Sandstone Technology Appoints New CTO

Sandstone Technology Appoints New CTO

Banking technology company Sandstone Technology appointed a new CTO this month. The company unveiled today it has selected Anthony McKew to fill the role.

With more than 35 years of experience in banking and technology, McKew has worked for companies including Linkly, Premier Technologies, and SecurePay. He has expertise in designing and managing enterprise-grade platforms for major retailers, government agencies, and digital operations for vendors and service providers.

“I am extremely pleased with the addition of Anthony to our Leadership team as our Chief Technology Officer,” said Sandstone CEO Abhish Saha. “This is an essential role, supporting our customers across the globe and being a key driver of our ongoing business strategy and growth. Anthony’s intimate understanding of Financial Institutions and their security and technology needs will be of great value to both our customers and our staff.”

McKew, who began his appointment on January 9th of this year, fills the shoes of Sandstone’s former CTO Chaitanya Pinnamaneni.

Sandstone was founded in 1996 and currently offers a suite of tools for loan origination, its BankFast mobile app that offers end users a seamless experience between web and mobile channels, and intelligent document processing tools that enable banks to capture, classify, and extract data stored in borrower-submitted documents.

The Australia-based company formed its most recent partnership with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank to offer a single platform that covers all its third party origination channels and limits exposure to legacy systems. In March of last year, Sandstone launched an innovation hub to capture emerging opportunities from new enabling technologies.

“At Sandstone we pride ourselves on our longstanding strategic partnerships with our customers, where we look to solve business problems together, not just provide a service,” said Sandstone CEO Michael Phillipou. “As the banking landscape continues to evolve apace, we’re excited to start working alongside our customers to develop solutions that grasp tomorrow’s opportunities, as well as today’s.”


Photo by Scott Webb

Savings Platform Plinqit Teams Up with SUMA FCU to Help Members Enhance Financial Wellness

Savings Platform Plinqit Teams Up with SUMA FCU to Help Members Enhance Financial Wellness

The jury is still out on whether or not January is officially Financial Wellness Month. But savings platform Plinqit isn’t waiting around for any verdict. The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based fintech announced this week that it has partnered with SUMA Federal Credit Union to help give the institution’s 7,000+ members the resources they need to become better savers.

The partnership will enable SUMA FCU’s members to access tools such as Plinqit’s Build Skills solution. Build Skills provides users with content that helps them build their personal finance awareness and savings skills, and then pays them for learning new skills. In turn, the funds earned from learning more about financial wellness can help propel users toward their Plinqit savings goals. SUMA FCU members will be able to access the functionality via SUMA FCU’s digital banking platform, thanks to Plinqit’s integration with Jack Henry’s Banno Digital Toolkit.

SUMA FCU expects the new technology will help attract new members to the credit union as well as enhance the banking experience for existing members. The institution serves communities in Yonkers and Spring Valley, New York, as well as New Haven and Stamford, Connecticut. Both regions feature sizable populations of Ukrainian immigrants and parishioners of St. Michael’s Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church. Established more than 55 years ago, SUMA FCU has more than $400 million in assets today.

“Credit unions are known for having strong relationships with their member base and SUMA Federal Credit Union has exemplified this for decades,” Plinqit CEO and founder Kathleen Craig said. She highlighted SUMA FCU’s support of local institutions, including churches, Ukrainian youth groups, and other cultural organizations. “Plinqit is proud to partner with an institution that consistently strives to make a meaningful impact in its community,” Craig said.

Plinqit made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019 in New York. At the conference, Plinqit demoed its Build Skills offering – “created by Millennials for Millennials” – which aligns data, behavior, and incentives to make savings goals easier to set and attain. Last year, the company secured $5 million in Series A funding. The round, co-led by Fintop Capital of Nashville, Tennessee, and JAM FINTOP of New York, took Plinqit’s total funding to nearly $10 million.

Plinqit’s partnership announcement comes just a week after the company released its latest State of Savings Report. This survey, which measures top savings priorities for consumers, showed that 43% of consumers are actively contributing to an emergency fund for both short-term and long-term potential expenses. “While the price increases for everyday necessities leave many U.S. households with financial stress, consumers remain focused on building up their emergency savings even in these trying times,” Craig said. “Providing tools to help them be successful in their savings goal is critical for financial institutions.”


Photo by Dany Kurniawan

Jumio Helps Car-Sharing Company GetGo Onboard New Drivers

Jumio Helps Car-Sharing Company GetGo Onboard New Drivers

Digital identity solutions company Jumio announced yesterday that Singapore car-sharing company GetGo has selected its technology to help onboard new drivers.

As one of the largest car-sharing services in Singapore, GetGo seeks to offer a user-friendly online ecosystem that promotes shared and sustainable mobility. The company was founded in 2020 to help users rent and share cars, enabling users to book a car using their mobile phones. GetGo focuses on simplicity, flexibility, and accessibility. These three attributes add up to one thing– customer centricity.

In order to help drivers onboard to the GetGo platform, GetGo will leverage Jumio’s identity verification tools that leverage biometrics and AI to automatically authenticate GetGo users. Jumio will help GetGo protect its fleet of 1,700 vehicles against theft by requiring drivers to provide a valid government-issued ID and a selfie. The partnership will reduce the time it takes GetGo customers to onboard down to minutes.

“Jumio’s facial verification technology allows GetGo to simultaneously raise its trust and safety standards while enhancing its customer onboarding experience,” said GetGo Product Lead Lionel Fong. “GetGo looks forward to a long-term partnership with Jumio in pushing the boundaries on bringing a reliable and frictionless verification experience to the masses.”

Jumio was founded in 2010 and came close to collapse when it filed for bankruptcy in 2016. After restructuring, Jumio sold to Centana Venture Partners, which acquired the company for $850,000 two months after its bankruptcy filing.

Jumio has come a long way since its dip in 2016. The company has processed over one billion transactions from over 200 countries and territories. What’s more, Jumio acquired KYC and anti-fraud solutions company 4stop in 2021 and compliance firm Beam in 2020. The company’s most recent funding round took place in March of 2021 when it closed a $150 million round from Great Hill Partners, bringing its total funding to $255 million.


Photo by Lisa Fotios

FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley Showcases Fintech’s Pioneers

FinovateEurope’s Alumni Alley Showcases Fintech’s Pioneers

To close out 2022, we highlighted our upcoming FinovateEurope Alumni Alley showcase. This event, part of FinovateEurope in London, March 13 through 14, will feature the companies that made their Finovate debuts at our annual European conference. Find out more about Alumni Alley and how you and your company can take advantage of this unique opportunity.

We commemorated the announcement of Alumni Alley with this multi-part look back at some of FinovateEurope’s earliest alums. Click the image to enjoy a little stroll down fintech’s memory lane.


Featuring Cardlytics, D3 Technology (formerly Lodo Software), and AcceptEasy (formerly AcceptEmail)


Featuring Xero, Tilte (formerly known as Striata), and DirectID (formerly miiCard)


Featuring Finantix, BusinessForensics, and StockTwits


Featuring Backbase, Boku, and SecureKey.


Featuring Meniga, Linxo, and eToro


Photo by Peter Spencer | Additional art credits in the original articles

Green Dot and Wealthfront Extend Relationship

Green Dot and Wealthfront Extend Relationship

Wealth management provider Wealthfront is extending its relationship with digital bank and banking-as-a-service provider Green Dot this week.

Wealthfront originally tapped Green Dot in 2020 to use the company’s banking-as-a-service tools to offer its Cash Account clients access to checking features. Today, the two announced they are continuing the relationship.

Wealthfront’s Cash Account leverages Green Dot to offer features competitive with other digital banks, including the ability to receive direct deposits up to two days early, pay bills, send and deposit checks, and use a debit card to access cash at ATMs. The account requires a $1 initial deposit, offers unlimited free transfers, automated savings features, near-instant transfers into Wealthfront’s Investment Accounts, and more.

Additionally, Wealthfront’s Cash Accounts pay a 3.80% APY, a huge improvement over what most firms were offering during the recent near-zero interest rate environment. The competition among digital banking providers has intensified, and competing on interest rates will be a good way for these newcomers to gain new customers and increased deposits. That’s because many large traditional banks are paying an average of just 0.24% APY.

Other players in the wealth management space are also currently offering high interest rates on their checking accounts. Personal Capital just announced it will pay 3.85% and Betterment is paying 3.75% on its high-yield account.

“Today’s investors want smart saving and investing products that help them build wealth in all market conditions, which is why we’re proud to offer the Cash Account to help our clients earn more on their uninvested savings,” said Wealthfront VP of Product Dave Myszewski. “With one of the highest rates on the market plus checking features powered by Green Dot, we’re able to provide a best-in-class Cash Account that is far superior to what a traditional bank can offer, so our clients can grow their long-term wealth easily and conveniently.”

Wealthfront had a hopeful start to 2022 when UBS agreed to acquire the California-based company for $1.4 billion in January. Nine months later, however, UBS called off the agreement because of “unspecified regulatory concerns.” Along with the termination, UBS gave Wealthfront $70 million in financing at a $1.4 billion valuation. “With this fresh round of funding under our belt along with the ability to begin self-funding the business, we are committed to building a lasting company that positively impacts the lives of our clients for decades to come,” said Wealthfront Chief Executive Officer David Fortunato.

Railsr Taps Featurespace for Fraud Prevention

Railsr Taps Featurespace for Fraud Prevention

Embedded finance platform Railsr is teaming up with fraud prevention company Featurespace this week to bolster fraud prevention efforts for Railsr as a company, as well as for its clients.

Railsr will leverage Featurespace’s ARIC Risk Hub, combined with its own fraud teams, to provide its clients with a compliance tool to stay on top of regulations. The fraud tools will be available to Railsr clients with a single integration, making it easier for them to focus on growth while remaining compliant.

“As the market accelerates towards embedded finance, consumers expect a frictionless payment experience that is built into the transaction process. With Featurespace’s AI and ML capabilities, Railsr can provide an enhanced level of customer experience, making consumers’ lives simpler and safer,” said Railsr Global Head of Product for Fincrime and Operations Stuart Hartley.

The ARIC Risk Hub will enable Railsr customers to view and manage their fraud analytics, as well as offer them a single place to access Featurespace’s fraud and AML (FRAML) solutions.

“The Railsr platform is a natural fit for Featurespace,” said Featurespace Chief Commercial Officer Matt Mills. “As embedded finance increasingly becomes expected by consumers, making sure they are protected from fraud and financial crime must be expected in equal measure. Railsr have recognized this early and added a critical layer of self-learning technology to ensure their customers get only the best experience.”

Railsr anticipates the new fraud tools will be available within the next year.

Today’s news comes amid a string of high-profile partnerships for Featurespace last month, including with BBVA, Diebold Nixdorf, and Global Processing Services. Featurespace has more than 30 major bank clients including four of the five largest banks in the U.K. Among Featurespace’s customers are HSBC, TSYS, Worldpay, RBS NatWest Group, Danske Bank, ClearBank, and more.

Founded in 2005 by a university professor and his PhD student, Featurespace has raised $108 million, including its most recent investment of $37 million received in 2020.


Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

ACI Worldwide Appoints Thomas Warsop Interim CEO

ACI Worldwide Appoints Thomas Warsop Interim CEO

Real-time payments software company ACI Worldwide has appointed Thomas Warsop as its Interim Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Warsop was formerly the non-executive Chair of the ACI Worldwide Board of Directors. He replaces Odilon Almeida, who was the company’s CEO from March 2020 until now. Almeda was named CEO after Philip Heasley – who had served as CEO and President for 15 years – retired. Independent board director Adalio Sanchez will assume the role of non-executive Board chair.

“As ACI advances its vision to lead the real-time payments revolution, the Board is determined that now is the right time to transition to a new leader focused on accelerating our technology transformation and delivering operational excellence across our business,” ACI Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee Chair Mary Harman said.

A member of the company’s board of directors since the summer of 2015, Warsop became non-executive chairman seven years later in June of 2022. In addition to his tenure on the ACI board, Warsop brings his experience as Group President at Fiserv to his new position. Warsop has led a number of private equity firms previous to joining the ACI board including One Call Care Management, York Risk Services Group, and The Warranty Group. He also held executive roles at Electronic Data Systems, ranging from President of the firm’s Business Process Outsourcing unit in the Asia Pacific to Vice President of Global Financial Services.

“ACI is uniquely positioned to support banks, merchants, and billers around the world,” Warsop said in a statement. “We have market-leading software platforms in use at many of the world’s leading financial institutions and are poised not just to benefit from, but to drive, the rapidly approaching real-time payments revolution.”

ACI Worldwide’s C-suite news comes less than a week after the company announced third quarter results. The report included a 35% year over year increase in new ARR bookings, as well as “notable booking success across all segments, providing visibility into future revenue growth,” then-CEO and president Almeida said. At the same time, the company the impact of inflationary pressures on both interchange revenue and foreign exchanges rates. Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 was down year over year, but the company did iterate its full-year guidance.

Challenges notwithstanding, ACI Worldwide has continued to forge partnerships with institutions around the world, helping them enhance their payment operations. The company teamed up with Sweden’s Westpay in September, who will deploy ACI Secure eCommerce to bring new capabilities to its in-store payment solutions. Also that month, ACI Worldwide announced a partnership with loan management software provider GOLDPoint Systems. ACI will help the Provo, Utah-based company to digitize its billpay operations via its ACI Speedpay solution, which is used by thousands of billers in the U.S.

Founded in 1975 in Omaha, Nebraska, ACI Worldwide is currently headquartered in Miami, Florida. The company is a leading force driving innovation in real-time electronic payments for banks, processors, billers, networks, and more. ACI Worldwide serves 19 of the top 20 banks worldwide, enables more than 80,000 merchants, and provides electronic billpay technology for thousands of organizations. Processing more than 225 billion consumer transactions a year, the company serves more than 6,000 customers in 95 countries around the world.

A publicly traded fintech on the NASDAQ under the ticker “ACIW,” ACI Worldwide has a market capitalization of $2.4 billion. The company has been a Finovate alum since 2011, demoing its business banking solution in partnership with mShift at FinovateFall. ACI Worldwide returned to the Finovate stage five years later to lead a presentation on its latest innovations in ecommerce payment technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2016.


Photo by Pixabay

Bluefin Payment Systems Acquires TECS Payment Systems

Bluefin Payment Systems Acquires TECS Payment Systems

Payment and data security company Bluefin Payment Systems announced it will acquire TECS Payment Systems, an omnichannel payment solutions provider.

Once the deal is finalized, Bluefin and TECS will serve a combined 34,000 merchants and close to 300 global partners in 55 countries. And for both Atlanta, Georgia-based Bluefin and Austria-based TECS, the acquisition will expand their geographical footprint.

“We are delighted to welcome TECS’ employees, customers and partners to Bluefin,” said Bluefin CEO John M. Perry. “This combination brings together two companies that focus relentlessly on meeting merchant needs for next-generation payment processing and management as well as the secure exchange of PHI and PII data with PCI-validated encryption and tokenization.”

Bluefin will leverage the purchase to offer its customers omnichannel payments and smartPOS capabilities, which will be integrated into the company’s existing payments and data security suite. TECS clients will benefit from added data security solutions, as well as additional resources for its TECS product and solution suite.

Founded in 2007, Bluefin offers encrypted and tokenized payments for point-of-sale transactions. Additionally, the company’s data security platform, ShieldConex, tokenizes payments, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and Protected Health Information (PHI) entered online. Last month, the company appointed a new CRO to fuel its growth. And, earlier this fall, Bluefin partnered with commercial hardware manufacturer Sunmi.


Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

SKU Data Network Company Banyan Secures $43 Million in Series A Funding

SKU Data Network Company Banyan Secures $43 Million in Series A Funding
  • SKU data network company Banyan raised $43 million in Series A funding.
  • The round consisted of $28 million in equity and $15 million in venture debt, and gives the company a total of $53 million in equity funding.
  • Banyan made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021 in New York, and returned to the Finovate stage this year for FinovateSpring in San Francisco.

In a round led by Fin Capital and M13, SKU data network company Banyan has raised $43 million in funding. The Series A round includes $28 million in equity and $15 million in venture debt, taking the total equity capital raised by Banyan to $53 million. In addition to Fin Capital and M13, the round featured participation from FIS Impact Ventures, Bridge Bank, Interplay, and TTV Capital.

The financing will be used to help accelerate Banyan’s technology and infrastructure growth. Banyan enables retailers and financial institutions to leverage enriched, item-level data capabilities to boost consumer engagement and financial wellness, as well as improve business expense management. The company offers the world’s largest SKU data network, which helps “unlock a new world of valuable information in the form of item-level receipt data,” according to Banyan founder and CEO Jehan Luth. Luth added that the funding was “evidence of market validation for Banyan as the first to deliver the next level of Precise Commerce applications to merchants and financial services.”

Banyan’s network is used by both Fortune 150 corporations as well as convenience stores. The company’s solution suite enables dramatic reductions in the time spent on expense reports by integrating item-level purchase data into banking and expense management apps. Banyan’s technology also provides shopping and loyalty offers that help merchants and their partners better target the offering of incentives, keying on the specific item, category, and aisle-level categories they want to reward. Fin Capital founder and managing partner Logan Allin said that Banyan’s solutions help businesses “re-imagine the experiences they can bring to consumers.”

Banyan demonstrated its Enrich solution at FinovateSpring earlier this year. At the conference, Banyan showed how its technology enables banks, fintechs, and their retail partners to use item level data to drive both everyday spending and top of wallet behavior. Relying on both API calls for individual transactions and batch calls for unlimited records, Banyan’s at-scale network lets retailers share receipt data with banks and fintechs to make financial apps more impactful for the digitally-oriented financial services customer.

Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey, Banyan has processed more than $400 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), more than 10.3 billion in bank and fintech partner transactions, and more than 10.4 billion in purchase receipts from network retailers. The company also has more than four million UPCs catalogued in its network.

Earlier this year, Banyan introduced new Chief Marketing Officer Andrea Gilman, formerly SVP with Mastercard. This spring, Banyan announced a rebrand – including a new logo and a website refresh – to reflect what Luth called the company’s “defined path to disrupt and change the retail landscape while bringing new benefits to consumers.”


Photo by Karolina Grabowska

Coinbase Partners with Google Cloud; Earns Regulatory Approval in Singapore

Coinbase Partners with Google Cloud; Earns Regulatory Approval in Singapore

Enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies has settled down from its peak a year ago. But innovation in the space continues undaunted. Today we learned that one of the pioneering companies in digital assets, Coinbase, has forged a strategic partnership with Google Cloud. The partnership calls for Coinbase to use Google Cloud as its strategic cloud provider for developing advanced exchange and data services. Google Cloud’s platform will enable Coinbase to process blockchain data at scale, and boost the international reach of its services courtesy of Google Cloud’s fiber optic network. Coinbase will also benefit from Google Cloud’s secure infrastructure and the company’s data and analytics capabilities.

“We are excited Google Cloud has selected Coinbase to help bring Web3 to a new set of users and provide powerful solutions to developers,” Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong said. “With more than 100 million verified users and 14,500 institutional clients, Coinbase has spent more than a decade building industry-leading products on top of blockchain technology. We could not ask for a better partner to help execute our vision of building a trusted bridge into the Web3 ecosystem.”

The partnership also means that Google Cloud will enable select customers to pay for its cloud services with designated cryptocurrencies. The functionality will be powered by Coinbase Commerce, which provides a decentralized way for merchants around the world to accept cryptocurrency payments. Further, Web3 developers will be able to access Google’s BigQuery crypto public datasets – powered by Coinbase Cloud Nodes – across leading blockchains. This will enable developers to operate Web3-based systems without requiring expensive and unwieldy infrastructure.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said the partnership would help make it easier and faster for developers to build Web3. Kurian highlighted the “scalability, reliability, security, and data services available via Google Cloud” which he said would enable developers to “focus on innovation in the Web3 space.” Google also announced that it will use Coinbase Prime for institutional crypto services such as secure custody and reporting.

Coinbase’s partnership news with Google Cloud comes as the cryptocurrency innovator announces that it has secured regulatory approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The company received its In-Principle Approval (IPA) as a Major Payments Institution license holder, which will enable Coinbase to offer regulated Digital Payment Token products and services in Singapore. It’s worth noting that Coinbase is no stranger to the country. The company introduced the island nation as its technology hub last year. And over the past three years, Coinbase’s venture capital arm, Coinbase Ventures, has invested in more than 15 Singapore-based Web3 startups.

“Today’s announcement underlines our commitment to Singapore as a regional hub that allows us to unlock new capabilities for Singapore-based institutional and corporate clients in the future,” Coinbase’s Nana Murugesan wrote on the company blog this week. “Gaining this in-principle approval from MAS is an important step, as we plan to launch our full suite of retail, institutional, and ecosystem products.”

Coinbase made its Finovate debut in 2014 at FinovateSpring in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2012, the company now enables more than 100 million people and businesses to buy, sell, and manage cryptocurrencies. Coinbase has a quarterly trading volume of $217 billion, and $96 billion in assets on its platform. With partners in more than 100 countries, and 4,900+ employees, Coinbase is a publicly-traded company on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker COIN and has a market capitalization of $16 billion.


Photo by Pixabay

ABN AMRO Pilots e-ID with Payment Capability

ABN AMRO Pilots e-ID with Payment Capability
  • Dutch bank ABN AMRO has partnered with bicycle rental company Swapfiets to offer Swapfiet clients access to ID & pay.
  • With ID & pay, customers can sign up and pay for a service in seconds while securely storing their ID in a single app.
  • ID & pay works across multiple merchants and service providers. ABN AMRO likens it to “to having a Google login combined with PayPal.”

ABN AMRO is flexing its payment innovation muscle this week in a new partnership. The Dutch bank is teaming up with bicycle-as-a-service company Swapfiets to launch a new functionality that combines payment and identity authentication.

Swapfiets is leveraging ABN AMRO’s ID & pay, a tool that allows customers to sign up and pay for their Swapfiets membership using an electronic ID. When new and existing Swapfiets clients want to pay for their monthly bicycle rental membership, ID & pay allows customers to sign up and pay in seconds and enables users to securely store their e-ID in a single app.

“ID & pay originated from a need we identified among our business clients. A need to offer their customers a much simpler onboarding and payment process,” said ABN AMRO Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer Edwin van Bommel. “This app beats every other onboarding process in the market as an easy-to-use way for customers to provide ID and pay for products and services.”

What’s unique about ID & pay is that, once users sign up initially, they can use their verified identity and payment credentials to pay at other merchants and services that also use ID & pay. ABN AMRO likens the functionality to having a Google login combined with PayPal, but with credentials held within ABN AMRO’s secure, in-app environment.

“We hope this collaboration will make even more people enthusiastic about cycle memberships and our underlying idea of owning less and using more,” said Swapfiets CEO Marc de Vries.

This isn’t ABN AMRO’s first foray into the subscription management space. In 2020, the bank partnered with Subaio to integrate Subaio’s white label subscription management feature into Grip, ABN AMRO’s PFM app that enables users to see all of their recurring payments in one place.

ABN AMRO demoed alongside Fincite at FinovateEurope 2019, where the pair showcased how Fincite’s Automated Advice Engine offers clients and advisors investment recommendations based on ABN AMRO investment strategies. 

Finovate, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Fintech Innovation in Latin America

Finovate, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Fintech Innovation in Latin America

This week’s Finovate Alumni Profile is a salute to Hispanic Heritage Month, an opportunity every year to recognize the achievements of Americans whose ancestors came from Central and South America, as well as Spain, the Caribbean, and Mexico.

Here are some of the Latino and Hispanic fintech leaders who have demonstrated their company’s innovations on the Finovate stage since our return to live events in the fall of 2021. We’re also taking this opportunity to highlight recent Finovate alums that are headquartered in Latin America and the Caribbean.


Able (FinovateFall 2022) empowers commercial lenders to quickly collect data from borrowers, streamline the loan process, and book loans faster. The company was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Co-founder Diego Represas led the company’s demo at its Finovate debut earlier this month at FinovateFall.

Incognia (FinovateSpring 2022) is a privacy-first, location identity company that offers frictionless mobile authentication to banks and fintechs to help them lower fraud losses. Founded by CEO Andre Ferraz, Incognia is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The company’s appearance at FinovateSpring in May of this year was Incognia’s Finovate debut.

Rillavoice (FinovateSpring 2022) offers conversation intelligence software that leverages AI to record, transcribe, and analyze conversations between bank branch associates and customers. The technology helps make bank managers more productive and enables reps to improve conversion rates by 30%. The New York City-based company was founded in 2019. CEO Sebastian Jimenez led the company’s FinovateSpring 2022 demo – Rillavoice’s first time on the Finovate stage.

Nufi (FinovateFall 2021) calls itself “the Legos of fintech.” The firm empowers companies to build financial products quickly while remaining compliant with relevant regulations. Specializing in markets in Latin America, the company’s Finovate debut in the fall of 2021 was led by Chief Operating Officer Ilich Nuñez. Nufi is headquartered in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and was founded in 2020.

With its Tap on Phone technology, Symbiotic (FinovateFall 2021) allows anyone with a cellphone to accept contactless card payments. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Pedro, San Jose, Costa Rica, Symbiotic is the first company to secure the PCI-CPoC certification of the Tap on Pone technology on the American continent. CEO and founder Javier Chacón led Symbiotic’s FinovateFall 2021 demo of the technology.

Snap Compliance (FinovateFall 2021) is a regtech company that provides holistic compliance and risk management solutions. A one-stop shop for compliance management, Snap Compliance offers a pay per consumption subscription model that adapts to the customer’s risk models with multiple integration options – including no integration at all. The Costa Rica-based company was founded in 2019, and FinovateFall 2021 was its first live demo on the Finovate stage. Snap Compliance founder and CEO Alex Siles, along with Head of Expansion & Product Development Katherine Morales, led the company’s presentation.

Masterzon (FinovateFall 2021) offers a platform that transforms commercial documents into negotiable securities. The technology operates in real time efficiently and transparently, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Co-founded by Elio Rojas in 2016, Masterzon is based in San José, Costa Rica. FinovateFall 2021 marked the company’s Finovate debut.

Fintech software developer IMPESA (FinovateFall 2021) includes some of the largest banks in Central America and the Caribbean among its B2B corporate customers. In its Finovate debut, IMPESA demonstrated its P2P payments app that offers customers card controls and gives banks new revenue opportunities. Mario Hernández, CEO and co-founder, co-led the company’s FinovateFall 2021 on stage demo. IMPESA is headquartered in San José, Costa Rica, and was founded in 2013.

Infocorp (FinovateFall 2021) was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Montevideo, Uruguay. The company’s smart omnichannel platform and best of breed digital channels give banks fast and flexible solutions to enhance the customer experience. At the company’s FinovateFall demo in 2021, CEO Ana Inés Echavarren and Product Manager Gonzalo Laguna demonstrated Infocorp’s App of the Future, a user-centric, mobile native banking app.


Photo by Emma Bauso