Casca Raises $29 Million Series A for AI Loan Origination

Casca Raises $29 Million Series A for AI Loan Origination
  • Casca has raised a $29 million Series A round led by Canapi Ventures, with participation from major bank customers including Live Oak, Huntington, and Bankwell.
  • Today’s investment comes just 15 months after its pre-seed round and brings Casca’s total funding to $33 million.
  • Casca’s AI-powered loan origination platform helps smaller financial institutions compete with fintechs and large banks by accelerating loan processing, reducing costs, and keeping capital within local communities.

AI loan origination company Casca (formerly known as Cascading AI) announced a $29 million fundraising round today. The California-based company said that the round, which was led by Canapi Ventures, will help it to redefine business lending.

The company’s flagship customers, including Live Oak Bank, Huntington National Bank, and Bankwell Bank all invested in today’s round. Bankwell, Y Combinator, and Peterson Ventures multiplied their investments from the pre-seed raise. Alliance Funding Group participated as well.

“Casca simplifies and accelerates our lending processes while equipping us with the insights needed to build lasting relationships,” said Live Oak Bancshares CEO and chairman Chip Mahan. “The tangible value Casca has demonstrated gives us confidence to invest in their future.”

Today’s round comes just 15 months after Casca’s pre-seed raise and brings its total funding to $33 million. Casca said it will use the investment to scale its operations, expand its team, and accelerate go-to-market efforts and make its platform more accessible to financial institutions.

“Casca stands out in many ways,” said Canapi Ventures Co-Founder and General Partner Neil Underwood. “They’ve worked alongside top AI researchers and within banks themselves to simplify business lending using responsible AI and bank-grade underwriting. With Casca, local financial institutions become the lender of choice—offering more affordable rates and keeping capital within the community. It’s a big step for banking, and we’re proud to be part of it.”

Casca leverages AI to speed up the loan application and origination process. The company was founded in 2023 and its loan origination platform is used by leading SBA lenders and FDIC-Insured banks. At Casca’s first FinovateSpring demo in 2024, it won Best of Show honors. The company most recently demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2025 where it showed automated document collection that can save loan officers 20 hours a week, AI that reads 10,000 pages in 5 minutes, instant pre-qualification that accepts applications after business hours, digital account opening, and a voice assistant that can intelligently discuss loan files in real-time.

“We’re driven to be a force for good, using technology to make capital more accessible to small businesses and fueling the American Dream,” said Casca CEO and CoFounder Lukas Haffer. “Partnering with the top SBA lenders and key industry players, we’ve built a platform that fully automates commercial loans in record time, setting a new industry standard. This is a game changer, and now we are ready to scale responsibly, reaching more institutions with the white-glove service our clients.”

Today’s raise is a nod to how AI is becoming standard and is now central to how banks win small business relationships. By shaving weeks off loan processing, Casca gives local banks a competitive edge in retaining small business borrowers who might otherwise turn to fintechs or big banks who can offer speed.


Photo by James Wheeler

AI Squared Unveils Sparx, Unifying Sales, Finance and Operations Data

AI Squared Unveils Sparx, Unifying Sales, Finance and Operations Data

The rapid adoption of AI in financial services has its challenges. Among them is the lack of AI-ready data, which can be a major problem when it comes to effectively deploying AI. Running AI-powered systems on flawed data can have consequences ranging from mere missed opportunities to operational failures that lead to both reduced customer trust and reputational damage for the company. According to a survey by research firm Gartner, 60% of AI projects through 2026 are expected to fail due to a lack of AI-ready data.

To this end, AI integration solutions provider AI Squared has launched Sparx, a Data-Science-In-a-Box offering that enables small businesses, mid-market companies, and non-profits to access production-ready AI. Sparx integrates AI into existing business workflows, yet requires no coding, infrastructure changes, or participation by data scientists. Sparx unifies sales, finance, and operations data into a real-time, AI-powered view, and deploys in less than an hour.

“Until now, building AI-powered insights meant investing in complex systems and tools, and hiring specialists,” AI Squared CEO and President Darren Kimura said. “With Sparx, we have removed that complexity. Businesses can start seeing value in hours, not months. Sparx empowers customers to integrate AI quickly and affordably, accelerating decision-making and enhancing operational efficiency so they can move faster and uncover new opportunities.”

Sparx connects to existing systems and automatically syncs and cleans the data. The solution has an intuitive interface that enables users to communicate with their data in conversational English and to receive actionable insights instantly—without requiring the involvement of IT experts or data scientists. Sparx offers real-time visibility into operations and provides contextual data to help teams identify trends and boost efficiency.

Having established itself as a solution provider for large institutions in financial services, insurance, and SaaS—to say nothing of the company’s founding contracts with the US Department of Defense—AI Squared’s decision to develop and launch Sparx is an effort to bring AI to smaller businesses and non-profits. Where typical AI platforms—including AI Squared’s own Unified Platform—are often much more than these firms need, Sparx is tailor-made for smaller organizations. The solution is easy to set up and customize while still providing robust data integration and real-time AI insights.

“Like most small and medium-sized enterprises, we faced high costs, complexity, and a long development cycle to address our needs to deploy production-ready AI for our mountain of data,” said Steve Braaten, Chief Architect at Khasm Labs, a partner of AI Squared. “Sparx is solving this for us, giving our team fast and actionable insights without the heavy lift.”

Founded in 2019 by Dr. Benjamin Harvey, AI Squared made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2023 and returned later that year for FinovateFall 2023. Darren Kimura succeeded Harvey as CEO earlier this year, having joined the company in 2024 as President and Chief Operating Officer. He has been credited with helping shape the company’s operational growth and strategic direction. With more than 25 years of experience in scaling technology companies, Kimura praised Harvey, who will transition to a new role focused on positioning AI Squared as a thought leader, and bolstering customer engagement.

“Ben’s vision and leadership have positioned AI Squared as a market leader, and I am honored to build upon that strong foundation,” Kimura said. “We have an exceptional team, and I look forward to driving forward our mission of making AI more accessible and impactful for organizations worldwide.”


Photo by Magda Ehlers

EverC Announces Merger with G2 Risk Solutions

EverC Announces Merger with G2 Risk Solutions

AI risk classification platform EverC revealed today that it is joining forces with G2 Risk Solutions (G2RS). The two are combining to pursue a collective mission to protect global digital payments and defend e-commerce from threats. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.

Moving forward, the two will leverage EverC’s AI capabilities and bring G2RS’s risk and compliance capabilities to the payments risk ecosystem. When the deal is finalized, the two companies will collectively serve most major payment providers across the globe, including banks, merchant acquirers, marketplaces, and online platforms.

EverC was founded in 2015 to help marketplaces and online sellers grow by bringing trust and security to the ecommerce ecosystem. The company combines AI with its expertise in risk intelligence, data science, fintech, payments, and financial risk. In addition to its Risk Insights solution, EverC also offers two products, MerchantView, a merchant onboarding and monitoring platform; and MaketView, an automated, AI-driven solution that identifies and eliminates hazardous, counterfeit, and illicit products in online marketplaces.

G2RS offers risk and compliance management for financial institutions and online platforms. The California-based company offers a suite of solutions covering merchant risk, digital commerce monitoring, transaction laundering detection, identity verification, bankruptcy risk, and regulatory data services. Founded in 1989, G2RS leverages data, analytics, and human-curated insights to help its clients navigate evolving regulatory landscapes and complex risk challenges. Today’s deal isn’t G2RS’s only change to its operations this year. In the first quarter, the company acquired WebShield owner ZignSec AB for an undisclosed amount.

“G2RS and EverC have long traveled toward the same North Star, safeguarding digital commerce and the people who depend on it,” said G2RS CEO Brian Longe. “We move forward as one team with a shared vision to redefine what market leadership looks like in the merchant risk space. Leveraging each other’s strengths as a unified force on a singular track, we will accelerate to deliver faster, smarter business outcomes and solutions for our clients and the global digital economy. We’re poised to achieve more together than we ever could apart, aligned in our commitment to root out fraud and illegal activities and help our customers grow with confidence and integrity.”

Logistically, Longe will serve as CEO of the combined company, while EverC CEO Ariel Tiger will serve as an adviser through the end of the year as the companies transition into a single entity. Employees of both companies will continue to operate globally with offices in the US, Europe, India, and Israel.

“We share a purpose to stop the increasingly sophisticated global threats from bad actors who seek to exploit the payments ecosystem,” said Tiger. “With our two teams working together, our impact can be exponential. This elevates our game in every facet of the business, pushing the envelope technologically and setting new standards for merchant portfolio performance.”

At FinovateFall 2021, EverC demoed how MerchantView helps mitigate transaction laundering by identifying illicit activity in order to help clients reduce and avoid fines, maintain regulatory compliance, and protect their brand.


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Japan’s Zerobank Design Factory to Power New Digital Bank for MUFG

Japan’s Zerobank Design Factory to Power New Digital Bank for MUFG

MUFG’s new digital bank will feature the cloud-based banking system developed and operated by Zerobank Design Factory (ZDF), a subsidiary and the technological development arm of Fukuoka Financial Group (FFG). The announcement was made by Minna Bank, a fellow subsidiary of FFG that runs on ZDF’s core banking technology. In collaboration with Accenture and operating on the Google Cloud, the MUFG deployment will be the first time Zerobank Design Factory will see its solution used by an organization outside of FFG.

“Since its inception (Minna Bank) has accumulated and updated its technologies and expertise related to systems, functionalities, and design required for a digital bank,” Minna Bank and ZDF President and CEO Kenichi Nagayoshi said. “As a result, we believe that the recent first external provision of our system marks a valuable milestone. Moving forward, we hope to contribute, even if just a little, to the development of the digital banking market both domestically and internationally through the provision of this system.”

Japan’s first digital bank, Minna Bank was founded in 2021 and currently boasts 1.3 million accounts. The name means “a bank for everyone” and the institution posits that its mission is to “deliver valuable connections to everyone.” In 2022, ZDF announced that it would offer its technology to both local and international financial institutions. Non-financial organizations looking to add banking services are also eligible to deploy the system.

The MUFG deployment is designed to meet the need for faster management speed, greater efficiency, and lower costs. Banking systems that leverage multi-cloud, microservice architecture, DevSecOps, and other advanced technologies offer an effective way to meet these goals. The core banking system designed by ZDF offers a modular design capable of partial integration with existing systems to give banks, non-bank financial institutions, and non-financial entities a range of versatile applications to better serve customers and clients.

“Our collaboration with Minna Bank reinforces that cloud-based technology can deliver flexibility, speed, and reliability for core systems within global banks,” Google Cloud Global Managing Director, Regulated Industries, Toby Brown said. “Minna Bank’s use of Google Cloud’s advanced technologies—like Google Kubernetes Engine for elastic scale, Spanner for global data consistency, and Vertex AI for intelligent insights—is a blueprint for accelerating digital transformation far beyond banking, enabling industries from retail to mobility to seamlessly embed financial services and create new value for their customers.”

A wholly-owned subsidiary of FFG, ZDF is the system development company that built Minna Bank’s core system. ZDF is also a pioneer in cloud banking, having been among the first developers in Japan to build a core banking system on a public cloud. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2023.

The largest regional financial group in Japan, FFG was established in 2007. FFG’s network covers the entire Kyushu region, which is home to more than 10% of the country’s population and includes cities such as Fukuoka and Nagasaki.


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Clover Launches Clover PracticePay for Healthcare Providers

Clover Launches Clover PracticePay for Healthcare Providers

Fiserv-owned point-of-sale (PoS) system Clover unveiled Clover PracticePay today. The new solution is an all-in-one payments platform to support small and medium-sized healthcare providers. 

To optimally tailor the tool to the healthcare field, Clover partnered with healthcare payments solutions company Rectangle Health. The new solution aims to simplify the way healthcare practices manage payments while providing them with digital tools to help enhance their practice efficiencies.

Launching in 2026, PracticePay combines Rectangle Health’s Practice Management Bridge technology with Clover’s PoS hardware and is compliant with HIPAA and PCI requirements. Designed for providers across primary care, dental, behavioral health, and other specialties, the payments solution features financing options, recurring billing, text-to-pay, QR codes, and online payment portals that can be integrated into customers’ existing practice management software.

For Clover, launching PracticePay will help it expand beyond its core verticals, which include restaurant, retail, and personal services. Adding healthcare payments will allow Clover to extend into the high-demand healthcare industry in which providers are seeking to modernize operations to meet expanding patient expectations, increasing administrative complexity, and digitization requirements. PracticePay will help Clover meet these needs while capturing a segment of the $4.5 trillion US healthcare economy.

“As we continue to evolve Clover to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, trusted partners like Rectangle Health play a critical role in delivering specialized solutions for key industries,” said Fiserv SVP, Head of Merchant FI Channels & Small Business Strategy Katie Whalen. “Healthcare is an important vertical for the banking industry, and with this new solution, we are enabling our financial institution partners to better serve a critical customer base within their communities. By uniting Clover’s leading technology with the strength and security of Rectangle Health’s purpose-built software, we are extending our reach into healthcare and enabling providers to operate more efficiently, improve payment flows, and enhance the patient experience.”

A pioneer in the payments space, Rectangle Health was founded in 1992 to create payment solutions for the healthcare industry. The company provides healthcare organizations with a suite of services that streamline payments, enhance patient relationships, and comply with regulatory standards.

“Together with Clover, we are proud to set a new standard for practice management and payment solutions in the healthcare space,” said Rectangle Health CEO Dominick Colabella. “This collaboration will enable providers to enhance their financial systems while remaining focused on what matters most—their patients.”

Clover was originally founded in 2010 to help small businesses accept payments. Today, the company serves as a one-stop shop for multiple payment needs. In addition to offering a range of payment acceptance terminals, Clover also has software to help businesses with online orders, accounting, loyalty programs, staff management, inventory, and more. Clover was acquired in 2012 by First Data, which was acquired by Fiserv in 2019.


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Eltropy Announces AI Certification Program and Video Banking Integration

Eltropy Announces AI Certification Program and Video Banking Integration

AI-powered conversations platform for community banks and credit unions, Eltropy, is readying for the launch of an on-demand, AI certification program for employees of community financial institutions (CFIs).

“This is the turning point for AI in community finance—we’ve moved beyond experimentation,” Eltropy VP of Product and Head of AI Saahil Kamath said. “Our AI certification program proves that credit unions and community banks can build, deploy, and benefit from AI, not tomorrow but today. In under one hour, participants were able to create real bots on real channels, not just slides and ideas. That’s what practical AI looks like, and that’s how we close the gap between innovation and impact.”

The self-paced, online program will go live later this summer. The course is designed for workers in both the front- and back-office, and will provide foundational knowledge in AI, practical applications for Agentic AI, and how to use the technology in a safe, compliant way in regulated environments like banking and finance. Participants will get hands-on experience building live AI agents for telephony, website, and internal knowledge systems. The course will also provide instruction in AI-based technologies such as Large-Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), prompt engineering, and Quality Assurance (QA) automation.

The hands-on nature of Eltropy’s program differentiates it from other AI training programs that can be more theoretical, the company noted in a statement. Participants who successfully complete the program will receive an Eltropy AI Practitioner Certificate and advanced learning materials and tools that will enable them to put their practical AI skills to use at their own institutions.

“Our goal is to demystify AI,” Eltropy Head of AI Engineering Rahul Prakash said. “By the end of the course, every participant should have a working solution—whether for voice, web, or internal operations—while gaining clarity on responsible AI usage in regulated environments.”

Eltropy’s announcement follows the successful training the company held at its annual user conference EMERGE 2025, where 130+ credit union and community bank professionals earned their practitioner certificates. The course was completed in less than an hour and was credited for being “insightful and educational” and for “making AI real and doable” by participants.

“We came in curious and walked out certified,” said one participant, who hailed from a Midwest credit union.

The announcement also follows news that the company has fully integrated video banking into its Unified Conversations Platform. Eltropy’s video banking solution enables credit unions and community banks to offer secure, face-to-face banking services to members and customers around the clock. The integration helps promote financial inclusion, providing greater reach into underserved communities where physical branches may be distant or unavailable. The solution also enables institutions to connect members and customers with interpreters during a video banking session to make sure that language differences are not an impediment to accessing financial services.

“What started as a pandemic necessity has become a competitive advantage for community financial institutions,” Eltropy Co-Founder and CEO Ashish Garg said. “Our customers are seeing remarkable results—from 84% growth in booked loans to 70% reduction in lost opportunities. They key is that Video Banking isn’t replacing personal service, it’s extending it. CFIs can now deliver that same high-touch experience whether someone walks into their lobby or connects from their kitchen table.”

Founded in 2014, Eltropy made its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demoed Eltropy One, its all-in-one omni channel solution that enables financial institutions to manage both inbound and outbound communications from a universal console. Eltropy One supports communication via text, secure chat, video, audio, cobrowsing, and conversational bots.

Eltropy’s AI certification course comes weeks after the company unveiled its desktop app, which delivers faster access with less resource usage. The solution provides 20% faster launch times and combines full feature parity with browser-based access. Also this summer, Eltropy launched its Collections 2.0 Suite to help community financial institutions deal with rising delinquency rates while maintaining positive customer and member relationships. Note that Eltropy acquired collections technology company Lexop at the beginning of the year.

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Eltropy counts more than 700 credit unions and community banks among its clients, and has powered 200 million conversations since inception.


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Nymbus Partners with Bud Financial on AI-Powered PFM

Nymbus Partners with Bud Financial on AI-Powered PFM

A partnership between Nymbus and Bud Financial will make AI-powered personal financial management (PFM) solutions available to customers of community banks and members of credit unions.

A full-stack banking platform for banks and credit unions in the US, Nymbus will embed Bud Financial’s suite of personal financial management (PFM) widgets directly into its banking platform. This will give customers and members greater visibility into their finances and equip them with relevant content and financial tools to help them better manage their money. Bud Financial’s transaction data enrichment and AI-driven insights provides categorized, contextual data that enables banks and credit unions to offer more tailored, personalized experiences.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Nymbus as they continue to transform banking for community institutions across the US,” Bud Financial CEO Edward Maslaveckas said. “Together, we’re enabling their clients to move beyond legacy data into a new era of intelligent, insight-driven banking. This collaboration reflects our shared belief that better data leads to better outcomes—for financial institutions and their customers alike.”

Nymbus’ partnership with Bud comes in the wake of the firm’s launch of Nymbus Engage. Engage is a new customer engagement solution designed to help community banks and credit unions use data to build better long-term relationships with their customers and members. Integrating Bud’s PFM tools extends Nymbus’ strategy by empowering financial institutions to offer more personalized initiatives to build customer loyalty. In their partnership announcement, the companies noted that the first Nymbus client deployment powered by Bud Financial is already underway. A wider rollout is expected over the weeks and months to come.

“This integration supports our mission of providing banks and credit unions with the tools they need to grow, differentiate, and deliver modern, personalized banking experiences,” Nymbus CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Kendall said. “Bud’s AI-driven enrichment unlocks a new level of insight from transaction data, and we’re excited to bring this to our clients.”

Founded in 2015, Nymbus is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The company has presented its technology at both Finovate’s developer conference, FinDEVr, as well as Finovate’s flagship series, most recently demoing at FinovateFall 2023 in New York. Nymbus offers financial institutions a single, scalable platform that delivers core banking, digital services, lending, onboarding, and analytics.

Bud Financial is the second Finovate alum Nymbus has partnered with this year. The company began 2025 announcing a strategic agreement with Digital Onboarding (FinovateFall 2018) to provide community banks and credit unions with better marketing and analytics capabilities to enhance customer and member engagement.

Making its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2023 in New York and returning a year later for FinovateFall 2024, Bud Financial enriches transactional data to provide actionable insights and readable inputs for large-language models (LLMs) in banking and financial services. The company, headquartered in London, has processed tens of billions of transactions since its launch in 2015.

In addition to its partnership with Nymbus, Bud Financial has also forged partnerships in recent weeks with financial empowerment platform Fruition and adaptive financial infrastructure (AFI) platform XYB. In February, the company introduced its Intelligent Search capability that enables retail banking customers to search their transaction data for insights on spending and proactive suggestions on better money management.


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Zafin Unveils Transaction Enrichment to Transform Data into Actionable Insights

Zafin Unveils Transaction Enrichment to Transform Data into Actionable Insights

Enterprise banking software company Zafin has launched Transaction Enrichment. The new capability transforms raw transaction data into rich, contextual insights that will enable banks and other financial institutions to deliver more personalized experiences to their customers.

“Transaction Enrichment is foundational to delivering true personalization in banking and is an integral part of a long-term strategy to improve customer relationships and personalized service,” Zafin CEO Charbel Safadi said. “Our approach is more than just data enrichment. It enables banks to move beyond generic offers and engage and reward customers in ways that reflect their daily behaviors, financial goals, and full relationship with the bank.”

Transaction Enrichment is a key component in Zafin’s effort to provide financial institutions with the tools they need to boost customer loyalty and build a foundation for relationship banking. The capability transforms raw transaction records into contextualized information using 70 expense and income categories, merchant logos, clean merchant names, merchant website links, and more. The technology includes an adaptive accuracy engine that helps build confidence via machine learning models that adapt continuously to new inputs and patterns, as well as feedback loops that leverage human insight to ensure accuracy.

Zafin’s technology is currently deployed with UAE-based Commercial Bank International (CBI). The financial institution has used Transaction Enrichment as part of its strategy to provide a more intuitive and personalized digital banking experience for its customers. Transaction Enrichment facilitates online transaction categorization and provides spending insights to help the institution’s customers gain a more comprehensive understanding of their spending and greater control over their financial lives.

“Enhancing our transaction data has helped us deliver a clearer, more intuitive digital experience for our customers,” CBI Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer and Head of Ventures Giovanni Gavino Everduin said. “It goes beyond transparency—it’s about laying the foundation for deeper personalization and fostering a new kind of loyalty built on everyday behavior.”

Zafin made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017 in New York. In the years since then, the Vancouver, Canada-based fintech has partnered with many of the world’s top banks including ING, CIBC, HSBC, Wells Fargo, PNC, and ANZ. Zafin also works with regional and mid-market banks to help them increase speed to market, reduce operational complexities, become and remain compliant with relevant regulations, and strengthen customer engagement.


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Plaid Partners with Experian; Launches Fraud Prevention Solution Plaid Protect

Plaid Partners with Experian; Launches Fraud Prevention Solution Plaid Protect

Financial data network Plaid has been in the fintech headlines of late for its new partnership with data and technology company Experian, and for the launch of its Plaid Protect fraud prevention solution.

“Today we’re launching Plaid Protect: a real-time fraud intelligence system that helps detect and prevent fraud from the moment a user first interacts with your app or service,” Plaid Head of Fraud Alain Meier wrote on the company blog. “By drawing on fraud signals across a billion devices in the Plaid network, Protect goes beyond what any single company can see—surfacing fraud patterns that exist between linked bank accounts, connections to financial apps and services, and more.”

Plaid Protect is built on an adaptive, machine learning-powered risk engine that provides real-time risk scores and attributes that evolve as the user context changes—from initial contact during onboarding through account linking to ongoing user activity. Calling their fraud model Trust Index (Ti), Plaid’s first production model can access 10,000 high-signal attributes including cross-app patterns, device history, bank account risk signals, and more. The Trust Index leverages network intelligence, bank account risk, consortium feedback, and advanced identity intelligence, keying in on fraud signals that are difficult for criminals to manipulate or fake. Plaid reported that one of the solution’s early adopters found in testing that enhancing verification for just 5% of its users would have intercepted nearly 40% of first-party fraud.

Currently available in beta, Plaid Protect provides an intuitive dashboard that uses semantic search powered by natural language. This means that users can ask questions about the data in plain English (i.e., “all users who opened new accounts in the last 30 days”) instead of needing to use SQL or custom queries.

“With this new lens on fraud, companies can reduce fraud losses, dramatically improve conversion, and make smarter decisions from the very first user interaction and every step thereafter,” Meier wrote.

Plaid’s new product announcement comes days after the company reported that it had partnered with fellow Finovate alum, Experian. The two firms have entered into a strategic collaboration designed to help businesses access cashflow solutions and expand financial inclusion.

“This is just the beginning of what we believe will be a very powerful relationship with Plaid,” Group President Financial Services of Experian North America Scott Brown said. “Together, we’re helping to accelerate the adoption of cashflow insights to drive faster decisions, stronger portfolios, and new financial opportunities for consumers. We’re achieving this while delivering an experience that is transparent and provides consumers with control every step of the way.”

Courtesy of the collaboration, financial institutions can access Plaid’s secure connectivity capabilities—used by 50% of all US bank account holders—and Experian’s expertise in advanced credit analytics and decisioning from a single solution. Once a borrower agrees to share cashflow data from their bank account as part of the loan application process, Plaid’s consumer reporting agency generates a Consumer Report on their behalf. The report is delivered securely to Experian which analyzes the applicant’s data, produces a predictive Cashflow Score or set of Cashflow Attributes, and delivers it to the lender in near real time.

The report features up to two years of historical data and cashflow information from 12,000+ financial institutions. Experian reports that its Cashflow Score provides an increase of as much as 25% in predictive performance compared to scores that rely on more conventional credit data. The new offering will empower banks, credit unions, and consumer lenders to accelerate decision-making, make more accurate risk assessments, and improve borrower outcomes.

“Our work with Experian is about removing long-standing barriers, making it easier for lenders to access consumer-permissioned data and make better decisions,” Plaid Chief Operating Officer Eric Sager said. “Together, we’re building a more inclusive, intelligent, and competitive financial system.”

Founded in 2013 by Zach Perret and William Hockey and headquartered in San Francisco, Plaid introduced itself to Finovate audiences at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. In the years since, the company has grown into a major financial data network covering more than 12,000 financial institutions in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe. With partners including Venmo and fellow Finovate alums SoFi and Betterment, Plaid works with fintechs, Fortune 500 companies, and leading banks to enable their customers to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they count on every day.


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Worldpay Partners with BVNK to Enable Stablecoin Payouts

Worldpay Partners with BVNK to Enable Stablecoin Payouts
  • Worldpay is partnering with BVNK to enable stablecoin payouts for businesses across 180+ markets.
  • The integration simplifies stablecoin adoption for traditional companies by embedding BVNK’s wallet infrastructure into Worldpay’s existing payouts platform.
  • The move reflects broader momentum in stablecoin adoption, following similar initiatives from R3, Solana, Circle, Mastercard, and MoonPay, as demand for faster, borderless, and more efficient payment solutions increases.

Payments and banking services company Worldpay and multi-rail payments infrastructure platform BVNK are teaming up this week to help businesses across the globe use stablecoins for payouts.

Worldpay is leveraging BVNK’s embedded wallet infrastructure to allow its commercial clients across more than 180 markets to pay customers, contractors, creators, sellers, and other third parties using stablecoins in near-real-time.

By integrating with BVNK, Worldpay is making stablecoin payments accessible to organizations that lack expertise in decentralized finance. Under the new partnership, businesses will not need to hold or handle any digital assets themselves in order to pay with them.

Worldpay business clients can access the new stablecoin payout service through their existing integration with Worldpay’s payouts platform. The company plans to pilot stablecoins on the platform in the second half of this year.

With 135 fiat currencies currently available on its platform, Worldpay began offering stablecoin settlement in 2022, allowing merchants in a limited number of geographical regions to receive payments in USDC. In 2023, the company piloted a project with Visa to receive funds more quickly from the network. 

“We’re delighted to work with BVNK to bring this enterprise-grade stablecoin payout solution to market,” said Worldpay SVP, Head of Payouts John McNaught. “With a history of delivering innovative payout solutions, we are excited to meet the rising interest from clients seeking faster, more efficient global payment methods.”

The partnership, which BVNK calls “an important milestone,” will help BVNK bridge traditional and digital payment systems, ultimately creating a more accessible, efficient financial ecosystem.

The move reflects growing demand for faster, borderless payments, especially for global payout platforms paying gig workers, creators, or remote teams. Stablecoins offer the speed of crypto with the stability of fiat, reducing delays and costs in cross-border transactions.

As demand for stable DeFi increases, so have the solutions facilitating mainstream adoption. Recently, we’ve seen a partnership between R3 and Solana, Circle’s launch of the Circle Payments Network, and a collaboration between Mastercard and Moonpay, all of which exemplify the trend of traditional finance converging with blockchain-based solutions to make stablecoin payments more accessible, secure, and scalable for everyday business use.

Temenos: New Partnership, New CTO, and Helping Banks Launch New Products Faster with Gen AI

Temenos: New Partnership, New CTO, and Helping Banks Launch New Products Faster with Gen AI

Temenos has been all over the fintech headlines in recent days. Here’s a look at what’s put them—and kept them—above the fold.

First up, the company announced that UK-based international payments provider Moneycorp has chosen Temenos SaaS to boost operational efficiency and launch new offerings faster—a theme in this roundup of news from the Swiss fintech. Moneycorp will leverage Temenos SaaS for core banking and payments and is specifically looking to take advantage of the technology’s advanced wallet and payments capabilities as it focuses on expanding its products and services globally. Moneycorp currently operates in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia.

“Best-in-class technology is key to delivering the seamless client experience and personalized service that Moneycorp is known for, so we’re delighted to partner with Temenos, an established global leader in banking technology,” Moneycorp Group Chief Technology Officer Srini Kasturi said. Kasturi praised the company’s multi-geographic support and localization, as well as the SaaS nature of the platform, which he said would help Moneycorp quickly go to market globally and better serve its international customers.

Moneycorp handled ÂŁ71 billion in trading volume in 2023, serving 11,000 B2B clients, 250 financial institutions, and 23,000+ individual customers. The firm processes more than one million payments a year, reaching 190 countries.

In addition to the new partnership, Temenos also announced new personnel in its C-suite. The company introduced Rohit Chauhan as its new Chief Technology Officer earlier this month. Chauhan will lead development of the company’s overall technology strategy, innovation, research, and development. In this role, he will be tasked with boosting the flexibility of the Temenos platform to advance the company’s core banking and modular solutions for financial institutions large and small. Chauhan was most recently Managing Director and Global Head of Digital Channels Technology at JPMorgan, where he held various leadership positions for more than 12 years.

Accompanying Chauhan’s announcement was the appointment of Eugene Khmelevsky in the newly created role of Temenos Global Head of Architecture and Data. Formerly Chief Mobile Architect at JCPenney, Khmelevsky in his new role will ensure Temenos’ architecture and data foundation support a product strategy that is modular and flexible.

Both Chauhan and Khmelevsky will be based out of the US and report to Temenos’ Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) Barb Morgan.

Lastly, Temenos launched its Temenos Product Manager Copilot this week. The new offering empowers banks to use Generative AI to design, launch, test, and optimize financial products faster. The solution is a Gen AI assistant that is integrated into Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and embedded within the Temenos retail core banking solution. The Copilot provides a straightforward, conversational interface for product, IT, and customer service managers, who can use the technology to review the range of Temenos’ core banking capabilities and insights.

The new offering announcement was accompanied by a report from a recent Temenos study that indicated that 75% of banks are investigating Gen AI deployment. Of those surveyed, 36% had already deployed the technology or were in the process of deploying it. The study also revealed that 73% of those surveyed believed that Agentic AI will be “transformative for the banking industry.”

“Temenos Product Manager Copilot unlocks the full innovation potential of Temenos core banking using Generative AI to help banks deliver better products faster to their customers,” Temenos CPTO Barb Morgan said. “We are excited to bring this game-changing technology to financial institutions globally. In an area where fintechs and neobanks can launch new offerings within weeks, it is critical for banks to accelerate innovation or risk losing relevance in an increasingly competitive landscape.”

Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, Temenos has been a Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateEurope 2013. The company is also an alum of Finovate’s developer conference, participating in FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2015. Temenos offers core banking, digital banking, payments, and wealth management services, as well as financial crime mitigation solutions. Temenos has more than 950 core banking and 600 digital banking clients around the world, and is among the largest software companies in Europe. Jean-Pierre Brulard is CEO.


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Entersekt Inks Payments Partnership with Stanchion

Entersekt Inks Payments Partnership with Stanchion

Atlanta, Georgia-based Entersekt announced a new strategic partnership with paytech solutions provider Stanchion. The partnership will combine Entersekt’s 3-D Secure payment authentication solution with Stanchion’s Payment Fabric Technology. Stanchion’s technology provides advanced integration capabilities that enable issuers to offer new functionalities to help them modernize, transform, and accelerate innovation and improve operational efficiency.

“We are excited to partner with innovative fintech leaders like Stanchion,” Entersekt Chief Revenue Officer Marty Overman said. “This collaboration aligns perfectly with Entersekt’s commitment to delivering secure, seamless payment solutions that empower financial institutions and protect consumers globally.”

Entersekt’s 3-D Secure payment authentication solution provides end-to-end transaction authentication across the merchant acquirer domain, the card issuer domain, and the interoperability domain. The company reports that its access control server (ACS) has delivered a 70% reduction in card-not-present (CNP) fraud within one month, and a 54% increase in conversion rates over six months. Additionally, Entersekt’s ACS provided a 149% growth in transaction value within the first year. The technology leverages out-of-band, biometric, and silent authentication to enhance the customer experience with reliable authentication and adaptive risk intelligence. Entersekt acquired the 3-D Secure software technology business from Modirum, a Finland-based security technology firm, in 2023. The move was designed to position Entersekt as an international leader in authentication solutions for financial services companies.

“We are delighted to partner with Entersekt, one of the world’s foremost 3-D Secure providers,” Stanchion Chief Commercial Officer Chris Pappas said. “This collaboration will enable us to offer enhanced capabilities and deliver even greater value to our clients, reinforcing our position as a leader in payment integration solutions.”

Headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, Stanchion offers a range of solutions and services to help firms integrate, manage, optimize, and secure their payment systems. Founded in 2001 and maintaining offices in Australia, the UK, the UAE, and the US, as well as in South Africa, Stanchion’s solutions include Verto, a next-generation integration and orchestration platform for banks and payment providers; and SwitchCare, a proactive monitoring and observability solution. Stanchion also offers Professional Services in the form of platform-agnostic advice and support during the development and integration of new payment environments. Steven Kirrage is CEO.

Entersekt made its Finovate debut at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. In the decade-plus since then, Entersekt has grown into a leading fraud prevention and payment security solution provider for banks and other financial institutions. Founded in 2010, the company processes more than 2.5 billion transactions for 250+ million cardholders and 450,000+ merchants from nearly 900 banks in more than 70 countries. Entersekt’s flagship solution, its cross-channel Context Aware Authentication platform, secures digital transactions and helps optimize the user experience.

Earlier this year, Entersekt announced that Clare Conway had joined the company as Chief Integration Officer. Conway comes to Entersekt after serving as Chief Operating Officer for partnership automation platform, Partnerize. Also this year, Entersekt announced a new collaboration with Africa-based payment services provider enza. The paytech will leverage Entersekt’s 3-D Secure authentication to bring stronger security, fewer false declines, and seamless payment experiences to banking customers in Africa. Banks in the region will benefit from greater competitiveness, and the ability to expand to new markets and pursue new revenue sources. Schalk Nolte is Entersekt CEO.


Photo by Joey Kyber on Unsplash