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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Customers have been getting a lot of attention in the financial services industry lately, and for good reason. After all, they’re the ones who are interacting with and relying on banking services on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. And many times they are even the ones footing the bill!
Fortunately, there are fintechs in the business of helping financial services companies connect with their customers. Take Unblu, for example. The Switzerland-based company launched in 2008 as a conversational platform for financial services companies.
Unblu allows banks and relationship managers to interact with their customers across multiple channels and mediums in order to keep the conversation natural, comfortable, and compliant. Customers can open a chat discussion, host a video call, or schedule a co-browsing session with a view of existing websites and screens to enhance the conversation of the customer’s view.
The company offers four products. The first, Conversational Banking, provides interactivity that allows for a seamless flow of questions, answers, ideas, and scheduling. Retail Banking and Private Banking allow the organization to enhance the user experience while better capturing leads for upsell and cross-sell opportunities. Lastly, the insurance offering provides the capability to submit claims and compare different products.
Key to the Unblu platform are the safety and compliance aspects. Not only does Unblu protect clients’ data, it also protects their information during screensharing by masking sensitive information. Organizations are safeguarded as well, with archived interaction logs and audit trails of client communications.
Last year Unblu opened an office in Frankfurt, Germany. The move aimed to support geographic expansion and marks the company’s third international office location– in addition to the U.S. and U.K.– outside of its Switzerland headquarters. And Unblu’s growth continues to compound. The company counts more than 120 financial services firms as clients– almost triple the number of clients Unblu had in 2017.
If you happen to be at FinovateEurope this week, you’re in luck! Unblu will take the stage during the second demo session on Wednesday, 12 February at the Intercontinental Berlin. There’s still time to register so book now!
Recently I came across an interesting story of how tech native GenZ kids were being paired with aging Boomers to help them navigate a variety of contemporary technology tools – from their smartphones to their SnapChat apps.
At a time when sneers like “OK Boomer” quickly trend on social media, it was a refreshing reminder of the role younger generations can play in making some of the dramatic changes in society – including technology – easier for their older family members, friends, neighbors, and even perfect strangers to navigate.
With this in mind, I wanted to take a look at how entrepreneurs are leveraging fintech to do the same thing: make it easier for seniors to not just participate in online life, but to thrive there.
Ensuring that the online and mobile worlds are a safer place for seniors is one of the important contributions that technology can make. EverSafe, which introduced its solution to Finovate audiences at FinovateFall 2014, specializes in leveraging technology to help protect seniors against financial exploitation. The company’s software examines the senior’s financial transactions and credit report on a daily basis, looking for unexpected patterns and other anomalies that may indicate potentially fraudulent activity. Once suspicious activity is detected, the user is alerted immediately and, if the activity is confirmed, a resolution process is started.
Earlier this year, Eversafe lent its technology to researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine in Portland. The goal is to help medical professionals uncover cognitive test markers that correlate with changes in the financial behavior of seniors. Interviewed in Alzheimer’s News Today, Dr. Kathy Wild noted that these insights could help determine when and to what extent independent living is the best option for a given senior. The results of Wild’s study are expected in 2021.
Eversafe was founded in 2012 by Howard Tischler, who is the company’s CEO. The firm is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.
Best of Show winner at FinovateFall 2018, Golden offers technology geared toward helping older Boomers take care of their parents, many of whom are entering assisted living communities. The company’s Financial Caregiving Assistant app and Family Collaboration platform provide an array of services such as security for online accounts; automatic, on-time billpay; expense review; and a family document vault. The offering also helps seniors and caretakers to discover government benefits and drug discounts they may be eligible for. Partnerships with a variety of financial services companies gives Golden users the ability to offer branded services – including legal, financial, estate, and wealth management services – to their customers, as well.
The first company to win AARP’s Financial Innovation Award and Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Aging Innovation Challenge, Golden was launched in 2016 by CEO Evin Ollinger, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Even among hardened fintech fans there was an audible gasp in the room when FinovateAsia 2019 Best of Show winner Bereev‘s CEO announced bluntly that her company’s goal was to help you “plan for your death.” Then again, it’s hard not to take a company that uses the Twitter hashtag #DeathPlan seriously.
Malaysia-based, Bereev digitizes and simplifies a life-planning process that is not only complex, but is also typically paper-intensive and burdensome. In explaining the origins of the company, founder and CEO Izumi Inoue compared the unexpected, end-of-life experience of her grandmother with the passing of her grandfather soon afterward, who had learned from his wife’s death the importance of end-of-life planning. And not just for important documents and the numbers to bank accounts, either. More personal instructions like which friends to contact were also a part of Inoue’s grandfather’s plan. They are a part of Bereev, as well.
A legacy planning solution, Bereev helps guide an individual’s family on what to do in the event of their injury, incapacitation, or death. Bereev has four components to building this contingency plan: a digital vault for important documents such as wills and insurance policies; the ability to record and save “last words” to be sent or shared with loved ones; and an accessibility console that enables the user to determine who gets access to which data and information in Bereev.
The fourth component is a guided journey that helps ensure that users provide clear instructions on how they want their affairs handled after death. The solution is set up so that all the user has to is answer a pair of questions each week, and Bereev will build out over time a personalized set of end-of-life instructions based on the user’s responses. “Before you know it,” Inoue said, “you’ll have very clear instructions left behind.”
Poignantly, Inoue notes that there are many innovations in technology in general and fintech in specific, that help you prepare and take advantage of the happier times in life: getting married, buying a first home, planning for a family. “But what about the darker and tougher times in life,” Inoue asks, “who is going to help you then? At Bereev, our goal is to help you cope through those difficult moments of life – with technology.”
When it comes to customer service, even in-person interactions can be unpleasant. And doing business over the phone is usually markedly worse, especially if there is a bot involved.
There is one fintech fighting that stereotype, however. Voca.ai offers a virtual call center agent tailored to the financial services industry. And you won’t find the company referring to this virtual agent as a bot. Instead, Voca.ai uses terms such as “empathetic,” “smart,” and “human-friendly” to describe its virtual agent Voca.
Advancements
Voca implements an AI that has been trained by listening to an organization’s recordings of successful agents. Voca not only imitates the representatives’ responses, it also uses a human-sounding cadence and adds pauses and filler words such as “um.” The use case in the video below depicts a collections scenario. Other possible applications for Voca include lead generation, customer qualification, appointment scheduling, cross-selling, and customer retention.
https://youtu.be/USUdJyD2uUo
Voca’s collections agent in the video sounds remarkably human, especially with such a common name, Sarah. Sarah pauses in all the right places, has sympathetic intonations, and understands David, her client, even when he doesn’t use proper English.
All of this is part of Voca.ai’s secret sauce. The company’s virtual agent leverages information from the call such as speech rhythm, tone, and the speed of the conversation to identify the customer’s intent and emotion. As the call progresses, the virtual agent can even pick up on clues that indicate that what the customer is saying is different from what they actually mean.
What’s lacking
Because of common fraud tactics such as phishing, society has been trained to never offer personal information over an incoming phone call. Figuring out a way for the customer to authenticate themselves without compromising their identity is a major hurdle here. In fact, this is such an enigma that digital identity is one of the biggest topics in fintech, and one that will persist.
Maintaining human cadence is a second item that needs to be considered here. This isn’t obvious in the demo above, but if you watch the company’s demo at FinovateSpring last year (which won Best of Show), you may notice an awkward pause before each answer. For some, the moment of silence may be just long enough to wonder if the caller understood their answer. This could cause them to repeat themselves and result in the voice agent and the customer talking over each other in an awkward exchange.
Despite the challenges present in voice-powered customer service, Voca.ai has created a powerful tool. Voice has come a long way in reducing friction for not only financial services companies, but also their clients. Additionally, the new adaptations of voice have created a more human-like experience, which is something many consumers crave in today’s digital era.
If you’ve ever been hacked, having either money or personal credentials stolen, did you stop to think about what type of person, organization, or agenda you were inadvertently supporting?
“Let’s talk about the funding of evil,” said Trusona founder and CEO Ori Eisen during his first Finovate demo. “When a bank loses $10 million, it’s not a good day for the bank. But where the money goes and what it’s being spent on is not good either.” Eisen then turned to the audience to suggest their responsibility in the matter. “You can help stop or curb the funding of evil,” he added.
At first I thought he was joking. Discussion of the “funding of evil” and “stopping the bad guys” sounded like something straight out of a kid’s TV program. However, it’s no joke and it’s unnerving to think of what these “bad guy” fraudsters do with their stolen cash.
In the demo, Eisen went on to explain that one way to curb funding these fraudsters is to make user’s accounts more secure. And in Trusona’s opinion, the best way to do that is to get rid of passwords entirely. The Arizona-based company just raised $20 million this month in support of this concept– getting rid of the password. The investment brought Trusona’s total funding to $38 million.
So what does web authentication look like without a password? The 30 second process requires the user to have their smartphone with them, but doesn’t require access to a cellular network. Upon logging in, the user clicks Login with Trusona. The web interface shows a unique QR code, and the user then opens the Trusona app on their smartphone, scans the QR code, and taps to accept. Once complete, the user can enter the website without the need for a username or password.
In addition to simple authentication, Trusona also offers solutions for ID scanning and proofing, multi-factor authentication, and VPNs.
The need for such a solution stems from faulty password management skills common among consumers and employees today. In fact, last year Trace Security reported that 81% of company data breaches were caused by poor passwords. Trusona offers an SDK that businesses can integrate into their own app to simplify logins for both employees and end customers.
With its recent funding, Trusona said it will focus on expanding its customer base as well as begin working on new product offerings.
Trusona was founded in 2015 and counts Aetna, Kleiner Perkins, and Bain Capital among its clients. The company has demoed at Finovate twice and won Best of Show awards at both of its appearances. Check out Trusona’s most recent demo below.
With Finovate making its debut on the European continent just over a month from now, we thought it was a good time to catch up with one of the major fintech innovators in the region, banqUP.
The company, headquartered in Belgium and “proudly developed in Poland,” demonstrated its small business banking platform at FinovateEurope 2017. We reached out to company CEO and founder Krzysztof Pulkiewicz to talk about banqUP’s latest accomplishments in open banking, as well as what the landscape for fintech innovation is like inside and outside the CEE region.
Finovate: The most recent news from banqUP is the news of your AIS license from the Polish Financial Supervision Authority. What does this license enable and how important was this development to your company?
Krzysztof Pulkiewicz: It allows us to broaden our reach and gain new clients. We have been working with a number of banks but now, with our newly gained license, we have the possibility to work both with banks and other entities that can gain access to the opportunities provided by open banking thanks to our solutions.
Finovate: You also recently announced that the company will focus fully on its B2B2C open banking platform. Can you tell us a little bit about the thinking behind this decision?
Pulkiewicz: For banqUP, the main reasons of moving from an idea of a fintech bank to a platform integrating banking APIs were challenges related to the acquisition of customers, especially on mature digital banking markets like Poland. There were also several limitations like opening accounts in polish zloty. On the other hand, we were already closely working with banks interested in our technology. We have seen that a number of our partners were interested in our open banking solutions. We have been working in a sort of a schizophrenic environment – both working with banks and building our own bank as well.
Multibanking was a core element of banqUP fintech bank from day one, and we have decided to focus on this aspect of the platform. We knew that sticking to what we are really good at – technology and data analytics – will be working for us. And it proved true.
banqUp’s platform adds new functionality such as analytics and data enrichment in addition to data aggregation.
Finovate: In line with this, the company has decided to launch a TPP-as-a-Service business line. Why do this and how large are the opportunities there?
Pulkiewicz: This is something we have been thinking about since we have started considering open banking. Multibanking solutions are the beginning of the open banking ecosystem, but we are sure that what the future brings, are the new ideas and products that will come from PSD2. There are many companies that do not consider getting their TPP licenses, as it is not a core of their business. However, they are willing to use the information provided by the banking system, and our solution is created for such partners.
The number of inquiries we are getting from prospective partners is really astonishing – and these are both new companies and major players from different industries.
Finovate: You mentioned in an email that you plan to open the next generation of your platform to the public early next year. Can you give us a preview of what’s new and what to expect – as well as any update on the timeline?
Pulkiewicz: Our main focus is on what we call “open banking building blocks.” We are extending our platform with best-in-class API and SDK that will offer effective integration capabilities for developers. On the functional level, we are adding new functionalities on top of data aggregation (analytics, data quality management, and data enrichment) as well as provide and expand on all the components that can support different businesses in connecting to the open-banking world (consent lifecycle management, data streaming, combining PSD2 APIs with other data sources). We know that data aggregation and payment initiation is just a starting point and we are positioning our platform as a one-stop shop for open banking.
The team from banqUP during their live demonstration at FinovateEurope 2017.
Finovate: BanqUp operates in both CEE and non-CEE Europe – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria on the one hand, Belgium and Ireland on the other. Are there categorical differences between working with financial institutions in Central Europe compared to Western Europe? Are attitudes toward open banking the same or different?
Pulkiewicz: The ecosystems differ, but the main distinction we see is not between Central and Western Europe, but between individual countries. Ireland’s ecosystem, for example, is very open. It is not only a reaction to the British banking regulations that have been the basis for PSD2 and had an effect on Ireland, but also the number of fintech companies from the U.K. and Ireland that had quickly started working with banks as they have opened. Poland’s banks have been working on many innovative banking tech projects, and banks have implemented many solutions of their own, making their ecosystems quite closed. When you look at Hungary, it was very fast with opening its own data – with eight out of 10 of the biggest banks in the country providing their API access in March of 2019, well before the final implementation of PSD2 in June. The central bank of the country has also created a fintech cooperation strategy. The differences here do not come from geographical divisions, but from the local ecosystems.
Finovate: In addition to the platform enhancements expected in 2020, are there any other announcements you can preview? New partners, new investors, new markets?
Pulkiewicz: We are definitely planning to expand to new markets – mostly focusing on the CEE region. We have a number of really promising talks with new, large partners, but we cannot really disclose any names at this moment. When it comes to investors – we have been very proud we have managed to come to this moment without any external support, but we are now also looking for strategic partnerships and alliances.
