million (£7.25 million) in a scale-up round that surpasses its target.

“Exceeding our funding target reflects not only the confidence of our investors but also the strong financial fundamentals and scalability of our business,” said Themis CFO Simon Samuel. “This additional capital provides us with the financial runway to strategically invest in key areas like AI innovation, market expansion, and operational efficiencies, ensuring long-term sustainable growth.”

The investment, which is expected to close on December 16th of this year, exceeds Themis’ initial target of $3.8 million to $6.3 million (£3 million to £5 million). Once finalized, the funds will add to the U.K.-based company’s existing $6 million (£4.8 million) raised, totaling more than $15 million.

“Surpassing our Scale-Up Funding target by such a significant margin demonstrates the strength of Themis’ vision and its relevance in today’s financial landscape,” said Themis CEO Dickon Johnstone.

Themis was founded in 2018 to help reduce the global impacts of financial crime. The company’s platform, which helps clients identify and manage their specific financial crime risks, leverages KYC and AML data to help companies verify the true identity of their clients while remaining compliant. Themis will use this most recent round to pursue its mission to democratize due diligence by leveraging AI advancements with its financial crime expertise.

Financial services has experienced a surge in regtech adoption, driven by the growth of AI and machine learning, as well as an evolving regulatory landscape. In 2025, regtech is poised to further enhance compliance processes with real-time risk management, automated reporting, and enhanced collaboration between banks and regulators. According to Angela Strange, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, regulation will become code.

“Today, banking and insurance regulations span tens of thousands of pages; SBA lending documentation alone exceeds 1,000 pages,” said Strange. “For businesses, keeping on top of these codes requires byzantine workflows and many hours spent hiring and training staff. Imagine, instead, that those lengthy documents — including text, images, and case precedents — could be used to train regulation-specific LLMs. Suddenly, compliance would become as simple as a Google query. ‘Is [X] compliant? What modifications need to be made?'”

Photo by Meriç Dağlı on Unsplash

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ThetaRay and Microsoft Launch New GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite

ThetaRay and Microsoft Launch New GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, ThetaRay
  • ThetaRay launched GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite.
  • The new suite is powered by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, which gives developers REST API access to OpenAI’s language models.
  • The GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite enables financial institutions to improve AML efforts, streamline compliance, and proactively manage risk indicators.

Financial crime detection company ThetaRay announced it is collaborating with Microsoft in the launch of its new product, GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite.

The new suite integrates Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, a service that gives developers REST API access to OpenAI’s language models, such as o1-preview, GPT-4o, and GPT-4. The service allows clients to adapt the models to their specific task or use case.

ThetaRay reports that teaming up with Microsoft will allow it to bring firms a GenAI-powered case manager that will detect financial crime, adapt strategies over time, and meet legal reporting standards. ThetaRay reports that its collaboration with Microsoft will enable it to deliver a GenAI-powered case manager designed to detect financial crimes, refine detection strategies, and ensure compliance with regulatory reporting standards. With the launch of its new GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite, ThetaRay aims to enhance risk assessment, streamline operational workflows, and strengthen anti-money laundering (AML) reporting to reduce fraudulent activity, such as money laundering and terrorist financing.

“ThetaRay’s integration with Azure OpenAI Service delivers a solution that empowers financial institutions to enhance key components of their AML efforts, like oversight, reporting, and risk catalogue processes,” said Azure AIat Microsoft Corp. Vice President Yina Arenas. “By integrating generative AI in their financial crime detection solutions, organizations can mitigate risk, drive exceptional efficiencies, and elevate regulatory standards.”

Along with today’s release, ThetaRay is also unveiling a new, GenAI-driven risk catalogue to enable financial institutions to add risk indicators. “Our technology has already established us as a leader in AI, and now with our newest risk catalogue solution, we’re empowering organizations to proactively manage risks, streamline compliance, and make more informed decisions,” said ThetaRay CEO Peter Reynolds. “We are excited to continue to deepen our collaboration with Microsoft, using their Azure OpenAI Service to enhance our vision of enabling trusted transactions across the financial ecosystem.”

Founded in 2013, ThetaRay offers transaction monitoring, transaction and customer screening, and customer risk assessment suites to help firms fight financial crime. The Israel-based company helps its 100+ institutional clients leverage AI to monitor 15 billion transactions valued at $20 trillion on an annual basis.

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LexisNexis Risk Solutions Agrees to Acquire IDVerse

LexisNexis Risk Solutions Agrees to Acquire IDVerse
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, IDVerse, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • LexisNexis Risk Solutions has signed an agreement to acquire document authentication and fraud detection solutions provider IDVerse. Terms were not disclosed.
  • The acquisition will enhance LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ ability to combat emerging threats such as AI-generated fraud and deepfakes.
  • As OCR Labs, IDVerse won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2017.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions has agreed to acquire AI-powered automated document authentication and fraud detection solutions provider IDVerse. The company, which introduced itself to Finovate audiences at FinovateAsia 2017 as OCR Labs, will become a part of LexisNexis Risk Solutions Business Services.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

IDVerse leverages regenerative AI to fight fraud and deep fakes. The company’s technology is powered by a deep neural network which verifies the authenticity of more than 16,000 types of identity documents globally. Additionally, with consumer consent, IDVerse applies biometric algorithms for identity verification and liveness detection to identify potential fraud. With IDVerse’s technology, businesses can verify identities in seconds using just the applicant’s face and their smartphone.

“LexisNexis Risk Solutions has been at the forefront of enabling compliance and lowering risk for businesses worldwide for decades,” IDVerse CEO John Myers said. “We’re looking forward to seeing the impact our combined solutions and technology can make in improving outcomes for our clients against a fast-changing risk landscape.”

Thanks to a pre-existing alliance agreement, IDVerse’s solutions are already available via LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ platform. The acquisition will integrate IDVerse’s functionality across solutions and boost customer preparedness to manage emerging fraud threats. LexisNexis Risk Solutions has provided document authentication solutions since 2005, and its acquisition of IDVerse will add to the firm’s ability to combat new challenges such as AI-generated fraud.

“AI-powered solutions are necessary to counter the threat of AI-generated fraud attacks, including deepfakes,” said Rick Trainor, CEO of Business Services for LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “Integrating IDVerse’s advanced and complementary technology will further enhance our ability to provide the risk insights our clients need to defend against bad actors today and into the future — regardless of where our clients are in the world or where they do business.”

Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and founded in 2017 as OCR Labs, the company won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2017. The firm rebranded as IDVerse in 2023. With applications for account opening, KYC/AML, passwordless login, fraud prevention, and more, IDVerse’s solutions serve businesses in industries ranging from financial services and insurance to crypto and telecommunications. The company’s Zero Bias AI technology puts regenerative AI to work to help mitigate the potential for discrimination based on ethnicity, age, and gender. In addition to enhancing the ability to combat fraud and deepfakes, IDVerse’s Zero Bias AI technology significantly lowers associated risks.

Last month, IDVerse announced that it had signed a new identity infrastructure partnership with London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). The partnership will help LSEG scale global coverage and fight digital fraud during the customer onboarding process. In October, IDVerse announced it had onboarded iGaming identity verification and compliance solutions provider GlobalCheck and regulatory compliance solutions company BetComply. That month, IDVerse also announced that Hastings Direct Loans had automated its loan decisioning and identity verification processes using IDVerse’s identity tools.

Photo by Kaboompics.com

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Moneyhub and Marygold Team Up to Launch Wealth App

Moneyhub and Marygold Team Up to Launch Wealth App
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Moneyhub
  • Moneyhub has teamed up with intelligent money management app Marygold & Co. UK.
  • The partnership will integrate Moneyhub’s Account Information and Payment Initiation Services (AIS and PIS) functionality into Marygold’s new wealth app, slated to be released next year.
  • Moneyhub made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2015 in London.

Data, intelligence, and payments company Moneyhub announced a partnership with intelligent money management app provider Marygold & Co. UK. Through the partnership, Moneyhub will provide Account Information and Payment Initiation Services (AIS and PIS) for Marygold’s new wealth app, scheduled to go live in 2025.

“Given our aligned aims of improving the country’s financial wellbeing through innovation, we’re very pleased to be partnering with Marygold & Co. UK as they prepare for launch,” Moneyhub Managing Director of API Kim Jenkins said. “Armed with a myriad of Open Banking and Open Finance-enabled tools, the app is set to deliver fantastic outcomes for consumers and businesses alike.”

Marygold’s app will make it easier for customers to save without having to switch bank accounts. The solution features customizable reminders, automated savings nudges, special savings pools, as well as hidden “piggy bank” options and secure, me-to-me transfer functionality. Users’ savings earn competitive interest rates and the app also has a number of features that help provide financial oversight for elderly and vulnerable users. Small businesses using the app also benefit from competitive interest rates on their working capital and cash.

“Our partnership with Moneyhub underscores our commitment to delivering a truly transformative financial management experience,” Marygold & Co. UK CEO Matthew Parden said. “By leveraging Moneyhub’s advanced Account Information and Payment initiation Services, we’re able to offer our users unparalleled insights and control over their finances, making it easier than ever to save, manage, and grow their wealth securely and efficiently.”

Marygold & Co. UK is backed by the Marygold Companies, a publicly-held firm that trades on the NYSE under the ticker MGLD. The company was launched in 2021 to make acquisitions in the U.K. for its U.S.-based parent. Marygold & Co. UK provides wealth management and savings services to customers in the U.K., combining app-based functionality with access to qualified financial advisors. Last month, Marygold & Co. UK announced a partnership with U.K. fintech bank Griffin that allowed the firm to embed savings accounts in its app. Earlier this year, the company acquired U.K.-based investment advisory firm Step-By-Step Financial Planners Limited (SBS). The acquisition was Marygold & Co. UK’s second, having acquired U.K.-based financial advisory firm Tiger Financial & Asset Management Limited in 2022.

Moneyhub made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2015 in London and returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateEurope 2017. The data, intelligence, and payments company develops software for Open Banking, Open Finance, and Open Data applications. Moneyhub’s platform enables businesses in industries from finance to retail to transform their data into personalized digital experiences and initiate payments.

Moneyhub’s partnership announcement with Marygold & Co. UK comes just days after the company announced that it was working with WPS Advisory to help the independent financial advice firm launch its financial confidence app LifeStage. Designed to supplement the firm’s personalized financial guidance and advice service for employees, LifeStage enables users to better understand their incomes, expenses, savings, debts, and investments and to share selected information with WPS Advisory.

“Our aim is to make financial advice, typically provided through the workplace, as accessible and cost-effective as possible,” WPS Advisory Head of Strategy Natalie Oliver said. “Technology integrations play a vital role in achieving this goal.”

Interested in demoing at FinovateEurope 2025 in London? Applications are still being accepted from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today to learn more.

Photo by Amelia Hallsworth

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